001Three up. >> So there's nothing up above there that's highlighted. >> Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. >> Oh yeah. >> Some of these they're touchy. If you're doing it on your phone or it's weird. >> Yeah. >> People call me all the time. Join me for the pledge. >> I aliance 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. >> Any person present who wishes to address the board or raise any questions about public school district matters or governing policies may do so under public participation. No discussion of personal or individual students permitted at this time. A limit of three minutes is placed on each speaker. Persons who want more time
002may make arrangements to be placed on future agendas. The public is also reminded that they may provide input on all motions being considered by the board at this meeting. Additionally, anyone wishing to make public comment virtually may do so under the public virtual public comment form. All received messages that comply with following criteria may be read at the meeting. No discussion of personnel or individual students is permitted. Include the full name and address of your message. A limit of 500 words placed on each person. The same link may be used to provide input on action agenda items prior to the board taking action. Um, public comment. I do have one from Miss Olsen. She wants to go when we cover 7B. Okay. No other public comments, correct? Nope. Okay. Uh followup. Uh we had a
003public comment the last meeting from Mr. Robinson from IGA. Oh uh I just wanted to let everybody know that I did reach back out to him. We are still gathering information on that public comment. I'm working with uh Mr. Lynch and it was in regards to how we use the how we use the automated uh fundraising system that it makes it look like it comes from our kids but it comes from a third party first. Am I on track? >> Yes. >> Okay. So that has not been forgotten but we are still waiting for information from Jake. He is talking to that uh person the company that we use. So when we have more I'll reach back out to Mr. Robinson and I'll do a full board report when we find out more >> correspondence.
004I don't have any Don. >> No. >> Next we have uh Anne Porter summer of 2026 presentation. >> Real quick, similar to Dana um public comment last meeting we were wanting to have permission to put up for our middle school coaster trip in 2020. >> Oh, it's 2028. >> Okay. Wow. >> Right. I know the two-year uh the payments are a lot lower for the two-year planning. So, yeah, we're enrolling current sixth graders. Um >> are you taking over what um Sha Sha's program? >> I ran into the crew coming back with their last trip and that was I hope that we have a great trip. We had two students. >> Have we done a trip before? >> Yeah. Puerto Rico and to Costa Rica last when is it going? >> Um, it'll be I
005think between June 10th and June 14th of 2020. >> Oh, you're supposed to do that in December. >> I know, right? >> Our March, but it'll not miss. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, we're going to jump right into facilities. How's it going, Mark? >> Good. Um September busy month again. I think we're over 100 month about 90% through all equipment. Next is pretzel. >> I have a contact on that. He is a Lwoodland resident. >> Perfect. >> And his kids come to school here and he would like to bid on that. >> Perfect. >> To help out the school. I'll get it to you. I'll pass on the number to Don. Okay. I >> think it's Billings asphalt. Billings. Yeah. >> Any questions? >> How's the winterizing going? >> Um there
006tomorrow, Thursday softball tomorrow. >> Doing softball field tomorrow. Okay. >> Thanks. >> How's it coming? tomorrow. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Mark. Uh, looks like we're going in reverse order this time. High school first. >> Here we are. >> Um, couple updates for us. Um, Lockwood, Hawaii, and Luben Wash donated or reached out to us wanting us to have our students paint on the mural that faces the um, Johnson Lane. So, Miss Delamp is going to leave that where Miss Gra is leaving the War of the Walls. uh uh in the spring. So, we're pretty excited about that. They would also I just wanted to note they're also donating $500 supplies for us to actually do the painting. So, I'm very grateful for that. Um we have actually a lot of people to thank tonight
007is really where we're going um where the high school is. Pat and Michelle Shandelli, I think, um are giving area schools, middle schools, and high schools um tickets to Billings um studio. um they are donating so many tickets per show um for students that may not be able to get there or they've shown an interest in being in the theater by taking a class or by um being part of clubs. So we were able to give out five sets of tickets. So they give a ticket for the student and then a ticket for the family. Uh we were able to give out five today um as a really big process. I closed my eyes on the roster and find names uh for kids that were in theater and so I was really excited about that
008and they can go on Thursday night for that. Um so grateful to be part of that. They've done this with some of the building schools but we got um included this year. So I was really excited about uh being able to do that. Um we've seen a lot of donations coming in uh for fabric for FCS wood for our uh obviously our woods. Um some metal for our metal shop. Um, and so we're really grateful that people are thinking about how we could use those materials. They don't have to be brand new. They don't have to be, you know, we can repurpose some things. We took a a wood wall out of our photo video. Um, it was just a backdrop built for photo video. We took it apart and donated that wood back to
009the wood drop. So, not all of it is purchased brand new, but we're grateful for people um thinking of the school. Um the other thing we want to talk about is our update on Minga and then after that I'll talk about a great our grading policy how that's going. So >> yeah so we've rolled out uh Minga in uh the entire high school this week. We did start a couple weeks ago with our SLT team just to kind of work out, you know, how it's going to work in high school and we've already noticed just this week uh just definitely lower numbers in the hallways with students during instructional hours which has been a big plus. Uh we've also it's enabled us have a little bit more structure in our counselor's department with actually scheduling
010meetings and and teachers and kids are actually you know getting to the counselor has been a big uh help for Brandy as well but there are things with um you know kids are out um she's able to see in real time when kids are counseling if they're able nurse or school so um it's been just a few days but it's been going well so of course pilot school last year >> the middle school this year. So successful. >> Uh update to the grading where we focused um a couple of things to remind you. We take the semester grade and uh we have buckets where our grades go into. So the biggest bucket are the essential standards. Um how are we saying what must be uh taught and mastered? Um our teachers and departments decide what
011are those essential standards. um that makes up 70% of the grade. So, we really want if you're in um with Spanish one to be ready for Spanish 2, you have these essential standards um accomplished. So, that's our big bucket of of grading. Another one, 20% is other coursework, which is tied to other standards, not necessarily part of those essentials or not those essential, but other standards because there's more than just five to seven standard per course. And then there is a 10% participation. I just want to re remind everyone on the participation. It isn't thanks for being here. That is participation in um in the course. So it might be taking notes. It might be um turn and talk to your partner. Um but it's content related activities, not just for being here. Um and
012then 0% is extra credit. So we're not going to be seeing um give you extra credit for things. We're really saying are we making sure that 70% if we're teaching the essentials um you know if you are just doing just the essential work you can pass the course because you master what must be master um do those essentials so I just want to remind that what we um reminded teachers uh with this was that we have promised to regularly update infant campus which I'll talk about one particular area of concern for us and that any student receiving an ERF will be um communicated with uh the parents. So we can do that in two ways and we will do it in two ways. One, we definitely want our teachers um the parents want to hear
013from teachers about their student. But we will utilize help us to send out um an automated little message that we've created that say your student your student may have a year after one or more classes. So will that bring a student? So a student that doesn't show up on that report will not be part of that um message going out through campus. But we really also acknowledge that we've agreed that teachers will let um the parents and guardians know. So those have been our focus. An area of concern for us does come in with um us waiting for our two English teachers. And so with that, you know, we can't we have to be real. We know what we plan in those classes. is, you know, Andrea planned those. We know they're uh great materials.
