001Okay. Call to order the June 9th regular school board meeting for Seaman USD 345. We will start with the pledge of allegiance. Lance, would you like to lead us? To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for one nation under God, indivisible with Thank you, sir. the game changer. I can do whatever I want. She's the first for one day. All right. Do we have any public communication? Thank you, Candace. We need an adoption of the agenda. Go ahead. You're on it. Go ahead. Second. It has been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. All in favor raise your hand and say I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carried. Superintendent Mr. Wilson. Oh, we did that. Sorry. Um, I'm going to take a little bit of time
002to step up on a soap box. Um, you're going to hear about a, uh, request to, uh, change the district's mission statement. And one important part that I think is worth adding to it is working together. In Seaman, it's really who we are and what we do. Um but we have seen that in a lot of places you have people working against and you see two sides and what I see here is a common goal of student success and um we can and should disagree about um all that entails and how we get to that student success. um which means we can have discussion, we can have disagreement um and those things bring critical thinking and analysis to the work and make us better. We need to consider all sides of an issue or problem
003or a solution that's brought forward. When disagreement happens um about what we do or how we do it, that's great. But when it becomes an us versus them, I think we all lose. Um, we'll discuss budget actions later in the meeting. I've had a few emails about items on the list. All were incredibly professional. All sought to approach the issue or disagreement from the perspective that we are on the same team. I really appreciate that. I couldn't be more proud or appreciative of our school district and our staff. And uh you will see there are some recommendations that I've reconsidered and I've changed my mind about based on some of those conversations. Regardless, we must find 1.5 million to reallocate. Um but if everyone took working together as seriously as I feel like the seaman
004staff is doing right now, um we would have many more solutions and a lot less fighting. Um, and so I'm just wanted to say I'm very proud of what I've seen from our staff in the last uh month or so, especially as they've had feedback on these budget issues. Thank you. Thank you. President remarks. Does any of the board members have anything for this? All right. Um, first I want all of us to have Christie and our thoughts. She's got some health stuff going on. So thoughts and prayers for Christie. We miss her. Um, I want to tell everyone have a great summer. Relax, enjoy, do what you need to do. I know those of us who work all summer. Um, but still try and take some time to enjoy the outdoors, get the vitamin
005D, and have a great summer. Thank you. All right, moving on. Disposition of business by consent. I need an approval of the consent. Madam President, I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. Been a moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda as presented. Excuse me. All in favor, raise your hand and say I. I. oppose. Same sign. Motion carried. Okay, moving on to discussion items. Teaching and learning. Megan, good evening. Hey. Hey. All right. So, um I'm just going to highlight one quick item on the teaching and learning report and that's the first item on the first page. And um frequently as we approach summer um I tend to field questions about well what does summer look like for you? What is it that you are working on over
006the summer? And so included in um the um teaching and learning report are just some of the teaching and learning tasks kind of a quick overview of some of the things that happen um within teaching and learn learning world for next year. It's a very intentional time in order to make those preparations as we look ahead to the next year. So you can see kind of included within there. This is the time um where we are making those plans for our new teachers as they are returning. This summer we are working to revamp the mentoring program. And then of course this summer is also an opportunity to really lay out the foundation of the plans for our KISSA action plan as we go into next year. So, that's just a couple of the things um
007within teaching and learning and then you can see a couple of the other uh updates uh over the next couple pages. But are there any questions for me? All right. All right. Moving on. Student parent handbook. Yes. So, you are provided um a handbook revisions or handbook changes document. And that's the document that I am going to reference as we go through these today. But know as you look at the handbook revisions documents, um, all of these page numbers that are on the left refer to the copies of the handbooks that are also provided for you. So you can cross reference and see exactly what changes have been made. Upon approval next month, those changes will be approved um, in the graphs so that everything that's either been highlighted or crossed through will be cleaned
008up. But this gives you an opportunity to kind of see where we've been and what those changes are going to be. I'm not going to run through every single change. Of course, ask me any questions if you have them. Um there's just a couple of things that I want to highlight. And the first thing that I want to highlight um is also in recognition of Teresa Dunham, who we know does so much for us. But Teresa went through policy with a fine tooth comb and identified some policies that were um listed as being present in our student handbooks and um finding that some of them weren't. And so we have made sure that all the policies that are meant to be in our handbooks um from our milk handbook up through the high school are
009now present. So you'll see at every level some consistency now with a lot of policies listed in here. And that's one of the biggest changes across the board is just ensuring that all of that policy is there. And in most cases the policies are now linked in the handbook. So if we update and make changes to those policies, the accurate language and descriptions will be viewable by those using the handbooks. Um similar to that, you will see that bullying handbook information has been added across the board um in all of our handbooks. And that's a shout out to Dedra and her work with principles this year to make sure that our bullying handbook information was up to date. it had the information that we wanted to express and instead of having a separate handbook for
