00:00:07,370	I’m Josh Jager, president of the Bismarck School Board. It’s 5:15 on Monday, January 12th. I call this meeting to order Welcome to those of you who are joining us both here and also online. You can find our agenda and follow along under the school board tab at BismarcksSchools.org.

00:00:25,270	Uh, Dr Sher, would you call the roll, please? Mister Hager, here, Mister Eastgateate, here, Mr. Lee, here, Mrs. Peterson, here, Miss Preskey, here. All board members are here. Dr Faussau, would you lead us in the pledge? My pleasure.

00:00:47,530	I pledge allegiance to the 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. I1C is the BPS Miss Vision and Values, the BPS mission is to empower every learner to thrive.

00:01:19,530	The BPS vision states together our relationships build inclusive, collaborative, and innovative environments that create agency and inspire a passion for learning, excellence and discovery The BPS values are inclusion, excellence, innovation, and leadership. You’ll also find a link to in the Agenda to the BPS strategic plan. Item 2 is to adopt the agenda. What are the wishes of the board? Prisoner, I would move that we adopt the agenda I’ll second We have a motion in a second any discussion.

00:01:41,970	seeing none, Dr Scher. Eastgate, yes, Lee, yes, Peterson, Bresy Hager, yes, motion passes. Item 3 Uh, focus on success, the K-12 learning Academy, exciting. Dr Frostnott. Oh, good afternoon, board members. Nice to see you again.

00:02:05,530	Uh, yeah, we have a little, uh, um, kind of a little giggle of uh educators and a parent who would like to talk to you about the virtual Academy. We’d like to share not only with you, but our listening public a little bit about the first year, half a year of our K8 virtual academy, that’s off the ground, which we’ve talked about before.

00:02:19,330	So we’re gonna give you a little background on that, how it’s doing, but then talk about uh what we’d do. like to do operationally to expand that into the 9 through 12 uh realm and some of the benefits of doing that. So I’d like to bring the podium and introduce to you, Missandemeyer. Good evening, President Hanger members of the board.

00:02:34,330	We’re going to start this evening with what we’ve done so far, and then I will turn it over and we’ll talk about what the expansion plans are. So Mr.

00:02:46,600	Barnhard is going to share our purpose and mission and vision, and I’m not going to read this, but if you have the time to read it, it really says that we are trying to extend what is currently happening within BPS and ensure that the mission of empowering every learning to thrive, also occurs in this virtual setting. On the next slide, we just want to give you a little background on why did we start the pilot.

00:03:05,270	So the first reason is we’ve had some success with other personalized programs, a few that you’re familiar with is Empowered Ed and Renewed.

00:03:20,870	And so we really leaned on what parts of that model work well for that subset of students and then how can we use that to inform the work that we were, um, embarking on last February. The second reason is that the technology is advancing and so the ability to have blended and hybrid experiences has improved greatly since our first experience during COVID, and so we want to lean on that opportunity to advance personalization.

00:03:41,070	And the next reason is we have a growing homeschool family We have families that want to be the lead learner in their child’s education, and we don’t think they should have to choose between a public school education and homeschool. We want to be a partner in that. And finally, we want to continue to serve our family.

00:03:53,430	I got a few calls over the course of last spring, asking what are my other options, and we wanted to increase the pathways for families. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about what that means on the next slide. Oh, before we do that, apologize. I just want to highlight the current team.

00:04:11,370	So as we were starting to have this conversation, we wanted to be as fiscally responsible as possible. And so all the people you see here had different roles last year and kindly agreed to take on this journey so that we could keep costs at a minimum.

00:04:28,070	So I do want to just highlight and express my gratitude to the amazing lady sitting over here that took on this work to little to no cost to BPS. So we have, um, Kate is our 68 teacher, Ivy Wrath is our K-5 teacher.

00:04:49,900	The LDI secretary took on all of the school secretary principal, support roles, and we also have the LO secretary that supported the families in their curricular needs, um, and then finally, Misty was our lead curricular support, and I just appreciate her willingness to add that portfolio, uh, last February. And now the pathways, so I apologize.

00:05:12,270	So we started by partnering with Mandan and Fargo to find out what they were currently doing because they both had long-standing success since COVID. And so we partnered with both of those school districts and then we really looked at what was important to BPS and what we landed on was having a very traditional pathway, trying to keep it as familiar to what currently is experienced in brick and mortar.

00:05:27,870	We wanted a self paced pathway which would provide more flexibility for kids that just wanted to get on, be able to do it at their own pace and still be able to check in with the teacher.

00:05:42,730	And then finally that most open-ended was the personalized pathway, so really leaning into compet ency based for families that were ready to explore that. And the coolest part that our team came up with is that families could pick per content area. And so if there was a learner that wanted to be self-paced for math because that was potentially a strength area. They didn’t want as much partnership with the teacher.

