001Good evening. I'd like to call the June 10th, 2026 regular board meeting to order. Uh we have seven board members present, although you don't see one up here because Lillian is on the phone joining us. And item 2A is adoption of the agenda. I would entertain a motion I would move for approval of the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes. 70. That brings us to item 3A, public comments. Casey, do we have any public comments? >> Nathan writing and I do not believe he's here at the moment. >> If he comes later, is he allowed to speak or is this his only chance? If we move on from this, then this part of the agenda is is passed us unless we made a motion
002to amend the agenda and put public comment later in the event he were to come. Although he did email us, so he may have just sent us his thoughts. >> Those were his comments from the last meeting, I think. >> Can I make a motion? >> Sure. to move um public comments to um be >> well just to give a little bit of time. So maybe after after human resources or after teaching and learning items >> teaching and learning >> after teaching. >> Okay. I'd like to move that we move public comments to after teaching and learning 6D. >> Second. It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. As a reminder, public comments will be allowed for a duration of three minutes per speaker to be timed by the board clerk. Speakers must sign
003up in person for public comment by 1 p.m. the day of the board meeting. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. brings us to item four, the consent agenda. Okay. The items listed on the consent agenda are those to for which the board has received information in advance and have been thoroughly reviewed. Approval of the items may be made in a single motion, second majority vote with no separate with no separate discussion of any item listed. Should a member of the board desire to discuss any item at the request, it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. What are the wishes of the board? >> I move to approve the consent agenda as submitted. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. motion passes 70. >> Thank you.
004That's going to bring us to item 6A, preschool program as assurances. Cheryl's going to come up and take this one along with Joy. We are asking that um for approval to purchase the uh two screener assessments that are needed to meet the state standards uh requirements through KSD. One is the speed dial and the other is called my IGDIS. Um one is more the pre-iteracy. Uh the speed dial is a developmental assessment that we can give to all students to determine if they meet that cutoff for a student that is um functioning below their grade level peers. And then the migdis is what we can utilize for um entry and exit of our program to show growth during our program. So students would be given the myagdes at the start of when they start attending
005Jones and then not again until they're leaving Jones and then we would have really good longitudinal data to track them while they're in our program. So it's more the content and the academic standards whereas the speed dial is more those pre-academic skills and the things that um get us ready for the academics in the classroom. >> Both of these are required by the state. >> Um so if a student leaves like maybe they were supposed to be here for two years but they leave their first year or they leave halfway through do you still give them the the leaving assessment >> if we know about it ahead of time? Some of our students move and then their parents call and say we're in Texas. Um but other ones if we know that they're leaving, we
006do finish up what assessments that we can. So yes, um we would give that upon knowing that a student was going to leave. >> Nice. >> Even if it was at the end of the year even if you would just want to see three months progress. Nice. Okay. Thanks. >> So since they're required, I assume the state probably doesn't do any special reimbursement on those. No. Okay. >> The reimbursement state would say is that these help us to um mark off the at risk preschool at risk grant application. So these are things that we have to do to meet our side of the asurances to get the preschool at risk funding. So the funding that they would probably say would be the at risk funding we get for the pupils in at Jones based on
007using these measures. Does that make sense? And is this a one-time fee, annual fee? >> These would be one time. Um the does have a student component um that we can use to buy and track them over year. So it might be it might be after we look at it that it's something that large that piece of it and I don't have the quote broken out um but there is on one of the quotes there is something that says like my D student profile that would be the only piece that would be a yearly fee if we decided that we needed that part. >> Thank you. I will make a motion to approve the purchase of my IGIS kits in the amount of 9,438 and speed dial in the amount of $3,780 as submitted. >>
008Second that >> it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Okay, that's going to bring us to 6B, primary resource for elementary social studies. >> Our social studies teachers at the elementary level have been kind of peacemealing their resources. um there aren't any really strong uh social studies standards or there are the standards but there aren't the resources to address them. Um so the teachers are spending a lot of time coming up with the uh text to use and things like that. There is the uh studies weekly which is a a resource that takes the company takes the Kansas standards and creates their u lack of a better word newspaper for the kids to utilize to address the state standards. They the teachers would get all of their um newspapers
009at the beginning of the year then they can pace them out throughout the year. um the company will go in and adjust the content based on state standards. So if Kansas were to make a change in a standard the next year they wouldn't we wouldn't have the new standards in our document but the following year that we would. So it responds to the state standards so that we're not locking into a resource and it being that until we have to adopt another resource. this would be something that we would have and we're doing a three-year purchase uh three-year contract. Um so if in next year we were to get notified that they were changing the standards our third year we would have new re uh newspapers to refer to. >> Is this something that we've
010used before or is this a new tool? >> This is this is new. Um, Logan Avenue came to me. Uh, Mr. Ays came to me with the resource and presented it to me. He said, "We've been looking and looking and looking and we found this. It's something that he had used when he was in the classroom and he found it very beneficial." Um, he said, "Can I take it to my teachers and try it?" They tried it and loved it. The kids loved it. They said, "I'm reading a newspaper just like my grandpa does." So, um, it it it's a a good thing. It gets them off their tablets. So, >> makes me think of the weekly readers that I grew up on in elementary school. Yeah, for sure. >> Scholastic News. >> Yeah, those
011were the best. Um, and the is total for three years, not 52 each year. >> Nope, that is for the three years. And if we could have done a a five-year contract, which would have knocked it down about I want to say 10 cents a student per year, but I thought this was a good good middle of the ground start. >> I think Lillian has a question. >> Are you ready? >> Hi. >> Um, thank you for putting this together. I have two questions I think. My first one is about the professional development. I saw that that's included in the bid. Yes. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that um about like what each of those professional development sessions would include? >> And then um I was also wondering um if you could
