00:00:13,170	Good afternoon. I’ll call the Mandan school board meeting to order. Today is July 15, 2024, in one of the Bosch Freli groom of Van City Hall. Let’s rise and say the Pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

00:00:40,530	To the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. At this time, I’d like to welcome our newly installed or install in our newly installed board members, uh Rick Horn for a three-year term, Amy Amy Shenandour for a three-year term. Sheldon Wolf for a three-year term in and Jake Schmidt for a one-year term.

00:01:06,100	Um, all members have taken the oath of office and are seated now on the board and at this time I will accept nominations for board chairperson. I’ll move to Point Sheldon Wolf. As board chair Is there a second? Be. Second, a motion by Peter, seconded by Peel.

00:01:36,500	Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Right, Mr. Legacy we call Roll Horn. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. All right, I guess I’ll take over now, right? Thanks everybody for your vote of confidence again for another year. I greatly appreciate it. Welcome to our new members of the board.

00:02:02,700	Look forward to working with you all and the rest of the board too. Thanks everybody. Thank you, Dr. Bitz, Mr. Legacy. It Girly We’ll start off that way again this year. All right. Well, what’s up nominations for board vice president. Any nominations? I’ll nominate Rick Horn. All right, we have a motion, we have a second. I’ll second that motion a second.

00:02:25,730	Any other nominations for vice president. Any other nominations for vice president? Seeing none, Mister Legacy, please call roll. Yes. Yes Yes. Yes, yes, yes, uh, next item on the agenda is approval agenda.

00:02:54,430	Um, is there any changes or things to the agenda, seeing none from administration anybody else have any changes? Seeing none, what are the wishes of the board. I’d move to approve the agenda. We have a motion. We have a second and we have a second. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, Mister Legacy beats Caro. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item is public communications.

00:03:23,530	Anybody in the audience like to approach and discuss anything with the board? Ah, seeing and hearing none, we’ll move on to the next item which is the administrator’s report. Uh, the first item on the administrator’s report is the proposed school board member committee assignments for 2024, Dr. Bitz. Correct, and I believe it’s on page 3 of your packet, um.

00:03:41,970	And I took the liberty and I maybe overstepped my bounds, but I kept everybody on the same committee they were, and I plugged Amy and Jake into a couple of committees and I also uh put Jake on the Heart River CTE board, um, and.

00:04:02,930	Again, these are what we always do is these aren’t final, um, they’re supposed to let our board chair know or myself know if they don’t like their the assignment or if they’d like to serve in another area and this will be finalized uh in August. Right, so like, uh, Dr.

00:04:19,430	Bitz said, if you take a look at it and if you don’t like the committee you’re on, you want to change committees, let us know and we’ll reshuffle them before the next meeting, OK. If you got questions on what the the committees do take a look at those in relation to it and have a conversation with Dr. Bitzer myself and can kind of tell you what the committees also do if you kind of wondering in relation to that too.

00:04:36,130	Right All right, we’ll move on the North Dakota School Board Association annual convention, and I think I’m gonna throw all three of these together, Dr. Bitz, the North Dakota Indian Education Summit in July and the DPI school board member boot camp in August, Dr. Bitz. These are all three professional development opportunities that are available to you.

00:04:57,830	They’re all voluntary except for uh our two new board members, uh, Amy Saando and Jake Schmidt are required by law to attend October 24th in Bismarck. Uh, the new board member seminar, um, the rest of them, um, you can see the dates if you’d like to attend, let me know and we’ll get you registered.

00:05:15,970	Um, certainly encourage you to attend, um, if you’re able and interested. All right OK, please let him know if you’re gonna be able to attend those and if not, so they get you registered. Is there an early cut-off date on those or not on the on the uh. convention. I, but I haven’t even seen it yet.

00:05:34,700	I don’t think they’re even out with an agenda yet, so it’s early. I just wanted to get that date on people’s calendar. Appreciate that. Alright, let’s move on then to the consent agenda. The only item on the consent agenda is review and consider approval of previous board minutes.

00:05:53,000	What are the wishes of the committee? I’ll move to approve the board minutes. We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? We have a second Mr. Legacy please go roll. For Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, next item is unfinished business. We have no unfinished business, so we’ll move right into new business.

00:06:19,670	The first item there is considered designating the Mandan news as the official newspaper of the men in public school district. Yeah, we’re required by law to publish our minutes and it’s been our tradition that Mandan uses our official newspaper to do so. We would recommend that you approve this.

00:06:46,230	Any further discussion on that one, or what are the wishes? I would move that way Designate the Mandan news. For our official newspaper we have a motion. We have a second. I have a second. Any further discussion? Signon Please go roll yes yes yes. It’s almost like you gotta retrain me. All right. The next item is consider appointing or Ryan legacy as the district business manager, Dr. Rederath. We’ll get to it right yet today.