014We know that they were great plans. We don't have um as high a confidence in how were they implemented. Um we didn't have, you know, we had amazing people do them. Uh Mr. cabin spent a lot of time supporting the teachers in there, but we are not going to hold it against the kids for us not being able to have someone that knows how to grade or knows how to um do all the intricate details of instruction um instructional design and delivery. So, we're going to we have to figure it out, but we know we can do it where we won't hold kids back based on our guess on how they're doing. So we will do a pass fail through this quarter and then from there we will have our newly hired new maybe hired
015I'm not not voting tonight right um teacher that can then certified that can actually design deliver and assess the student work. So it'll be a bit of a mix for those English um teacher schedules but we know we can do it. It's just going to take a little bit of our time on that and then we'll communicate with the parents from there. So, it's just kind of it's been a little bit frustrating, I would imagine, that we've had it um not been able to communicate this with our families, but be able to plan for that. And we just have to make sure we know what we're doing, what we overpromise, what we can't. >> Do you guys have any questions on the grading since it was so new feedback? So, understanding the English piece of
016it, but I guess what is what is the plan right now for grades being in the infinite campus for the high school students for parents to see where they're at? You mean just >> in general? So, last week I just reminded teachers that that's part of the expectation that we so I what I did was I did run a report and sent a private communication to the teachers that hadn't got some grades in. There's some um sense that there's some things that make sense. um some were using Google Classroom and just didn't have that translation brought in. So, it was just the clear um expectation on that and then I follow up on it. >> Okay. Do you know like timing wise when those might be in the system >> by tomorrow? Okay. >> Are
017GPA available on campus? >> They are. Um I I have to say though I have to log in as a parent to be able to see because how it plays on my screen is different. Um, so I would absolutely love it if you want to pop in and we can do that or I can have Andre help. She can Andre is at a level on the district used to be able to log in as a teacher so we can see what a teacher would see and help them, you know, coach them along. She can also log in as a student or parent so we can see what they see. Our login looks different. So I'm going to say, "Oh, it's right here on the third tab and you don't have the third tab." So I
018just can, you know, but if you sat down with me, I could look at it. >> I appreciate that. Yes. And the other point is absolutely feel free to anytime ask, you know, uh for those transcripts and things like that. Um but it does build the GPA upon course completion, but you should have access to their previous GPA. We don't get an updated new GPA until the semester right. So anything up till this new semester, you'll get the old up through last spring's grade. And then as this um semester builds, you're just going to get current grades. And then when the semester closes in January, then it'll write to that overall um GPA. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Middle school. >> Hello. So, um have a busy past month here. Uh we
019uh got a speaker in this past month. uh Luke Swinson whom I love this life foundation presented to to our students did a great job. Uh Luke, we had the opportunity to have Luke present a couple years ago. He's I think 20 20 years old or 21 years old and he's been uh public speaking and presenting across the country. He's been on um Good Morning America and all kinds of different things. Uh uh we uh we just done a great job, great message for our students. Um we um had our first house games. Our our our line mentors did a great job uh running that. Uh Anna has been doing a great job of of trying to do makeup uh for our map testing. We have almost all of our students caught up and finished
020with the map testing. The preliminary results were for were um great to see. We still it's it's really like comparing apples and oranges to the AS web data that we used previous years to this. So, we're looking forward to having that second round of testing in the uh the winter to really have a good data point where our kids are uh with that moving forward. Uh but we appreciate all her efforts in getting everyone caught up. Our school store uh is open and kids are using the RCA app to make purchases. that's working really well. Uh as well, um we had an attendance competition uh before the actually we'll do it every month. Um House of South won the first one with I think 90 almost 93% attendance. So there was a couple of the
021other houses were really close, but they won the first one. Um our eighth grade JOTC students, this is a new thing for us this year, having eighth graders do JOTC. they had the opportunity to wear their uniforms for the first time here this uh this past month. So, it was pretty cool to see them walking through the the middle school and and wearing their unicorn pride. Um had a door decorating contest as well. Um and River won that one. Uh we had some students go to the Salvation Army with Mr. Banger, one of our student council doing some community service. um nominated students for student leaders of the month. We're focusing on students that have positive attitude this past month. Um and we got our fundra school fundraiser kicked off here to yesterday we had
022the assembly today. We sent the packets home with kids. Uh we we do butter grades for our our fundraiser. That's how we u basically fund all our school store and all of the different activities and things we do with our students. So, we're going to get that off and running as well. Uh, athletics, we had girls basketball that started up last week and wrestling started up today. So, a lot going on. Any questions? >> Thank you. >> Intermediate. >> Uh, good evening. So, I'll just start with we've had quite a few visitors um this past month. Uh, several of them being with Reading Pride. Uh reading pride is when community members come inside the school and read to students. And so we have car Montana first interstate. There might be a couple other >> western
023okay western security. Um and so they volunteer within their organization to come to the school. Um and it's really a positive um interaction with kids and community member. they get to see someone new sharing the love of reading and this happens three times a year and then at the end the goal is that every day at the end. So um in addition to those uh volunteers coming in we also had Lockwood Fire come in and do a demonstration for third and fourth graders actually too share that. um and they loved it and got to take home, you know, all the little fun gadgets that the fire department had had to offer. So, um along with some really good reminders for students on fire safety. Um close to 40 students participate in our Yellowstone County cross