010that which maybe didn't get referenced as much all the bowling handbook information has now been embedded within the handbooks. So that's been very nice to see as well. Another piece that you will see at all levels is the AI guidelines that have been in draft form over the course of this year that we had gotten feedback on and those are now embedded in the handbooks for reference as well. Um besides that, this really was kind of a fine-tuning um year. So um there's just kind of some minor changes across other levels, but those were the the big things that I wanted to highlight and make sure to bring your attention to. So were there any questions or anything that you saw on your end? Thanks to Teresa. I know she's really is amazing. She deserves
011a shout out. I noticed all those and I thought That is Teresa Dunham 100%. Yes. Wonderful. Who if is listening never gets to leave. Yeah. All right. All right. Any questions for Megan over this? I like the way you set these up. Yeah. That makes it very easy to Good. That's the goal though, that you can quickly reference. Yeah. What's changing? Great. Great. Thank you. All right. Okay, the iPad transition discussion. Yes, I think Jeff is joining me for this one. As he comes up here, I'll just kind of set the background for this proposal that we're bringing to you tonight. So, we are um looking at transitioning to iPads at the elementary level. So, it's already we are already at iPads with K1. So, bringing iPads to second through sixth grade, not next year,
012but the year following. So, starting the 2026 school year. However, since that is a shift um in the teaching and learning world for our teachers at those grades, we want to be intentional in the things that we do this coming year in order to prepare them for making that switch and the impacts on their instruction. So, one of the um pieces to that transition timeline that you can see there um in the table in the middle of the proposal uh was to integrate iPad cards uh at all of our five elementaries in order to give teachers an opportunity to check them out and do some instruction um based with iPads next year. Um, so you can see as we look at the information included on the proposal, we are at this time saying that those
013iPad carts would just have 15 devices in them. U and there's a couple of reasons for that. First, prior to COVID, all of our elementary classrooms only had 15 devices um in them. That at the time was our technology integration at the elementary level. So, our teachers who've been around um since prior to COVID were familiar with that setup in the classroom. Um but also as part of our um budget discussions, you may have seen that we're planning to do a technology audit here in the fall. So early in this coming year to really see what are those technology needs at the elementary level and what is going to be the right number um of iPads or devices per classroom. And so it's easier to maybe start um with a smaller number instead of um
014a full cart of 30 available to everyone just in case the technology audit shows that at certain grade levels maybe we don't need a full classroom set of onetoone. Of course, if we um after the technology audit land on onetoone, then going into 2026, we can certainly have the the full sets of iPads, but we just wanted to air on the side on caution and um knowing that more information is coming um and have those 15 devices which can still be used by teachers either in some center times um and partner work and um and other instructional opportunities within the classroom. They can still get a feel with those 15 devices. Um, so you can see other items that are listed here on the proposal that we plan to do to assist teachers in the
015transition beyond the iPad carts. Um, but tonight we're really here to um propose about um making the purchase for the iPads now um in order to have those for next year. So at that point, I'm turning it over to Jeff to talk the money. So what we're looking at asking is for 75 brand new iPads. They'll be the 2025 version. Um, and a keyboard case to go along with it. And it is the recommended keyboard case that Apple says that they'll cover. Matter of fact, I think they even will uh require you if you want to Apple Care on these devices, which we will do. They want you to have this case on. So, this is like the one that they recommend uh in most onetoone situations. So, you can see the prices for those
016there. Um, we already have all of the carts we need in the district from years past, but they will have to be rewired for the new um, connections that these iPads have since I think these original carts had the big 30 pin connectors from the original iPad. So, we've got some wiring to do and I put that in the budget as well. Probably overshot that a little bit, but I want to be sure. Uh, you're looking at about10 to 15 per device for new wiring, adapters, things like that. So, that ends up to be about a thousand bucks. We'll probably do it for a little bit less, but wanted to overshoot that just a little bit. So, you're looking at about $34,000 out of capital. We would probably have those ready to go into the
017classroom by the very beginning of September, I believe. So, 15 iPads per school. So you got six grades that are going to share 15 iPads, right? Is what you're saying? Y. Yes. So we envision it being just a checkout system. Um if they have a lesson or activity that they would like to try, they'll still have all their MacBooks with them. So they're still going to be onetoone with their MacBooks. It's more like, okay, I want to get a feel for how to do this particular activity that I do on a MacBook now with an iPad. And they'll work with their Yeah. They'll work with the instructional coach to check them out. And really, your only your second through sixth grade are probably going to need these to pilot because your K1 already has iPads
018in the classrooms. You're really looking at lower grades. Okay. I I was thinking that's Yeah. Yeah. We're not thinking. Yeah. Not really on that far yet. Yeah. Great. Any more questions? So really what we're leading to then is to do away with MacBooks at the elementary level over the next couple years, not next year. So we're going to be this coming year will be as is potentially with all of this with it. We will start discussing the elementary refresh in Octoberish after we go through an audit of the tech that we're using at the elementary level. Um that purchase will be brought to you guys for discussion in probably December January time frame to decide what we want to do and we'll have all that report okay ready for you. That's what I thought. Yeah.
