Nelson County Board of Education Meeting April 15th, 2025

001[Music] Vamparina. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Let me feel. [Music] Yo, [Music] You falling away. [Music] You don't [Music] Champ ring. [Music] I love it. [Music] You found me. [Music] You are ring. [Music] It rainbow. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] N. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] me. Heat. [Music] You're out. [Music] ring. Let me ring. [Music] You are [Music] It [Music] You can feel me. [Music] You are free. [Music] We call this meeting of the Nelson County Board of Education to order on April 15, 2025. Please join our board team as we recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. And we're going to start by reading the um mission of

002the Nelson County Schools. In the Nelson County Schools, we unite students with people, place, and purpose to thrive in work and life. This is just some context as we look at the annual plan. We're in Bloomfield tonight. Uh after being in a conversation over the last three months around some of the decisions being made tonight around staffing and salary schedule in May, uh we'll be uh at the Bargetown airport as planned currently may be up for discussion on that date. Uh we'll be looking at the tenative budget and into June for annual policy and procedure updates. All right. So for tonight's agenda, we are here to learn about the um amazing work going on here at Bloomfield Middle School. Um and go over student and staff benefits. Um we'll be discussing staff and salary schedule

003data for the 2025 2026 school year. We'll also be following up on um extracurricular recommendations that we heard about a few months month ago from Mr. Lefavers and we'll discuss relevant LPC data and timeline. So moving on to um Mr. Patterson and Miss Newton. I want to thank Mr. Patterson for opening up your school for us to have this meeting in. For sure. So before we get started with updates around uh Bloomfield Middle School, we wanted to start with an alumni um celebration and spotlight. So we have Miss Grace Cox who's here who is a graduate of Middle School and currently at Nelson County High School. She's going to share with you a little bit about her story and experience with the youth apprenticeship as she is graduating this year's class year. So come on

004up here. Hello. Thank you all for having me. I'm very blessed to be a part of today's meeting and to speak about all of my experiences in education. So, I'm in the collab and in this collab I get to collaborate with my peers and have many dual credit classes and observe and assist and lead in classrooms. Some of these experiences include observing various grade levels and assisting students one-on-one and leading regular classroom days such as field days and student centers and after school book readalouds. I also get to participate in a club called Educators Rising where I compete with fellow future educators. I'm also a part of the WKU Grow Your Own Teacher Apprenticeship Program. In this program, I get to have my dual credits paid for by the school, get to obtain hours for

005my degree while I'm getting paid, and I also have many outside opportunities outside of the collab. Now, a part of this apprenticeship is I get to be a teacher's assistant at Old Kentucky Home Middle School, and my amazing lead teacher, Miss Mie, teaches sixth and seventh grade ELA. I'm so blessed to be a part of her classroom and I learn so much from her every day. She lets me lead teach all the time and this is where I learn how to handle classroom behavior problems from her and through my own trial and error and all of these experiences have helped me to improve myself to become a great educator and I'm very grateful for them. Thank you. So Grace, you got a you got a may have to fill a question or two up here.

006Huh? Do you have questions? So, you are what's your So, you're graduating in five weeks. What's your next step? My next step is to continue working at W at Old Kentucky Home Middle School to obtain hours of my degree through WKU. Got it. So, you'll be an adult apprentice? Yes. Do you know what do you know how many adult apprentices we'll have next year? I think like around five or four, something like that. Got it. What which grade level? Sorry, five or four new ones. Which grade level do you want to teach in right now? I want to teach in sixth grade and like focus on middle school areas. Mhm. Well, I was going to say and we got to experience or I had to get to go to the grow your own um celebration

007last week where the new apprentices were accepted and the program is amazing and I was going to save that for the celebration but if people are not aware what this program is doing for students and not really just for students and this is a little selfish for the board to speak of but what you guys are going to do for Nelson County Schools I mean it's exciting. to think of the work that you guys are doing and how that's going to pay off in the long run for for students of Nelson County and it's exciting to watch you guys grow. Thank you so much. What do you think the difference is between how you'll be prepared having come through this apprenticeship as compared to if you had gone a traditional route? Well, I get to

008obtain more hours early on. So if someone just went to college and did this educational degree originally like the basic way, they wouldn't be able to do all these hours and learn from these teachers so early on. And I get just so much experience with everyone and assistance from my teachers that I have and the lead teachers I observe with. So I just think it's really beneficial. Not to mention the student debt. Yes, that is a lot less. So glad to have you. Thank you. Congratulations, Grace Cox. BMS class of 2021. [Applause] Um, so next we have some opportunity to celebrate along with the student benefits. So, one of the student benefits that we have at Bloomfield Middle School is thinking about how we're building strong civics awareness and civic engagement. So, we're going to

009celebrate that a little bit before we talk about academic performance. So, with that, uh, Miss Heaton, our assistant principal, is going to come up and she's going to talk to you a little bit about the National Civics B competition that Bloomfield Middle School along with the other middle schools competed in. And then we have a couple of students who are going to share um what share a little bit about that. All right. So, our students um we had six students that were finalists in the civics B competition and we broke it down. Um we planned lessons with our social studies teachers and our ELA teachers. They got the content about the founding principles and civic virtues in their social studies classes. And then we also incorporated lessons into our car and connect and they worked

010on graphic organizers for this writing piece within their ELA classes. So tonight um we have a couple of students here to share about the problem that they picked within the Nelson County community and how they were going to address that with a solution and the action steps they would take to get there. This one here Um, there are some students not here tonight, but we want to recognize all of them. So, uh, Nathan Carlton, Presley Lanning, Gabby Dreos, and Jacqueline Hutchkins were also part of the finalists, but tonight we have Cole Pentecost, and Haven Forbes here. So, can you all come on up? Hello, I'm Haven Forbes. I'm currently an eighth grader at Bloomfield Middle School. Um, I wrote about the growing sorry the growing the growing challenge of youth substances. Um, I was thinking

011that youth substance abuse has became a really difficult issue within the community. However, even with our close-knit community, it's impacting this new generation of students as well as just everyone overall. Um, I thought of there was some there's some main points I would like to go over and some solutions I thought would be beneficial. Some of my main points I thought would be beneficial were getting more awareness within the education programs, including and incorporating more education programs to show why it's a bad it's bad for youth substance abuse to be a part. I think everyone knows it's bad for you substance abuse. I'm sorry. Um I also thought there being health cares with May I pull out my notes? Absolutely. I used civic virtues and that natural/inalable rights would is everyone has everyone has the

012right to have the right to case the pursuit of happiness. I feel like substance of youth, especially within the youth, takes dire chances away to be able to have a fair chance at at reaching those. I'm sorry. I I don't know what else to say. Haven, you're doing better than than any of us were doing in eighth grade. You did great. Haven, you're doing a great job. I'm sorry. you were good. Um, I wrote about I wrote about noise pollution and the medical problems that it may eventually uh lead up to. I I wrote about the I wrote about the organiz organizations that I would sorry I said that solutions like uh quiet hours in specific places uh may be able to fix may be able to partially fix this solution. I I spoke about

013uh the organizations I would collaborate with in order to in order to uh get this establish established. I spoke about people like home homeowners associations. Um, I spoke about groups like Neighborhood Watches. Um, we agree, Cole. Yeah. So glad to see all the thought that you both have put into your work and coming up with solutions and being mindful of what's really happening in the community. Good job. and two very important things that are going on in our community that we need to be more aware of. Absolutely. Great job, guys. [Applause] The next um as far as our our student um student outcomes, we talk a lot about building, molding, and serving and what that means within our our school and really focusing on uh building impactful learning experiences. um molding students knowing that even

014small things that occur they can create large change. I mean this is an example that just a writing you there's no telling what that could do from a writing essay to looking for solutions possible solutions and problems what that can create and it kind of snowballs from there and then also the ser serving part of that. So just knowing there's a bu a village over self mentality of serving the community and looking for ways and one of the things that we see from that especially on the building one that's the academic part of that is some of the growth that we've had over this course of this year uh we're going to focus on two our reading and math and reading we're comparing in the blue KSA scores from last year to January I Ready

015scores and that's the second time we take I Ready we'll take I Ready again in on Thursday this week and I Ready is a a predictor of of KSA. It's not, you know, it's just a predictor of that. So, in the world of um of reading, we see that, you know, a couple of grade, you know, sixth grade, it's about level, and then between the seventh and eighth grade, there's one that's down, one that's low. But overall, um we're kind of, you know, we're sitting, it's kind of the same at at 32% proficient and distinguished. Um, some of the things that we've input into our daily instruction is in the eighth grade we've started using an EL program and it's a pilot pro program that we've started implementing this year. Um, and then we've also

016implemented read 180 within our Blazer time which is a 30-minute time period throughout uh each and every day. Um, where we've grouped those students based on based on the area of need. We've had it for several several years where we are focusing on students needs and what they need within the classrooms. And this is just a little bit more of a targeted way for us to address very specific needs that students have in reading. And then uh lastly, through achievement coaching, we have done achievement coaching uh and goal setting. So we're acknowledging like where students are and setting goals for where they want to be. Um because that, you know, is important now. It's important later as they go throughout their life to just set goals for themsel and work to achieve those. We'll also

017say we just finished PSAT 89 uh spring testing and 70% of our eighth graders uh met their benchmark on the PSAT exam which was 18% more than we had last year uh reaching their benchmark. So again, huge accomplishment for them uh to be taking that test and to be working on that and showing that growth and the efforts that they're putting into each and every day. Uh on math um math you'll see again the same kind of comparison of data. We're looking at KSA KSA from the previous year to this year's January I Ready and you'll see significant growth in all grade levels across the board. Uh some similar things or some things that we've done there. We have implemented IM which is a math program. We're in year one of that. It is uh

018what many of people might call different math like we're doing that differently. The math hasn't changed. um it's just instead of teaching tricks and and and things like that, we're it's really an exploratory way of learning the math. And I find that when they are learning that in an exploratory way, um it it it really sinks in a little bit better rather than just a quick memorization that you forget. Uh so we're in year one of that. Looking forward to what year two and three look like because they're also doing that in the younger grade levels because it it is it is different and to start out it's hard. Uh but we've gotten to a point where the kids understand that it's not that they there's they're doing a lot of the heavy lifting. They

019are really exploring these things and working through those. We're also doing Blazer time. Uh in Blazer Time you we're using math 180 which is a similar program to the read 180 but focused on where are you in math and where are your biggest needs so we can fill those gaps for them in math in addition to the achievement coaching and the goal setting that we're doing. Again, we want to make sure that they understand that these are in these are important and these are lifelong skills that you're going to take with you beyond middle school on into high school and beyond. And just the understanding that these are important and we want to support them along the way. Courtney, the uh 70% benchmark in reading uh it's that's a significant growth. Nick, any idea the