024country race that happens all within the elementary schools um in Yellowstone County. And last year it was a huge hit. Mrs. vendor again did a wonderful job promoting that to students um meeting them there making sure that they she got their raise tactics and all of the things. So I thought that was a pretty good turnout. She had said it was a little smaller than last year but just lots of uh football and fall ball uh conflicts but I was really happy that you know close to 12 to 13% of our school was able to participate in in something maybe they normally wouldn't have. Um something new our school um our school leadership team has decided on is when we have students testing and within our walk to read program we are going to do
025notification letters to families if students fall in an intervention level group um just to be sure that they are very clear that they're working on fluency decoding um and all of the skills and then we give recommendations on things that they can do um at home. So, it's just an additional communication tool that the school leadership has decided to move forward with. >> Um, something that I have noticed regularly, I um would be sure my principal colleagues would agree um but when I reflect on the number of subs in our building from last year to this year, I find it we're in a completely different situation. I don't know what Lacy is doing, our our new sub clerk, but I tell you what, um the numbers have flipped. So, for example, you know, today we
026had 15 subs in our district >> where I would say, you know, a year ago, we might have four or five. And so, I just think I just want to make sure that everyone knows that that is a huge difference. It's a huge help uh that we've noticed in in the intermediate daily. Um, last thing upcoming. So, our Veterans Day concert is November 11th on Veterans Day and Mrs. Gats is seeking volunteers. That is a big undertaking. Uh, and we just um would invite you that if you have time during that day, we set up this particular room uh to offer a little treat for our veterans. Uh last year we had businesses that wanted to donate baskets and we did a raffle for the veterans that were here. Um and so that's just something
027also you know that's not you have to but families wanted to donate and so that's just I want to share that with you as well. >> That is it for now unless you have any questions. >> Thank you. Primary Um um enrollment we're watching can be pretty close, but we're sitting right at 115, so that's pretty good. >> Um second grade's at 112. First grade's low, so we don't need to worry about those. Um we did Mrs. Miller always does she's our special education teacher for preschool and kindergarten and she does a child find every year to try to find children that need early intervention. And this is done home. Is it birth through five? That be >> It's birth through five. Yeah. >> Yes. So we try to target children who we may may
028not know of that need those services. And this year I don't know what we did. We try to make it well known every year to parents so that they bring their kids in. The earlier the better. But this year we got 11 people to participate which doesn't seem like a lot but it is. >> So and out of those only two qualify. >> So that's pretty good. we're at least getting the word out that those services are available by your local school district and we have to provide them birth or anything else then they can >> birth to three go to what's called ECI which is a service in Billings and once they turn three if they live in Lockwood then Stephanie screens them and sees if they qualify to come into our program from
0293 to 5 is in our preschool program so >> she looks like she's pretty full I mean I saw lots of kids in there so >> she runs that so >> props to her for pulling that off and I know that cigarette helped her this year. So that was great. Our new school site took part in it and helped teach OT helps. They all >> pull this off together. So that's a big deal. Like Maggie said, we participated in Reading Pride. K1 also had vision screening that Gina arranges and has I think it's the lighting club that comes in and helps her. >> Yeah. >> Pull that off for um K first graders. and then lock the fire. And that was so exciting to kids and I don't know why this year it was different,
030but I talked to Nikki and Jamie about maybe moving it to the outpac next year because it was like a huge deal and I think just the space would have been better and kind of more exciting for the kids to come up here. Loves that I've just said that. >> Yes, I do. Um, a new thing we're doing is we've really been trying to work with Head Start to get a bit of transition process for their kids coming into our school. So, that looks like um the LA kids that they serve, we now get transition packets on them. So, we have all of Head Start data from those teachers when they come into our kindergarten classes. So, that's a huge help. And then we do have their um Head Start teachers are going to come
031observe our kindergarten teachers next. We're going to start next week so that they can see what our expectations are versus maybe what they're expecting of their three and four year olds at head start. So I'm just really excited that we've been able to bridge that kind of gap in between our two communities. Uh my second grade team has been working with Andrea on some curriculum work which has been amazing. They've been reviewing alignment and assessments for math. Um, my interventionist just completed what's called survey level assessments. That's where they take a deeper look at why kids aren't meeting benchmarks and where their deficit deficits are so that we can address those. So, they have a plan for every second grader who isn't meeting the cuts for, what their intervention needs to be, and who will
032provide that for them. and that's brand new this year. That's very that's very far in the process of intervention. So, I'm really proud of them for doing that. Um, and also our teachers, Mrs. Powell and Mrs. March, who are in charge of gifted and talented, pulled off gifted and talented testing of all my second graders. So, we tested them all because that gives us a correct baseline because nobody is excluded then. And um we just have some preliminary results in but it is much more how it should be. You know we're going to identify only three to five kids for an entire grade level which is what it should be. That's the norm for the nation. That's the norm for the state. There's no way, you know, we should be identifying 20 kids in a
033grade level that are gifted and talented. Just so the board knows, the state cut our gifted and talented funding to $7,000 to be spread out over three years. So, it's almost no money coming in now. >> State felt very um good about the test that we chose. It's been chosen by many, many districts across the nation and we feel like the results are much more accurate than they ever have been in the past. So, um, we're just looking forward to we're all going to do red ribbon dress up days and they're all the same for K12. You're welcome. >> That's all. Any questions? >> Thank you, >> Don. >> I would like to know if our student council rep would like to go next as I didn't mean to put her at the bottom of