00:07:15,400	We encourage you to appoint uh Ryan Legacy as the district business manager for the next school year. What are the wishes of the board? I would do that because he has her business manager. I They have a motion in the second. Any further discussions? Seeing hearing. And hearing them, please go roll. Yes.

00:07:46,600	Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and as as new board members, you realize this is the meeting where we just do a lot of motions to get things done. Uh, if you got questions on any of this stuff, please ask though I mean it’s a good way to learn some of the things as we talk about it, so.

00:08:03,130	Uh, considering authorized the business manager and the superintendent to invest school district funds. Mr. Legacy. Yeah, this will just allow us to invest funds we have, uh, a main operating count at Starian Bank, and then we do invest funds in a few different local institutions, um.

00:08:24,000	We’d like to be able to keep that with myself and Dr. Bitz, then we don’t have to come to the board to open up a CD at a, at a local bank if they offer a better rate.

00:08:42,100	Risk Yeah, and, and none of our, all of our deposits have to be fully insured or pledged or in a separate uh what they call an ICS account, uh, so we, we do make sure that all of our deposits meet those needs. And in fact if you look at item G, we’ll handle that actually even as another item here as we go through it on the securities that are pledged to us.

00:08:56,970	Alright, what’s the wishes of the board? I would make a motion to authorize the business manager and the superintendent to invest. We have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? Hurrying and seeing none, please call roll. Yes Yes, yes Yes.

00:09:23,700	Yes, uh, consider approval of building principles the authorized representative of the Mana Public School District for the school immunization law, Dr. Rederroth. Yeah, we recommend that we continue moving forward with this. They have the closest relationships with our family and school nurses to get the documentation uh needed on this front. All right.

00:09:46,570	Any questions? If not, what are the wishes of the board? I’ll move to um for the building principles to authorize representatives for the school immunization law. Alright, do you have a second? We have a second. Any further discussion? Further discussion, seeing and hearing them, please call roll. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, next item reviewing or consider designating Dr. Bitz and Dr. Rederath has authorized representatives for all state and federal funds, Dr. Rederath.

00:10:18,830	Yeah, and these would be things like last meeting when I talked a little bit about our consolidated application in our Federal Title One money our professional development money, the different monies that we get from the state that Dr. Bitzk and I could continue to coordinate those. Things within our budget and with the various entities. All right.

00:10:39,100	Any discussion? Seeing none, what is the wishes of the board. I would make the motion to designate Dr. Bitz and Dr. Ruderrath as authorized representatives for all state and federal funds. We have, we have a motion. We have a second. And we have a second.

00:11:06,170	Any further discussion? Hearing and seeing none, please call Ro Yes Yes, yes, yes, yes, uh, next item consider designating the following individual as supervisors of program Title One, Carly Rederat, Dr. Rederath, titled Two Part A, Dr. Rederra Title IX, Dr. Bitz, English Learners, Dr. Bitz, homeless liaison cat doll. Foster care lies on Troy Lee Lanegar.

00:11:32,630	Title 6 Indian Education Grant Travis Elber’s assessment coordinator, Perry Just, child nutrition director Becky Heinert. Yeah, and just a little bit of information on each of those, like I said, Title One is for our schools that are in poverty and the additional assistance we get there, Title 2A is professional development, um, Title 9 is anti-harassment, um, English language learners are homeless liaison Cat Doll works with various um agencies when we

00:11:54,770	have families that are designated as homeless and getting them to school and working out transportation. Um, same thing with our foster care liaison, Troya Langree really works with uh local. Social services to coordinate services, and make sure we don’t disrupt students’ days, and then, um, Travis Albers our Title 6 coordinator works with.

00:12:13,900	That’s the funding we get for every uh Native American student. We have identified in our district to be able to do some increased programming there, and then the assessment coordinator and child nutrition are more self-explanatory. So if there’s any questions about those positions, I’d be happy to answer them.

00:12:31,430	If not, we would recommend all of them be appointed. Right Any questions? Being and seeing and what’s the wishes of the board. I would move that we, uh. Designate the listed individuals. Uh, for supervisors of those programs. We have a motion. We have a second. I have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, please call a roll. Yes. Yes. Yes Yes.

00:13:06,300	Yes. Yes. Yes, next item review and consider approval of securities pledged by a local bank to guarantee school district investments, Mr. Legacy. Uh, yes, included in your packet is our pledge of securities. Um, this is not all of our funds for the district.

00:13:26,570	These are just the funds that have pledges associated with them, um, Starian, BNC Capital Credit and Dakota Community do meet the requirements. The rest of our funds our main operating and savings account at Star Inn and our construction accountant Starion are held in. different type of fund that do not need pledges, so I would recommend approval. All right, any questions for Mr.