020disconnect? you got 70% of students meeting the national benchmark and reading on the PSAT um versus the KSA predictor, you know, they don't add up. I mean, that's something that Court and I have talked about. It's like we're seeing um we we obviously there's not as much growth here. That's true. There's still areas to work on, but definitely within that PSAT, we we've seen that growth. So, I think when I look at that, I think we are making the right strides and we're doing the right things and that I think we'll start to see those graphs kind of we'll see that. It's just for some reason in the in the world of ELA, we don't quite see it that quite as bit as much because it's only a KSA that was taken last last year

021at the end of the year and then a diagnostic that we've taken twice this year. Whereas in math, we've been using IM for the whole year. I think that is part of it. It's been a yearong process and it's been all three grades. Whereas E is a pilot that we're only in eighth grade right now. So our sixth and seventh graders I mean if you look at eighth grade we're seeing some of that growth in the eighth grade at 9% increase. That's where the pilot is being is at Bloomfield Middle School this year. Is it in all of the um is it in all three grades or is it just eighth grade is doing the e? The is just eighth grade. So again sixth and seventh grade are not doing that e. It's piloted for

022us in just the eighth grade class. We just started really around December piloting that. So they had a little bit of time before they took this already January and then they've been doing March. Yes. And E is a knowledge curriculum which the tests are more knowledge based. Those assessments are very different ACT. So we're not seeing a correlation necessarily between those two tests. Exactly like it's hard to just know that if it goes up that's good, right? Like so um KSA compared to PSAT and saying that they measure two different things. Is it that in that some are true reading skills, some are more of the writing skills? Is there some variance in that sense between the two assessments? The ones that are on PSA are more like readidents. Thank you. Yeah, the PSAT is

023nationally normed skillsbased assessment. And so just looking at this chart, so because it's hard for me to read this far away because I'm going blind, but like so when we look at the percentages on the left, is that like 30% 40% is the top. So we're measuring the number of students within that grade that are proficient, right? Distinguish and distinguish. Okay. Yeah, this is math. That's reading. And is the benchmark for the PSAT set as like the national norm for what would be considered proficient at that grade level? Okay. Thank you. Lots of checks. Significant. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to the Nelson County Seal of Arts Excellence with Miss Arnold and M Gilbert. So, over the past year, Nelson County's arts program leads in grades 6 through 12 have had the

024opportunity to work with Dr. Gibert, and she is definitely an expert when it comes to the arts. Each day I get to spend with her, I learn something new about the arts and get excited about the opportunities that she and our arts leaders are creating for students grades 6 through 12 this summer. She's going to start working a little more with our elementary related arts programs as we think about music and art expansion. But tonight, she's going to share with you some of the progress that she's made grades six through 12 and programming uh that we'll be offering going into next school year. Good evening. Um in 2022, the Kentucky Department of Education established the seal of arts excellence, which equates very much to the pathways that you'll see in other fields. Uh the arts

025they they named it something different I guess because the arts are just different. Um we have a slide here. Yes. Um they've come up with different pathways that you could follow that prepare you in the arts for careers and for uh college if that's the route that you want to go. the pathways that they um that really work here in Nelson County are instrumental music, vocal music, media arts, visual arts, and theater. Um there are many other divisions down under there. For instance, you could have a performance theater performance or technical theater. Uh the state allows for lots of variation that way, but we've established these at Nelson County that we believe we have the staff, the classes, the curriculum, and the expertise to offer five different pathways for those students who are gifted in

026the arts. Um they they lead to enormous career options in life. They uh earn the seal of excellence by completing three different courses. And this was very important in establishing the pathways that you couldn't just be in the band for you know three years and you get a seal of arts excellence. You have to actually understand the art form. So you have to take sequential courses an introduction the theory of the history of understand this art form and then how to use this art form. So that's one thing the state demanded and one thing that we can offer in Nelson County. Uh, another is once you have taken these courses and participated in the arts, you are required to to uh finish a capstone project, a culminating project that demonstrates your skill and expertise in

027this art form. So we have at the moment uh 60 students who have identified interests in this program uh for the future which I think is a wonderful number just to start out 60 students who want to pursue the arts. Um, we are excited about their possibilities and one of the things that the state says is that we as a school district should recognize their achievement by giving them a special graduation cord, a seal on their diploma or an inscription on their diploma that says they have achieved this um, and recognition in any of our local events where we have honors nights at our different high schools. So, we believe that we have the the wherewithal to offer this special pathway for these five areas in the arts and we are could not be more

028excited about it. I would agree with the excitement for sure. I think being in the arts anyway, it's just one of those things that typically get overlooked. Um, and I think those students definitely 60 amazing. like that's that's really a great number for an arts collective. So, I'm excited and um I have heard wonderful things about what you've done for the arts here in Nelson County and you know just being able to bring people together and um have more of a collaborative approach and really supportive. So, I'm excited that we're going to be able to offer this to students and be able to recognize the work that they do. Thank you. I've been able to get out some in the community and see what's possible for students here within our own community. Where can they

029get experience and at the same time improve their own community? Uh it it's just marvelous what is possible within the BST community and it's been exciting to go explore these opportunities. Do our students have access to all three courses on our high school campuses or are some of those independent study or dual credit? um they are all available within their campuses. Okay, good. So all of them there. We don't have any dual credit courses right now. Um that's something we hope to pursue because there are several of these courses that could become dual credit courses in the future and that would be a wonderful thing. But yes, they are available right there. Not independent study but classes and experiences that they will have on their own. So glad. Thank you. Any other questions I can

030answer? Does the board need to take formal action on this? Um, I think it would be great if the board could approve this this move. Um, the state wants board approval for these these seals. I think we can do that. So, I think the basic uh we didn't have a written motion on this one. I do think the motion is essentially to approve the arts collective seal of excellence as discussed. All right. We have a motion. I make the motion to approve the arts collective seal of excellence as presented to the board this evening. Do we have a second? Have a second. All right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Still of excellent it is. Thank you. Thank you so much and for letting me work with students. All right, moving on to

031our guest comments. Thank you for attending the Nelson County Board of Education meeting. Any person wishing to address the board may do so by following these rules. Individuals and individuals and groups are limited to three minutes. Please step forward and state your name and address. If you present represent a group, state the name of the group you are representing. We have first up Deborah Boaches. Group. Hi, my name is Deborah Bohvski. Excuse me. I'm from Bloomfield, Kentucky. And I'm speaking on behalf of a group called Save Oar Nelson County Schools. And um I just kind of wanted to address, of course, we all know the LPC, the local planning committee is underway and there's going to be lots of decisions coming forward. And of course, you as the board has the final decision, and it's

032no secret. We we need a plan. We've been kind of mumbling through um a little bit here. Um we need to definitely take a look at what we currently have, how we can utilize those facilities, look at our enrollment numbers, look at future trends. I know we've had some presentations about um census data, residential data for Nelson County, the lack of future expansion due to infrastructure. Um lots and lots of moving parts and as the board and our only voice, I I hope you do take all of those things into consideration. Um, of course, one of the big things is everybody I'm already getting questions. Are my taxes going to go up? I don't know. That's not my expertise. Um, I do know Jay Williams is speaking next week at the public library Tuesday the

03322nd at 6:30. The community is invited to ask questions and hear more about property evaluations and taxes, how that all works together. So, I encourage everyone to attend that. And you as a board again look at the big picture. Department of Education is being dismantled. We don't know how that's all going to play into um our local districts at this point. Our enrollment is down. We have buildings that are sitting at um about 39% capacity right now. So, please look at the big picture and I encourage you to make wise decisions using all of the resources available. And thank you for your service. Thank you. Next up, Bill Osborne Group. Uh, Bill Osborne, 120 Highland Drive, speaking for the Osborne 98. Thank you for allowing me to address the board tonight. But I know first

034I want to congratulate the three candidates that ran in November. I'm a big believer in democracy. You won the you won the race and and I'm tickled to death for you. I'm counting on you to do the right thing and and that's about our kids. The only thing that really upset with me, I I just looked at all the the money that was spent on both sides of this race and I thought, man, what we could do with that money in the school, thousands, tens of thousands of dollars on a schoolboard race. I served two terms starting in 99 and I spent less than $100 in eight years. I walked every night after work. I'd take two hours and walk and I said I will not spend money. I'm not going. If people want me,

035here I am. If if they don't, that's fine. But anyway, I just want to get that out of out of the way first. So, what I wanted to address you address the board about tonight, I've spent the last two or three weeks going back reviewing all of the face of the uh YouTube videos of board meetings and and just tried to make some sense of all the chaos that's been going on for a year and a half, two years. Um, I see one side getting up and and I've lost a lot of close friends, people who I thought would have my back till the day I died because I have a different opinion than some of the people in this room. And and that's not that's not a dem that's a democracy. You know, if

036we look if we got blinders on and say, "Okay, we're going to do it this way because this person said that that's not that's not democracy. We got to look at the big picture." And and here's what we've got, people. And I'll tell you the reason I'm I'm standing here tonight as a board member. Uh this building here is less than 30 years old. I don't know what year it was completed, but I know Old Kentucky Home is like 18 years old. And I see this group of people and I understand, you know, everybody wants everything for themselves. But no one has really sat down and explained to me why we're we're willing to walk away from this facility and my old Kentucky home and build two community campuses when we got two of the

037nicest middle schools in the state of Kentucky. It just doesn't make sense. You know, at what point are the taxpayers going to say enough? you know that I left the board in in 2006 and we built well we take it home central office the academy Boston we put geothermal heating and air in just about every school I think except for Coxus Creek we did some renovation at at uh New Haven and we we closed we got the three schools that I wanted closed that were in transition Boston Chaplain and Eli Brown were merged into one and it's right next door so I I I guess I'm confused confused about, you know, when you talk about putting an LPC together and looking at the needs of the county, I understand. We looked at it and we

038looked at Boston and Chaplain and Eli Brown and we said, you know, we we need to close those schools and replace them and we did. But anyway, uh the thing that really I went to the LPC committee meeting last week and I sat down by myself and I'm sitting there and this older gentleman walks up, your time is up. I'm going to let you go for five minutes on groups is only three minutes. We're only doing three minutes. Change it. Um we've changed it over the last two months, but here's the thing. Just let me I'm going to let you finish. Okay. Um because I know you're in the middle of a thought, so go right ahead. Where where was I at? I' got confused now. A man that came up to you. Oh, and

039and uh he said asked me my name, introduced himself, and I never met this guy in my life. So there are people out there, you know, I' I've dedicated my life to this school system. And if anybody in there denies it, go ask Johnny Snder. Go ask Minor Harmony. Go ask the pe the teachers and administrators that have come before us. Go ask Dr. Jan Lance. My life has been Nelson County Schools. But I'm being attacked daily on the internet in person. And I thought, did I spend 50 years donating my life for nothing? you know, but I I asked the committee, the this board, and it comes down to this board. You will either be able to adopt adopt with modifications or reject all from the LPC. That's the way the law unless it's