034the list. If she'd like to introduce herself and then if you have a report, go ahead and give yours then I'll do mine. Okay. >> Uh, good evening. My name is Grace Dram. I'm the student body vice president. Uh the student council does not have any number. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Let's make this a little bigger because I can't see it and it's right in front of me. There we go. So, our enrollment is up 14 students this month, which is a good a good thing. However, our attendance rates have dropped to a more realistic rate than they were for that first couple of weeks of school when I did the September report. So, we are at primary at 95.35% attendance. Intermediate at 95.1, middle school at 92.1, and high school
035at 91.8, which is still far above state requirements. So, we're still doing very well with that. We still have about 169 students through the open enrollment process. There may be a few more added as we go forward that are either kids that live here that have move here that have moved out of district or staff members that have moved or been hired that have kids that are going to come here. Um we have been having discussions with our union representatives on a lot of different things. We're working on a mentoring program which we're meeting on right before Thanksgiving break the week before. We'll work on wording in that. The union would like to have our own mentoring program in conjunction with the one we use through the ACE curriculum consortium and that will um allow
036us to have something more district manu managed and it'll be a partnership between union building administration and teachers so that we have something here of our own to to work with. We're also looking at um with the union they're looking at an insurance at looking new insurance program the trust that's out there. We're going to be working on examining the salary matrix and working on maybe looking at reconstructing that over the course of the year. And so there's a lot of things going on. Also the um another what's it is there another committee? Did I get them all >> matrix? Oh evaluations. So we also have a committee that's going to look at the evaluation formats and have have input or comments on that too. So a lot of this came out of our negotiations
037last year. So, as those go forward, we'll continue to um report on those. We received a $7,500 grant for the Backpack Meal program from the Town Pump Foundation. They have been amazing supporters for our program and that will now along with the Billings community educa or the community program and Walmart will fund our program for the rest of this year. Um we have cut our costs on the backpack meal program from $3,400 a month to 800 doing it ourselves. So, Mr. Kenzie and I pack backpack meals at 6:00 on Tuesday mornings and get them out to the the elementary on Wednesday or Thursday. So, it's saving us money and allowing us to do more programming with that. Uh we will be um applying for the next round of the Office of Justice program stop grants
038for um safe schools. That's in conjunction with the other grant we were invited to apply for for safe schools. So, we'll have three grants going out for school safety, hopefully aimed at um cameras and improving that. Um, our Lions Path Academy Charter School application is sitting on my desk and it'll be submitted on the 27th of October, the day those applications open. We'll have our interview in November and then we will know by January if that has been approved for next year. Um, we are currently in the middle of a desk audit for our Title One program. I received a 30page document and I'm on page 19 now. I've been working on this since July. It has taken probably 30 hours of time now to just reproduce documents that we already produced. Last year only
039had to do a desk audit. I don't know how we're doing two in a row. But anyway, that will be done probably tomorrow or Thursday. I'm going to try to get those done because it's taking a lot of time up and I want to use more time for grant writing those things. So, um, we have anou with the Montana school for the deaf and blind. They provide a lot of services for our students, especially in Stephanie Miller's room. They also work with our speech pathologists on interpretation, on hearing devices, things. They help recommend things that will help parents so they don't have to send their devices to school. We look at what they're using and then we purchase a device for the kids to use at school while they're here so that those devices that
040the parents have at home aren't ruining because they're very expensive. So, they come and help us um work with that and get those done. They also help us with our audiometer and our hearing screenings if we need and there's no cost with that. It's just the changes of the services as we go through. Um we were informed in October that our teachers that we were waiting for to come from the Philippines, three of them arrived. Three of them will not be coming. We rescended our offer of employment due to the fact that the H-1B visa fee was raised to $100,000. So we won't be able to there's no way we can help with that. Also, there were two earthquakes and a tsunami that hit the island. So, it's been kind of chaotic. We've been checking
041with our teachers that are here to make sure their families are safe there as part of our agreement with um the embassy to work with our teachers if there's a disaster here or there to make sure that they're taken care of. So, so far there hasn't been any reports from our teachers here that there has been um anything with their families. So that has put a definite little crimp in our plans, but we um opened up a third grade special ed position. Um and we had two applicants, ironically, one from the Philippines that was living here in Montana already, and she came and applied. She had applied last year. We didn't have any openings. So she was will be on our request to hire tonight. In that process, the other applicant shared her teaching license
042and on that she was certified in high school English. So I hijacked the interview process and we interviewed her for high school English and she very graciously accepted. So we will be hiring her tonight as well. So it was one of those perfect storm things. I was like geez the two applicants we filled two really hard to fill positions. So it helped us out a lot. Um and also we've had just so you know Nikki had more applications for the third grade position have come in. So rant. Okay. So >> people are applying. I just would like them to apply for the high school positions as well. Um, I want to say thank you to Gwen and her team for figuring out how to maneuver this because we're not alone. I'm looking at districts that
043have 11 openings, seven openings, some of them 17. I see buildings just had a big influx of high school openings. Again, I don't know what it is about this time of year, but people just choose to leave. I don't know. But we have lucked out at least in getting some candidates to come and and take jobs here. Their um planning has been very proactive. It was kind of a little bit of a what are we going to do? And they sat down, threw out ideas and figured out how we can do that to best serve our students. Um Rocky Mountain College has been very great about helping us out with student teachers that are ready to enter student teaching and we can hire them while they're doing their student teaching. And so they've been very