012talk a little bit about how much time is spent on social studies in the elementary classroom and maybe give us a little bit of a picture of like how the teachers would utilize this on a daily or weekly basis. >> Okay. The professional development is a it allows the teachers access into an uh a portfolio, an electronic portfolio where they can look at resources. There's some games that the kids can play if the teacher chooses to do that. Kids can get on it at home, stay connected with the content. Uh but it is not absolutely necessary to be able to do um the activities and to get the content. Um the teachers utilize this. They do one day science, one day social studies. They alternate back and forth. So um it's about two two to
013three days a week uh for about 30 minutes a day. They look um at scheduling their social studies and science into the classroom. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. Thank you for the presentation. I move to approve the three-year purchase of studies weekly in the amount of $52,926.98 as submitted. >> Seconded. >> It's been moved and second. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. Item 6C, spring 2026, state assessment preliminary results. >> Good evening. Thank you for letting us share this tonight. Miss Le and I will be talking a little bit about the preliminary results of the state assessment. So in this presentation, we're going to share go slide two. We're going to share the primary results. We're going to talk about ELA math and science. We're going to look at both grade
014level and cohort. You asked for some cohort data. So we're going to take a little bit look at that this time. And with that note, we've only got two year we're going to look at two years of data on that because we just have two years of the new assessment. And then we're going to talk a little about some celebrations and some focus areas. And I want to caution you this data you're seeing is from the kite portal. So it's not official. is not approved by state by the state board yet. That'll happen sometime in early August. So, what I'm showing you percentage- wise may or may not change down the road. So, here's ELA and I just gave a little summary for you. There's a table over on the left hand side. There's kind
015of a summary. It kind of shows you what we're doing by grade level. And when I say by grade level, that's for third grade. That's third graders in 2025 and that's third graders in 2026. So, we're looking purely at a grade level curriculum type of a work there. And when we see an improvement um that kind of um helps us understand the work that we're doing with the curriculum work, things like that, making our overall curriculum and teaching better in that grade level. So, you can see we did pretty good. We had um we improved in four grades. Third grade went from 41 to 43. Fifth grade from 42 to 45. Seventh grade from 32 to 38. And 10th grade went from 38 to 46. So we made some nice growth in those areas. And
016again just to remind you um proficiency now moving forward um on the new assessment is students at levels three and four. So in the past I know there was some confusion where we look at level two also. We're p we're purely calling proficient levels three and four moving forward. So again um some key takeaways grade 10 increased eight points grade seven increased by six points and we have some positive growth in both elementary and secondary. So the next slide looks at that same data, but we're looking at by cohort. And I named the cohort um by a letter. Um so you can see cohort A would be third graders in 2025 and they're fourth graders in 2026. You can see what they did. So in 2025 they have the 41% and in 2026 they went
017to 42%. They improved one one point one point or one percentage which is good. You kind of go down through that and you can kind of see the changes and and improvement. Some places I want to point out there with cohort C, that's that fifth to sixth grade transition. If you if you recall other data points you've looked at dealing with that kind of transition, we see always see a little bit of a a fall off there as they transition from elementary to secondary. And that's something I think we're going have to look at as we move forward. Um, and how we can support those sixth grade students as they come to the high school because if you look at court D, the sixth to seventh, we improved quite a bit there. So, they picked
018it back up and and they caught them back up. So, there's some good takeaways there, but I just want to point out we had strong growth at grade six and we had some problems with our transition of kids from fifth to sixth grade. It'd be interesting to see what the transition looks like next year as we add another year of data on this to see if we see a consistent trend there because if we do, I think there's more work to be done there. So, next slide deals with math. Um, same kind of setup this time of math. We're looking at grade levels first. You can see third grade. They were they they are 30% in 25. at 30% 26 but you'll see that we made some nice growth um fourth fifth May to one
019point growth or 1% growth again those are curriculum type situations there that's the courses hopefully getting better and hopefully the work that we're doing this summer with curriculum alignment and the performance level descriptors and the mini tests hopefully we're going to see a bigger change in 2027 that's why we're doing that work you can see that seventh and eighth grade dropped a little bit and then 10th grade had a big jump from 24 to 37 So some key takeaways there. Six and 10 each increased by 13 points and we had a little bit broader gains over ELA. Then the next slide is that same kind of cohort analysis. The courts are named the same way. Um so we can look there. We can see we had um cohort A which is three to four increased
020three. Cohort B went from 32 to 41 increased nine. There's that fifth to sixth again where we saw a drop. So it's consistent with what we're seeing with LA as well. And then cohort D& we'll see saw a little bit of a growth there. Um we'll we won't see a 10th grade until next year because next year's 10th graders will be we were eighth graders and 25. So they'll have we'll have another cohort group and next year in there. Then we have science. So science we don't have as much data because we're only assessed at grades five, eight, and 11. And recall from last year with a grade 11, we didn't get scores back because the the range of scores produced wasn't broad enough to get um set the levels. So right now they're in
021standard setting to set those standards. So we'll receive grade 11 scores at some point this year. But you can see what we what five and eight did um for fifth grade went from 42 to 44 improved. Grade 8 held pretty steady. They went down two. That's still pretty steady. Um but again, we're looking at the grades three, the levels three and four there. And we don't have a lot of cohort data to look at there because it's it takes so many years to get the cohorts when you're only testing three grades. I think Miss Le will take care of the rest. Okay. Um the key successes that we've had, we've seen as a district is our 10th grade uh has had strong growth in ELA and in math. Our math performance improved across multiple grade