040changed. So, I I I ask you to please look at the needs and and and I'm not saying the facilities plan shouldn't be on the agenda or on the on the on the LPC's recommendations, but there are things I think that we need to address before we address middle schools because we have two beautiful middle schools. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Bill. All right, moving on to consent agenda. Again, the board received this information in advance. There were a couple things that um we just wanted to go over really quickly. Superintendent Bradley, I think one of them was the um the paving and pest control. I just wanted to verify that those were the lowest bids that we that were accepted. And then um was there some there was something on the Was

041that it? That was it. Okay. Any questions? All right. Um, so moving on, we need an approval for the consent agenda or a motion. Sorry, a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll make a motion to approve it as presented. All right. Thank you. And do we have a second? Second. All right. We have a second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. All right, moving on to Miss Sheerhorn. Good evening. So, we have a lot of good uh news to celebrate this month. Um we learned the day of the board meeting last month about this grant. Um but we didn't know a lot of the ins and outs um yet. So, we are uh formally going to ask you to accept this grant tonight. It's the Kentucky Comprehensive Literacy

042Grant um in totaling uh $1.56 million. And as you can see on the graphic, this is how it breaks down um to the requirements of the grant, how the money is spent um for preK to adopt the curriculum and to provide the professional development for the teachers. Um, and elementary, they're going to be using districtwide the EEL curriculum for uh K through five and then provide that professional development uh specific for those teachers. And then middle and high school for middle school, they're going to continue to um spread the EEL. Um, as you heard, BMS, they're piloting it this year. And then in sixth and seventh they'll roll that out next year with the help of this grant. Um and then provide the professional learning with that. And then in high school they'll be using

043the Odell uh for high school literacy program. So we just wanted to have our director speak a little bit to uh the collaborative process and let us hear and where they see how they see this playing out over the next year. So first of all we're super excited about this. So, as you know, we've started EL, we've started dabbling in this, we have all the things we need, but this is really going to allow us to expand that professional development. It's going to expand opportunities. As you know, we have um teachers outside of EL curriculum. It's also going to allow some more training around um science of reading. So, letters training, we have the state offering that for free, but that won't always be the case. So, over the next five years, we'll as new

044teachers come in, we'll be able to offer that internally. Um some of our preschool have not had that science of reading training. So them to get the early childhood letters. Um them working on teapot is their new kind of environmental thing. So that's going to work through creative curriculum. So all this works through their assessment platforms called TS Gold if you're not familiar with that. But creative curriculum aligns right with that. So that's going to help our preschool system. So we're excited. We're actually working um with them and Gre on building a outline for them to help us through that professional development, developing the curriculum, training them on the science of reading in the preschool world. So, that's exciting. And then elementary world, we're going to be able to expand. EL actually just put out

045new modules for um 2025. So, we're going to be able to put some of that money to get expand our libraries as far as what books the kids are reading. There's different modules. So we have um example like dig deep is a four or five split. We have other splits like at Boston and New Haven where kids who are in third grade may already have the third grade e. Well this expansion will allow us to do a different module with them when they actually get to third grade because they did it as a second grader. Um same thing with dig deep. They're doing fifth grade as a fourth grader. So now they'll get a different module when they get to fifth grade. So that's going to allow us to do that. So, we're just really

046excited to be able to work with our partners around the professional development and just really getting the teachers trained on what they need training on, what they want to grow in, and then be able to have this kind of cushion of extra resources and continue to expand that the literacy component from preschool to fifth grade. And then, uh, Courtney will talk a little bit about middle and high school. Yeah. So, the funds from this grant allows us to expand our use of EL at the middle school level and also enhance our professional development around that. We already have professional development scheduled for our admin who are working to support the English teachers in May. So that fall is kind of already rolling. So we're going to do professional development with our admin before we do

047professional development with our teachers this summer. I think that's one of the nice things about this grant application process. When we're going through the process, I thought this is very beneficial to think through all the professional development. There's some external professional development that's required in addition to internal. It's really designed to kind of build capacity of those within the school system to lead when the grant maybe is not there. So, that's been something that's been really nice. Um, and as you could see from the data we looked at earlier, the EL curriculum works. We saw that difference there. So, we're excited to continue that pilot. Um, and then for Odell for high school literacy, that's the high school end of that curriculum. All of its open up resources. The Odell is the high school end

048of what we would say EL is for middle school and elementary. Um, so we're already piloting some of those literacy tools with our high school teachers. They've picked some literacy tools. We're diving into that. So, those are like instructional practices. So again, while the grant supports us starting this summer, we're already starting to kind of dive into the curriculum, look at some different resources and continue to roll on with our plan. So very exciting work and big shout out to Dr. Sheerhorn here for going through that process. It was a big grant. I know you all didn't read it, but it was very hefty process. So I really appreciate your support in that. What has been um the response or feedback from the teachers who have been implementing these curricula in the pilot phase? Well,

049honestly, it's a heavy lift. It is a huge lift because it's a little bit different. As uh we said earlier, it's a knowledge building curriculum where maybe before they were used to reading an excerpt from a text and working on theme all week for the week and then next week we're going to read a whole different excerpt from something totally different. We're going to work on a new skill. It was very disconnected where this they are working on a just a knowledge piece. Maybe it's trees for a long time and kids really get tired of trees but they know everything about trees. Teachers will say as I was driving on vacation I was picking out the trees and what they had and and it really just lets them build vocabulary around the topic and then

050they can write more about it. They can talk more about it. So it it hasn't been easy. I won't say that at all because it's a heavy lift. It's a hard curriculum, but it's very uh it has very high expectations and it's pushing our um students and it's pushing us to just be better at teaching literacy and reading. That's been our our kind of take this first year um at the elementary level. I've spoken with some of the teachers who've been around for a while and a couple of them had remarked that they felt like this was the best curriculum that they had experienced and it sounds as though it supports that crosscurricular learning and that real world application because in reality when most of us graduate we're doing more authentic reading to learn and

051to know how to do our jobs and to get information and it's very heavy in science and social studies topics. So, I know a lot of times in especially in the K2 world, sometimes those get lost. So, it really allows us to focus on science topics or social studies topics that kids are interested in, but they may not always get to to hear about. Um, teachers have commented just the writing expectation. You know, at first even kindergarten teachers are like they want kids to write a sentence in October. Like that's not something that we've talked about. So, just that pushing us to think, well, how do we get kids to write a sentence in October in kindergarten? What does that look like? So, it's helped us become better and think through how do we hold

052high expectations because if this is what the curriculum says kids can do and we have groups and we like there's nationwide support groups basically where kids are doing it and they're posting it and we're seeing it and we're constantly getting to talk about that and so it's really just allowing us to think through how do we get there. I know there's a strong evidence base behind this curriculum too and a lot of research showing that that it's very effective with students. Um, one other question that I would have is you made reference to the libraries that this could help strengthen that. Can you speak a little bit more to that and elaborate for us because that's been a topic we've we've been well and when I in that context it was really just libraries within

053the classroom. Also libraries for teachers to be able to check out. So the EL curriculum has very strict text sets that it uses. So we've been able to purchase that was a huge purchase for year one for us was the text sets that go along with the EL curriculum. So really when I say expand that, it's expanding those text sets. Also, they have recommended texts that would be in the libraries available. Like when I'm doing this unit, these are all the recommended text that I could pull to have in my classroom. So it would do that. And then it would also, like I said, the the new text that's coming out would expand that in my classroom library and be able to check out those recommended from the regular library as well. I think I

054do have one more question. Um, as parents, I think sometimes we tend to look back to how we were we came through in the reading books, the traditional anthologies that we had. What will parents expect to see out of these curricula? What will they be looking at? Like how will they know what their children are doing and reading? So, um, it has home connect. So, that's one big thing. It's huge on family partnership and community based building. So, they'll get those those home connects. Um, also there there are components where it asks kids to go home and take the chapter book to read. That's not necessarily something we've been doing because you know if I have a classroom and 10 kids read it at home but the other 11 didn't, then I have to figure

055out how to catch the 11 up. So really we've been trying to figure out how we do that in class instead of asking parents to read a chapter at night because it's just kind of the rollover of everyone doing it versus some. Um, same concept with homework. It's just thinking through what's the best practice. So parents may or may not see the chapter book come home. It's just really we're trying to do that within the school, but they would see other smaller text, decodable text around the topic. They could see kids checking out the recommended text that go along with it. They may not see the exact text that the kids reading every day. They're definitely going to see the writing about it, hearing about it, what kids are talking about because they if you

056go in one of those classrooms, they are talking about whatever that text is. They're they're high value texts and they're excited about them. And I hope we see some um family involvement events where they can learn more about the curricula and how to support their students through this. Yeah, that's also included in the grant is that family component of it, which is really exciting. Um and the middle school level of EL, it is all novel based. Every unit is paired with a novel. So right now, if you go into OKH, they have multiple grade levels that are piloting. you will see students with the books open in the morning and at lunchtime and after school because what one thing that we have seen is kids are excited about the books they're reading and they want

057to read more which is also something that's really great. Um, and then your question about I guess maybe some of the texts that you would have learned in high school, maybe I would have learned in high school. That's something that's nice about the Odell curriculum. Um, that's part of the reason why we selected it is there's a nice balance between what would be like the classic canon and also modern text. So they have these really compelling questions that I think kids will really get into like even exploring what is the American dream now, you know, like just big questions for us to grapple with. They pair it with things that we would read and then things that they really are interested in that are more modern in nature. So I think it's really exciting. I'm

058excited about the curriculum. So how many districts received this award, Miss Horn? Do you know? Yes, I actually asked about that because I wanted to see how competitive we had been in that process. Um 39 received the award and she did indicate. She said she couldn't tell me the exact number for confidentiality reasons, but she said we were very competitive. They had several more applications than the 39 that were not awarded. And I think that's really is a good time to kind of bring this to the table, too. We have standardiz standardized testing in Kentucky. Everyone knows that. We're judged every year. But that doesn't mean they provide curriculum to the school districts. Grants like this, why it's exciting to see the numbers and the money behind it, it's what they provide with that money

059that we should be excited about. It's the curriculum that has been studied and piloted across the district so that we know we are bringing to the table for students the best that we possibly can. and having money at our fingertips like this that not only provides that curriculum but also supports it with our educators. This is invaluable. Like these three people and the grant writers, you know, Miss Sheerhorn, she is worth her weight and gold. So when like I said, we can get excited about that money all day long, but what we should be getting excited about is the fact that we now have invested and this isn't coming out of our general funds. We've now being we're going to be able to invest in curriculum that supports everything that we're trying to do across

060the district and it supports our educators and it supports students and above all those are our two most important groups. So, we have to celebrate the work that Missure Horn is doing and the fact that Hope and Courtney put so much effort and energy into making sure that it is the right curriculum and that it's across the district. It's not just in one school. This is bringing all of our students learning together and moving forward together. And just just to say, uh, Kucky's done a lot of work around curriculums that they would like you to use and what those standards are. So just thinking about how do we choose those? Um, the EL curriculum is actually we're required to put in a document for KDE, what curriculums we're using for tier 1, tier 2, tier