00:13:45,300	Legacy? Hearing her singing with the wishes of the board. I make the motion to approve the securities pledged by local banks. We, we have a motion in a second. Any further discussion one last time seeing and hearing none, please call roll.

00:14:12,500	Yes yes yes yes yes, next item review and consider approval of the school board meeting dates for October 24th and 25th, Dr. Bitz. Yeah, um, in your packet, uh, page 8, I took the liberty of just.

00:14:35,170	Moving the calendar forward a year, um, it will be one meeting in July 2 in August 1 in December 1 in January, and one in June 2 meetings all the other months, um, basically mirrors the schedule, um, you can change it or you can approve it as presented. And just uh just for new members information here, you’ll see some of these where we go into Tuesday.

00:14:53,030	Monday is a holiday in relation to that, and the reason we go to a Tuesday at 7 o’clock is is because there’s another meeting in here so we got to work around the city schedule in regard to it. Uh, that’s why they go through here and then on the June 1 there we’re at 4 o’clock, we’re going before them for that one, so if that works out for everybody.

00:15:07,230	And this is, this is what we’ll go with, but we can always change it, we can have special meetings. I mean this is a flexible thing but we this is kind of where we go with this process in relation to it. Dr.

00:15:20,830	Bitz, anything else you want to add to that? No, I think we just try to put a schedule out so that the code of media access can schedule us in the room and have somebody here to help us broadcast. And then the last thing you’ll notice there if you notice on Monday, August 19th, we do have a retreat after that and we do meet usually and have further discussions if they.

00:15:38,030	Anything you want to bring to the board’s attention or all the different subcommittees we have, we usually talk about it there and we lay them into that so. It’s gonna give you an idea to for your own planning in regards to that’s a longer beating on that one.

00:15:57,830	OK All right, what are the wishes of the board? I’ll move to approve this schedule as in as in our packet. Alright, do we have a second? We have a motion second. Any further discussions? I would just like to comment. The 7 o’clock ones. Uh, I would like to entertain 4 o’clock instead of 7, but I just. It’s my 2 cents. Thank you.

00:16:24,370	Everybody else’s thoughts? My thoughts would be, I would, I’d like the 7 o’clock start time uh for work purposes. Any further discussion? Hearing and seeing none, please call roll. Or Yes, Peters. Yes, Peel Shenando Schmidt, yes. Hoovertalal? Yes, first, Wolf, yes, next item on the gender review and consider approval of 2425 substitute teacher pay. we annually set our substitute teacher pay.

00:17:03,370	Um, we are proposing $140 per day. This is the same rate as last year. Um, we usually get together with Bismarck and set the same rate, um.

00:17:19,470	We’ve done that for a number of years when we haven’t had the same rate, what happens is people accept the job and then turn it down and they, so it’s best if we have the same rate, um, and it would be our recommendation that we set that rate at $140 for this year. All right. What? Dr.

00:17:36,000	Bz, I just, I’m curious about why both school districts decide not to raise it this year because we, when, when was the last time we raised it and kind of what’s the, you know, what’s it look like in other metros and. Actually, I think we’re quite a bit higher than like the Fargo Metro, um, we. I think during COVID we were about 105 and we’ve done some pretty nice increases to get it to 140 and.

00:17:58,400	We just raised it last year, um, and the conversation was that let’s try keeping it the same. Yeah. Any further questions? Hearing and seeing none, what’s the wishes of the board? I would move to approve the substitute pay. We have a motion, we have a second, you have a second. Any further discussion? Hearing and seeing none, please call roll.

00:18:26,100	For us who was Shanan Schmidt Shanan Schmidt Shanan Schmidt Shanan Schmidt. Yes, yes, yes, next item review and consider approval of 2425 activity fees and ticket prices, Dr.

00:18:49,030	Bitz, and those are on the same page at the bottom of that page, um, you can see that we’re looking to charge $7 for adults,, $5 for students, and $5 for senior citizens to attend our athletic events. The ideally we wanted the entire west region to have the same rates. Um, this is what Bismarck is doing as well, but there are a few schools that went to 8 and we are not. Recom recommending that we’re recommending we stay at 7 and 5.

00:19:09,900	All right, any questions for Dr. Bitz? Has it ever been talked about like family season passes. more families to games for support. We have not had that conversation, but we certainly could do something along those lines. Any other questions? Maybe that’s one thing we had in one of the subcommittees and have a conversation with.

00:19:31,930	Yeah, we can, we can do that. And I wonder, yeah, you’re right, because the season passes are not for kids, yeah, so yeah. Any any other questions? Alright, what are the wishes of the board? I’d move to approve the. Athletic commission prices for 2020 or 25 square. Alright, we have a motion. We have a 2nd, 2nd.