00:05:58,730	They could be self-paced for math, and then they could be in a traditional setting for ELA for so studies, for science. And so they really had options.

00:06:15,270	They didn’t have to go all or nothing, which created some extra logistical things, but it also really met the need of what families were asking for On the next slide, this is another component I wanted to highlight is a lot of times we hear virtual and we think a student is on a computer all day long. That was a priority for us to not have that be true, especially for our littlest learners.

00:06:33,170	And so they all received a kit with hands-on materials, manipulatives, workbooks, in addition to the subscriptions and access to anything that a student would have within BPS so that they could spend the important time on the computer with the teacher, but also then be able to do their independent learning off of the device.

00:06:53,800	And this is the other highlight of the program is we wanted to keep a connection. I think that’s what makes this so cool is it’s by BPS for BPS within BPS, and so we have learners coming in to our site and doing learning Da hands-on with their other classmates, and we’re going offsite to use community resources.

00:07:12,900	So an example would be the powwow Gateway to Santeel Arts Center, similar to field trips, but we’re really targeting some of the standards that are difficult to meet in a virtual setting through those leave to learn experiences and learning days. And the last slide here is our current enrollment.

00:07:32,800	So the, the vision to pilot was to try to find 12 families that were interested in in doing this with us. And as of today, today is the start of the new semester. We have 44 families enrolled. And I did highlight there the 8th grade number because that’s going to take us right into our next conversation.

00:07:51,000	We have 16 8th graders currently enrolled with us, which means we need to be thinking about what 9th grade is going to look like for those learners next year. And so I do have, um, Mr. Calvoda and Miss Frank here, and they’re going to talk about the 912 expansion and then we’ll come back together and answer any questions that you might have.

00:08:11,100	President Hager, members of the board, uh, so South Central is component of this is to provide academic support um through curricular specialties, uh, particularly the Core specialties. So my math, science, social studies, English, as well as I believe this uh physical education component.

00:08:34,100	So my staff is stand going to stand to help out students who are working on their curricular and they have trouble with a certain content area, they will have time set aside in their day when they will be able to go online and have a meeting with students to give them the support that they need.

00:08:50,730	Um, I will be there as the administrator and to we have a 1.0 person that’s going to be hired a teacher, much like you have for the um middle school and the elementary part of it. We’ll have a high school person that’s going to be like a coordinator teacher position. Um, there’s also an additional 1.

00:09:11,970	0 FTE if additional academic support is needed, but to begin with, we’ll rely on the South Central staff to do that, depending on demand and depending on need, and then support from my administrative assistant as well as my counselor. So that’s our component for the program. Misty? Oh, Steve’s there So I got here just in time.

00:09:34,900	Uh, this slide talks a little bit about, uh, the, the breadth of the curriculum. And so, um, a student enrolled in the virtual, uh, high school, uh, we’ll be able to get all the credits necessary for graduation.

00:09:52,530	Now with that said, it’s not going to have all of the offerings that we have in-person learning, you know, a student isn’t going to learn to swing a hammer behind a keyboard, and so there’s a lot of our um elective offerings that wouldn’t be involved in the virtual program.

00:10:07,470	Um, and, uh, so what we would have the ability to do is for those students who are enrolled as a virtual student to be able to access our in-person, so if they want to take her musics or career academy classes or some of those uh upper level languages are really difficult without the conversational piece in some of our world languages.

00:10:25,370	And so, uh, those will be offered, uh, AP and dual credit because of some of the certifications that go along with that. Uh, they will not be offered on virtual programming. and then, uh, as far as students still being engaged with some of our student support services.

00:10:45,370	Uh, those will still be offered and then if students want to engage in our extracurricular programming. They’ll be eligible to do that, uh, just based on their boundary school. And we do have a current parent here this evening, so I’m going to invite her to come up and just share a little bit about her experience and then we’ll go over the recommendations for next year, so.

00:11:06,270	come on Hi, um, I’m Kylee Vennis. I am a mom. I’ve got 3 kids, um, enrolled in virtual Academy. I have a 5th grader, a 7th grader, and an 8th grader. So I’m one of the parents who has an 8th grader who was looking, um, into next year as well.

00:11:30,970	Um, so I have always homeschooled my kids, um, for various reasons. Um, mostly needing flexibility because of medical issues that we have. So, um, when virtual Academy I got the little flyer in the mail, um.

00:11:52,100	I think I called pretty much right away after I got that flyer, just to see what it was all about, and um it was very much what we were looking for, um we have, I have kids in just about all of the pathways to, um sorry, to Mrs. and Mrsiki, my bad. Um, um, so, and I have kids that need additional supports as well, and they’ve been wonderful about helping us through all of that.

00:12:19,370	So, um we’ve just been really, really thankful as a family for virtual Academy, being able to um have access to really quality education for our kids. I don’t have to be the teacher, I am so, so, so thankful for Mrs. Wrath and Mrs. Ski. They are incredible for my kids and my kids are really thriving under them as well.