061three, and then they give us a a layout of all. So we're able to go to whichever district we want and see like what are they using versus this and able to talk to them. So EL is the number one curriculum in the state right now. So, we were a little bit ahead of the game in even picking that, but we were excited to see that, too, because we see a lot of people find the value just like we did in picking it. And over the last few years, this has really been a shift in the district to go districtwide before because again, and being on site based at Boston, I felt like we were the lone wolf. Like we did our own thing and everything that was made was truly made at the local

062level about what curriculum was going to be brought into the classroom. This is this is powerful stuff and and it it really, like I said, it's going to continue to just move Nelson County schools forward together. I think this is such a vital piece when we look at what we what the studies show of what works in schools. Having that unified system of instruction and curriculum is so vital and not just buying the materials, but the ongoing professional development and learning. Um, and being able to pay our teachers to come in and have time to plan together and then form those connections to continue those discussions across their professional learning communities is just invaluable. And um, I don't know that the work could be done as effectively without having a grant because $1.5 million is

063very costly and it can be a barrier to a district in being able to implement such a thing. So, great work. Thank you all for your leadership and for the time to to bring um everyone together to do that application because I know it was a team effort. So with that being said, we we have two grants here. Yes. So do we want to accept the first one or do we want to hear about the second one? We um we have this we can do them both at the same time the way it's written. Um so then the second one uh we did apply for um to continue our work in Kentucky um adult education. Uh so we were awarded a grant for um 2026 through 2028 um about a half a million dollars um

064to continue that work through um pathway up um with Miss Morgan and um we will be serving Nelson Washington Mary and me counties and Dr. Sherhorn. My understanding is that with the adult ed grants, Kentucky does these typically as a a block grant by county. So it's one one entity can serve a county. It's not duplicative in nature. So you don't have three groups doing the same thing. Is that still the case? That is true. Yes. Um, so whoever chooses to submit that grant for that county, then they go through the competitive um, rubric and they really put points on like what program has the most merit and then that's the one they award. Yeah. And I'll also comment, I know this was a continuation for us, so that speaks to the strength and the

065success of the program to date. So, um, because that weighs in. So, congratulations to you and to our adult ed. Um, this is also something and we took over. Uh, when when did that happen, Miss Arnold? How much money have we received in the two years to support adult ed throughout the region? Yeah. And so this is something we don't hear much about. So this adult ed is this like we're providing teachers that are instructing. I mean so I worked with uh Miss Morgan a lot to develop this application and um really my understanding of this process as well. Um and so what it'll do is um we have a site at each of those counties where um adults can come and they can um they can yeah you may speak to it more proficiently

066than the adult ed ecosystem is broad. Yes. So the adult ed grant for Kentucky it's received actually through some federal and state dollars. So it includes both federal and state dollars. It's a competitive process. So through adult ed, one of the first priorities is GED courses and helping individuals attain GED. So we do that for all four of those counties in addition to um workforce training. So there might be businesses or a community need to provide certain certifications or credentials. So that's an opportunity. We also do do courses in um like our local prisons. Like that's a reality. that's a part of the programming. So, there are instructors who provide that training. We actually did a welding training last year for uh inmates in Nelson County. So, we worked closely with Justin Hall and provided

067that and it was really a great outreach because we had individuals that were leaving that system and this was their entry point into a job. So, that kind of gives you a broad idea. So, we have individuals in all four counties. Kristen Morgan oversees the whole process. We also have a career navigator that's a part of that work that works with all of our students to think about job placement if they are seeking some type of employment through that process. So two two big grants here. Congratulations. sale is also a part of that um offer that's a part that's an aspect of the adult ed that we really focused on in the application because they're wanting to develop that part as well. So offering adult ESL services. That's cool. Congratulations. Thank you. So with that,

068we need a um motion to accept the grants as presented. I'll make the motion. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. All right. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. Thank you all. Thank you and congratulations. All right. All right. I do not have a check for $2 million. So, uh, come before you tonight to look at our final staffing allocations. I want to spend a lot of time focusing on really this process because, uh, there are quite a few moving parts. Um to summarize, back in February, we kind of had a a finance overview uh Jessica and I did and really a key theme is uh fundbased finance accounting. I do that right? Um and so when you think about really fund based accounting, you know, funds

069go into a certain account and that's kind of what's used to pay for certain things. So when we look at the staffing or or people that are listed here, it does not include everybody in the building. So really the the staffing we're looking at are your certified personnel uh which traditionally your teachers and administrators and counselors that's your section four and seven and then classified section five and then section six is really the spending money that that local schools and SPDMs have control over to support student learning. So those are really the the allocations we're looking at tonight. Other allocations like special education that's a different pot of money. Uh there's also hourly type people that work inside our buildings. That's also not addressed here. So just want to start with that. Uh obviously what

070we're targeting first day of school August 13th. We want highly uh qualified personnel really working to support our students and families and making sure our buildings are staffed in a way so that we can do that. Um the whole process is very uh enrollment driven in terms of really the allocation. How many people you need is highly predicated upon how many students are in that space. Uh so that enrollment process really starts in late December and early January and just trying to track uh students transitioning from one grade level to the next or from one building to the next. Uh we also have a lot of out of area or out of district applications that come through that starts in early January and really just trying to determine how many students might that building house.

071Uh so that starts very early. Um and then really through February and March, um our HR team, finance, myself met with each principal, uh two times really just to listen to their perspective about uh how we're allocating resources to their building, what's working well, uh where could we really spend our money more intelligently, um and just kind of listening to them and that was obviously very helpful. Uh some other things that have occurred, we've have our student scheduling conversation. So, as kids think about what courses I want to take next year, uh, local schools lead those, uh, online registrations opened up. So, you think about kindergarten families that are new to our district. Uh, they could start enrolling because it's really hard to estimate how many K's are going to come inside your space, but

072they could start registering really as early as March. We had our openhouse events for preK and K families. Uh, and that brings us to today. So uh in in a summary, I feel pretty good about the projections as far as how many kids will be in each building and that really drives uh the allocation process. So again, you take the allocation ratios that we discussed believe in February. Uh and then really that's how you come up with your allocation. So we have our certified which is again section four and seven and then you have your classified section six and these are just a few of the notes that I so any questions tonight you'd be approving the the final allocations as presented. Do any of these represent significant shifts or changes in the formulas for

073allocation? Meaning I know that it's typically based on a number that you have a set number of students, a certain number of students you receive. You have one principal or one AP or zero ops. Have um there been any significant shifts or changes in those allocations? No, no significant shifts. So the ones in the top here would be your these are your section four. So, think of it like this. Your traditional classroom teachers, how many of those do you get? Really not counting elective or related arts. These are just your general classroom teachers. That's those are the allocation ratios. And then section seven is kind of above and beyond. Those are your traditional related arts. That ratio is 125 to one. Um, and then as far as the other counselor and AP, generally speaking, what

074we've done in the past is around 300 students consistently inside your building year toyear. So, every time you get that 300 bump, you may explore having a second AP, for example. So, um, like OK is a is a great example. Their enrollment increased significantly. Uh, they're now really at that 600 threshold that would really justify two counselors and two assistant principles. So, uh, that's the methodology behind that process. Same really with as you look at content specialists at the elementary level. Something I'm glad to see is that we have um lower than the statemandated ratios for basically our ele our primary programs and that's something that's been a hot topic at the legislative level this year because the importance of that and I'm glad to see Nelson County has decided to do that. So, as

075a reminder, this is really this would be our second year uh with that really lower allocation ratio at the K5 level. Um we just felt like, you know, obviously the students are smaller, need more assistance. Um we felt like that was a good investment and we estimated that as $400,000 investment to really lower those. It it was also just to be frank, you know, it's a good example of where we're acknowledging reality in some of our smaller outlying schools like New Haven, Boston, and Bloomfield because of the size of New Haven, Boston, and Bloomfield. We knew in order to sustain the that work going on there, we had to reduce the staff size to to what we did last year. We estimate that at about a $450,000 investment uh in that reduction. We believe it's

076worth it. It's also about sustaining those outlying schools. In this by the same token, when we look at cost of delivery in the local planning committee, this is one of those things that adds to that cost of delivery where the board has prioritized that primary experience for families and kids across the county. And really the only like the only issue that every year when I see it, I see this media librarian and I see too across our whole district. And I know that we've made changes in terms of like adding other people to help and whatnot, but um you know that's really powerful work that that we're asking really two people to do, you know. So I I still would just challenge us to look at that and and make sure that that is adequately

077BD. It's really encouraging the presentation about the new curriculum and how that's going to integrate, you know, the reading and no I love that they'll be reading novels and we're getting kids in books, but like you know Still, that's just seems like seems like such a small number for for the libraries that we have. So, these numbers do not include special education. Correct. Because they're not section 47. Um, correct. And um what about um our literacy specialists? Are they reflected in these counts? So, that would be their content specialists um at the Hope Makesment. I think we've talked about it in the past as far as uh board priorities, but uh we've learned a lot from the literacy specialist role at our K5 levels. We're trying to figure out how do we take that work

078and expand it also into the math world. So instead of listing literacy specialists, those are now content specialists. Um at our larger elementaryaries, they would have one dedicated to literacy and one dedicated to math. In our smaller elementaryaries, we'd have one person that's really focused on math and literacy support. Uh simultaneously. [Music] And this is consistent of the February conversation, correct? Yes. And this would not include any staff who are decided at the district level. Correct. That may serve multiple schools. Right. So, um like currently we have at the 612 level, we have the math content lead, design lead that's been working with all the middle schools and high schools. We're looking to expand that next year to offer additional content support at the 612 level. Um we're also exploring that at the K5 level

079to continue to get additional support as far as understanding that curriculum and working to build that capacity with those teachers. So yes, very good. That's something we had talked about as a priority. So I'm glad that so all those folks that come to fruition, they're just not reflecting not listening. This would be school specific. Yes. Okay. I want to go back to something that you said. I don't I think I don't want it to appear that it's getting swept under the rug. No, I think um I tend to agree that two people covering the libraries across the district is a very low number. I think it's something we definitely need to sort of explore and understand a little bit more. Um, and it may be that it's just I don't understand how our media specialists

080are working with our students, how they're getting books in their hands. So maybe that's something that we need to add to that um working session. I would like to just understand that a little bit more. Okay. Um and and really just again it's about if it's about getting books in the hands of our students. It sounds like you guys are doing that. But once we get them to fall in love with reading because that's the goal, right? Can what are we doing to make sure that we're engaging that conversation? So, um, we'll come back to that when we start talking about meetings, but I think that's something that we definitely need to look a little bit deeper around and understand a little bit more so we can understand that number and if that's something that

081we need to find a way to invest a little bit bigger in. So, it's definitely a challenge we have not ignored. It's something we're continuing to explore and it really our thought process behind it and what we're learning evolves all the time. Uh we did at the K5 level in every elementary we did allocate some hourly personnel to support the libraries in that space. Really feedback we've gotten from the local schools is that's working really well and they're getting a lot out of uh those people especially when they find the right person. Um so again those hourly people are not listed here. We have allocated additional resources to it, but I agree it's a challenge we want to continue to explore and figure out the best strategy to approach it. All right, I appreciate it.