00:20:00,030	Any further discussion? Please go Yes. Yes, yes, uh, moving on, the next items review and consider approval of 2425 school facilities rental fees, Dr. Bitz, correct, and you can see on this page, um, we have our.

00:20:32,400	The facility, the and the recommended rate, um, the man in high school auditorium, I don’t know that we’re going to rent that out a whole lot this year, um, cause it’s probably not gonna be ready till Christmas time, but um, we will again try to make our public facilities, we like to make them available to our public whenever we can. Dr.

00:20:48,170	Bitz, could you talk about just a little bit about the culinary kitchen in the commons area and how that’s changed with the new school, so everybody has an idea what those are. Correct, that’s that’s a new area, the MHS Commons is a new area that um we can rent out to groups if they want to, um, we figured that the the culinary kitchen and that basically covers our

00:21:05,700	custodian expenses. They have him, uh, clean up afterward. I think it was $100 is what we’re proposing, so. And that’s that one right off when you come in the fronts in the high school when you walk in it’ll be right on the left side.

00:21:21,100	It has a commercial kitchen in it, so if some group wants to come in and do some cooking and use it, um. That would be the cost we expect him to clean up after themselves, but we still have to have our custodial team to come in and and clean up after them. OK Any further questions? Or the wishes of the board.

00:21:42,230	I would need the school facilities, rental fees. Right, we have a motion, we have a second? Second. We got 2 seconds Any further discussions? Any further discussions, please call roll. Yes. Yes, first, Wolf. Yes, uh, next item on the agenda review and consider approval of 2425 child nutrition meal prices, Dr. Bitz. Correct.

00:22:12,900	And on page 11 in your packet is our current rate, our proposed rate, and the amount of increase. Um, we are looking to raise hot lunch prices again today, um, our food costs have soared our labor costs have increased. Um, it’s getting tough where we did operate at a deficit this year.

00:22:31,230	Our child nutrition program does not use any tax dollars. It is, it is self-supporting, um, we don’t use general fund dollars to bail them out. We have to, they don’t have enough money, but we, we try to have them be self-sufficient so we don’t have to do that, um, one question we get is why do adults pay more than kids when

00:22:48,430	they get the same. Uh, amount when they, when they go through the line and the reason for that is. Because there’s commodities in the food and the USDA reimburses us for those commodities and gives us a portion of the meal for students, they will not do that for adults.

00:23:11,630	So our recommendation is basically a 15 cent increase in breakfast of 15% increase in lunch and then a 10 cent increase in milk. And that’s just to reflect our costs. Alright Any questions, comments, go ahead. I mean, I trust your math, but those are, those are pretty minimal increases, so I just does it reflect the cost? It does not.

00:23:36,300	Truly we, we go ahead, Ryan it’s we’re going to have a significant deficit this year. There’s no way we can. Take this all on in one chunk, we’re going to have to come back. I don’t think any of us were prepared to come off of.

00:23:51,600	fully free lunches for all of our students and then the increase in costs. I just don’t think we were fully prepared for that. Um, as we close out the books, we’re, we’re gonna have. Six figure deficit in hot lunch, which we were operating a surplus for a number of years we’re OK, but we’re going to have to monitor this pretty close over the next year or two.

00:24:06,000	Thank you. Any other questions? Good question. I guess I’ll just say it was a balancing act. We we talked about do we go up a quarter, do we go up 20 cents and and we settled on 15, we want to be. It’s expensive to have a family and we want to be um.

00:24:25,700	Reasonable to our parents as well. And on the flip side of it is you go too high and then people can’t pay and it ends up bad debt and you’re not getting anything, so. Comes a balancing act. All right, what are the wishes of the board? Moved to approve child nutrition prices. We have a motion. We have a second.

00:24:48,370	Second Thank you. Do you have any further discussion? Hearing and seeing them please Carl. For us, yes, yes, Shannandour Peters Schmidt, yes, well, yes. Next item review and consider approval of the following resignations and requests to have liquidated damage waived for breaking a signed contract.

00:25:15,130	Mike Ullman, 5th grade at Luce at Lakewood, Sarah Bitz, 5th grade at Lewis and Clark, Dr. Bitz, and it would be our recommendation that you handle these as a separate motion, um. Mike Alman is a 5th grade teacher at Lakewood. He has taken a job outside of education, um, he has he has submitted a letter of resignation and requested that we waive liquidated damages. Mr.

00:25:34,300	Peters is Chair of the policy and personnel Committee, uh, Chelsea Bittner is a representative of MEA and I are on that committee. um we’ve talked about it and since he’s leaving education, um, our recommendation is to waive liquidated damages and not charge him a fine.