00:12:38,630	Um, I should have brought my fifth grader. I was going to bring my 5th grader, but he ended up sick cause he wanted to just say how much he really loves, um doing school with Mrs. Rathth. So he has a really just blossomed and thrived, um.

00:12:56,270	I’ve also really appreciated this year has definitely been a learning year, I think for all of us, and their flexibility has been amazing, just their ability to adapt to it, the kids need, um, that’s been really, really great.

00:13:14,370	um, even doing curriculum changes, we started out with like, um, for my eighth grader, he was all ingenuity and now he’s not going to be any ingenuity. So, um, just being able to adapt to what he needs has been really, really great as well.

00:13:32,630	Um, and I guess yeah, I, um, I really hope this program just continues to thrive because it’s really been wonderful for our family, um, because of the ages of my kids, I really hope they high school next year.

00:13:52,870	I have a current high schooler that, um, she would have loved to have been a part of Virtual Academy, um, so yeah So thank you Couple other examples that I want to share before we finish is in addition to families like the Venices. We have families that are currently in Pakistan that we are serving.

00:14:11,100	We have families whose student is, um, receiving cancer care and can’t be in a school that we’re able to serve, and I just want to finish this evening before we talk about numbers, um, just really talking about how the partnerships with our current buildings have been amazing. So shout out to all three middle schools. We have students that are in the virtual Acade m y but are remote enrolled in Abbott or peer to peer or orchestra, and I, we could not do this.

00:14:26,000	We could not have the success that we’ve had if it wasn’t an all hands on deck partnership. So just really thankful to our middle school principals, our elementary principals who have students that we’re sharing. It’s, it’s just been really appreciated and collaborative and so with that, we have the funding here and Dr Faschnnat promised that he would take over from here.

00:14:43,600	But we’ll stand for any questions at the end. Um, yeah, don’t trust the L LDI with the numbers. No, that’s what I heard from there. No, thank you, Amanda, and we’ll come back to you. Um, just giving you a really rough budget, just trying to let you see what the costs are.

00:14:59,070	That is total programs, so some of that you’ve already invested in, it’s not all new dollars, um, but we’re trying to reflect some of the new 9 through 12 faculty in there, um, as, uh, Mr.

00:15:14,170	Calvoda said one of the FTEs that’s reflected in the budget isn’t going to be hired right away We don’t need it right away, but as we expand, I think we just need to be aware of that and, uh, just kind of planning ahead that if that becomes as popular as what we’ve rolled out this last year, we might need some additional capacity.

00:15:27,970	So with that said, if you go to the revenue side, all this is as Mr. Meyer said last year is like, you get 12 kids in the program, we can make this fund, and we can, particularly if we are deferring kids who are leaving our system and going to

00:15:43,000	home education or picking another option if we can retain those, that helps, uh, fund it. So if you go to the next page, Mr.

00:16:01,530	Barnardt um, if you look at, uh, funding for next year from the state as 11,633, 44 kids presently, um, in our KA program, you look at what that projected present funding is, uh, again, if you look at the, at the 599 at the top, and again, that’s reflective in another teacher that we’re not going to hire, so I think we’re pretty even right now. Um, I was optimistically aggressively um telling Mr.

00:16:19,600	Meyer that you need about 8 kids. Well, as she said, I think those are sitting in 8th grade right now. We have that enrollment coming. It’s building for the future and uh I think we can um leverage those eighth graders coming up to help support the program and implement it and provide some of the options that we are now

00:16:35,730	to these families as the examples that was given at the podium, um, 2 or 9 through 12 families, and you’ve heard this before. I mean, you get that open enrollment report. I think he got that this last fall, but the number of kids that are attending Yellowstone.

00:16:52,870	Yellowst one is a virtual option that’s out of district, that is, um, in Yellowstone, North Dakota, um, we think why, why are we sending 27 kids to Yellowstone Product.

00:17:12,000	That’s really what we can now offer and give you hands-on learning, use our resources, use our expertise, um, go to our libraries, go to our learning facilities to help support you. Seems like an instant win for families, and uh I think what Mr. Meyer led with is a growing number of home educated families that we know some are making, uh, they’re all making a great choice.

00:17:28,070	It’s parent choice, but some of them want some support, and I think that’s what I applaud the program that’s been built by Mrs. Meyer and her team as they brought those families in to help craft the program to meet their needs and, uh, if we can help support those families, our job is to support the education of kids wherever they are.

00:17:43,070	Doesn’t matter if they’re in my building or in town. We’re here to support them. And if we can, um, that’s the heart of the work we’re doing. So, if you’d have any questions, I’ll stand for any. We’ll bring whoever back to the podium for you. Board members, questions, comments. Ms. Peterson I, I do have one question.