082All right, so um any further questions? All right, so we need a motion to approve the 2025 2026 final SPDM allocations as presented. I have a motion. I'll make a motion. Do we have a second? Second. All right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. So, next up, more uh really resource allocation. We're going to take a look at our salary schedule. Um so, we're going to spend some time talking really big picture priorities, talk about some changes we're going to have. Uh I'll let Mr. Bradley kick it off here. the first couple slides. As you know, our conversation around staffing and salary schedule is uh a big one. And we've been fortunate to continue to advance salaries aggressively over the last six years. Uh and as we think about that, you

083know, our at the beginning of the meeting, Miss Bowling talked about our mission. Um and this is not just for students, it's also for staff. We want our staff to continue to thrive in work in life. And a part of that is looking at how we continue to compensate and not just compensate but provide opportunity for career advancement and growth. Uh it's not part of tonight isn't really just about salaries, it's about all the other opportunities. I think the one area where we've separated oursel from most districts is we've not only worked to increase salaries, but we've also allowed for greater flexibility and for those employees that want to pursue additional days, that want to pursue additional professional growth, that want to pursue additional compensation. Um, and we'll talk about that as well. It's not

084just a salary schedule anymore. It's a package as we think about offering flexibility for employees based on where they are in their career. So, with that said, this is I forgot this is my slide. Tonight, we're talking about a few key things. Um, we are looking at an advancement that will cost the district approximately $600,000 additional next year in salary schedule. Uh that includes $1,000 across the board for all uh parts of the salary schedule uh for certified and 50 cents for classified. 50 cents on a 240day schedule is about the same as a thousand. By percentage it's a little higher. Um we are also looking at a few additional layers of this that are also uh at a cost to the district. We have begun to advance heavily in CEO rank change programs and

085we've also continued to advance the way we look at teacher leadership and summer pathways. That work alone is advancing us annually at about a half a million dollars. Lastly, uh we'll be hearing more about this in May and June, but we're looking at uh the work of staff benefits and leveling up in that work. And you'll hear a little more about projected costs for maternity and paternity leave, uh, staff child care and bereavement leave. These are all new layers to our benefits package. Ultimately, we're doing the thing that we think will continue to allow employees to thrive and work in life. Uh, so I share that to say while other districts may or may not increase salaries by $1,000 or more, we've been on a six-year journey of advancement. You'll see some of that graph

086tonight. But we're looking at it more comprehensively uh with the benefits work we're doing and with additional career growth and advancement programs. As Mr. Bradley said, we're recommending this year $1,000 um for the certified schedule, which is the salary schedule. There are some classified and classified professionals on that if you're on a salary. And that is for 186 days. And then the 50 cents will be on hourly for classified people who are paid on the hourly basis or hourly as needed employees. And that um also we will have the step but that's always in our salary schedule. You know each year if you're on step 15 this year you'll move up to step 16 and then you'll get the additional raise that we're recommending as well. And I think it was either last meeting or

087the meeting before you all talked about hope um wanting to maybe expand our salary schedule. So what we have done is we have added steps 28, 29, and 30. We used to max out at 27, and we just followed the same percentage increase steps as the other. This is up from 25 a few years ago. I'm very glad to see that. I think that um there not a lot of districts who necessarily do this. Some do, but not all. And there's a great amount of value in staff who've been experienced and been with us. And in that recognition and acknowledgement that they too deserve additional funds for the amount of time they have served. Agreed. And like I said, we just cons continued the same percentage increase for each step. I agree. I think that's

088been a long time coming. I mean, we've really been creating a disincentive for these really experienced great teachers to stick around. So, that's exciting. And then um as he said um the raise will cost us approximately 600,000 and then the benefits and the CEO rank change we're looking at around 400,000. As our um CFO, do you feel confident that we um have the funds available to sustain this across time? I'm going to give the answer that I've been taught to give, which is that depends. That's right. That's right. I you know I can't predict the future. I can't predict what tax rates you you'll um vote into each year. I can't predict that. But I can say, you know, we have really worked hard to have our general fund insulated by all the esser that

089we had. We've talked about that for years. Um you know, as we continue to grow as an county, I mean, I feel confident that where we are at right now, we are fine, but it's always that depends because I can't predict the future. And I would I would ask it a little bit differently. You're making this recommendation because you feel comfortable with us making this decision. Yes. Yes. I don't like to say that because so you know you guys are asking the wrong person here. You never ask a finance officer. You got to ask my answer is always no. We don't anything. Nobody know. But but I know you guys always look to the future. you're always looking 10 years, 20 years out. Um, which again we appreciate. Um, but more importantly, we really appreciate

090you making a recommendation because as we said a few weeks ago, we really do want to be ranked in the top 10% for staff and um staff benefits and salaries. So, I think this gets us closer to closer to that. I agree. And I would like to say, you know, we do have a healthy general fund balance at this moment and we have planned for that. our general fund balance will decrease. I mean, that is just the nature of the game and it's how we've planned it and it's what's going to happen. But, you know, as we progress through the years, we'll have to look at everything and we'll always have to look at where do we feel comfortable, where do we feel is a healthy balance. Um, but you know, we need to take

091care of our people just the same. And we just have to Well, what I appreciate too, the last two years when we get around tax time and we have that meeting where we have to vote on the tax rate, there's been presentations about where we're saving money. So, we know that it's going to cost us more, but I appreciate when we get to the fall, like show us where, you know, as you had in the past, where we can save money and sort of make up for for the things that we need to do because we definitely, I mean, I think we can skimp on some things. We can't scamp on compensation. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we always work on optimization as well around different days like he was talking about extended days, different things like

092that. We work it around where um hopefully coming out ahead. I appreciate that because we want to keep our services and we talk about that and we still have to be financially aware of what's prudent with taxpayer dollars. Absolutely. And um so honoring our staff is vital and making sure of course that our students have the services they need. But but we do have to think about can we afford it. Yes, we do. Well, and I think it also goes back to the work that Dr. Sheerhorn's doing. It allows us to have some flexibility in other areas so we can support our staff in different ways. Um because without the grants coming in, there's a lot of things that we would have to pay for out of general funds like Dr. ly said that not

093a lot of districts have that flexibility. They're paying for curriculum. They're paying for that professional development. Um, and I think that we have to continue to support our staff and because again, it is about retention. It's about retaining and retention. Um, and drawing in new. So, thank you for the recommendation. Any further questions? Well, we had just a couple other slides. Um, these are ones we've reviewed in the past, but I have updated these. So again, just Mr. Bradley emphasized this, over the last really five to seven years, we've pushed the envelope on increasing staff raises. Uh so since 2019, depending upon your rank and your step, you're looking at 17 to 22%. And this is obviously with our if you all approve the recommendation, this would be u what the percentages would be. also

094at the classified level really again pushing the envelope I think by percentage much larger but at the same time one would argue that they needed to increase the most um and that's where we've made investments um another question really is thinking about kind of the age of our staff and I suppose the question may be from a from a resource or a human resources standpoint is you know when do we really see big transition of staff as you think about retirement and that may help us figure out you know where do we need to put resources into recruiting even more. Um, so I just ran a quick uh histogram really over your certified staff. So again, any teachers, counselors, uh, administrators. Um, and so that down here at the bottom really shows you the different

095ages and each bar represents how many people kind of fit within that age range. Uh, what it tells me is you I was surprised really a very even distribution minus a few outliers here. Um but generally speaking it was about 15 to 17% kind of in an age band age band. Um which tells me really recruitment will always be a priority. Um around that 15 to 17% every five or so years at the classified level. Pretty similar. Uh age of staff is a little bit older there. Uh but again a pretty even distribution uh age-wise of our classified personnel. I think we know that the classified staff tend to also retire and have take second roles in our cafes and in our transportation department. So this one does look a little different. Uh and we

096expected that. Um so yeah, I mean bus drivers, there are lots of bus drivers. So when you think about really um so they would make up a lot of this population. Um so they're kind of skewing the data there per se. the another you know again you guys have talked about really ranks uh salary ranks across the state this is just a reminder we've visited this slide as you think about uh rank three bachelor's masters and second masters really where do we rank across the state this is obviously old data uh districts across the state will be looking to looking at their salary schedule and so when the new data comes out I'll look to update that um but this is where we have have stood here within the last year and let's go back

09717 is the top 10% just as I mentioned the principles is the EST for estimated yes so really it's kind of hard to come up with um so what's published from KD or what I was able to find where the certified salary schedule which which looks more like um it looks more like this right and it's it's if you're on on 186 days is really kind of the base contract but if you have this degree in this many years if you work 186 days this is how money you make. Generally speaking, the administrators work more than that. They have more days. They have extended days. Many of them work 240 days. So, how a district calculates, well, how much extra pay does a a building administrator get? They have different mechanisms for calculating that. So,

098you would have to really look at every district and kind of study um how do they calculate their extended days? And it's different from one versus the other. Some base it on a percentage, some have more of a stipen level. So when I say this is an estimation, uh it's because that data is not necessarily readily available. At the same time, because they're certified personnel, they are all based their base pay is based upon the salary schedule. So I think it's a fair assumption to make that this ranking would be pretty similar to what we're seeing as far as a regular teacher. Where is our superintendent salary? That's something we'll have to I think a couple things. uh the principal's salary and I'll come back to this just to address it is we they don't

099get the same percentage because their stipen hasn't changed. So by percentage they're not always getting the same percentage as uh everyone else. Uh we also our central office staff is paid our directors are paid the same as principles. uh we did that to not incentivize principles necessarily to transition at the same our high school principles are actually paid at a higher level as a superintendent you know superintendents are oneoffs so they don't really they don't really fall into this um I would say the it's all a lot of that is about timing and I think you know mine is doesn't fall commensurate to these realities it's more on the bottom end of that but again that's really about timing of certain things that when those occur and and such but uh specifically I think it's

100in the bottom thirdish or bottom half. But is that found on the KDE web page now through the um they have to publish like salaries. Yeah, all this information is on the including superintendent salaries on the KD website. The principal salaries are not on the Katie website, but everything else is including enrollment, including teacher pay, including superintendent pay. Can we find what that is and add that to the slide? I'd like to have that rank in there, too. so that we have a frame of reference. Here's what I would say. In Nelson County, we've done a good job of of honoring um kind of both sides of the equation through the way we pay principles and teachers. And I would say the high school principal role currently is uh paid differently. Um but we as