019Okay. But their plan initially is to bring iPads to you for elementary. What is the benefit of going from the MacBook to the iPad instructionally? Yeah, I would love to speak to that instructionally. Uh and if you speak with Apple or attend Apple sessions, really the device that they are promoting um a lot these days is the iPad just because it gives you that opportunity to um be more creative and mobile in your um teaching and learning than a MacBook device such as you know being able to take a quick picture of something and then annotate over it and then make a presentation on it. So just the quick tools um that come with an iPad um can enhance the teaching and learning envir environment beyond a way that I feel we're using the MacBooks
020at this point in time. Um and you also think about student familiarity with the device. Our students are very familiar with tablets or iPhones and how to use them and integrate them in their lives. So it's a very natural tool for students to um use. Uh it also it comes with all the MacBook suite um apps already with it. So things like Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie, which we have on our computer, but again the ease of use with those apps is much nicer with the iPad than on the MacBook that can be kind of cumbersome to use some of them. So there's really just a lot of potential there um that could maybe transform our our teaching and learning a little bit differently. So that's tonight, but there's And the icing on the cake is they're
021way cheaper. Yes, there's a knew that going iOS versus a Mac OS device. And the repair rate on iOS devices is a fraction of what it is with Mac. And when they do need repair, they're a fraction of the cost to fix. Sweet. So, you're you're looking at a very significant cost savings if we were to go that route. Great. Oh, yeah. And if if we do approve these 75 and then whatever we do decide to buy quantitywise for the next school year 26.7 these 75 will roll in. So your lease purchase price when we do come to you in Januaryish will be minus 75 devices because we'll roll these into that fouryear lease and minus $34,000. Correct. So it'll be that much cheaper. book. Does it make it'll be that much cheaper saving you.
022You sound like my wife now. Jav $299.99. Does it uh make a difference as far as your implementation whether we try and approve this tonight or next month? Uh timelinewise, no. I don't think so. We've got time if you guys want to talk about it. I wanted to ask for such a small quantity. I I think we could probably be up and running in a month pretty easily. So great. Oh, I do have so cap outlay. I'm assuming this was budget or fits in the budget and it fits in part of the technology um budget that is already outlined in it. Okay. 34,000 of that which is a small fraction. Lisa's back shaking her head. I don't think she agreed. I was I can feel it. It's been the same. Thank you very much. Um,
023classified handbooks night. Only change is on page 27. And this is something that you guys had already approved just in the handbook. Uh under holidays for 12 month or please the addition of the day after Christmas. Any questions? Page what? 27th this apply to all area businesses or just the school? Yes, you get you get that day off as well. Absolutely. Oh, how is it a Friday? Is it a Saturday? Every day is a Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We're not all that blessed yet. Any questions? You got sidetracked. Thank you. You just have your boss call us, right? Dedra, good evening everyone. Um, my special services reports um continuing is talking about what's happening in special education today. So, um, today ESY started at the middle school and high school. That's a little bit different
024than we've had in the past. I know I've talked about this the last couple of months, but students at the middle school and high school are having ESY in their home schools, and we just feel like that's going to allow them to have a great greater success than they've had in the past because it's in their home environment. So, that started today. Um, I wasn't able to go because we have meetings, but Kyle sent me some great pictures. They're already ready to go having some fun working on um goals on their IEPs. That's what ESY is for, continuing to work on their goals on their IE and have a little fun as well. Um on the next page, I'll talk about um the summer preschool screenings. You could read through that. Um something different um
025on top of preschool screenings is that we had um some of our TAR students that are two years old living in our district that are turning three had an IFSP getting services through TAR. Um eight of them turned three this summer. um which um we typically don't do evaluations in the summer, but it really works out best for them. It's closer to their birthdays and allows them to have some more time before they turn three before we evaluate them for a comprehensive evaluation and determine if they have a disability and a need for specially designed instruction. So that um Mel um advocated for that because these students are so young and have summer birthdays and so we allowed that to happen and they're doing that. that started today with the first session um and will
026continue this week as well. And then you can see as well on there all of the preschool screenings and the data in regards to those greetings. Special services is booming today in the district. You have any questions about any of that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dedra. Mr. Bradley. Hello. Hello. Officially started our summer projects. Love to have some time off. I didn't say anything about time off. I just said enjoy summer. So, this is our four units at the high school that we started uh the day after Memorial. It actually all four units are up and running. Uh trains in here tweaking them as we speak. They were supposed to finish actually I think tomorrow they're supposed to finish up. Pictures don't do justice to how big that crane was. No, that thing was
027when he had to reach over to the commons area. I uh before it lifted, I walked in the building. We had students walking through there. It just kind of my hair raised up and I was like, "Go." So, but yeah, it uh they got it all done about a day and a half. So, all the units are up there. Gman's area. And then over by the uh bank, Bill's office in the mornings, we have the sun that comes in and some of the cameras and the people could could see down the hallway. So, I had some film put on at the end of the hallways and it's actually kind of shadowy and was kind of cool in those spots. So, Oh, and then the last one, I don't have any pictures for it. Uh the