00:17:59,600	I think my first one is for Dr Fassnna, but my second is for the, the, the parent, um, my first question is, in the way that the enrollments work, so let’s say you get 8 students now, you know that you’re gonna get it, uh, in what degree do you have to have these students, um, enrolled beforehand where

00:18:18,330	you can make decisions or is it they can enroll at any time during the school year. Um, I know that that’s kind of been a little bit fluid, so like as long as you would get 8 to, to roll with the program, are you able to grow and flex

00:18:29,330	throughout the, the school year to adapt, or would you have to cut it off? Um, I think all those answers are accurate. Yeah. OK. I can see. Um, we started with enrollments right away.

00:18:46,470	We have created enrollment windows because it can’t happen every day, but we’ve also, I know Miss Meyers come to me and said, we can’t take any more. We’re out a staffing line where we can’t expand, um, but in another enrollment window, if we can project, we know we can ramp up staff if there, we knew there was going to be an enrollment girl.

00:19:00,270	So I think everything you’ve said is probably accurate, so A mean anything. The only thing I would add is the sooner we know the spring, then the better we can prepare for the 26, 27 school year. What Dr Foschnnat said is true. This year we’ve been on the fly.

00:19:17,900	It would be nice to have enrollments by May, so staffing could be ready in the fall, but we are using those windows to help project as well. President Hager, can I continue? I think I have a, um, one question, um, for, um, Ms.

00:19:37,630	Ben is it Venice or Venice? OK, thank you, um, so good to hear your family experience, and I just wanted you, I know that earlier on in the presentation, um Dr Meyer talked a little bit about the learning kits and the curriculum, and you even spoke a little bit about how you guys are, are kind of adding those components within it.

00:19:55,000	Just wondering, um, how could you speak to like maybe how the kids supported your learning or if your children do some of that on site, offsite, extracurriculars, like what, how do you take advantage of some of that, um, those, those different school building, um, engagements, or if you do, um, so my kids, um, have not done anything at like their local um elementary or middle school, um, as of right now they will, my youngest especially, he’ll do sports

00:20:17,730	next year. Um. uh, my middle schoolers haven’t just, they’re not really sports kids, but also um, they have a lot of medical needs. So that takes up a lot of our time. Um, so, but they do. Thank you. Yes, they do. um, they do have learning days that they participate in.

00:20:43,900	And the cool thing about that is my kids have made new friends, just in the virtual Academy. I mean, they’ve had um I didn’t, I think my middle school boys would cringe if I said this word, but they basically have like play dates with their friends now outside of it, and so, and they, you

00:20:58,900	know, they have each other’s numbers and they talk and they do, you know, regular middle school. boy things, so, you know, so I mean that’s been really, really great. So. thank you so much. Mr. Eastgate Thanks, President Hager. Um, Ms. Meyer and the team, thanks everybody for presenting.

00:21:17,370	I don’t have a question right now yet, Amanda, but I, I might, um, as you recall, I, I did the school visit last year at the Central Office Building and this first came up and so I just wanted to put a voice to it again, you know, as you know,

00:21:27,730	we didn’t argue about it, but I’m a big proponent of in in-person education and I just want to make sure we state that because we talk about virtual learning, I think sometimes I can get confused, but as you’ve educated me on this, um, and I, I heard Mr.

00:21:43,170	Calvota talk about it earlier today at a at a separate meeting. um I, I like to see what BPS is doing with it and the fact that the way I was putting it down, we’ve had some things with Renewed behavioral, um, when there’s instances where a student can’t be in the classroom.

00:21:55,730	And then it’s really, it was really fun for me to hear from Miss Venice. So thank you for your, for being willing to be here tonight and field questions and everything because obviously from your kids’s experience, um it’s, it’s allowed them, you said that, you know, he wanted to be here to, to say hi to his teacher. Like there’s, there’s a connection made there.

00:22:09,900	There’s that mentoring opportunity that’s going on beyond just the 2 + 2 equals 4, which I always think is so what makes in-person in class teaching is so great, and I’m glad that that’s still happening, even, you know, through a virtual academy.

00:22:21,900	I think the biggest thing that I look at is that the virtual Academy for us, I hope is always a compliment, a supplement, and not a replacement, um, and that’s what I’m hearing is going on.

00:22:37,270	So for me, I look at it as a, as a positive thing for our district to continue to serve our our greater community I really appreciate you saying that. I do have two children in BPS and so we did start this last year saying we’re not competing with the excellent program that we already have, and I just want to compliment Mr. Madler and Mr.

00:22:51,530	Calvoda as they talked about the high school side is this is in addition to the excellent programming that we already have, and so it’s not saying that this way is better than another way. It’s giving families more options to educate their children. So thank you for saying that. Mr. Lee. Uh, thank you, President Hanard. So it kind of um hit me when Mr.