044good about recommending different candidates that are coming here for jobs that we have. So we want to thank them as well. Um we've had Kelly and I have done our first round of one-on-one meetings along with our monthly administrative meeting. We're meeting individually with building administrators to talk about things that maybe they don't want to discuss or issues in their building that don't need to be discussed in a full administration meeting. And I feel like they've been very well received. I think people have more time to discuss the things that are pertinent to their building rather than taking up the whole district level meetings. And I I think that these are these were good things to start and we'll see how these go throughout the rest of this year. Um the Montana literacy grant, I
045attended their webinar for the egrant process and it hasn't changed a whole lot for us because we've we've done well with that. So we will be right now the department of education is closed and um the money has the GAN which is the guaranteed um funding has been sent to Montana. So the money is there. They're just waiting for the government to reopen so that the money can be sent to the state and then we'll put that into egrants and we will have $700,000 in that grant to spend towards salary supplies professional development and that'll continue on for the next five years. The amount decreases each year, but it'll be for the next five years. Also, I don't know if you guys have have heard as of today, but the entire department, federal department of
046special education was laid off and furled. So, there is no longer a department of special education at the federal level and they're going to push now for that to be pushed back to the states. Our funding this year was cut by $68,000. So, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We just kind of have to see how that goes. But that office is predominantly defunct right now. I don't know what'll happen when the government opens back up, but that has been what was reported. Um, we have been asked to participate in a gear up program, which is our TRIO program at the college level. They come in, they work with kids to try to get them into interested into enrolling into college or staying in college if that's what they're
047doing. We had their program. It was then cut when all of the grant monies was cut by the government. Now, they've been allowed to open that back up again. We're going to work with local districts across Yellowstone County to see if we can get a grant to bring the program back in. They are very successful in getting improving high school graduation and getting kids into college. They don't just they're housed at MSU Billings. They get kids into community college. They get kids into Missoula. They get wherever the kids want to go. They just help them get through the whole process, financial aid, all of that. It's a really good program. I'm hoping that we do get that grant. Um, I did have photos from the cross country that Jenny had brought up. It is a
048very, very big and very successful program for us to send the kids in and they do have a good time there. So, I wanted to share a couple of those. Also, the Red Ribbon Week, I haven't posted that as well. So, if any board members feel like they want to be on campus and dress up for Red Ribbon Week, it's right there. Uh, we did have a resignation. A third grade teacher, Kelsey Fry, resigned on October 6th and I accepted a resignation on October 6th. And that is it. >> Thank you, Don. I just jumped on the OPI website and I would like to also commend our admin team. School District 2 has over 33 openings right now. >> So, our little five that we have open right now does not seem significant at all.
049And I'd like to note that in the past we've lost teachers that just suddenly left in August and left to go to another district and we have not had any of that this year. So I I just think that our culture is is getting there. I think that people want to be here for the right reasons. So it's kind of nice not to have people bail and go someplace just because it looks a little bit better. So I think we are on the right path. >> Anything else? Next, we're going to go to board report. Schoolboard goals. That's our goals. I talked about them last month. Everybody can see them. >> Our focus areas are now on the wall here. The old one has been replaced. So, your new focus areas are there. >> Next,
050we're going to go to the I sent an email out titled Deianne needs our help a couple weeks ago. >> Uh, can you bring that up, Don? >> Yeah. This is what it's going to look like for um all of the trainings that you do. There is a place the time or a uh day that you did it your email address. It sends you a notification board member uh date of trainings. Obviously, I did not do a 121 minute training in 8 minutes between those two trainings. I just inputed all of mine that I've done so far this year so that I could be the beta test for Dian's website. And did you sign did you share that website with everybody? DM >> everyone. Uh yep, I got it. the link. I sent it out.
051I think I did Twitter. I see my added answers. >> So, when Yep. Right there. >> So, we'll be able to update everything. And this will be she'll be able to track it by board member. She'll be able to pull it down, pull it all together, put it in the report, and send it off. She's also going to put one together for the building visits so that we can do all of that so that we know what's going on and who needs to get stuff done, too. But that just makes it easier for her for the end of the year reports to where she can just go into the tab, pull it down, total it up, send it off to MTSBA. Same thing with the state requirement for our building visits. Um, I think that
052was it for reports. Yeah, I'll talk about the other one. I'm hearing committee. Uh, we're going to go to committee safety committee. Corey, >> uh, yeah, we just had a meeting last week. Um, we just kicked off with uh talking about reunification if there was ever an emergency. Um, went pretty good. I think we even talked about some of the parking and bus issues that we have. So, good. >> Um, I just want to let you know that a member of the public reached out to me and asked in front of the school. I informed them that we are not able to do that. Um, so they reach out to you. >> I appointed them Montana Department of Transportation. >> They want to raise, >> but we're not going to be able to do that.
053We We can't do that as a district, but >> just an FYI that might come in your way. >> Uh, budget committee. We had a budget budget committee meeting last month. We went over our full budget. Deianne put a lot of time into it. And we are $225,000 in the black. >> 22 270 somewhere in there. Yeah, in the good. >> So, we're not >> saying the good, not black or red because >> we're not broke, but everything has been allocated. And Don has I'm Well, we have $227,000, but our special ed funding was cut. drastically. So, we don't know where that's going to end up. So, we'll let everybody know once we figure that out. >> Yeah. >> Hopefully, they can talk to each other. And >> without the, you know, support of the