101a whole feel like we continue to advance this work. uh we will continue to retain good people as long as the culture of our schools are strong and we're offering other ways to advance in their careers. What this doesn't include and I would say our our numbers are actually higher than this. This doesn't include all of this, this slide's a little jank, a little messed up, forgot to fully edit it. Uh but this doesn't include all of the additional money a teacher or uh instructional leader can access through summer leadership pathways um and other modes. So and I just want to make something really clear here that Amazon backpack thing while that is part of that package that never goes to the teacher. That is all student driven. So that is classroom supplies and things

102that they need for their students. So I I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that being we add it in there because it's not really a career growth. They're spending their own money and it also saves section for the schools a lot. I know I just like I would agree. It's my personal thing. It's like that's not even it's definitely not a career growth but I appreciate so much. Yes. I appreciate that so much because even though that that's $500 and that seems like a lot of money, I guarantee you they're still spending out of their pockets because if you go into Shay Lancaster's room down at Boston, well, let's just say it's better decorated than my my family room. So, um, they put a lot of effort and energy into their classroom spaces. So, I

103really appreciate that. That is something that the board was committed to. I think the point is here is obviously if you want to uh receive more money and work more, we obviously have an opportunity for you to do so. Um these other slides really again are just reminders. Miss Hogan spent a lot of time talking about additional benefits from bereavement, paid maternity leave, um really gym membership and other discounts and staff child care. We are continuing to evaluate these and this is really our estimated cost for these investments, but you'll hear more about them as we talk about the budget. as we get into May. Um, but we're continuing to explore those. And then really this is just a summary slide to kind of summarize what we've talked about today. Um, so today you would

104be approving uh the salary schedule as presented and the job descriptions associated with that. So we will not be approving the benefit packages that that's likely in May so that it would be in effect for next year. June would be the final policy discussion. with policy changes. Well, um, with that, any further questions? All right. So, we will need a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026 salary schedule and job descriptions as presented. I'll make a motion. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. Thank you guys. Alex, this is you. Yeah. So, nobody's own you forgot to change the slide. He typed his own name on this one. I did edit the slide. So, uh obviously we had lots of rain

105here recently. Um lots of flooding especially particularly in the Boston area. Um so this is really a request to um essentially request for an emergency day school waiver to the commissioner of education essentially asking for Boston school um to be waved two days of instruction. Um upon your approval we don't anticipate any issues as far as the commissioner approving that. In the grand scheme of things, the way the school calendar works, by law, students are required to have a,62 instructional hours. Even without these two days, Boston is above that threshold. Um, typically we also see 170 instructional days as kind of the minimum. Due to a variety of circumstances across the state, uh, they've waved that 170day minimum for this school year. So really, from my perspective, this is kind of for of a formality.

106Boston's already met the the law requirements in terms of instructional hours. Um, but by requesting this, we we were able to allow all of our other schools to function on those school days. We were allowed Boston really time and space to recover from that flooding. Um, so it gave us that flexibility to do so. Otherwise, we essentially would have had to cancel school across the district and obviously we didn't feel like that was best for students and families. So the ask is to request permission to uh apply for an emergency day school waiver for Boston. Just to be clear, this is a this is unprecedented in my time. Uh we've never done this before. It was unique. Uh and it was also brought possible by uh our transportation team and team members across the district

107working together to navigate uh how to still provide school to students in some cases who were also slightly impacted in some cases major impact. So, I will say um while we were unable to safely open the Boston school, it still took all types of people working together to then have school everywhere else. We also did have virtual connects at the Boston school. We didn't by law, we couldn't call those NI days, but we did have virtual connects with families to just continue to maintain that process. Well, and I appreciate everything that everyone did to make sure that those students were cared for um during that time and I know Boston bounces back um fairly easily. I feel like they've been through this before. So, I appreciate the work that the district put in. Um, Miss

108Belinda down at Boston, she was at the school basically 24 hours for multiple days taking care of families that came in and making sure that the school was um ready to accept anybody that we needed to. So, um I appreciate the the work that there's no question. I mean, you know, she's a saint. Um she was she not only was she there, she was highly effective. A for Boston school for the instructional days of April. Aber for Boston school for the instructional days of April 8th, 2025 and April 9th, 2025. I'll make a motion. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. All right. Thank you. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. All right. Next extracurricular priority update. This was based on feedback from Mr. Lefvers. Yeah. Tonight really we're just looking

109at a K5 youth athletics policy. the job descriptions that are accompanying that are part of this conversation. There's been some slight modifications to those. Those are part of a prior conversation. I'm going to be pretty uh to the point here. Um part of that conversation with the Mr. Lefavorvers, there was certain recommendations around policy and practice that were embedded into this idea that we have to ensure policies in support a spirit of collaboration in elementary schools uh in middle schools and high schools. This is just this policy is just K through five. U and that's just acknowledging that for context. We're also looking at ethical and legal practices. Previously we didn't have specific K5 youth policy at the district level other than our pretty broad student activity policy. Um and ultimately we want to have

110growth oriented practices and policies. We need something to lean against to get to strengthen practices. One of those recommendations was establishing governance values and policy structures to provide a framework which other structures can be built upon and that's really what this is all about. So this youth athletics policy, I've shared it with you. Um ultimately it provides overview of governance and oversight participation standards uh that would allow for an advisory committee of two coaches, two parents and the district youth athletic coordinator to ensure that we are building high quality youth experiences. It also provides direction around volunteer coaches and training, facility and financial management structures, communication and conflict resolution and confidentiality and privacy. Uh this is contingent upon two specific roles that we've updated. We previously did not have an official district youth athletic coordinator

111role. This is a stipended role that was a part of our salary conversation as well as a school participation coordinator which is a local elementary school uh athletic coordinator. Previously, we didn't have that role other than it being a generic stipen. Uh our long term, the goal is to continue to increase and strengthen district youth athletics. This district ath youth athletic coordinator role is a big role. Uh Alex will be working closely with them throughout the course of the year. Uh and it's going to help build capacity in our elementary schools. I'd like to um make a note that I did call and ask about this and these are not full-time positions just in case someone misses that it is a stop and it is can you tell us the type of person who would

112be into that and what like who would district coordinator um role it is a $10,000 stipen we do see it as a big lift uh as they'll be involved in multiple processes of improvement and and coordination across the district someone that has a high uh experience level with youth athletics with thinking about scheduling across time and space. Uh someone that's very invested and understands what it looks like to u build youth programming and uh that's a again a big lift something we've never officially had in the district. The K5 school coordinator needs to be heavily embedded into the school. They need to have a relationship with teachers, parents, and students to communicate opportunities very proactively to use data to ensure that they understand well in advance of the seasons what the shape of those teams

113look like as they compete either uh as an individual school or in some cases where they may combine with other schools to compete. Do we have a middle school policy somewhere? you know, middle school is a uh is this certainly begs for more clarity around middle schools and I think that's one next step that this really led conversations for people to have. Um, currently KHSAA governs much of the bylaws for high school athletics. Uh, it doesn't necessarily provide everything, but it proides pro provides most things to lean on. Middle school does not currently have KHSA uh involvement. Could it lead that in that direction long term? Maybe. But we definitely and I think our conversations at Bloomfield uh and no this past year show that we need to develop some policy for Bloomfield to lean

114on and protect some of their work as well as OK navigating that. What is the stipen? So the district coordinator would be a $10,000. The district that would be the stipen. What is it for the school participating? $2,500 for elementary. school would have that, right? Each elementary, yes, there's some complimentary roles that support with that. So, there would be like a basketball game coordinator that would work to support. So, the K5 school coordinator is not has doesn't have to be at every game every weekend, right? There's sport specific roles that are thousand stipens uh for coordinators slash, you know, someone that's really kind of potentially in some cases like archery or cheer may also be coaching. Um so again elementary schools has been loosely defined previously. This defines here are the priority programs in elementary

115schools and we're saying these programs are allocated resources to ensure coordination exists. Previously there's been some choice in the matter at times of do they have the program do they not? Um this is really going to force the district coordinator to ensure every kid's offered these opportunities. I appreciate the clarity and um I think that it will help us provide some direction and um I like the idea of doing that advisory um group to come together and work work cohesively across the district. I think it's easy when you have the number of schools we do to be divided and um this will be an effort to try to unify some things so that things can be more equitable and all of our students can have access. At what point what do you look to um

116what will be the process for for getting this district coordinator and and when would that start? So we would post the job sometime soon. Um and you know we have uh we certainly have people within the district that are already doing some like work that would potentially be of interest in that role we would be able to support. um and that you know there's lots of practices in place in our youth athletics that have grown it a lot you know in fact there's lots of people in our district that have contributed to growing programs over the last five to seven years uh and someone even like you know Bill Bratus who led kind of some of that basketball program for a decade for a decade or more kind of independently uh kept it afloat. Um,

117so building on that, we've had others more recently that have continued to invest heavily in youth athletics. Now there's a structure to lean on and build and make better. And that's what we and we didn't really have any policy in place to determine how we could say Boston, New Haven, Bloomfield in cases where maybe they needed to combine a team. Here's the structure to do that. And there was also no real place to lean against when practices maybe were considered uh to be not fair to certain you know age appropriate standards etc. Have our um athletic two athletic directors had an opportunity to review this policy. So we were able to share this for for uh review over the last week with all elementary and all high school uh and middle school the policy the

118K5 policy. Uh we've also had some discussion about these roles. I think the the job descriptions really just provide more formality to the seriousness of the role and ensure that they are aligning to the practices and the policies. Uh I I've had better conversations because of this policy over the last 10 days than around youth athletics than we've had previously because we've had something to lean on as a strong reference. So, it's been a very healthy process. Um, you know, there is uh there is a uh this advisory group process. It's an advisory group. They're not a decision-making group. They're allowing the district youth athletic coordinator to get to receive feedback and see from the lens of a parent and a coach what is working and how we can grow. So, I just want to

119be clear, this is not a decision-making group. It's an advisory group that provides support. It also allows them to understand and evaluate the policy as well throughout the process because in theory we'll be back revising that policy to strengthen it over time. Um there is a a huge interest in in youth athletics as you know and that's one of the reasons we we needed to strengthen our our clarity of practice. So I'm going to go back to something Dr. Lee said. Um, since we do not have a middle school policy, is that something that this is going to now lead us into that conversation? I think there's two things to consider. One, uh, Bloomfield Middle School, due to the size of it, uh, has already combined programs with OK over time. There was no real

120there was no real formal structure to engage in that process. Sometimes it occurred more openly, sometimes it just occurred. Um, and now obviously with with OK growing, it's created kind of new complexities uh this year and it begs for a clear policy that can drive athletic coordinators working together for kids. Um, it protects all sides of the equation. This district youth athletic coordinator, is this like a model that other districts um have experienced? So, not not every district experiences the challenges we do in terms of geography and schools, but is that something you face off other districts? You know, one thing I'm not very good at doing is sometimes talking to other districts about their practice because they're all so different within this youth world. Um so uh I think that if we look at