028start of the sound at the high school, middle school. They've got most of the wiring started at the high school. Uh they started the middle school this morning. Waking on the speakers and then I think the lights are supposed to start sometime this week, next week. So hopefully we can get roll sound. What? No, that is um the uh auditorium high school and then the commons area in the middle school. Okay. Those are having issues. Okay. So, good question. Somebody as also asked that question earlier today. I didn't know we were doing it. So, the sound started today. Is there any other questions? Thank you very much. All right. Partnership plan and the mission statement, Mr. Wilson. Yeah, I'm going to give a pretty high level of the partnership plan. I'm going to go over
029the roll out first and um it just talks about how we're going to we've done all the work with um getting survey responses. We've talked to our staff, our administrators, our parents, and um really, in my opinion, done a really nice job of saying what do we need from each other and how can we work together? Kind of reiterating what I talked about earlier instead of uh working separately to help raise these kids and give them the best education possible. One of the things I want to highlight is we're going to introduce this partnership plan um as vacation on August 7th and then follow up with an email and then we will ask um on back to school nights ask our staff to introduce this to parents and then parents will be able to pick
030up a proud partner um window decal for their cars if they want to be a proud partner of uh the school district. And uh there is a picture of that, but if you want to check it that that out on yours, the actual partnership plan uh has been modified slightly based on feedback from the surveys, but it is something that we've gone through before and I don't think we need to um extensively go through, but you can see that on your agenda as well. The six areas being care for each other, communicate frequently and professionally, be accountable, be involved and available, do your best and enjoy doing it, and assume positive intent. Um, and all of those have different roles for each group, but um really it's outlined pretty well in those six big picture
031things. So that is the partnership plan that is being bundled with and let me ask if there are any questions on the process or the end result of a partnership plan. Yes sir. Do you have to be a parent to be a partner? No. Unless Candace tells me I we do. I mean it's kind of like the concept of it but I'm sure we can expand it. Definitely staff uh are invited as well within Yeah, we could talk about how we can expand that even further. We probably have some community partners that would be proud to have that. Yep. I'd like to be a partner. The board can be a partner for sure. I figured I was Yes. I was just thinking community partners. Yeah. Um any other questions or thoughts? All right. So, obviously
032that partnership plan has been a lot of listening and a lot of working with, but it's set up to um the concept behind it is we can't raise parents kids alone and I don't think they want us to. Um and we know that parents don't want to educate their kids without us. And so it really takes a village to raise kids. Uh I was telling uh Mr. Rick Norton the other day that I had read an article about um raising kids as a community and I thought it was an interesting article of back when I was young if I was at one of my friends house their parents got to tell me what to do and that was never questioned. In fact my parents would have been upset if they didn't do something like that.
033And so, um, this is really that concept of this is a pretty tight-knit community. Let's raise our kids together with our core values. And, um, no, we don't have to agree on everything, but there's some things that we can all agree on, and I think those are outlined really clearly in this partnership plan. That brings me to the um recommended, but I really just want to bring it up for your discussion to talk about your thoughts on um changing the mission statement. I actually really like the mission statement we have now. It's been in effect since 2016. Is that accurate? Okay. 2016. Um it is pretty long and a lot of we'll talk about in a minute. A lot of the stuff that's in there really is telling us how to accomplish our mission, not
034really what our mission is that we want to accomplish. And our guiding principles and other areas help do that. And I'll be more specific on that later. But to get to the point, um, as we looked at this, we thought how we do it is working together. What we do is prepare each student and why we do it is so that our students have lifelong success. So the recommendation for you to talk about is working together to prepare each student for lifelong success. Working together is uh typified by our partnership plan. Preparing each student. The what is identified in our focus areas and objectives. And then lifelong success, the why we do this is defined by our graduate profile. So um I will leave that up to you. And then if you'd like me to
035talk about where some of the other stuff in the mission statement is um in our current documents, I'd be happy to talk about that as well. But I'd love to hear your guys's thoughts on that. I like it because it's short and sweet and to the point. does help for people to remember it if Exactly. I think the working together just solidifies family and school working together or parents and school working together. Any concerns? I think whoever put all the work in to create the last mission statement um put some really good things in there. So, I'm just going to highlight strong and healthy relationships essential for what we do. It is part of what's in our guiding principles as a safely supporting learning environment and it's part of when we say we're focused on