022levels. Uh several of our cohorts demonstrated year-to-year growth. Um there's evidence that the instruction and intervention efforts that we're we've been working on this year are starting to pay off. Um areas to continue to focus on is that transition from fifth grade to sixth grade? Is it that you know just getting into the rhythm of the middle school? Is it a different testing environment? We're really look digging into what is causing that dip in the scores. Um, we are seeing consistency across middle school performance and we're going to continue to support the tier 2 and tier three learners. What our data tells us is that our curriculum instruction adjustment adjustments are beginning to show impact. Uh, district-wide grade level cohort achievement gains are encouraging. Cohort analysis helps identify long-term student growth patterns. transition years u
023require strong systems of support. It's again really looking at that fifth to sixth grade. Um and our spring 26 focus was in the late May, early June, uh working on that curriculum development work that we did in our curriculum camps where they were aligning um our resources, looking at the performance level descriptors, really digging into the test, identifying what is it to what does the standard look like, what does my instruction need to be, what do the questions need to look like to be a level three uh to perform at that level the late May, early June alignment of the kite, they were looking at their state assessment, looking starting to identify and create those many uh tests so that we can have some uh ongoing discussions on student performance as the year goes on
024and not waiting until spring. And then July, um the MTSS leadership work will begin to strengthen our tier one core instruction. And our closing message is we're encouraged by the progress reflected in these preliminary results and appreciate the continued work of our students, staff, and school communities. These gains build positive momentum as we continue our district improvement efforts. What questions do you have for Dr. Cargel and I? >> I would really like to thank you all for this report. It's very promising to see those scores going up. I did have one question about the fifth graders. What is the biggest difference in the testing environment or is there any difference other than just moving from fifth grade to sixth grade? >> It it's it's a couple of things. As you know, at the elementary, they
025have one teacher. They go to having six or eight. Um the way the middle school administers the test, they do everybody at the same time. So, you may not be tested by your math teacher or your ELA teacher or your science teacher. And there's a train of thought that you really need to be testing in the class where you receive your instruction. As a as a math teacher, I would have um things anchor charts up and kids could look and see it. I would have to take it down during assessments, but during assessments, I would see them looking at where those anchor charts were. They could visualize them even though they weren't there. When you don't assess in that environment, you don't have those points of reference to think. Also, when I'm the math teacher
026and I'm being held accountable, I make sure that the testing environment is I mean, you hope that everybody is testing the way they should, but there's a little more ownership when it is your subject and you take it seriously. >> So, just a quick followup. Is there anything that requires the students all be tested at the same time of day? That's just how they have done it. And so I'm having discussions with them about what that can look like differently moving forward. >> Yeah, my questions were really focused on that grade level, too, because it's really it's really just interesting to see how well those cohort students were doing even in fifth grade. Um, and then especially like that spring 2025 drop all the way down to 17. um just so significant. I mean, it's
027nice to see >> the really impressive grade level jump at sixth grade. >> Um but to see that those kids only went up one point the following year. >> Uh so that's just really really interesting to me. >> Yeah. And looking at when you're when you're looking at what what Casey has showing right now, that is saying Jaime's class scored at a 17 and Barb's class, which is the next year, scored at a 30. So they might have brought in some additional scores. So that's why we also dig it into that cohort and see what what happens. You have to really triangulate that data. >> Yeah. I mean, one set of data is really more examining um how impactful are you, you know, your instructional strategies, your curriculum, uh is everything aligned at a particular
028grade level from year to year to year. And then when you look at your cohort data, you're more focusing on are those actual students making growth. I appreciate your comments and there's a lot of good information there and obviously we've you've identified some that are areas of concern. Um that fifth to sixth grade is a pretty common transition in many districts. Um I was wondering have you or when you're at statewide meetings or something do you other districts see the same challenges at that point? >> Similar. Yeah. >> So it's not Not just us. >> It's not it. We're not lone rangers or lone wolves or >> um but it's really looking at what is it that we can do differently. >> Sure. >> And I think that's that's the big thing that we've got
029to dig into is you know our you know when I looked at the math scores um the sixth grade math scores this year's group they made the gains from last year. They're very strong math students. um those teachers were really digging into the standards, but making that change in the testing environment really does impact. So, and that's something that I know that the middle school math teachers are really starting to look at is maybe we need to bring them back in and and test within our classrooms. So, that's that is a discussion that we are definitely having. >> Okay. Thanks. >> I want to point out too, Cheryl's doing a great job and Dr. Carlo, the whole department in getting getting our building leaders and our our teachers, our instructional coaches, everyone to look at
030the data and dig into the data deep more deeply because we can look at this. This is kind of surface level data here, but you really have to dig into, okay, what math standards in the sixth grade were the students actually not, you know, capturing? You know, they may be doing really well in certain standards and not in others. So it it digging into that data is going to give them it's going to improve their instruction and help them to focus in the areas that actually will help rather than just continuing to do well where we do well and do poorly where we do poorly. >> So with what Dr. McGee was talking about with digging into those standards the results we get back when state assessments in terms of standards is very limited. We
031don't get a lot of information back. These are more summitative. That's why we need to dig into the kite mini tests because we can get we can do those by standards and that's why we're wanting to make sure when they teach a standard they're working with a mini test to know how well the kids did so we can get to that standard earlier in the year so we can do benchmarking to know did the student get to where they needed to be on that standard at the time of instruction. So that's really where we're heading with this. It's just taking us some time to get there. Um we did a lot of great work. We got a lot more work to do, but I think um the work that was done this summer with and