00:25:55,100	Except his resignation, yes, and thank him for his service, OK. Uh, so we want to handle this separately because I’m assuming liquidated damage is gonna be the difference between the two. Could I get a motion to uh for that uh whatever your wishes are in regard to Mike Oman. Uh Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.

00:26:21,430	I will move to approve Mike Almond’s resignation, along with waved liquidating damages and thank him for his service to Manna Public Schools. We have a motion, we have a second. Let me have a second. Any further discussion? Please call roll. Yes, yes, peels. Shenando Schmidt, yes, yes yes, well, yes, uh, now we’ll discuss um Sarah Bitz, Dr.

00:26:49,030	Bitz, Sarah is a 5th grade teacher at Lewis and Clark, and she is leaving us to go to Bismarck, um, we great teacher, wish her well, um. When a teacher does that leaves us to go to Bismarck, we usually do, um. Excess liquidated damages she has submitted a check. She’s fully expecting that.

00:27:11,470	Um, we did Bismarck released two teachers to come to us this year and they find them as well, so it’s our recommendation to thank her for her service, accept her resignation and accept liquidated damages would be our recommendation. Any questions? Maybe you could explain. Why, how, like what? What that means cause liquidated damages.

00:27:38,330	It does liquidated damages is a penalty for breaking a signed contract when we have a signed contract with the teacher, they’re promising they’re signing their name saying I’ll be here, I’ll teach for you next year, um, and then we quit hiring and we wait, um. Anytime you sign your name to a contract, whether you’re buying a house, whether you’re selling grain.

00:27:56,830	Um, and you break a contract, there usually is a penalty that goes along with it in the education world we call that liquidated damages your paying to get out of your contract, um, our policy says that it’s the board’s option whether you accept that that liquidated damages or or don’t, um, Mandan’s unique in that we have a 3 member committee that

00:28:17,630	makes a full recommendation to the board and you can take our recommendation, Mr. Heat, uh, Chelsea Bittner, who’s a representative from the teachers union and I usually discuss these, um, we try to be consistent and say, what have we done in the past in a situation like this, um, and our recommendation here is to

00:28:37,170	thank her for her service, accept her resignation and assess the penalty for breaking a contract. Thank you for that explanation. reminder and then hopefully helpful to others who haven’t heard that before. The other side of the coin is, is we wouldn’t, we don’t have to release her from her contract.

00:28:55,500	Which isn’t what she wants either, I mean, so she gets the benefit of it because she’s getting released from her contract based on what we if that’s the decision we make here tonight. Correct.

00:29:17,900	Past practice wise, um, how do you decide? Liquid liquidating damages, is it just when they go to another teaching job or if they, how, how do you guys decide that? Well, for the most part, I think our practice has been and it may change, we’ll have a new chair of the policy and personnel committee and we could do it, but.

00:29:33,970	Generally, if your spouse is leaving the area and you’re moving to Little Rock, Arkansas or Denver, Colorado, and you’re going to be with your spouse. We don’t. Penalize people for that. We want to keep families together and and we don’t penalize people for that. um, when you’re leaving education like Mr. Alman and he’s leaving to take a job in the private sector.

00:29:52,100	We don’t have any recourse, um, if, if they break a contract, we can report them to the teacher licensing board and they potentially will lose their license, they could take action because it’s an ethical to sign a contract and then not fulfill it, um, so, but when they’re leaving education, there’s no recourse. They, they don’t need their. license, um.

00:30:11,300	Generally, the only time we’ve ever enforced it is when you’re sleeping in your same bed. And crossing the river to take another job. That that’s been our practice and right or wrong, it’s been a practice. Thank you.

00:30:28,530	And, and it seems to have worked well over my term sitting on the board anyway in relation to it and where we are, most teachers are kind of understanding on that. They know that’s kind of where it’s at. And that in the union seems to be OK with that too in regard to it. Correct, and, and I will say that.

00:30:47,170	We’ve kind of have a gentleman’s agreement now with Bismarck that we won’t even interview someone that’s under contract with another school without calling and and OK in it, um, it’s one of those things where contracts should mean something once you sign it and.

00:31:05,800	Um, but at the same time we understand that opportunities only come up at certain times and um I think we have a good working relationship with Bismarck and and I always tell our, our staff, communicate with us, share things, don’t surprise us and we’ll work with you to make it happen. And, and From my point, you got to have something in place, otherwise you have chaos. I mean, all of a sudden the day before you’re ready to start teaching for the year and a teacher.

00:31:21,900	Wants to get out of their contract, that just doesn’t work. So you got to have something in place in regard to this, and this seems to work. It is uh the the our pools used to be real deep.