00:23:12,900	Eastgate was, was talking, uh, and I, and I love this, this program. I, I think there’s a lot of great things about it. I think there’s many reasons why people, um, homeschool their kids, and I think there’s many resources we as a district can provide to them and, and, uh, that can add, um, incredible value, right, to parents and to kids, uh, and it

00:23:30,170	looks to me like when I do the quick math, uh, the, the per pupil, uh, funding kind of adds up to about what it is uh in district, which I think is important that we’re not spending more on this than we do our general ed. So, uh, the big thing I, I took from Mr.

00:23:45,630	Eastgate was I’ve always talked about this and I’m kind of a broken record, but I, I, I see a real strong need in renewed and, and, uh, and, uh, kids who can’t self-regulate or probably um probably shouldn’t uh be in our buildings.

00:24:05,730	I think we need to make sure that um there’s an understanding that it’s a privilege to to be in our schools everyday, and there, there is an expectation for how kids, uh, act, so there are behaviors. We know that. Um, is this, uh, are you taking renewed students through the virtual Academy or any behaviors? At this time, we are parent choice.

00:24:23,970	And so we would certainly partner with a parent if that was the choice that they wanted to make, but we’re not making referrals into the virtual Academy unless a parent thinks it’s the right fit for their child. OK.

00:24:41,630	And just to get your take on this, would there ever be a time where this would be appropriate for um as a referral. I do believe through our SSA process if a school had been working with a family and this was maybe identified as an intervention that we would be willing to partner, come up to the table and decide if it’s a good fit, but I think that that parent plays a huge role in

00:24:54,430	making sure because there is a commitment level, as you heard from Miss Venice, that the parent has to feel successful with that environment. And obviously that commitment is unable to be met by, by a number of our, our parents really.

00:25:10,970	So it would be on a case by case basis, right? And we renewed would certainly have better resources and so I would love to partner if that got to a point where they felt like this was the best fit as an intervention. OK. Yeah. All right. Thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you for what you do.

00:25:22,370	Yeah, thank you, and thank you for letting us come and thank you to all of you for taking time out of your evening. Ms. Preskey. Yeah, um, I’m, I’m curious if we expand this to, um, high school, how that might affect the population at South Central. Will we see maybe a decrease in students that will go through that avenue and opt for the virtual academy instead.

00:25:44,530	What are your thoughts on that Mr. Calvoda’s gonna come back. You know, so obviously this is an unknown. We don’t know exactly what I think I’m talking to my counterparts in other parts of the state who have virtual academies in place.

00:26:05,870	There will be some effect to it, but I think there’s also the comb the possibility that having South Central staff connecting with those students and seeing the opportunity that maybe they would like to at some point come to South Central because of the different environment and is much more of like a homeschool environment to draw some of those students to come to our school as well.

00:26:21,330	So I, it’s really an unknown at this point. We’ll, we’ll wait and see. But we’ll support them either way Any other comments, questions? OK, seeing none. Thank you, Miss Meyer, and. team for, for coming again. Miss Meyer is becoming frequent. We’re going to get you a punch card for all the times you. you’re here after. Yeah.

00:26:44,270	So, thank you all for coming. This is, as it’s been, you know, touched on here, kind of an exciting time to kind of see this kind of developing and and rolling out over over time. So thank you all for, for presenting and sharing this information. Item 4 is public comment.

00:27:04,070	The board recognizes the central role parents play in the education of their children and supports active parent involvement in the education process. The board’s practice of public comment reflects and aligns with policy BCBA and the spirit of its intent. For classroom issues, it’s best to follow the chain of command.

00:27:23,730	Teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, superintendent, uh, for district issues, please reach out to Dr Fossnott If you do speak tonight, we simply ask that you be responsible, be helpful, and be respectful. Our BPS students deserve to have adults model the expectations that we have for them Groups are urged to select one spokesperson.

00:27:41,530	Individuals will be limited to no more than 4 minutes and will be notified with 30 seconds remaining to conclude the remarks. The board will not debate issues as presented, but will take such matters under advisement. With that, please stand and approach the prodium if you do wish to speak tonight. Please state your name in the agenda item that you will be speaking about.

00:28:03,270	Good evening, Chair and board. Um, to be honest with you, I didn’t plan on speaking tonight, but I do see that you have transportation listed twist on the agenda.

00:28:19,870	So I want to share my experience this year a little bit and give you some perspective because I’ll be honest with you, we’ve been using the, uh, transportation option, the bussing option through BPS. for over 10 years and I have had confidence. I’ve had trust in uh Harlow’s for that service.

00:28:36,000	I mean, at one point me and my wife would leave our kids at home, and we had faith while we were at our jobs that the bus was gonna drop them off and pick them up. I can tell you this year I do not have that confidence had you not have that trust in the system. Um, my son actually was supposed to ride the bus this morning, and he ended up watching the bus drive by twice.

00:28:51,270	Luckily my wife was at the side of the road with him. and we did not have inclement weather. Um, it was a gorgeous morning for this mishap. So I guess something good came of it. But the reason I am at the board meeting tonight, I will be in full transparency. I have reached out to Dr Fossnotch.