121the national policies and best practices from some of the national organizations this is this is partly a byproduct of looking at some of those best practices to enhance the parent role to enhance the coach's role and to ensure that there's a um safeguard in place to protect students but honestly I can't speak to I think most districts it's a mishmash of private public partnerships and randomness Um, so I don't there is no standard for youth athletics that I'm aware of. I think you could talk to 10 districts and probably get 10 different answers. My understanding is this evening this would be our first reading. So it's not there would be a second reading at a future meeting. We we Yes. And we would begin enacting the advisory group process on some level over the course

122of the next few weeks. There would be an opportunity if there's anything we've missed for people to provide feedback ahead of the next meeting. That's right. One quick thing. You said there was a lot of activities. Are we having anticipation of any issues with the volunteer coaches that are qualified or able to coach? So, uh, Miss Hogan just walked out, but, uh, one of the things we also want to update and create is a volunteer policy that is, uh, has more meat on the bone to support clarity. We don't want to make it labor overly labor for people to to volunteer and coach, but we do want more clarity around that process. Um, and we we have a structure now. We just want to make sure it's advanced and formalized as a board because there's

123so many volunteers that are part of youth athletics. So, all in all, it's a this has been a healthy process. Um, I think it's begs for more clarity around what are highquality youth programs, how do we how do we qualify those and how do we ensure we're talking about those with parents and coaches that are part of these leagues andor teams. In some cases, we lead a league like basketball. In other cases, we're just a team. It's a part of a league. So, those are unique things, too, um, that exist. There are boards that exist for leagues. We don't necessarily have a, you know, we don't control their governance structure or values. We only can control how our inputs work with that. All right. Any additional questions? All right. We need a motion to approve

124the first reading of the K5 youth athletics policy. I'll make the motion. All right. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. All right. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. So, next is the update on the LPC data priorities and facility planning. We did we did have a late addition here and I see Wes is here for any questions um to this based on the construction meeting yesterday. We did add an item that Alex will be able to explain a little further. We can start really with construction progress and change orders. Then we'll go back to the LPC. So I'm going to invite up. So we got Wes Davis here with Kodell Construction and obviously Stephen Ward of Studio Kramer. I think Stephen's at more meetings than I am. Oh,

125I'm actually going to pass it over to these guys. They can uh so we do have two active construction projects. Obviously our transportation center and our UPC center are making lots of progress on progress on those spaces. And these gentlemen are going to kind of give you a high level overview over um progress we've made. look at this. So, we'll start with the uh up center. Uh actually, we'll Where you at here? All right. We'll start with the bus garage. So, as everybody knows, the weather's been terrible. I mean, we've really worked two weeks on that project Christmas. Um but we do have the building pad to subgrade finally. We've we've been able to finish the storm drainage and the sanitary piping on that project. And we had our meetings today on site. Alex was

126there and and heard the discussions we had with our subcontractors. We're trying to build, you know, we've lost 50 days basically is where we're at on that job. So, we're looking at what can we do to the projects now moved from December of this year to February of next year. So, what can we do to better that? So, we talked to the subs today about, hey, let's let's switch the schedule up a little bit. Once we get the grading done, we're going to go out here and we're going to start site utilities. We're going to try to work backwards our way into the building. So, you should see some progress. We should have Hikon, our site contractor, offsite in the next month and a half, two months. Um, you'll start seeing some building structure, foundations,

127and things like that moving forward. But to this point, it looks like a a muddy mess. uh for the most part, but but we are getting there. Here's a few pictures. That is the building pad right in front of that dozer that's sitting there, which was a process. I mean, if you all remember, if you went by there, we had to cut that site down 17 ft deep to get good material to bring back up and and make it able to build on. So, that's basically where we are with the bus garage. The upcenter actually quite a bit of progress has happened. We uh completed the steel framing for both areas A and B, which are your new additions. Well, actually A, B, and C. That's it's on the left hand side of the building

128out front and your health sciences division on the right side. Uh we've completed all the subgrade prep within those areas. So, we've got all the mechanical plumbing lines installed in the areas getting ready to pour the concrete slabs. Um, and once we do the slab work, then you'll start seeing walls go up, roofs on the building and things like that. Um, masonry structure has started going up. Uh, continued demo. So, the one thing that's been good on this project is Kelsey has worked with us, you know, the best that she could with students still in the classes. So, we were allowed to get into the back of the space and demo those labs and start that work. and she's operated with two classrooms uh for the last several months while we worked. So, we we

129did some night shift work, but she's uh she's been great to work with and it's helped us keep the schedule on track for that project. Here's a few pictures of and you'll see as as we progress the next few months, you'll start seeing walls and mason, you know, brick and things like that starting to take place. construction questions. Are we on the timeline? Up center. Yes. It's about a week behind give or take, but uh the bus garage it's 50 days. So that's one of the items on here. Yeah. But yes, Upcenter is on. proposed change order. In general, obviously throughout the process, um there there'll be some recommended changes. Uh these general will really talk through those changes and kind of what they mean. Some of this is formality in terms of just processing

130with with KDE. So, I'll let them talk through it. Yeah. And I may lean on Stephen a little bit for these, but at the end of the day, we're giving money back here. These are a lot of credits. So, uh, Stephen, if you want to talk through, there's a few I may have to explain. Sure. Um, so the first one I want to talk about, um, I'll talk about construction management first. With construction management, um, you end up dividing any one issue into multiple pieces because of the number of disciplines. So, Mr. Bradley, if you look at the top line there, um, RFP2 was one activity we need. We found an underground spring just north of the academy. Um the site contractor already suspected that he might be about to find it because the soil

131was so sloppy, wet, and muddy. Um and sure enough, he found the spring. So, we had to do some modifications in order to uh mitigate that. The simplest and most economical solution seemed to be to move the new construction 10 ft north and install what's called a spring box below grade. um you approved a change order for the uh some of that initial work back I think at the end of the year. Um that was this 48,353 that's in green there. Um so what we're bringing to you tonight is the remainder of the work associated with that. Um Parkco constructors had to extend the length of the canopy that connects the two buildings, extend the sidewalk, extend the footings. uh brown sprinkler had to extend piping uh and do some additional excavation to make that

132move happen. And then total power, there was some additional lighting in the canopy in order to uh evenly light the pathway between the two buildings. So, uh what we're bringing to you as part of the change order package tonight is the three numbers um at the in the right boxes. Um the I'll just look at them here. The 24927 is the construction change. So the total change order is 27631. Uh and that's how each of these three works. Um so these are what your change order document will look like and this is what your KDE supplemental will look like. So that's the first one. Um and for clarity, the 48,000 was already spent and then this is now an additional amount. This was Yes. This was always work we knew needed to happen, but uh

133we asked you to approve that 48,0001 because it was imminent. It needed to happen right then. Um so that work has been done now. The rest of these three uh we're not quite ready for them yet. They're going to be happening in the future. Okay. Thank you. The next one uh the next two are related. Both of them are uh related to rock that has been encountered in the uh subgrade areas. Um you uh the way we have handled rock for your jobs uh in the past really for over a decade is that we don't ask the contractor to take the risk of encountering any rock. uh we establish a unit price and then we pay as we find it so that you're not getting an escalated bid because somebody's anticipating risk. Uh you're just

134paying for what's actually encountered. Um we do have reports from the inspections consultant that the dis district district hires as a third party, an independent third party. They track the amount of rock that's actually removed so we can check those reports against what the contractor gives us. So for both of these um 1101 Lusk Mechanical had uh 40,465 worth of removal of rock for sanitary sewer installation. Um and Hikon Construction had $47,952 in removal of rock for storm sewer installation. Um and one thing we have done, I'm going to end up describing it later, but I'll mention it now. Um, we have allowances in the job because we anticipate some of these heat things happening. We've already used most of the allowances we had built into the bus maintenance facility, but we know we're not

135going to use any of the allowances we built into the UpCenter project. So, one thing we'll ask for tonight is that we take the allowance from the UpCenter out of that job and we use it for the bus maintenance facility. That way there's sort of no net ad. Uh you're using money that's already built into your projects. Um we're just using it where it's most useful. So those are the bus facility ones. Um the here you might need to talk about the time extension, but I'll mention the upcenter uh SC. Yeah, if we can finish the upcenter ones uh under the yellow bar. There you go. Um there was a monument sign uh that was proposed for in front of the upcenter. Um it was determined to not be necessary. You were doing some very

136large graphic things and some other things at the up center that made the monument sign almost redundant. Um so we asked the contractors to tell us what it was worth to take it out of the job. Um at $29,936 we thought it was more than worth it to take that out of the job. Um, so that's a credit. Um, fire alarms. Um, Miss Casease had asked that our engineers looked at reducing the number of fire alarm pull stations around because they can be nuisances and for a variety of reasons that she might be able to address. Um, our engineers agreed, they've seen a trend that we're reducing the number of pull stations uh for for similar reasons. The credit to rework the fire alarm system to only have what is useful and necessary uh was

137a credit of 13,867. Um and then the third item there is that allowance reduction for the up center which will then transfer to the bus maintenance facility. And the last item uh in the package is the um time change. So I'll ask Wes to talk about that. So, I I put this item on here and and I have several boards that do this a different way. Sometimes I'll present this monthly, sometimes it's quarterly, kind of how you want to handle it. But the way the contracts are written with us and with our subcontractors, so with between Kodell and the district, and then we transfer that down is you get a day for a day for adverse weather for any item that's a critical path item. So obviously the bus garage is the earth work right

138now and then it could be the concrete work and then once you get under roof shouldn't have many critical path items but so we've let those kind of build up for the since Christmas but it got to a point where I needed to update that schedule so that the subcontractors could actually see where we're at and where we're going forward. Um so we were at 50 days. I do this sometimes where I go ahead and update the schedule and present it to you quarterly. If you want to see it monthly, what it'll look like is is this. And I'll I'll just go ahead and update the schedule and it'll be attached with your report. So, just kind of however you all want to see that. I think quarterly. What do you guys think? You're not

139going to see it for the upenter really because we're going to be under roof before it it even matters there. And you know, once the building gets delivered to the bus garage site, this is kind of going to be a moving point. But but I do we do have to extend that schedule just so the subs know that. And there's no money involved with it. It's clearly a time extension. I think quarterly. Agreed. So the request would be and we could approve these now I guess and then talk about the LPC but the request would be to approve these change orders as presented as the project continues to evolve. You know we anticipate more of these uh coming before you guys. Any further questions? All right we need a motion to approve the proposed change

140orders recommended by Codell construction and studio Kramer as presented. I'll make motion. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Good guys. Thank you all. So, we were just going to broadly cover where the LPC is. Um, as we've talked about, the conversation uh is a can be a back and forth over time uh around the district facility plan. Our pro we had we'll talk a little bit more about the specific days that the LBC's meeting and has met but our broad conversation has revolved around efficiency and effectiveness. How do you uh continue to pursue effective practices and growth within our systems while also being efficient in the way we use resources? That conversation will continue tomorrow night at the New Haven School. So thus

141thus far the first two meetings primarily covered all of the KDE requirements uh that are mandated as a part of a larger hole. Uh we had our first public forum last week at the Bloomfield Elementary School. We have another public forum tomorrow at the New Haven School. These are very specific to those communities uh and allow for two two communities that have been very involved in our facility planning process uh to be updated on a variety of factors the LPC determines is relevant to those communities and conversation. We currently have a additional meeting at the Foster Heights School and potentially an additional meeting at the Coxus Creek School or some other location that's not been finalized. Uh broadly the conversation has focused around this but we're very much into uh the stages where um LPC

142members are evaluating different school organization models uh for proposal. Some of you are at those meetings. So you see that conversation. Uh we really just wanted to leave this as a update on the current timeline. There is no projected date for completion of the draft facility plan at this time. Uh however, it has been part of the discussion that we would want to have a draft DFP uh in advance of the end of the school year to potentially engage with the Kentucky Department of Education for review uh and for board review. So again, there is no official timeline. Any discussion on that? Yes. Um I'd like to add a couple of notes. I did um reach out to our board attorney regarding the board's role in this process and um if we can offer feedback.