054grants that Don um was so good at doing getting us, um it wouldn't be a different situation. >> Absolutely. >> I want to thank Don for his hard work with that because I'm not sure what we'd do without >> and they are permanent. A lot of them will be continuing. So, that is the good thing. So we have about 1.56 million in grants right now to help offset salaries. So without that we would be probably in a different different boat. But those are sustainable. Those are not going to go away. So >> uh let's schedule our next budget committee meeting for November election day. Do they use this room, Don? >> Yeah. Okay. Right. >> Yeah, they Yeah, they do. >> Can we use the community room? I mean the the conference room upstairs. >>
055Yeah. >> So November the 4th. How does that work for you guys? >> Engagement. What time are we thinking of? >> Uh whenever you want you want to do another afternoon one 2:30. >> Okay. Good. It's actually better. >> So, we'll do budget committee 4 p.m. on November the 4th, 1 hour before day. I'll add it. >> No, because we're just going to go over any short balls or anything like that. We're not going to go over the full budget again last. We're just going to ask Dan with any changes, updates, and probably get briefed on any other federal funding that's been shorted next day. >> Yep. Any other questions from the budget committee, from the public? >> Those are open to the public, by the way, just let everybody know. And we do video
056them, so you can watch them later. uh career fair committee. >> Uh same thing, just trying to keep a list up and if anybody knows anybody or anybody wants to be part of the career pair, send me an email and I will get you guys on the list. >> Okay. Uh negotiations. Do we have anything open for the pairs yet? Have they do we know when we're going to start that? We had a preliminary meeting with them and waiting for them to reach out to to begin, but we don't want to wait until March. So, we ask you to let us know. >> Okay. Just FYI, budget, sorry, negotiations committee. When the Peris union reaches out, you guys can set the dates for all that stuff. And that's the only union. >> That's the only
057union negotiation >> this year. >> We set one. What was that, Kenzie? Was that for the teachers? >> Set it for October 35th. >> Oh, you do? Okay. Isn't that just to get preliminary information from Kelly? That's not negotiating with the union at that point. >> Okay. So, that's okay. But that's still um >> Yeah, that's our first meeting. Yeah, >> first meeting. >> Uh curriculum. >> Uh no update besides the one that Gwen provided. And I'm meeting with Andrea next week. So, I'll have some updates and news at our November meeting. >> Anything on the pow yet? >> Spring. It's been moved to spring. And is there going to be fry bed for fat kids? >> There's going to be everything >> tepee raising and it's going to be a tribal competition on the
058different kinds of tepee and they're going to raise them in the bus loop and then we're going to see if we can get them lighted like they do up at the airport so that they'd be lighted at night here during that week. >> They'll be here the full week. >> Yeah. >> Cool. >> Yeah. >> Uh community engagement. Uh yeah, we had a meeting last week with people there. Um we were able to work with Mr. Kinsey about getting some communication coordination improvement that we've been working on and um working on some volunteer opportunities with the Roar Academy that we're excited to see. And then we decided to have a game night in the high school this winter as a way to get the community together. So, we're in the initial phase of that just
059planning picking a date and then getting some ideas and then we plan on reaching out to clubs and organizations and community to bring in games, all kinds, maybe a movie. We just have quite a few different ideas. So, that's what we're working on. We will meet again, I'm thinking November 4th, maybe at 5:00 p.m. if that works for Christ. >> December 4th, I believe. >> November. Oh, November. I was going to say December 4th is I think our family fun night, isn't it, Kelly? >> We try to meet the first Tuesday of the month. So, we'll confirm that. It'll be posted on >> social medias >> and we'd love to have more people going. >> Uh Don would like the old 70s lawn darts with metal. >> Oh, perfect. >> And some astroturf. I don't
060want to ruin the gym floor, but >> Astro will take it just fine. Yeah, >> while we're talking about community engagement, our family fun night is scheduled for December 4th. >> Okay. >> From 5:30 to 7. >> That on the agenda to help the words. >> Yeah. Just to get the word out. Yeah. >> There'll probably be some organizational meetings, I'm sure, between now and then. >> High schools. >> It's at the in the Yeah. >> Is that when Santa comes? >> Yeah. >> November 4th. >> Yeah. >> That's Yeah, we've heard that that might happen. for >> we heard Mrs. Mrs. Claus might attend as well. >> Yeah. Can somebody >> and the Grinch >> can somebody tell Mrs. Claus so Mr. Claus makes it? >> I appreciate that. >> Someone might reach out
061someone might reach out to Mrs. Claus and send her a message. >> Send Mrs. Claus a message. >> All right. So, we're going to move on to the action items. Consent agenda. >> Is there any objection to the consent agenda as presented? Any objection to the consent agenda as presented? Hearing no objection to the consent agenda as presented. Consent is consent agenda is adopted. Next, we will approve changes to or we will hear about changes to high school handbook related to dropping classes and correspondence courses. And we have a public comment from Miss Olsen. I go first. Okay. >> You want to go first? You want to go second? Okay. >> So now you're not talking [Music] apologize first. This might be a little long but bear with me. My name is Jing Olsson if
062you don't know if you don't know me. I keep a lot of I'm speaking today as a parent. My husband couldn't be here today but we want to say the privilege that all this education system has done for our children. We have hand for children in the local education system and we appreciate effort from the staff from the admin and from the board. The first line the lawful mission statement reads quote local schools expects all students to succeed. We will achieve this goal by being focused, adaptable, innovative, engaging and driven to help every student achieve success. However, the proposal that is being brought to the board tonight does not support this fundamental goal. This is a complicated issue. The first thing I will say is I will speak about is our handful of page 18.
063Currently our school only allow students to choose from five specific PDA courses. These five courses are medical terminology introduction to education cyber security marketing and Native American studies. What is MTDA? MTDA is short for Montana digital academy. It is used by every school in Montana. It offers over 300 courses online taught by licensed teachers. For this, it includes 13 AP courses, 11 dual enrollment classes, and a wide range of electives. But for some reason, our students are limited to only these five sub options if they want the credit to appear on their transfer. No computer science courses they can choose for. No foreign language courses they can grow. No business courses. No business courses they can actually just those five. This lin policy 217. They ignore students interest and not let them choose from other.