036the success for all students and staff. That's part of that as well. The rigorous relevant learning is part of an engaging and innovative learning environment and uh it's about developing students academic, cognitive and employability skills. It just adds a lot more definition to that. Um and then we have uh in our guiding principles forward thinking and developing leadership capacities of our students and we think that's largely wrapped into that rigorous relevant learning and then responsive and caring culture very similar to strong and healthy relationships is being safe and supportive but also the honest and transparent as well as the accountability for all is part of that culture. And then the last part which is maximizing talents, aspirations and community contri contributions is kind of in the u well it is in the um those are
037the things that we're working on more specifically in the graduate profile with college and career readiness, community readiness, and life readiness. And so that's where a lot of those things that were in the mission statement, nothing in the old one was bad. It was just pretty long and verbose for people to actually focus on 2018. That's what 2018. I'm very sorry to not remember that. I know I had been told. I agree with Michelle that I like their conciseness. Puts everything in there. We kind of thought this was that cherry on top of a lot of the work that the board and our community has done with all the other guiding documents, but um I kind of initially said I had no intention of changing the mission statement because I do like it, but we
038kind of felt like it was the cherry on top to make it all kind of come together. We will bring this back to you. I do think that the mission of the district ought to be something that a board uh votes on. Uh so we will bring that back to you if there are no objection. Thank you guys. Thank you. Budget discussion. Okay, Mr. Wilson. Thank you. So I'm going to You guys have gone over the full plan. It has been changed in a couple areas. I want to highlight those areas. I know you've seen this in notes that have been sent to you, but I think it's important for everybody to see what has been changed on the first ESSER funded software products. Um, Pebble Go along with Reading Eggs, Math Seeds, and Seessaw
039were all moved to being purchased with ESSER funds, and Esser funds were gone. What I didn't realize was that Pebble Go was utilized significantly by librarians now, but honestly it was being used by librarians even before co and I sent you guys some utilization reports. our veteran librarians use it significantly. And uh their comment was really that's our curriculum and we want our newer librarians to be using it as well. And so we're going to get training for our newer librarians so that all of our schools are utilizing that resource. So that is a change that we did based on feedback. A second change that I am recommending and again these are just my recommendations is GBQR. I worked on GBQR for a long time and I couldn't find a solid policy recommendation to bring
040to the board which effectively saved significant funds while holding those who are nearing retirement harmless. And I think just knowing this board, that was pretty important to the board to um honor some of those that are three to five years, especially to retirement. Um but I in my stabs, if you want me to stab again, I will look at it again. I looked at a couple options, but nothing really struck out. Nothing saved us in the short term next three years really any money. um which is really what this plan is about. And then going to the communicator, um we talked last time about making that communicator available to our community who loves to read about the great things going on in our schools. Um so, uh worked with the communications department to get a
041recommendation. Um and it's pretty lengthy, so I won't go over it, but I think you guys have had it sent to you. But in order to continue to serve our community while transitioning to a more efficient system, the communication department has come up with kind of what I would call a hybrid plan where they're going to put out um mailers just like we always have and then help those folks that are reading it to really um tap into the electronic version that they can have access to uh as well. And so if I remember right, we've got a couple more paper ones coming out over the next couple years and then that will help them transition to electronic. And you know us, we'll work with anybody that needs help with that. Oh, high school schedule.
042Again, these last three are no changes recommended, but I wanted to make sure everybody knew um the clarity that I provided to staff and folks with this um the high school schedule. One of the questions they asked is, well, it says traditional schedule. Well, just like their schedule change, I'm always open to the high school staff looking at their schedule and bringing a recommendation for a schedule. My criteria is it has to meet the requirements of the negotiated agreement. Has to meet requirements such as uh ASD rags and then obviously this um budget ensures that that teachers would teach six uh courses so that we can get the budget savings out of that um schedule change. Um, again, this doesn't come into effect this upcoming year and so I'm open to creative solutions that they
043may come up with schooly. I wanted to add clarity to that this recommendation is to investigate options with staff input to possibly find a different option for them as a learning management system. I don't think anybody here thought we could just get rid of a learning management system alto together and the biggest concern we heard was will all of our um work that we've done be lost and so we need to look to see are there ways to uh migrate information over to other systems but that's all part of the investigation part of it so that recommendation hasn't changed I still think we need to look into um schooly esgi I had some questions on that. But um we have a year to see if FastBridge, which provides assessments and powers school, which provides a
044platform for um um communicating grades and and assessment results, can meet the teachers needs in those areas. And when they found out they had a year to test fast bridge and see, especially on the assessment part of it, is that going to meet their needs, that helped them out a lot on that. Um, I got asked by a board member, which was a great question. Um, what is the goal? We're looking for at least $250,000 of savings um this next year. It's not enough, but we know if we cut too deep in all quickly um that'll cause more pain um than maybe that dollar is worth. Um in the second year of this plan, we're looking to save $750,000 from our ongoing budget. And then in the um last year or two, we're looking for