00:29:09,070	We have discussed my concerns. I am here tonight because you guys are elected officials. I don’t want to sound like a broker record because I do say this quite often. Would you represent the people, and Dr Fossnotch does not. So I am here tonight asking you to get your hands involved in this.

00:29:23,800	Um, and I do understand how coherent governance works and that you guys govern through policy, but I would like to point out several years ago, you guys adopted the school board visit, um, program that you guys all attend. I personally think it’s been a great program.

00:29:42,070	It gives you guys a perspective on what is actually happening in our schools. It gives you an opportunity to talk to staff and it gives you a different perspective than just sitting at this table and hearing it somewhat secondhand So I guess I’m here tonight to ask you guys with our bussing

00:29:57,530	dilemma that we have, would you guys, and I understand you’re busy, got, y’all got lives outside of this board, but I would think that it would be in the board’s best benefit. to take an opportunity to ride these buses. so that you gain not only a perspective for what our drivers deal with on a daily basis.

00:30:16,100	Um some of the behavioral issues you can maybe see, but you can also see how these routes are run. You can see capacities because that’s another concern I have. We went from a bus route that was full.

00:30:31,900	My only complaint over the last 10 years would be that there wasn’t enough seats for children on buses, and that they were sitting in the aisles And now I’m told from Nehood kids and my own child that there’s 6 to 8 kids. riding a bus Miles equal dollars. We are still paying for those miles, whether there’s 20 kids or one kid.

00:30:51,070	Um, so I would question the fiscal responsibility of this current system also. But like I said, my main purpose tonight is to uh let you guys know that I think there’s concerns that aren’t being addressed. Um and I think as board members, you guys have a responsibility to the public. um, to, to seek those those perspectives.

00:31:09,070	So I would ask you to maybe model after the the school visit, uh. um, deal that you guys have done and maybe on these buses, take some time out of the day and, you know, ride a morning route or ride an afternoon route and you know, gain some perspective because we are having a problem

00:31:27,800	finding bus drivers. Nobody’s going to deny that. It’s, it’s a staffing problem. It’s part of the equation. Find out what do our drivers like? What do they dislike? What is you as a board can do to support the superintendent. in that hiring process.

00:31:46,600	We all have to be involved, whether it’s from a parent aspect, whether it’s from an administration aspect. or a board aspect. So I ask you to please consider that Thank you. Thanks Anybody else wish to speak tonight? OK, seeing, uh, nobody else, public comment is now closed.

00:32:19,530	takes us down to item 5, monitoring district operations, so we are tonight having a public reading of GC 7 board members Code of Conduct. So this will be the public reading of GC 7. It’s a lengthy one The board and its members will conduct themselves lawfully with and with integrity and high ethical standards in order to model the behaviors expected of staff and students and to build public confidence and credibility.

00:32:45,730	One board members will serve the interests of the citizens of the entire school district Members recognized this responsibility to the whole to be greater than a any loyalty, a member may have to any other advocacy or interest groups, loyalty based upon membership on other boards or staffs. C.

00:33:10,800	conflicts based upon the personal interests of any board member who is also a parent of a student in the district. Conflicts based upon being a relative of an employee of the district. 2. board members will not exercise individual authority over the organization. A members will not assume personal responsibility for resolving operational problems or complaints. Complaints will be referred to the superintendent for investigation and resolution. B.

00:33:38,630	Members will not attempt to personally direct any part of the operational organization. C When speaking to the press or otherwise publicly sharing personal opinions, members will respect decisions of the board and will not undermine those decisions. D. Members will not publicly express individual negative judgments about the superintendent or staff performance.

00:34:01,500	3 to build public trust among members and to ensure the environment conducive to effective governance, members will focus on issues rather than personalities. Respect decisions of the full board. C.

00:34:33,700	Exercise honesty in all written and interpersonal interactions, never intentionally misleading or misinforming each other D criticize privately, praise publicly, E make every reasonable effort to protect the integrity and promote the positive image of the district and one another F never embarrass each other or the district. 4 members will exercise personal discipline in the performance of their duties, including proper use of authority and appropriate decorum when acting as a board member. 5.

00:34:58,730	Members will maintain confidentiality, appropriate to sensitive issues and information that otherwise may tend to compromise the integrity or legal standing of the board, especially those matters discussed in executive session. That concludes the reading. of GC 7 Miss Pressy I would move that we retain GC 7 board member’s code of conduct. 2. we have a motion in a second.

00:35:25,800	Any discussion? Uh, seeing none, Dr Schr. Lee Yes, Peterson, yes, Pressy, yes, Eastgateate, yes, Hager, yes. I would look for a motion determined if we’re in compliance, in compliance with exception or out of compliance. M. Presky, I would move that we are in compliance.