064When a student take classes from our school because many of them are single dance often they have to make a choice between band and college algebra between accounting to and trigonometry between civics and calculus and make a choice between core class and elected they're passionate about correspondence courses fill in these gaps policy 2167 allows students to take corresponding courses and get credits for all of them limiting corresponding credits Especially capping them at just two really limits students education choices and create a real risk that students will not have enough credits to graduate. Many students take online course Spanish courses during study hall. If those credits aren't recognized, they could easily fall short of the total credit needed to graduate. Students planning attende college, they are expected to complete two to four years of foreign language
065or students who prefer not to pick Spanish for purpose in their only options. Limiting these credits is unreasonable and limiting them to only two be frankly is unfair. Our older daughter who graduated last year took all of the took all the rigorous courses our school offers. She also took advantage of the corresponding courses to challenge herself further. She was admitted to a top university. The path to her success was through the exact classes with proposal limits. She had a total of six high school credits from her bling courses averaging 1.5 per year. If she wasn't awarded it credits, she wouldn't have graduated. Policies like this would prevent future students from having those same opportunities. These are there are many students and family in this community that want to see their student graduating with as many
066opportunities available to them as possible. This is not done through the class and taking on the high school transportation. There is a shortage of teachers in our school and across the state. MTDA and other corporation. Limiting policy 2170 and policy 2167 limits our students futures. What law should be doing is showing students the current opportunities that they have corresponding choices. The positive impacts of encouraging students to take responsibility for their education by choosing more corresponding places cannot be overstated either. Students are up for challenges and they will be more engaged in education that allows them to choose the voices they will that will enable them to meet their goals. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you. >> Clarifying question. We are not dropping correspondence courses. Correct. >> Correct. >> The issue you
067have is that we don't offer you want more than two per. I want more to be added to the I want I want to open up MTA courses to more than five classes only because there are over 300 classes there only five to one and five lists. >> Okay. >> And more than two having the two is I mean that's >> we as a district we incur a cost for paying for those. Correct. for the two. >> For the two >> we pay for two and then they're allowed to do how many more? >> Uh one three one two free. So that's yeah that's kind of different. Yeah, of course. We just present outside. They pay for that. Um, we do have some uh well, you know, we have lots of inside our building during
068our regular schedule, dual enrollment and some university connection classes. >> Okay. But so we pay for the first two >> that's separate, I guess. >> That's >> and those are offered during school. They're working scheduled for example. to the American government, the government that's there. We have college writing, several math ones. We have insurance psychology procedures. um >> sit next to >> So if the parents pay for one, are you saying that that doesn't count as if they take more than >> if we can? Yeah, I think if what we're saying is the policy with that we're actually if I could just let would it be all right if we came about >> through? Yeah. So these have kind of always existed in the course catalog then switch over to infinite campus. put the course
069catalog in from campus. I kind of dropped from the handbook. So these have always existed. I talk about them all the time. Um when I begin the year presentation with students, I go over these things. So I guess the first thing is just that you know students are expected to make thoughtful decisions on their courses. If you drop a class after the first two weeks, you'll get that on the transcript. That's the first thing. So that's always listed and we're just kind of getting that back in the handbook so it's more clear and specific because it was in the course catalog and that's not clear anymore. It's kind of hidden within campus. So making that more clear. And then with the correspondence courses, this is also something that has always been in the handbook since
070we've got high school catalog. Catalog it. And this once we kind of blended them together. So this is like where you take another class from another college or you take a class from >> Yeah. college class while you're in high school. So we only allow the students to do that for two classes >> and things that we don't specific. >> Yeah. So we're paying our teachers already. So we wouldn't want to pay our teachers and have this course be taken not by our teach not by our teachers who be voted in for you know like foreign language or we've learned in Spanish would be the world language. Many kids want to many kids don't want to take that language. We get it that's the one that we have adopted into our courses and so that's
071the one we're paying our teaching for and our space in our um building and stays on the master schedule. This does this only says that these other credits coming into the transfer. There's nothing that says that you can't pick more and walked into a college application or a job with multiple transcripts. We're saying this is how we were writing under our transcript. By my math, um students can get three and a half credits per semester. This goes to semester year, which is seven. then multiply that and they should uh easily meet uh graduation credits. When we took an audit through how many credits our kids are um achieving, our students are well exceeding 24 credits that we require. So us limiting this doesn't stop anything from anyone graduating. that's still allowed that we have um
072300 credits per semester with a couple. So we also offer several uh three courses that have early learning credit um that give an additional opportunity for half credit one once a semester. So mathematically um we have enough courses enough time on our schedule through the four years to beyond obtain the required 24 credits. That leaves some space for um credit recovery needs. That leaves some space for um study hall. We don't encourage lots of study halls because those come with no credit. Um student aid in the office. We limit that to one student. Um so that we aren't having a lot of kids with nonredited classes. Um but there is a cushion for kids if they just want to you know explore the different pathway of electives that we offer um to be able to
073do that and still easily uh reach the graduation credits of 24. So Glenn, can you explain? So you mentioned Spanish or so if we say Latin, right? We don't offer Latin. >> We don't. >> Okay. But if it's a correspondent course and they take it outside of what we offer, you're stating this doesn't allow somebody to come in and say, "Put this on my transcript." >> We're allowing two credits. So >> yeah, so they can take more. Many many students did. my own kids. I don't took more um that didn't write to the transcript. They tune in their application their transcript from the high school had to transfer from their college that was um that they took those courses through. Um I don't see it as as limiting. It's saying what do you have capacity
074right now? We study things mainly. Um I would actually say three main things but the first two one's credit recovery would be to recover those credits and those four classes toward graduation. Um, we have to be cautious about that one because it is a no credit. So, they're re retrieving previous lost credit during a nonredit class. So, we have to be really careful that they have room in their schedule to be able to do that still obtaining what they need for graduation. Uh, the second is dual enrollment. The third is if students are struggling or they they know they're going to, you know, maybe had had some issues in English class um or they feel like their coursework was difficult, then that's a spot for a study hall. We've been really trying to limit it
075so that we watch those no nonredit class and have that first for those two pieces credit and the new >> excellent question. So a college doesn't discriminate against a transcript from a high school or a transcript from an outside source when you're applying for colleges. Am I correct? >> It's been a thousand years since I applied for college. So I mean this was not even an issue when I went. They took everybody. Is is that something that happens if you have a transcript from outside of your high school transcript? Is there does a college reject that? Do you do you know or do they accept everything when you reject graduate? So you divide out of six credit per year. That means student passing time, right? >> So each seven credit per year seven credit per