045another um $500,000 for a total savings in our yearto-year budget of $1.5 million. That's a lot of reallocated funds. Um but we think it's for the good and we think it's for the long-term health of the district. Um both financial health of the district. It's funny when we say district, we mean the people in our district, which means that we are able to recruit, retain, and pay comparable salaries to what we're seeing in other school districts in our area. If we continue declining enrollment, we have to may need to look at additional savings for that number. What questions, comments, thoughts? Nothing in here is a purchase that necessarily would require board um voting, but you're welcome to accept this. You can do it next time. Um if you'd like us to bring it back to
046as a voting item, we can do that. Um or if you want to just make comments, we can listen to those obviously. Yeah. Uh, no. I I I just want to keep some praise on Fred, Lisa, and everyone who's involved in kind of throwing this up because hopefully people I know that I'll leave home, but hopefully people realize the amount of work that went into this, the amount of work that went into finding pain not cause major pain. Obviously the cutting was never a fun thing to get to take money from certain parts of the budget and others not a positive thing ever but you guys were able to kind of come through this with the fine tooth film and it just make it work. I really appreciate the work you guys did and did
047a great job. So there's a lot of people that had a lot of good input on this including since the last time you looked at it a lot of teachers staff members have also given really good input which is appreciated and like I said it was as professional as you could have ever imagined. So thank you. So if we do we need to approve all of this? You really don't. This is just moves that we make in um our budget. You will approve the budget at some point. Um but the reality would it be better if we did approve this so that we could get it going. It's going either way. It's going either way. Um you're welcome to. I don't have any problem if you want to approve it. Um the game I think
048is what she's after. Yeah. Yeah. I'm other than somebody going, "Well, maybe we shouldn't do this, but I don't I mean, we've given time for feedback and um I think we've heard to it. I I don't think people are going to question that this is necessary." um that at least we've heard pretty loud and clear is they understand that um in able in order to fund the raises for our staff, we have to do some of these things and like what's picked or not, I don't think anybody is really arguing that we had to make cuts in order to do that. And so maybe that is the good uh Braden that has come out of it is that they see that we do value our staff and their pay. Um our our staff are we've
049said it all the time but our staff is our number one um reason that we're successful head and shoulders. So if we would approve this as the board transparency we've got it backed. I mean, what does the board think? Do we just say go for it or do you think it'd be better for us? Does it learning it tonight? But also, I think the other sent but also I don't think that right. Yeah, that's I don't we don't need to do anything. We've discussed it as a board several times. Yeah. Um, and that's I mean apparent they can go back and watch the videos, but there's again like we said there's no harm in if we did want to approve it or give it our blessing. We're doing that now. Also, the only thing I
050would ask you to do if you vote on it Yep. The only thing I would ask you to do if you vote on it is to allow some flexibility. Absolutely. In how some of these things are implemented. For example, um when we say investigate, we don't really know what the end result is. So, just some understanding that um as we have stated throughout the whole thing, that this is a conceptual plan of how we're going to reallocate funds, not a specific road map of exactly how we're going to follow it. And I think that's important that we afraid, not afraid, but well, we have to stay to the concept. If we don't stay to the concept, we won't have money to either pay our folks or to have a solvent school district. And so, in
051your guys' board priorities, you've said recruiting and retaining staff is important. And I think I can speak for all of you to say that you want us to be a financially sound and responsible district. And so I think when you vote on this, if you choose to vote on this, that's basically what you're saying is by board edict, we expect and demand that the superintendent makes moves that are fiscally sound and honor the um staff and sound. So do we want to do that when all seven of us are here or do we want to do it now? The more we talk about it, the more I'm like, I don't think we should vote on it just because it has to be a little bit fluid in the instance something comes up, right? You know,
052something financial comes up. We have to totally not totally, but we need to make severe changes to it. Having it weighed down by a vote that we did is is potentially just a loophole we may or I know we would leave flexibility. I just think it's maybe an unnecessary step. So just giving you our blessing like we all think that would be a vote and you're that's why a vote I think somebody said solidarity is important and I agree that we should be on board as much as possible. It doesn't mean everybody has to agree with everything we do. Um but I do feel like the board has been very supportive of this process. Um if so let me throw an if. Here's what we don't know. We don't know yet. We will get more
053information with our demography um assessment, but we don't know if we're going to be declining enrollment and we need to add to this or when they redo the um finance formula if it increases our funding and maybe we don't need to do all of these things. So, there are some unknowns down the road that I just don't have. But I'd be more than happy to bring this back next month for a vote. Um, that is not I think that would be You don't think that's necessary? I think piggybacking off of what Braden said, we all appreciate all the work you guys have put into this and we trust that you as superintendent, you know what is expected and we know you're going to do what's best and you're very transparent with us anyway. So, exactly.