00:31:39,900	It used to be that when we hired an elementary teacher, you’d have 100 people in the pool and if you didn’t like the 1st 5, you still had 95. Good candidates to choose from right now that isn’t the case. It’s getting our pools are getting pretty thin and it’s getting real hard to hire and the later you get in the summer it gets even harder, um, if you look at the item right below this, um, the 2 5th grade teachers that

00:31:57,670	left are, I encourage the principals to not wait around and to hire, um, just because. Time is not our friend at this time of year. Any further questions? What are the wishes of the board? I will move to uh accept Sarabitz’s resignation and also assess the liquidated damages.

00:32:22,170	We thank her for her service. Thank you. We have a motion in a second any further discussion? I guess I need a second. Oh right now we have a motion in discussion. Any further motion in a second. Any further discussion? He’s got a row. Horn, yes, yes, Schmidt.

00:32:49,500	Yes, yes, Shenando well yes, move on to the next item review and consider approval at 2425 teaching contracts Eldon Cro construction trades at Mandan High School, Alexei Dirt, 5th grade at Lakewood and Kelsey Schmidt, 5th grade at Lewis and Clark and as you’re explaining this, Dr. Betz Eldon Cl was a teacher here before, but he’s on the list here. So. So we all know. Thank you. Um, yes, Mr.

00:33:12,330	Crow is our construction trades teacher, um, he resigned and you accepted his resignation if you I don’t know, months ago or a few weeks ago, I’m not sure it was, it was a while back and he kept saying, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave and we kept having conversations with him.

00:33:28,870	He’s a, he’s a great teacher. He does a great job with her kids, really excited to get him back. um, he’s in Germany right now, but he came in and. He agreed to come back one more year, um, excited to have him back. There is no request to hire.

00:33:45,970	We’ve had it open and we had no applicants, so, um, really excited to have him back on staff and it would be our recommendation to hire him and then Lexi Dirk and Kelsey Schmidt to fill the 25th grade openings. All right, thank you.

00:34:07,930	Any further discussions, questions? So what would be full for teachers? Yes, we are full right now for teachers, um, last week we. Literally, when we got done with our meeting, I stepped up and I had a text from Mike Alman saying, I’m gonna email you a letter of resignation. It’s like, no, so I haven’t checked my phone, but as of right now we are full. Dr. Bitz, you cannot check your phone tonight.

00:34:28,200	All right, any further discussion questions? What are the wishes of the board? I’d make the motion to approve the teaching contracts for Eldon Crewe, Alexei Dirk, and Kelsey Schmidt and welcome them to the school district. We have a motion we have a second 2nd. Motion a second any further discussion? Earning and seeing them, let’s go roll.

00:34:54,830	Yes, yes yes, yes. Next item on the agenda is review and consider approval of 2425 handbooks, several, a lot of pages in in The agenda for that tonight the classified staff, the teacher, the elementary school, the middle school, the high school, the Brave Center Academy, and the men and Virtual Academy. Dr.

00:35:17,930	Rederrath hit the high points and some of them and then if there’s questions, um, Tyler Steinman, our HR director, did a nice job of summarizing in an email that classified handbook changes. You’ll see those on page 8, just added some further information and clarification and absences due to workplace injury and it added a citation on page 12 section 31 added.

00:35:38,030	Clarification regarding change in daily work hours and a correlation to personal leave balance. Page 16 added sentences surrounding excessiveness punches and then also on pages 17 through 19 updated the lane and step scale. You’ll notice at the beginning of these handbooks we do still need to update the directory information in them.

00:35:57,570	So if there’s any questions on that one? Pretty straightforward. We want to do this in separate motions or all in one all in one. You’ll notice that the teacher handbook is not part of the packet. We did not make any changes this year. If you remember for previous board, um, meetings, we have the teacher handbook all on canvas.

00:36:18,100	And so for anybody who’s interested in walking through it, I can definitely show it to you. We’ve really taken the approach of the teacher handbook of really making it a resource guide for teachers, places that they can go find resources both instructionally and on policy and but it’s very reflective of the classified Habook in a lot

00:36:33,570	of ways, um, and some of the policy references, but then has some nice resources. So we have not made any changes to that this year, but at any point in time, if someone would like to take a look at that, I would be happy to sit down and walk you through it.

00:36:48,130	Really the only major like substantial change in the elementary handbook was they changed from phones on page 14 to devices. And the reason for that if you’re familiar with like gizmo watches and things like that, we’re getting a lot of those at the elementary level, some smart watches that they were having some issues with um with

00:37:05,100	some of the younger students they wanted to update that handbook to include. Devices instead of just phones. And then, yes, I didn’t mean to interrupt you here, but I just happened to notice and I didn’t catch this early when I was reading through it, but on page 3.