00:35:49,900	and I would second We have a motion to second any discussion? Seeing none, Dr share. Peterson. Yes, Pressy. Yes. Eastgate? Yes. Lee? Yes. Hager. Yes Item 6 matters reserved for board action, uh, school board regular meetings scheduled. Dr Fosstna, um, just presenting this, uh, Miss Esterbrook got this ready for you.

00:36:14,070	If you’re willing to accept these dates for projected next year, it just, you just need to accept them and approve them. Miss Pressy Yeah, you know, just following up on, like, last year’s issues that came about right around the start of the school year.

00:36:38,470	I, I guess I would I would like to suggest us having a meeting closer to or right after the start of school just so that there’s not that lapse in time. Um to, I guess, publicly address anything that arises with the start of school, um, and maybe that could mean a shift in another month or whatever to add those two dates in August or changing the 1 August meaning to later on closer to the school year.

00:37:08,870	Any other thoughts, comments President Hager, I would just I agree with Ms. Pressy in the, in the sense that, um, this last year in particular with a lot of changes happening, it definitely would have helped to have had one, you know, right at the start, basically, um. after maybe after the first week even.

00:37:22,870	I’m not sure, but I don’t know what that looks like if we’re able to make that pivot right away tonight or not, or if there’s a proposed date, that would make sense. If you’d like in your motion to accept these dates with the directive to go find an a second date in August.

00:37:39,370	We can go back and it’ll involve us looking at our school calendar and then also contacting City County building to see availability of the room, but we can do that, yes. Mr. Lee Thank you, President Hager. Um I, I’m not opposed to that idea at all.

00:37:57,530	I don’t, I don’t think I would be for necessarily for a second meeting if you kind of go back and look at our summers. I mean, it’s pretty. pretty dead, but I, but a date that’s closer to the start of school or shortly after, I would be in favor of.

00:38:11,900	So I guess that would put it at, what, the 17th or the 24th. Um, just my thoughts. So we have some, some comments, thoughts, uh motion around what you guys would like to see. Mr. Lee.

00:38:40,730	President Hacker, I would make the motion that we approve uh the scheduled meetings as presented with the director to the superintendent to look at that August date and possibly come back with another, uh, date to, to move that meeting too. Se. we have a motion in a second any further discussion? Uh, seeing on Dr Scher. Presky? Yes. Eastgateate? Yes. Lee? Yes. Peterson, yes, Hager, yes. Viteam B, the transportation service contract.

00:39:11,100	Dr Sher is getting up, so I assume he’s, he’s got this one. President Haer, members of the board, uh, thanks for listening tonight. I would, the thing that’s interesting is um can’t move that first meeting in August school because that’s the first time that thing’s lined up with our, what we have

00:39:31,500	to do for our budget for like ever, so we’re leaving that one, so we don’t have to have a special call-in meeting for that that can truly be at a board meeting to approve our preliminary budget.

00:39:47,370	Uh, today I want to talk a little bit about the process for the, the new transportation contract, um I’ve been in the district 20 years, um, I rode the bus. I mean, we’ve been partners with Harlows for many, many years, um. I, and just for the record, I was never kicked off the bus, so, um, but I wanna talk a little bit about the process.

00:40:02,970	We did, uh, issue an RFP, um, we had 3 firms that had submitted proposals and what we were looking for in there is we had a 60% based on price, 20% based on fleet. 10% based on enhancements that they could bring to the district and then 10% on references.

00:40:24,270	So I will, I will tell you, um, in all those categories, um. Harlo’s came out at the end ranking the highest, um, they’re the lowest cost. They are, well, half of their fleet will be 2027 buses for next year, so reliability um would increase because we just have a newer fleet.

00:40:44,600	Um, the other, the remaining half still have to meet criteria to be fairly new also. The other thing that we’re, we’re really excited about and we’ve been doing some actually pilots this uh.

00:41:02,230	actually I don’t know, is this winner still probably, um, is some of the enhancements that they’ll bring to the table is we’ll have tablets on the bus that will allow for navigation um, attendance, which is something that we have to try to get a better handle on, um, of the riders and then the non-riders registered versus writers, and then tracking.

00:41:21,900	Um, we think those will be great enhancements to, um, the, the process, um, I do want to point out that, uh, Ken and Vanessa from Harlow’s are here. So, um, ask really hard questions because they’re gonna help. So our recommendation is that we would enter and do the next 4-year contract with, with Harlow’s.

00:41:43,900	Miss Presky Uh, can you tell me what the, uh, what the increase is, I guess, in this contract versus what we had from our previous contract. Sure. So, we, we broke actually the scoring out in um a couple different phases because we use them for Gened transportation. We use them for our Curt Academy shuttles, and we also use them for field trips and activities.

00:42:04,370	So the total when we lump those all together is $650,000. So part of that is Jane, part of it’s the Currr Academy runs. It’s split like 450, 200, or maybe it’s 400, 250, I don’t remember right off the top of my head. And just for clarification, 650 is the total contractor that’s the increase increase over this year.