054You're transparent with every folks we have in the business department. Lisa all of our folks, even down to our departments like Lance who has to make changes. I think add to that too that you've put this out to the staff and there's been so much input, right? And so I think we're good. Yeah, I think we're good. Well, I I know it's it's an error for me to say this has not been Oh, Kyle, this has been easy for the board because I know it's not and I appreciate your support. Yes, Kyle. No, I I agree with everything that's been said. Just one clarification. If the state gives us more money and we have doesn't mean we need not do that. These are these are things that could should be done. Yes. Doesn't matter if
055we have extra money. That's even better. We have to get over the concept of there's endless money. Spend it. Yeah. Just spend it, right? Nothing. It's just the That's a great point. I'm glad you pointed that out. I like I'm glad you said that. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. So, and and I've had two or three people ask me, "Are we in financial trouble, our school district?" I said, "Not right now." No. But going forward, if we want to hire good people and be able to pay people what they're worth, Yeah. we are if you look at it that way. So, I need these adjustments. Yeah. Yeah. You have to make the adjustment before you get from or have noticed and are talking about this. Right. Yes. Good. Good. So, I think we're
056all in agreement that we're in a good place with this and keep moving forward. We move forward then. That's what we hired for. Yeah, we can go. But we hired Lisa for too. Y that's why we love Lisa. Sweetly. Okay. So, moving on to action items. Oh, I am not excited about this. Medicaid reimbursement. Um, so I know Mr. Wilson made you guys aware of this in your Friday notes, but we were recently informed that there had been an error with um the Medicaid reimbursement that's ran through our third party vendor, PCG. Um there's roughly 212 school districts that are having the same conversation this month. Um we are very fortunate that um we have put money into our reserves. Um you've heard Mr. Wilson and I talk over and over again how important that
057is. This is a prime example of we have no control over it. Um the state I think it says you have to have 60 day 30 or 60 days to typically return it. The state is allowing us an extra uh time to return it but it's still within a year. Um, so if we would have had to turn that around right away, we would have been in worse shape without that contingency reserve. Um, at this time we would like to have the board um have the board allocate $230,900 from our contingency reserve to pay expenses up to that value. Um, which would ensure that we can meet our expenditures this year since they will be taking that money out of our final payment that we should have received. um even though it is over that
058time span, we still have to pay it back pretty quickly. So So we have to pay back the 23900. Yeah. Yes. And it's going to come out of their final payment of this year. So that is money we expected to receive. Okay. That we are not going to receive from the federal government. Okay. So, we need a motion to use Well, you need to declare a contingency. That is how you tap into contingency reserve. So, the board is the only one that can declare a contingency, right? So, this would be your unexpected thing. So, kind of how not a motion to a motion to declare a contingency. I would read it just as it is up there. Okay. So, I make a motion to declare a contingency due to an error by PCG contracted through
059KDH and school-based Medicaid reimbursement to allocate up to $230,900 to be to be spent from contingency reserve to cover the expenses. Second. Okay. So, it has been moved and seconded that we do this declaration. Questions or comments? You explain to me an error contractor someone who is not us 211 or 212 other districts. Yes and no. Um, so and if I may add once I get through he says type here's the yes the yes is we provide Medicaid services to students such as occupational therapy physical therapy those things may be build to Medicaid our payment is based on a formula that after we submit those things KDHE the department of health and environment uses a third party vendor which is um public consulting group and then public consulting group is who the flowth through of
060those funds come to us through. So over the past seven years since 2017 each of those years has had a incorrect denominator no numerator incorrect numerator and so we have been paid most of those years with the exception of one about 50,000 too much than what we were supposed to be reimbursed for. And so these are that is funds that we did receive but spent in those other fiscal years because we had no idea we weren't owed that. That was what we thought we were owed. That's what they gave us. This year they found an error on last year or on as they were figuring out to 2013. They found that same error when it they were doing their audit. And so they said, "You have to have a look back to 2017." And they
061did and found that error every single year since then. And so because of that, technically the federal government, just like if the federal government overpays or you underpay your taxes, they have overpaid us and they require that money to come back to them. There has been a question that I have not had answered yet, and that is, does this company have errors and omission insurance that would pay for something like that? And my guess is if we're paying 230,000 back, that that amount of money is well over their policy if they have one. And I don't even know if they have one, but that question has been asked and my hope is that we will hear some accountability from either PCG or whoever should be accountable for that. We haven't gotten a lot of answers.