032I I got some stuff I can show you, but um the work we did this summer is I think it's going to make a difference. It's just going to take some time to get to that, like Dr. McGee said, the standards piece to get to that spot. We we need to produce some data, some good assessments to get to that spot. Um, I know that in past years we've had you all disagregate the data so we could actually like really be a part of like digging deeper into the results and which students are excelling and which ones might need a little bit more support and I'm wondering if we'll have access to that again this year. >> Yeah, we will once once it goes to the KSD and gets into the data central and into
033the portal. Yeah, we can disagregate the data. It's just this data needs to run through their business rules before it's approved. Then we can disagregate it for you. Yes. >> I believe that October work session is is designed to really dig into student achievement. >> We'll have it disagregated by then and we also will be able to do it by cohort as well. >> And our building administration and instructional coaches will be that that evening. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That's going to bring us to item 60, the Flint Hills virtual program handbook addendum 2627 first reading. So this is the next step. We approved thatou last meeting. So working on this addendum. So, I'm going to go through I have about 10 points that I'm going to kind of point out to
034you um in this and I'll try to get Casey on the right page. So, we're start with page two and we're going to talk about in terms of expands educational access. The program offers a flexible learning option for students whose circumstances make traditional attendance difficult helping them meet the needs the expectations of the school. Um, and also on page two, I want to remind you that we're working great with students grades six through 12, and we're working with students less than 19. We're not going to have any adult students in here. It's all going to be students that are 19 or less. And they will follow EMS EHS handbooks. These are just some specific things that relate to virtual that's in this addendum. Um, there the admissions process on page two kind of gets to
035the bottom there. Um, we're going to talk a little bit about how that how what that looks like, but really that it's a recommendation by the principal. The parents have to approve it. Then our virtual director has to be involved with that as well to make sure that everything is in place. So there's three points of approval there to get a student into this program. And then um again, it's just an alternate placement for students who have been suspended or have trouble um getting to school for various reasons. If you go to page four and five, the page four and five gets to the uh the bottom of that gets to the some account information and that stuff right there needs to be updated based on the new enrollment handbook which that's not available yet.
036So the stuff in here is based on last year's. I tried to adjust a little bit but I don't know all the things that KSD is going to do. that um in order for a student to be counted, they got to participate in two count windows before September 20th and after September 20th before October the third or fourth. So have to do that. Um another big thing on page five that we have to watch out for um is that can is to verify residency. We have to make sure that they're residents of Kansas and they have to have one of those um bullets to show that they are resident of Kansas. So we will need to collect that for students who join the virtual program. Um page five the curriculum the curriculum will be will
037be delivered through ESDAX's program. Um they use a variety of programs like Egeneuity. They use some of that. They also use Edenum. So there's a various programs they'll use. Um, one of the things that we're working on through our process document is um, we need to be able to particular with the high school, we got we need to be able to understand which courses they're going to take through the virtual program and how they align to to high school courses. So, we're again we're doing a crosswalk there. So, we'll know that this high school course crosswalks to this um, virtual course so Mr. Fischer can do credits for graduation. Um, if you go six um students in this program if they're in good standing will be able to um participate in sports and extracurricular activities
038through there's a process there and this kind of lays that out a little bit about what they'll do there. Um on page six it talks about accountability measures. Um students will be expected to complete three and a half credits um a semester and they're expected to work four to five hours at a time in this program. So it's not something they just do every once in a while. they need to commit to this. So, it's a bigger commitment. And the last thing I want to point out is that if a student meets all the graduation requirements, they they will be a graduate from Boy High School because they are a high school graduate. If they complete our graduation requirements and all the virtual requirements as well, they'll they'll receive one of our diplomas. So, that's
039really the 10 things I wanted to share as a result of this. Um, we still have a lot of work to do um with um process documents. How do how do students enroll? How do they exit the program? How do their grades get transferred from EZDAC to back to Emporia High School or Emporia Middle School? Um who communic how does EZDAC communicate with us? Which counselors are they going to talk to? Which assistant principal are they going to talk to? Um one thing I do want to point out about this program is um EZDAC is going to do a lot of the communication with the families. If a student is falling behind in this program, they're that's one of the things we talk about with them is they're going to be contacting that student, that
040family to stay on top of their progress. they're help us do that and they're also going to communicate back with us about the students and their progress. So, I feel pretty good about that how that's going to look. Um, haven't done any of it yet, so I can't tell you what it looks like, but that's what they're telling us and we're hoping that that's going to be the case. So, it's really all I had to share with all that document, but do you have any questions that about this? >> Will that communication back to the school happen through their alphabetical counselor or through one particular counselor in the building? Um, that's something that Mr. Fiser and Mr. Burns and I are working on. Most likely there won't be a lot of kids. So, most likely
041there's going to be one counselor and one principal as it expand if it expands down the road. We may need to think about that differently, but there's going to be one point of contact for a counselor and a principal at the middle school. That's kind of the way it's looking right now. I can't tell you who it's going to be, but it's probably most likely going to be one contact in each area at each school. >> I have a question. Um and if I'm not understanding it right or if you've explained this before, you know, explain it to me again. Um when the students are participating in this program, I kind of envision it like, you know, working from home, right? You do it wherever you are. Um but as someone who has worked from