00:37:24,830	I think I’m in the elementary one, you still have uh Tracy Klein listed on all the contacts in there in relation to it, so he needs to be updated on all the all the ones that are out there. I will say that directory information and all the pages was not updated.

00:37:41,970	We send that out to the and each building does their own because I think like Mr. Bardell is still listed in Lewis and Clark, and so they’ll update their staff and they will wait to do that till the way in because there may be another new hire or two before then. I was thinking this probably wasn’t a directory one, but. All right, thank you.

00:37:57,970	And then as you look through the middle school and there’s a few changes, but probably the most substantial one you notice is they instituted uh end of the year awards ceremony this last year and they wanted to outline that in the handbook so that parents understood what those awards were and how they were, you know, their students were

00:38:12,900	able to uh get those, so that was the most substantial change to the middle school one, a few smaller ones here or there, but that would be the, the big one you see. And then with the high school handbook, a lot of the changes in that are reflecting.

00:38:30,000	new building just different language when you’re talking a different physical setup of the building, um, that we needed to update some things with that, um, and then some other minor not changes with like cheating policy.

00:38:48,030	There was a little more leniency for teacher discretion and if they get a 0 or if they’re allowed to redo the project, uh, a few changes like that, a little more leniency on hats, allowing them in classrooms per teacher discretion, which is something um that’s always a hot topic. I’m off to. Bismarck Public Schools does allow hats in their high schools.

00:39:07,770	Um, we have not historically, so this is a little bit of the middle ground on that, but most of the changes within the the handbook are just reflective of the new building. And then with our Brave Center Academy and the virtual Academy, really minor changes updated some of the cheating and plagiarism pieces and also really highlighted when those students are eligible for school activities, um, really wanting to make sure that we’re engaging all of our

00:39:25,670	students in those so it got a little more explosive with that. In the handbook. I know it’s a lot of pages and a lot of information. Are there any questions? Anybody have any questions? I’ll just comment uh the page. I think you said 81, the hats. I, I don’t, I don’t agree with that.

00:39:46,300	I, when the way I read it, it’s up to each teacher, so we’re gonna make the teachers the bad guys and so I don’t, I don’t agree with that. I just think it should stay no hats, but but that is something that Mr.

00:40:05,570	Andresen left to his teachers to um decide on the hats and that’s the ground they fell on. Um, I, I kind of agree with you. To me, it’s, it’s hard when it’s discretion of the teacher because I might say sure and Dr. Bitz might say no way, and we got a fight on our hands. But, um, Mr.

00:40:21,500	Andrewsen did solicit feedback from his um department chairs and from his teachers, and that’s where they fell on the middle ground of it. I would just say that. I don’t see a reason for hats in school at all or in the building so. Mm-hmm Alright, any other questions? else have any other comments? I was looking here because I did have one and I can’t find it.

00:40:46,700	It was about dances. If you do find a mistake or a typo or anything, even if it’s after this meeting, we can change it. We don’t have to live with it for a year so if it’s substantial, we’d bring it back to you, but if it’s. Go ahead.

00:41:13,870	Um, and the we um Nine products to that kind of thing I guess I just do not, I didn’t see it when I went through it first. We consider that all the the same. So we, we consider it the same. I, I. It’s illegal for them to have anyway, so yeah.

00:41:30,230	We can mention it, I, I guess I don’t know how they refer to that now because it’s not, you know, the zins is like the, the vape of chewing. I’m thinking if we would do some sort of language of any illegal tobacco product, you know, for anybody under 18, nicotine product. Something to be aware of.

00:41:54,000	Yeah, we can do a more general statement, so otherwise sometimes those lists unfortunately continue to grow and grow. Um, OK, my question is on page 23. It talks about the homecoming dance and a snowball dancer.

00:42:15,700	And the snowball dance the last sentence to attend students must meet the school dance expectation which is not in the homecoming dance one, and then down below you got school dance expectations and the way I would read that, you don’t have to follow the school dance expectations for homecoming, but you do for the snowball, is that right? I saw the same thing this afternoon, and I think that’s an error that they should both be the same. So I’m gonna talk with Mr.

00:42:32,370	Andrewsson when he’s back from Nashville and correct that on the homecoming one, because you should not be eligible for the homecoming dance. For the same reasons of snowball. I think our dances would be consistent between the two.

00:42:49,130	It’s Mia, you can just take the last sentence off the snowball dance and you’d have it because you got it under the snowball the school dance expectation I meant to mention that I’m glad you caught that. OK Any other questions? I was just wondering, uh, I can’t find it in here. What is the school policy for, um, kids with a sick. Be home sick and then he needed to go see a Dr.