062Uh we've uh both Dedra and um Lisa have been in on those calls as well. Um but we're asking see like a problem. Yeah, that should be their problem, not ours. Major question is what it took us seven years worth of wired what happened over seven years, but the law they 30 or 60 days, but they're allowing us. Yeah. But thinking out of next year's budget really different for us than the months. Yeah. Okay. Well, we don't pay them anything. They they get the revenue and then send it to us. So, and so they're just not sending us revenue for that amount. Okay. Any other discussion? Huh? Negative. Hearing none. All in favor raise your right hand and say I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion carried. But I do want to point out we do
063need to keep building up our contingency reserve for these situations. Um and I'd like to make a statement because you guys have seen um when both you can use cap outlay. There's some flexibility in how to use it. There's contingency reserve. But the reality of it is if you're making moves on money to cover some expense like this, you have to pay it back. Like you have, and I don't say have to because there's any law quote requiring it, but a contingency happens and it eats up 230,000 out of your contingency reserve and you don't have a plan to pay that back. then what happens the next time? So, we want to be good stewards of our taxpayer money and we think a good steward has actually a little more than we even have right
064now in there. So, our goal is to continue to build up our contingency and make sure that um we make all of our bills, we pay all of our folks, and we do everything as we should, and we have that um safety net hanging for us as well. And we know, I know for sure, and so does Lisa, that that's what our board would want us to do with the money that um taxpayers of Kansas give us. Thank you, Lisa. Okay, moving on. Policy updates, Mr. All right, these changes, if you noticed, are very small. They were the part of again Teresa going through with a fine tooth code of our policies. And which one are you on? DK DK as just a small change instead of purchase orders to requisitions and then and when
065applicable a student participating in the activity. A lot of our um signoffs have a during the school year have a student sign off as well. Otherwise, we ask a administrator to sign off on those. But technically, a student should be signing off on those if one's available. So, that's DK. Now, we're going to J H vending machines. So, this is again food service. So, um, it has that the building principal shall manage the machines except for we are now on a district contract with our vending. And so, the district, the business director, Lisa, manages this. And we are providing an annual report um to the board showing all receipts and expenditure for each machine. And then they're going to be deposited in the appropriate. Next DP again food services this is um because of our
066collection procedures um we don't there are some times when we do not send somebody to collections and so what we've done is we change several wills to May um that's it on that gives our our most mostly our secretaries the availability we know there's a situation with this family the flexibility on doing that we are on e this is food service management and essentially what you see is the $150 uh is when it gets turned over I think by law K will correct me if I'm wrong tomorrow I guarantee you is it has to be $50 that they can't go they can't charge more than that. So either the district has to reimburse the um food service at that time or the food service has to go to collections because the food service is not
067allowed to go um into debt for students more than $50. And again the district can pay that back. So there's more than one way to do this, but that is that changed. Is that all of them? No. Bonded employees? Oh, yes. Bonded employees really just adds um the notaries and we have notaries. Teresa's one notary. We have a couple other notaries in our uh district. And then those notaries will be bonded per their job title. And we say that because actually Teresa at the district will be bonded. They're required to be bonded at a certain level, but it's uh it's dependent on how much work they do. And so um I think Teresa's has a little more than the other two. So we didn't put the specific amounts because that becomes on their notary statement.
068All right. Again, really minor changes, but we want to be accurate with our board policies and our practices. So, we need an an emot an emotion. A motion a motion to approve the policies as present. I'll second. I want you to make it. Oh, I thought you just did. Madam President, I'll make a motion to approve policies as presented. Second. But I want to say one thing. Hang on. It's been moved and seconded. Sorry. Is there any discussion? Yes. On e the date should be 625 instead of 624. Thank you. Is that the only one that the only one I saw? Okay. Yes, these all should be 625. Sorry. Bye. Thank you, Donna. We'll get back. I got emotional. Sorry. Anything else? There was a comma missing on page 7. Don't start with me, Chris.
069Say you'll find one. All right. All in favor, raise your hand and say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion carried. Now, do we have all three? Yes, we do have all three. Okay. So, I am going to make a motion to go into executive session to discuss confidential employee information pursuant to the exception relating to personnel matters of non-elected personnel and the open meeting will resume in the boardroom. Marty, how much time do you need? Okay. Um, no later than 7:15. And I will invite Marty and Mr. Wilson. I need a second. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor raise your hand and say I oppose. Same sign. I think. come back to order. I'm going to make a motion to go into executive session to discuss negotiations pursuant to employer employee negotiations
070under coma. And the open meeting will resume in the boardroom at no later than 7:35. Second. I will invite Marty and Brad. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Not right again. What's a password? Except for her. I'm going to make a motion to go into executive session to discuss out of district denial appeals to the exception relating to actions adversely or favorably affecting a student under coma and the open meeting will resume in 15 minutes no later than [Music] 7:55 and I will invite Brad and Marty just Brad and to the board. Second. Seconded. It's been seconded. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Yes. Sorry. Well, what are you still doing here? He doesn't get a choice. Overtime. Yes. here. No, we're here.
071Okay. Is there any action to be taken for the students who have been denied per board policy for district for out of district? All right. Hearing none. made them.