042home, I know that sometimes having a environment that is conducive to learning, you know, a home office, a place that feels like it puts you in the zone, right? Not just sort of in your bed, right? Is there going to be any opportunity for these learners to perhaps have a a classroom or a physical space where they can go to um to do their virtual learning just so that they're in maybe an environment that's more conducive because some homes are different than others. They may have the right space, they may not. >> So, for the most part, this is going to be done at their home. But the nice thing about being part of our virtual program is um they could have access to some of our teachers. They could come in and do some
043work. Like I didn't talk about state assessments up there, but state assessments can be done remotely or they can be done on site. So they could come in to like Mary Herbert and they take a say assessments here. But for the most part, we we wouldn't provide them a space to do this work. It primarily going to be done on offsite at their residence where they work. >> And that'll be a part of the consideration on, you know, who are we who are we recommending for this program? Who's going to be successful? it's, you know, if it's not, if it's not a student that can kind of selfm motivate and stay on track, they're probably not designed for this particular program. >> And then ultimately, they could go to the Flint Hills learning center still
044because this isn't meant to replace that. >> That's correct. Although I will say we are having a lot of conversations about doing more of that. Um, not necessarily virtually from home, but it's similar kind of work. But like Jeremy said, it would be a place where, you know, that's where I go to do my work. >> So I had a question on for state reimbursement purposes and student count. Are they would we be reimbursed at a prrated amount for this? >> So the difference there's a little bit of different funding. I think the it's virtual virtual funding. Yeah, I think the I think the virtual we we had reported or or or I saw it somewhere it was around it's like 5600 versus the 5783 and then our our agreement with ESD because they're really
045providing the entire program, right? We're coordinating with them to make sure our students are successful. We're putting students in the program. So ESC I think is collecting 65%. >> Yeah. 30 the split's going to be 35 65. So, if we have a student who's in the program and they're full-time on count day, we would receive 35% of the funding and they and ASDAC would receive 65%. Now, if a student is enrolled in this program, let's say November the 1st and we've already collected funding for that student on September 20th because they were on-site student, we would then reimburse um ESDAC at a prrated rate for the time they're with ESDAC, which I believe is N right now. I think it's $912 is about it's going to cost per quarter for us to do that. So,
046it's just it'd be a transfer from our funds to ESDAX funds, but because we've already been paid for that student. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you, Dr. McGee. Yeah. I mean, if if you think about I mean, they're the ones providing all the teachers, they're paying they're paying for, you know, all the folks delivering the services. And so, it reduces our costs greatly. So, it may it may initially say, "Oh, we're only getting 35%. We also all those costs to implement the program that they're they're affording. >> Okay, thank you very much. >> You're welcome. Thanks for letting me present tonight. >> That's going to bring us to item 7A, investment grade audit with train. >> I think the agenda was a modified. Isn't it public comment now? >> Yes. Yeah, >> but there's no
047one here for public. Sorry. >> But they can keep walking. >> Yeah, you guys can keep coming. >> So, this yeah, the investment grade audit tonight. I'm going to have Kevin Ward from Train is going to do a majority of the the presentation. If there's questions later, I can step up and help answer those. For now, I'll turn over to Kevin. >> Thank you very much. >> We told We told Kevin that you have a strict 10-minute rule. >> He warned me about that. We we'll we'll get done well within that. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here tonight and share some information with you that aligns with your strategic goal. Um I've worked with universities and school districts for 19 years in Kansas. So, we're excited to be able to bring
048this same sort of information to you tonight. I'll let Katon introduce himself. >> Yes. Hello. My name is Katon Chrisner. I'm a project developer uh based in Witchaw with Train. I've been with Train around five years and I'm also a professional engineer in Kansas. So here to answer any technical questions. >> Okay, let's go on to that next slide, Casey. So as I mentioned, this aligns with your strategic plan infrastructure goals and with a host of advantages about putting this into place should the evaluation prove compelling. um continuing that same conversation about your strategic plan. It also helps and aligns with your cost containment initiative, climate survey, and that business department efficiency study by by having the elements of what we're going to share in a preliminary assessment form tonight. Uh and should you authorize
049us to do the investment grade audit, then there would be a lot more detail later. Okay. So to just kind of unpack this process, so we began and continue to just So we had extensive interviews with Josh and Corey and the team about facilities and the needs there and some of the experiences that the occupants were having. Then we began a very extensive data mining process. Uh we then followed that up with facility surveys and we actually uh used a 3D mapping software to map all of your facilities and all of those HVAC assets. So that'll be a tremendous pool of information to help us and facilities and make good decisions not only initially but downstream as well. Another big piece of data is where do your assets fall in their expected service life. So
050we're going to share some of that that we we were able to accumulate and then we we did some preliminary data analysis and some phasing and then we'll talk a little bit more about the energy performance contracting statute in Kansas some of the key milestones that you'll want to consider and then next step considerations. So see little bit of an eye chart here but as you see at the bottom Ashray maintains a national database uh that informs owners of these types of assets you know what the medium and effective service life is. Now schools usually get more than uh service life than a hospital. A hospital would be running 247 365 hard. So there's but this again is averaged in. Okay. So in this colorcoded graphic green is good red is bad. So we see
051that the district has been very good stewards of your assets because you've been able to maintain them longer than their expected service life. But again, you reach a certain point where this sort of planning uh becomes a very important aspect of of planning for the future. We broke it into two parts. The the top one is the major equipment and the second one on the left hand side there is what's called variable air volume boxes. is not major uh in their individual pieces. A major failure of a major piece could cause a lot of cascading problems whereas a VAV or a variable air volume box failure would cause just a very limited. But again, we wanted to to properly uh portray those there. And then of course on the right hand side, we we did