076year. So each semester is half a credit. >> Okay? >> So that means they had to take seven periods. >> Okay. every semester to get ready to have credit. You take one of them is a first money course and they can get a credit or they wouldn't have health. >> Okay. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. >> I all I know from experience is going to give you uh college application but that is connected for all to answer your question. I >> Yeah. I was just wondering if that was an issue with it. I Okay. The issue is graduation and we're not going to take it because they are not enough to graduate. >> Okay. >> You only have to put two on there foreign language. That's nice to use the two credit. They
077have no credit to pick anything else other than I would like to motion that we postpone this. I've done some research today. I've talked to some people. I try to get in with Gwen, but I my schedule's been too busy. And so, >> did I miss you? >> Well, I I sent another email, but I didn't call because I've just been very busy. So, um I personally would like to postpone it just because I've started digging in and it's still even at this conversation. It's not quite all table it. Um postpone it. Table it till next meeting. >> Postpone. >> Oh, okay. Table it. I would like to table it. Thank you. um just so that I I just still feel like I have a lot of questions and I don't want to vote on
078something that may have more repercussions than we fully understand at this point. Um so that's my motion. >> I have a motion to table by 47B. >> Can I ask you a question? >> Uh just one moment. >> I second it to table it. >> I have a motion from Jackie to table a time of next meeting. Well, I guess >> until next scheduled board meeting in a second from Lacy. Discussion from the public about tableling the motion. Well, my question is about why why are we what's the advantage of winning? >> I think I'd rather wait till we get in the table. I can say why it was prior to answer that, but as far as what we explained tonight is that was part of our system course catalog that didn't translate. So, we
079weren't we are adding the differential changing already there. >> Any other discussion from the public? discussion from the board. All those in t all those in favor of tableabling agenda item 7B until the next board meeting say I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Hearing none, the motion passes and agenda item 7B will be tabled until the next meeting. Thank you, high school. Next, we're going to move on to approve second reading of policy updates. >> So, you get your choice. I sent this out to all of you. If anybody has any questions, I do have the notes here. I can read them to the public if you'd like me to read all of our policy updates are mostly technical legal. It's not anything we're doing. It's recommended from our legal adviserss. And then
080couple of new options in there that um give the chairman of the board the same rights as any other board member to be able to make motions to act on them rather than having to sit out and let somebody else make motions. So >> I would like to look at 1700 or complaint process. Um the language in there uh is the red a complaint appropriate under the policy when the individual believes the district to the board of trustees or if an employee of the district has violated the individual's rights or the rights of their child under the state or federal or board policy. So it is it it it's giving a narrower you when you have a 1700 complaint you have to have a specific this is what happened. It can't be just a >>
081little Suzie wasn't picked for varsity. So I'm going to do a 1700. >> Also what it does is if a parent says I'm not doing the the chain of command I'm going straight to the board. the board has the right to say you need to go back and do the chain of command. We couldn't demand that before. You guys were kind of forced to make and that happened this year where they just went around it and you guys had to kind of act on it. Now you can say you need to go back and follow the chain of command >> and it also brings up anything about sexual harassment or sexual misconduct automatically triggers a title n investigation. So that'll strengthen that. Those are the only that's the only I wanted to bring up to
082the public specifically. Anybody else have any other policies that they've read that they want to bring up? >> The only other optional language one was we could choose between option one, two, and three on how many readings for policies. I didn't think one reading for every policy is probably a good choice. I picked the middle and the option was at the second reading. We can always do another reading if there's something in there and we're discussing it. Like if 1700 needed to be discussed more, we can move it to a third reading. But this says that if there's policies that just are edits from legal counsel that we can just do it on a second reading and be done. I didn't think a first reading was probably really good because that doesn't give a lot
083of chance for discussion and then I can send out these little these notes and you guys can read on what the actual edits were. So that was the only other one that was optional. The rest of them are literally just edits of existing policies, updates um related to legislation or anything that might have changed. So there was not anything real any anything other than language edits. >> Move to approve second reading please. >> You feel we need to break >> do any board members feel we need to break them out? I don't >> Okay. The motion by Shane to accept the second reading of policies as presented on assuming >> second from Corey discussion from the public discussion from the board. >> The only thing I wanted to mention is on policy 1700 I agree
084and it makes most it makes sense. Um, I think just um maybe a couple of months ago we had our first one that came to the entire board. Um, I think it's probably not a bad idea for us to kind of understand the verbiage within this policy and um, make sure we're all on the same page of if a public member comes to us um, that they've again followed the chain of command and understanding what that chain of command is. So just informally but or formally with the board again I see in here you know we know the chain of command. Um but I know there's probably been some questions just on when it comes to the level of the trustees. Um, and you know, I if if it's been denied by the chair um
085to be put on the agenda, just making sure that we're all informed of that decision so we can all stand behind that um that answer. And to piggyback off of what Lacy was saying, in 1700, one of the annexs has an actual flowchart that Stacy did of if it is an academic 1700s complaint versus a athletic 1700s complaint, who you start with, where it goes for the chain and everything like that. >> And is that out there? >> Policy books >> in the manual. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah, it's attached to activities and to the academic. Y >> in the handbooks >> in in the actual policy manual >> in the policy manual. It's 1700 P1. Yeah, I think I saw >> I sent that up to Tony and he got this put in. So
086we're kind of ahead of that. They usually just have a really lame thing that follow but ours is actually literally >> from Lockwood. So >> okay, I think that yeah, that might be a little bit new, but that was okay. >> Any other discussion from the board? All those in favor of accepting the policies at presented and the second reading say I. >> I. All those opposed, same sign. Hearing none, motion passes. Next, we have recommendation to board approve change to bus routes as presented. The bus routes, everybody knows, they fluctuate throughout the year. If they pick up a kid here, they don't have a kid here anymore. So, the mileage changes we have to keep on top of that for all of our reimbursements. And this means that I now have to sign another
08734 bus routes because they will no longer be valid. >> Not yet though. They haven't gone to the county yet. So you'll >> they are coming. >> So that's the only and obviously we can't see what kids coming on going on. So we just have to trust Julie that this is it. >> She's done a pretty amazing job of keeping this going. I move that the board approve the changes to the bus routes as presented. >> Second. >> I got a motion from Stacy and a second from Shane to approve the bus routes as presented. Discussion from the public. Discussion from the board. >> All those in favor say I. I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Hearing none. Motion passes. So move to adjourn. Second. >> I got a motion from Shane to adjurnn.
088Second from Corey. Discussion from the public. Discussion from the board. All those in favor of adjournment of this meeting say I. >> I. All those opposed same sign. >> Hearing none. Motion pass. Thank you all. >> Wanted to get a motion.