143And essentially the LPC is a committee that that works um with us under our direction. And so on that I'd like to say that I've been um attending and when I the meeting I was unable to attend I've been watching because I think it's very important that we are engaged in this process and um I appreciate and value very much that um it was brought up that all options should be weighed and considered and that being said not my understanding is that the LPC will not pick just one model and go with it is the only one they will in other words they will look at the different configurations and weigh those against criteria that they establish and I think that's such an important part of this process. So in other words, what are options

144are available to us and what are the benefits to our communities and most of all to our students under each model and establish those. And I think that's going to be useful information for us as board members to have as it pushes back to us. And um in last week's meeting at Bloomfield Elementary, there was a lot of data there that um reflected changes and shifts in enrollment and a presentation around um potential use for the Bloomfield School in a manner um that would retain it as an educational facility. And I was very um very interested in hearing more about that. And I think that it would be beneficial to have that explored more in depth in light of um the proposal that that building this what is the suitability for it in other uses.

145And um in order for me to confidently vote and provide a vote um for any type of shift, we would have to do something to honor that building and the use as a school facility. And so I would like to see that weighed out, that option. And if that um heavy construction, is that building feasible? I think that LPC needs that information ahead of making any recommendations about that that suitability. And also, I think there's an opportunity in this community if if that building if if this building is repurposed in some way, how can it benefit this community? And um we hear about a decline in um the younger populations. That's what this they was presented as census data there. And what could be done in this facility if that if there is a change

146proposed that would bring people into this community? So, is there an opportunity to build in reskilling of adult workers because there um you have training centers and we see um facilities across the state doing more of that and providing opportunities so that people are coming into a community and and part of it and it has a clear vision. So, I'd like I'm just providing a request that the LPC consider those things as part of their process. and um and look at that if I don't want just a a oneline recommendation. I want things weighed carefully. It's good we also have Mr. Gossum here tonight. Uh the chair as part of adding that to the data request and just reporting back to the local planning committee. I'd like for us to have a workable document and

147um as as referenced earlier we have you know we have different options and I would like to see what the options are and how what the thought processes are of the LPC and I think that there's merit in understanding the pros and the cons of the different models um in whatever is accepted that everything's been weighed and spelled out from those perspectives. So I'm going to ask Mr. Crawford, since you're with us this evening, um we plan on having a working sess working session hopefully at the beginning of May, would it be feasible and appropriate for Mr. Gossum or someone from the LPC to present where the LPC is at that moment? Um with any recommendations, not recommendations necessarily, but hey, this is these are the ideas that we're looking at. These are the models

148we're looking at. This is the data we've discovered. Um would that be appropriate for if Mr. Gossum is willing to do that? Absolutely. LPC local planning committee that committee is a committee on this. So we have answers to you as a board of education and as you go through this process status updates and questions from you as a board to what's going on and any input you would like to give them on their decision making process before they come back would be absolutely okay. I think that's of tremendous value because um I don't want to see um ongoing need for reconvening an LPC if we need additional information or adjustment. And I think it's it's very um important for us as a board to ask the additional questions that we may have or considerations and

149put that out there for the committee across time as is allowable first of all and feasible. and it could expedite the process rather than waiting till they're completely finished with no interaction, no information. You're actually interacting with each other. So when they get to their final final product where they have to come back, present you with something, they have your input, you know what's going I also think it increases the transparency of what's happening in those communications so that it it can um be there for the community while they can still be engaged and involved. in that development. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Crawford. All right. So, um we will need There's no motion. We already did that one. That was right. We did the LPC part. Second. All right. So, this takes us to the

150next where we're talking about the calendar. Um so, we had hopefully everyone's looked at their schedule for May 6. That would be the next working session. Again, that would um I would like to see that we talk a little bit deeper around our media specialist, what that looks like for the district, how we can work on understanding that process um and how that works. Um also, if Mr. Gossum is available that night, maybe come and present um with some data on what that looks like. And um you mentioned something else that you were wanting to and I just went blank on what that was. I'm looking. Sorry. Dr. Lee had sent an email earlier in the week and I just went blank on what that was. It was just acknowledging that the May 13th date

151may not work out and she was just looking for consideration too. But I thought there was something on the the working session. trying to see what I have when I proposed a working session to the board. We're going to review staff benefits as well. The staffing benefits at that time. Um and then Dr. Lee is not available for the May 13th date at Samuels Field. So, we were looking to adjust that date. Um, I know we were talked I know it's we may have more information by May 6. Okay, just based on the timing, we may have more clarity on how to adjust towards the end of the year. The options include May 20th, which is the last week of school. But that's the option. I just want to be clear because there are a

152lot of events going on that week. I want to make sure that we don't have a senior celebration or something that's interfering with that. So, um, if whoever's listening districtwide, there's currently nothing on the calendar that is in my there's no parade or like I always feel like there's something I miss. Okay. So, if if the you guys are okay currently right now making it the 20th Okay, that's good. So, let's go ahead and the 20th. Right. So, we've got add May 6, revise May 20th. That would be the uh at the airport as well, right? Yes. And oh well um I wanted to ask Stephen, are we good to go into the UPC center? Will we be good to go into that on the June 10th for a meeting? May not be able to

153have the meeting without hard hats on. Well, I'm good with that. I just I think it would be exciting. We'll be able to go into process. We'll be able to go into it and can we tour it? Tour it. Yes. I want to see him shake his head. Okay. I know. I was like I missed Wes before he left because I wanted to make sure that but we'll we'll verify that before we say that for sure. But it would be I think it would be exciting to see the process. Absolutely. On the May 6th work sess working session. I would like to add and like expand that topic on the library out to literacy in general. Yeah. Um there are some other questions that I I think um may ask for some presentation around consideration.

154Sounds good. Any further questions on the calendar? Um so uh we need a recommended motion to approve the calendar adjustments as discussed. I'll make a motion. All right. Thank you. Any second? I'll second. Thank you. All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Oh, and I just do want to because I think that um did we miss we missed our celebration? Yeah, it's it's up there. We just forgot to add the summary. I just again I have to give a shout out to Miss Belinda at Boston, Miss Amshaw, the people that really showed up. Um Jacob Anderson, one of our volunteer firefighters that also was there. They they basically took care of the people in that space for days. We had our community really stepped up. We had food brought in from multiple businesses across Nelson

155County and I want to thank um our state representative Kenny Maseroni. She stepped up and she was there helping and taking care of people. I think Jimmy Hickden showed up. So we really had um a community effort in that space. I also want to shout out Grow Your Own again, Miss Durst, Miss Holt, Miss Newton. The work that's going on over there, incredible. We are if if half of those students remain in Nelson County, we are going to be set for educators. They are just incredible. And um I want to shout out a congratulations to Bargetown City Schools. So, they received $21 million to sort of help facilitate the rest of their um facilities. And I think any type of money that's coming into our county that's benefiting students, I don't care if it's the

156city schools or our county schools or our parochial schools, that's a win for Nelson County. So that was a huge a huge amount of money for them to invest in their students and I just want to make sure that we give them a shout out for because that's really again that's that's what it's all about. So anyone else need to celebrate something tell us something good always so many things to celebrate and um I am very excited about um the arts seal of excellence. I think that that um is a very important program and I'm glad that we have those collabs and we've kept that value here and I would like to make sure that we continue to do that in across all of our schools so that all of our students are getting that

157access to to arts early on um beginning in elementary. That is exciting for sure. All right, with that um for those of that are excited to you know sneak out of church back here, we still have one more agenda item after this. Um, but we do need to adjourn this regular session before we go into the next one. So, with that, do we have a motion to adjourn the regular session of the Nelson County Board of Education? Make a motion. All right. Thank you. Do we have a second? A second. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? No. All right. So the next portion of our meeting is the district finance corporation because the board shifted um in January. This is just our um compliance issue just so we can make sure that everyone

158is set in the correct spaces and correct seats on the district finance corporation. So um we need do we need to look over anything on that? Was there anything you wanted to explain on that, Mr. Okay. She's just submitting her report. She just wanted to update the report with the new board members. All right. So that we do need a motion to convene the district finance corporation. Sorry. Yeah. So we need a motion to convene the district finance corporation. I will make a motion to convene the district finance corporation. All right. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. All right. Thanks. All in favor? I. All right. now. So, um, do I need to read this? Is there So, I'm going to just to be make our coverage. So, public notice for district

159finance corporation. There will be a meeting of the Nelson County District School District finance corporations on April 15, 2025 directly following the regular meeting of the Nelson County Board of Education. The meeting will be held at Bloomfield Middle School located at 96 Arnold Lane, Bloomfield, Kentucky 40008. The purpose of the meeting is to appoint new officers. So, we called to order. So, now we're going to confirm those. We call Oh, I guess I need to read that. We call to order this meeting of Nelson. I'm just fine by the seat. I'm up against here. So, we call this meeting of the Nelson County District Finance Corporation to order on April 15, 2025 at 7:44. That's right. Appoint new officers. So the motion is to appoint the following officers within the Nelson County Finance Corporation. Tracy

160Bowling as president, Karen Lee as vice president, Amanda Deon as director, Jod Gileianne as director, David Norman as director, superintendent Wes Bradley as um secretary and Jessica Rogers as treasurer. I'll make the motion. Thank you. I need a second. Second. All right. Thanks. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. So now we need a motion to adjurnn the this meeting of the Nelson County District Finance Corporation. I will make that motion. Thank you. I'll need a second. Second. Thank you. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion passes. All right. Now we are adjourned. Or is there anything else we have to go in and out of or are we good? That's good. Yay. Okay.