052the same thing Katon did actually help you kind of understand, you know, where the red and green fall on those schools. Next slide. >> Deon's gonna explain this slide. >> Yeah. So, uh, part of our process as we're going through the assessment with the district, um, is to see where the buildings lie as far as energy use. So, um, you were able to provide us three years of utility data. So, one of the engine energy engineers and I would train worked uh, on reviewing that and it it shows up in two columns here. So the EUI, just to uh comment what that is, that's energy use intensity. So that's the amount of energy used per square foot per year. So looking at that three years of data in each building, we're able to see kind
053of how that building stacks up with again another ashray standard, which is an industry neutral and widely accepted way to benchmark those buildings. So looking at the two comparisons, it's pretty simple to view here. There's a lot of opportunity for energy savings across the district. So, um, part of our process was, uh, reviewing that and also just, uh, putting that into our scenario that we'll, uh, talk about later, um, with different ideas, um, for ways that the district can save energy at those buildings as well as looking at equipment replacements, uh, that we just looked at as far as on the Ashray demonstration. So, ser expected service life, sorry. >> Any questions for him on that? I I wondered on the Riverside and Timberman because are those there are two buildings with like that geothermal
054system that's so much better and more >> and I can touch on that. So okay um you can see that they're actually lower than Yeah, very good point. Uh they're actually lower than the standard benchmark. So Ashray 100, it's actually looking at the type of buildings. So elementary schools in the Midwest. So your your actual region not just across the whole US with you know east coast, north, south. It's looking at just our climate area uh and those type of buildings to compare. Uh and those two buildings in particular are geothermal. So that's a more energyefficient type of building to begin with, but there still are opportunities for savings at those two buildings even with them. But on here uh it shows that they're typically lower than an average, you know, building of a lower
055efficient type. But there's still opportunities that we've looked at that that are available. So >> that answer your question. We're ready to move on. So here's more data. So again, Train maintains a database of projects that we do in the Midwest. So we use data that's representative of work in this area. And then we use that database to overlay your your needs in your buildings to come up with some planning data. So what we have in that item number one is replacing if you were well for planning purposes only all of the HVAC equipment in the district that's past its expected ashray service life and then LEDs and controls optimization has a budget of around $20.4 million. So for for the multi-phased approach that you'll be looking at considering that's what you're looking at. And
056then we took the 15 years of uh of savings for uh estimated energy and operation and maintenance savings and then deferred maintenance allocation. There are opportunities that we'll be exploring for the inflation reduction act federal incentives that were retained in the 2025 one big beautiful bill act and that's what we see at the right hand side. So we'll be evaluating those. So from number one, if we then looked at just replacing the highest priority equipment just in educational facilities, then we're looking at that subtotal there. And then if we were to think about maybe a phase one of number two, we broke it down further. So what we're just sharing with you is how we utilize that data to create scenarios that will be part of the detailed study that we'll do during the investment
057grade audit. Any questions about that process? Okay, we're ready to move on. Little bit about energy performance contracting. So it's an established means of doing these types of projects. you can see Kansas join almost all the rest of the states in the federal government who have statutes uh that allow for you to leverage these savings as a part of financing these sorts of projects. Uh you see that there's some other advantages where the owner has a lot of control over the what goes into those projects and and who does that work. So it's it's again very beneficial owner uh focused type of process. Next slide. On the left hand side you see kind of the process. So we've been in the blue boxes. So uh everything we've done to produce the data today will uh
058allow you to make a decision to select us to move on to the investment grade audit. Then we'll go through a detailed technical and financial study and be able to come back with uh hard savings and hard costs. From that you'll have options to select what you actually want to do. And then we move forward to uh installation. You can see that gray box on the far right bottom. There's not only warranty and all those normal things, but this is a performance guaranteed type of project which is part of that statute. So there will be guaranteed energy savings combined with comfort. So we have to achieve both of those at the same time. We can't achieve one at the expense of the other. Okay, that's where the performance comes in. On the right hand side,
059you see how they hold the energy services company solely responsible for all of that work. So that's why we would have a contract directly with the district. We would manage all of the contracts from the subcontractors. All of that work falls and all the associated risk of construction and the ongoing performance falls on us by statute. Any questions about that? Okay. Little bit of an eye chart here. I tried to color code it. Uh we're at that first green line up there, which is where you're going to consider to authorize us to do that investment grade audit, but we need to get down to those 13 14 green items in time this fall so that should you decide to move forward, we'd have enough time to finish the engineering, order the equipment so it could
060arrive in time to start work next spring. That's kind of what we're showing right there. Okay, next slide. I'll stand for any questions about anything that we didn't already address. Hearing none, then basically number two is your consideration for moving forward. I >> I do have a question. Where would the people be based out of who would come here to give us service? >> Uh Lanexa in Witchaw. We have offices in both Lanexa and Witchah. >> And what's usually the wait time to get someone here if we have a situation? >> Well, we uh have been on campus at at University at at ESU and I mean we we maintain service people that that are there. Uh how long did it take you to get here from W? >> It's only about an hour from
061Witchaw >> and it's about an hour and 10 minutes from our Lanexa office. We also have uh technicians that are remote u that just cover geography. So you're right in our sweet spot. So we have an office in Topeka, an office in Linux, and an office in Witchah. >> Yeah, >> I really love the the comfort factor that you mentioned. Um we've heard for so many years about super hot classrooms and super cold classrooms and you know how much of that does that affect their testing environment, right? Um so that's thing I I think we can't put a almost can't really put a price tag on is getting a regulated HVAC system. I know how happy that makes me at home. >> I assume you have um you're dealing with other districts in the state.