00:43:09,730	, like how many visits? Are you talking, are you talking about excused absences, um, state law says a parent parent can excuse any absence. Is that what you’re? Well, I thought that they in high school they were like after 5 excuses. Sometimes they have to go see a Dr. and get a doctor’s note. I think we can ask that.

00:43:29,030	We, I don’t think we generally it’s yeah, a parent can excuse any absence. We do. We’re also mandatory reporters, so if we think. It’s excessive and there’s too many absences and not enough documentation, um, we can report to social services. We don’t want to do that. I mean, that’s not something we’d like to do.

00:43:49,770	The one change that you’ll see, I think it’s on page 14 of the high school is it’ll, it says no students missing more than 20% of a required class days per semester may be removed from a normal class and moved to an alternative setting, um, that includes medical so if I miss.

00:44:08,130	45% of the algebra one class, but I’m saying I, I wanna still be here, but I’m not there at all. We’re saying we’re going to move you to a virtual setting or some other setting will still work with you to get the credit, but it’s not a reasonable expectation to keep up with an in-person class if you can’t physically be there, so that was a change on that front, so we’ll still work

00:44:22,430	with students to get their credits by giving us a little more flexibility of if things are becoming just too impeding uh for them to be successful in that face to face setting. And you might lose some test exemption at the high school after so many absences.

00:44:36,770	I mean that that’s a piece but a parent has the right to excuse their child. Any time Yeah, I was gonna say go going along that line, if a kid is perfect attendance and is out for 10 days sick, we’re probably not gonna worry about that at all because this is out of character and if mom and dad say he’s sick, he hasn’t missed

00:44:54,930	a day in 2 years. We believe he’s sick. If everyday parent calls him in sick for 4 days, you know, eventually you kind of get to the point where you, you kind of question things, so. Any other questions? On page 42 of the elementary, the attendance policy, um, it does state.

00:45:23,170	Uh Where did it go now? When a student is ill after 3 consecutive parental requests, the student may need a note from a Dr.. Is that what you’re kind of talking about Amy? I just remember in high school I thought somebody said a 55 sick days, um, but that didn’t have to be consecutive, so you could be sick 3 days and 2 months

00:45:40,970	later be sick one day and then another. That’s how I was informed by somebody, so I was just curious if that was how it was. I, I don’t believe that’s the case, and we put May in there, it just gives. Us a little bit of we can question it if. We think there’s something.

00:46:00,500	Fishy and we say part of the reason we do that too is at the elementary level at kindergarten is obviously very dependent on mom and dad to get them to school. And so if we’re seeing excessive absences and stuff, we just that little more of accountability or working with parents on that where 16 year old when they hit high school,

00:46:16,500	um, a lot of that accountability shifts to the students, so that’s part of why you see that after 3 days at the elementary level just, um, wanting a little more contact with the parent earlier on with our young ones. We very seldom ask for notes, but we may it just if we.

00:46:35,900	It just gives, it’s another tool for our principals, um. We need to get, we’re charged with getting kids to school and making sure they get an education and. Almost all of our parents are great, but sometimes parents. Excuse their kids probably more than they should.

00:47:04,700	All right, any further questions? What are the wishes of the board? I would move to approve the 2024, 25 handbooks. We have a motion. We have a second? I We have a second Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Hearing and seeing them, please call roll yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item on the agenda is the tour.

00:47:35,030	I’ll come back to that in a second, uh, future meeting dates August 5th regular school board, 5:30 p.m. City Hall, August 19th regular school board 5:30 p.m. City Hall, August 19th annual retreat, uh 6 p.m. at City Hall. August 26th facilities and finance 5:30 p.m. at the Brave Center, September 3rd regular school board 7 p.m. at City Hall. September 16th regular school board 5:30 p.m.

00:48:00,170	City Hall September 16th is the budget hearing 6:15 p.m. City Hall. We got to go through the budget hearing for Mil Levy and those type of things, so that’ll be on that one there. Um, any other meeting dates that anybody wants to bring up here in regard to this? There’s no CTE one on there coming up.

00:48:22,400	July 29th at 5:30 at the Braves Center. We’ll also offer a Zoom option for it too, since we have all of our outlying schools as well. I just figured you had one coming up. All right, um, anything else? If not, we’re gonna go tour the new high school to view the construction in regard to it, so we’re going to recess this.

00:48:45,530	We’ll go back in up there in regard to what doors were we going to meet up there. We’re gonna go in the southeast door. It’s the academic wing that looks like it has wood trim kind of surrounding the door. That’s where we’ll meet. I will be there to open that door for you.

00:49:00,470	All right, so we’ll meet up there, so when you get up there. Uh, drive safely on the way up there in regard to we’ll meet up there and once that’s done, uh, we’ll adjourn the meeting at that point in time. Any questions? If not, thanks everybody. I’ll see you up