062Do you have any off the top of your head, do you have any numbers on those or anything? >> Yeah, we've done about $300 million worth of these types of projects in Kansas. Some of the districts that you recognize would be Shauny Mission School District. We've done 10 phases with them. Um, we've done Ky Valley School District. We've done several throughout the the western part of the state. Like I mentioned, we're we're finishing up a phase one at the university, about a 13.3 million phase one. We're already uh making the the steps to move into phase two. We do. We've got a project going on at Washurn University, a $22 million project there. Our first project with them was uh back in 2013. So, we've been on campus that entire time. So, yeah, we we
063do a lot of work. >> Thanks. >> And I I want to clarify, you know, just to be sure the board un is comfortable, you know, we're we're not asking you to approve any projects at this time. It's simply to move to the next step. um that and and you know there would be a fee at some point down the road for that work because it's a lot of work. Um if we chose to do $6.7 million worth of work then I think we would that fee is like $67,000 of the of the job. It's like a 1% fee. >> Yeah. >> And so we're not we're not at we're not approving projects right now. We're just trying to identify the best way forward. >> And uh you know we've had internal conversations about utilizing
064some of our uh bond premium proceeds for this. We do need we do know in talking to Piper Sandler that we need to hold back some of those proceeds to uh pay off debt to manage our mills so that we don't ever go above what we what was promised uh before I got here, but all of all of you were here and you want to be sure we all want to make sure we meet those promises with regard to max mill rates to uh pay back that 2019 issue. Um, so all this will be wrapped in, you know, potentially get to the point where you're you're paying for some of it with uh some of those bond premium proceeds and then looking at financing a portion of it. Um, that makes sense in order to
065to pay back over a period of time with the savings that you're seeing. >> This is so fascinating. I love it. Um, and I'm looking at slide three and where they've like mapped out each of our buildings and you know red there's a lot of red and and that's really concerning. So to me I look at this proposal and think wow we're going to have to do a lot of work soon and so we may as well think well how can we do it the best way for our buildings and for our facilities because >> not peacemealing which is what it's been for so many years. Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm really excited by this. Okay, thank you for such a great thorough presentation. Um, I move to approve selecting Train US, Inc. as the district's
066energy services company in alignment with KSA75-37,125 and authorize a project development agreement for the investment grade audit utilizing the TIPS cooperative purchasing system as submitted. Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. >> Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. Uh that's going to bring us to item 7B, renewal of district property casualty and a workers compensation insurance for 2026 2027. >> Yes. So this evening we have the recommendation for property casualty workman's comp. All it's all in one bundled action item. Um workman's comp did drop. If you look at those rates there, the the change from last year to this year looks promising. Just but just be aware that that will not um stay that way. So be anticip we're anticipating a climb next year. So just heads up on that. Property
067casualty went up 8%. Which is probably fairly standard for for an increase with property casualty. Um I don't I really don't have any else. The questions >> my my only question is on the property and casualty. Is that a replacement cost? >> Because here's why I ask. I was just listening to KPR's coverage of the 60th anniversary of the Topeka tornado. Okay. >> Um, and it wiped out almost the entire Washburn University campus and their board had just voted in the April meeting to do replacement coverage for their buildings. Otherwise, they would have not been able to rebuild at all. Their university would have been just wiped out. It would not have ever existed any longer. So, that really got me thinking about our property and casualty insurance. And I didn't know if it was
068replacement or cost, right? Aren't those options cost >> current value could be replacement cost or current value? Possibly. >> I would need to double check before I say anything. >> I mean, I'm not saying we should postpone, but I'd sure like to know for future. >> Yes, do that. We can follow up in in a Friday note or something to follow up on. I I I believe it's replacement costs, but we want to verify it. I move to approve workers compensation insurance through KASB workers compensation pool and property and liability insurance through the Kansas Insurance Cooperative for schools for the 2026 2027 school year as submitted. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> That's going to bring us to item 8A, board reports. We have the
069FHTC board of trustees. >> We had our meeting on Monday. uh finally passed our budget for the upcoming school year. Got that in balance after that significant loss I've mentioned to you guys several times with the loss of the Excel and CTE funding from the state. Um also bid farewell to former school board member Mike Crouch. It was his last meeting as um the director of the foundation at the tech college. Uh but overall a nice meeting. the uh rec commission met. I want to say it was May 18th. Um and not a whole lot to update, but um we did uh purchase a new vehicle, which was I'm sure something that the staff is going to appreciate. Um we signed a new Jones Aquatic Center agreement, and I believe we extended the days um
070that the Jones Aquatic Center will be open. That way we're not having this situation where it's actually good summer weather to be in the pool, but the pool isn't open. Um, and then we did reaffirm a vote to resend, not to rescend, but to send all of the um, tax credit money the rec commission had received that we've been trying to kind of unwind that mess from. Um, so we sent that back to the IRS along with a letter uh, that kind of explained, you know, the basis of everything that had happened and then of course we get to wait for the IRS to talk to us. Um, so who knows when that will be. Um, but not much else there. And then I think the steering committee didn't meet recently and I believe the
071ballot question for the uh sales tax uh question to renovate and build a new facility, renovate the old facility, Lee Baron Recreation Center, and then build a new facility is going to be heard on the August, not the August, the November ballot. Uh so the November general election, that'll be on the ballot. So I'm sure we're going to hear more about that soon. >> Okay. Thank you very much. That brings us to 9A superintendent report. Uh yeah, thank you, Art. Just a few things. Um put a note in there about food service costs of goods continuing to rise. You know, you you approved uh several u line item bids for fruits and vegetables and various things that uh to get through through another school year in food service. And I think it's just important to
072note and for everyone to realize that there are a lot of things that uh are out of our control that cause our costs to go up. And while we're working really, really hard over the course of the last, you know, nine months to find ways to reduce areas of our budget that we do have control over, at the same time, working against us are a variety of inflationary uh type items just just in food service alone. Um, you know, fresh produce and other food products that there's a $200,000 increase. So there goes $200,000 of that cost containment that we worked on, you know, right back in as an expense that's out of our control. So, uh, just wanted to point that out. It's not food. Food isn't the only thing going up and it won't
073be the only place that that occurs. Um, little bit of information there about district enrollment. It's important uh to get all of our families enrolled as early as possible. Uh we have online enrollment for returning students open on July 15th through the power p power school parent portal and we ask the families to complete all those required enrollment forms by July 30th so that we can ensure that we're ready for them at the start of the school year. We will have bilingual enrollment staff available at Jones Early Childhood Center uh again this year from July 20th to 23rd and then again July 27th through the 30th to assist any families that might need support with the enrollment process. Um and we just again encourage families to complete it as as early as possible so that
074we can plan appropriately. You know, as we went through cost containment, we said, you know, we're going to be sure that we're not over staffed to start the year. Um, so in order for us to try to get it just right, that means uh we have to know how many students we're going to have, where they're going to be, what grade level, and so on. Because we do have some teachers even that are being hired at this point that aren't being given a specific grade level or others that maybe think are there's an opportunity that they may end up moving from one school to another. So, the earlier we can get families enrolled, the faster we can kind of put put everyone at ease because it's no fun waiting to to find out where your
075assignment's going to be, right? Um, I I don't have I I just wanted to um mention the Flint Hills digital campus conversation just from a school district's perspective. Um I'm not I I want to I want to point out that I'm not sitting here making any comments u for or against the project. Um I just think that it was important for us to provide some factual information. um as it pertains to the district on how any project of this magnitude would impact the district or would not impact the district because I think uh some believe that you know big projects like this will just solve all of our problems when actually statutes uh kind of limit our ability to collect local option budget for operation purposes and so it really doesn't do some of the
076things that people think it would. So, just to point out a few things, the whole project is within our boundaries. Um, at buildout, it was it, you know, what what we're hearing touted is that it would triple the assessed value of the county. So, we'll we'll assume that would triple the assessed value of the school district uh for that matter. Um, currently one mill in our school district produces $297,000. So you could see where um one mill per se in capital projects that was producing $297 might might would would would produce potentially three times that for any project that would be of this size. So really if you think about it don't even think about it as a data center but just think about it as any project that might potentially triple the value of
077such valuation. This is the kind of impact it would have. Um this particular project isn't really start isn't really u set to uh start to go up vertically for probably I mean if all things went perfect another three years uh of course work would start before that but anything going up vertically and probably 10 years for a full buildout is what we're hearing on this project. Um it's highly likely the project would be in a tax abatement program. And that means that our entire local option budget uh taxes that would be received during the period of abatement would go toward assisting in development of the project, not go to the school district. Um so you know you can imagine it would be um more than a decade down the road before the district would would
078have any kind of an impact in its in its operating side loss. um even in lowering the levy kind of reference this our our local option budget is capped at 33% of its st annual state aid and so for example we know we're losing state aid next year and so we will also lose local option budget money as well um because we can only collect up to 33% of whatever we collect. So it really doesn't matter how much the value is locally. It doesn't increase what you can collect in your local option budget. What it would do is lower the amount the mills that it would require to collect that amount that's calculated. Where the district would see the biggest impact in a project like this is capital outlay funding for one. Um, for example,
079the eight mills in capital outlay now produces about $2.4 million. If you triple if you if you use the tripling effect of that, that means a mill would would our eight mills would produce $7.2 million annually. So, it'd be great to have that money right now to put toward this uh all these HV HVAC projects uh that we have rather than having to borrow some of it down the road. Additionally, a large increase could also shorten the time to pay off bond and debt because they can't they can't abate the the bond and interest levy. And so, um, you know, any kind of bond debt that we would have, uh, could potentially pay be paid back either at a lower mill rate or faster to get it to get it off the off the tax
080levy completely. So, the project doesn't immediately, you know, change any kind of the trajec trajectory for us as far as student enrollment um, decline. This isn't going to produce a bunch of students all of a sudden. Um, you know, it's going to be a while before you start to see jobs. And so I think I just wanted to to clarify what it would do, what it wouldn't do, and that the the difficult decisions that we've had to make up to this point aren't aren't resolved by a project like this. And there are will continue to be difficult decisions to be made over the course of the next two or three years till we get kind of dig ourselves out of our financial hole and get to a point where we feel like we're positioned to
081begin to progress. And a lot of that will have to do with, you know, what does our enrollment do moving forward and we don't know what that looks like today. Um, that's primarily just what I wanted wanted to to say about that. I didn't don't I know I'm not standing here saying it's a good good for us or bad for us. Uh, just here's what it is and isn't. >> Okay. Thank you. That's going to move us to item 10A, executive session negotiations. I move we enter executive session for 15 minutes to discuss negotiation information pursuant to the exception for employer employee negotiations under the Kansas Open Meetings Act and that we return to open session in this room at 7:22 p.m. Superintendent Dr. David McGee, Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations Josh Schwarz, and Director
082of Human Resources Erica Mickelson are invited to join the board for this session. No action is anticipated. Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes. 70. a motion to return to regular session. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded to return to regular session. Please cast your vote. She's taking motion passes. 70. I move we go into executive session. Sorry, I'm not on the right one. It's probably the same though. I move we go into executive session for 17 minutes to discuss personnel matters of non-elected personnel in order to protect the privacy interest of the individuals to be discussed and to return to this room at 7:42 p.m. Superintendent Dr. David McGee, Director of Human Resources Dr. Erica Mikkelson, and Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations Mr. Josh Schwarz are
083invited to join the session. Action is anticipated. Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. >> It says it. So, sorry. It should be a no. >> I wondered. Okay. Action is not anticipated. >> I will second that also. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. I motion to return to regular session. >> It's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you. That brings us to future board calendar dates. Uh next week on Monday, June 15th and Tuesday, June 16th, we will be having our board retreat at the Flint Hills Technical College, which is all day both of those days. Uh and then our July meeting will be on July 8th. It's only uh one meeting the the month of July. So that will
084be again at 6 PM at Mary Herbert Education Center. And I would entertain a motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> Sorry, it's been moved and seconded. Please cast your vote. Motion passes 70. >> Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Casey. >> Thank you.