00:42:28,170	Remember, we’re at about 3.3. So we’re going up to about 4.1. Yeah. And that, that actually was included in your budget projection under professional services, so. so we have that accounted for in, in the budget projection. Mr. Lee I thank you, President Haard. Uh, is there flexibility? It’s a four-year contract.

00:42:51,630	Is there flexibility that where the board of future board can pivot if uh if they need to reduce routes Yes, absolutely, yep. Yeah, I think that would be important that they still have the, even though it’s a contract, there’s flexibility to work with Harlows on what the bussing looks like for the following year, correct? And, and we’re

00:43:10,470	working out the details of the contract, but that, that always is an option for a couple reasons. One is, um, changing operations allows it, also non-appropriation of funds would allow it to, let’s say for some reason, um, who knows, right? That we just don’t have the funds anymore. We could eliminate transportation. OK, thank you.

00:43:32,170	M. Peterson. President Hanger, thank you. And then Dr Sher, I think that it was, um, it was good to hear in terms of this contract. I know it came out in our workshop last week, especially about some of the things and, and some of the experiences and it’s gonna come out in some of the

00:43:45,700	recommendations, um, that Dr Fassnutt and the operational Excellence Committee, but appreciate in this new contract that they, that what you just said about the fleet and about the just technological improvements that just happened over long term in terms of facilities.

00:44:04,900	So I really appreciate the com the conversation about half that fleet being new, new buses that would allow us the technological advances to do some of the things that I know a lot of our families are are really talking about in terms of wanting to know where their bus is, um, and where their kids are, um, at different times, and some of the

00:44:19,370	ridership and some of the other issues that I know came up not only this year but in past years to make sure that we are being really efficient with not only these dollars, but in, in the future.

00:44:35,800	So, um, you know, with that, I really think that this, this contract, especially with, in light of the questions that, um, Mr. Lee just asked you in terms of making kind of like a one, a four-year contract, but like a 1-year budget decision based on kind of what we know right now versus what we might know. with operations in the future is, is, is extremely helpful.

00:44:50,730	So I guess that really wasn’t a question, but just, um, an acknowledgement of the work that was put into the contract and the questions that come in plus with what we talked about at the workshop and the budget projections all being kind of a one conversation even though I know on this agenda it’s like,

00:45:06,900	you know, 2 or 3 different conversations. President Hager, I, I sure, I forgot to mention this because I think this is really important that we, we had a committee go through and, and look at the numbers, you know, we prepared the, the financials for the, the group, but, um, we

00:45:23,270	had two school principals on that committee. Um, we had a parent on that committee, and we didn’t then did um update, uh, operational excellence too that this would be our recommendation. So I, I feel like we’ve, we had a lot of involvement with with not only our system but even with the parent rep, so.

00:45:46,170	Word murmurs any, Mister Lee Um, President Hager, with that, I would move that we award the full year 2027 to full year 2030, student transportation services contract to Harlow’s Bus Service effective July 1st, 2026. And I would second. motion in a second. Any further discussion? Uh, seeing none, uh, Dr Scher. Eastgate? Yes, Lee, yes.

00:46:10,800	Peterson, yes, Pressy, Hager. yes Uh, I’m C board member school visits at I think pulling ahead of time, I’m the only one who has, has one tonight and my apologies, this might be a little bit of a lengthy one.

00:46:30,100	Um so a month ago I had the, the privilege to go down to Solheim for a school visit. So full disclaimer, I was, uh, Solheim’s student. many years ago. In fact, if Miss Swanson and Mr. Hansel are watching.

00:46:48,270	I was able to track myself down in the photo that’s on the wall by going into Barnes and Noble, talking to my first grade teacher at the time, we were able to figure out which, which little head was mine. So uh, so being a a Solheim student back in the day and then further having had my kids now go through there, um, so I’ve been a Solheim parent.

00:47:02,700	I, I did the math quick 11 years now, and I still have 11 that’s there now, um, Extended family as well. I’ve got a number of nieces and nephews that are there and the youngest being a kindergartner, so I’ll, I’ll have family at Solheim for, for a while to go, a while to come.

00:47:17,630	It’s, it’s a wonderful little school I know, Miss Peterson lived down in that neighborhood and her, her students, her kids went there too. So thank you first to, to Ms. Swanson for the, the time she, she gave me. I was with her for almost 2 hours that day. I mean, we, we, we saw a lot.

00:47:32,530	um so one of the things that I really wanted to see is, is the stuff that we’ve been hearing about, about the spacing constraints and the issues that they have at Solheim, um, with the number of students considering now we’ve got 4 portables out there, um

00:47:46,970	so this, this visit gave me the opportunity to do that and it started really with launch, so. we walked into the gym, um just prior to lunch starting. So there’s two phi ed classes going on at once, sharing that Jim space, um so two teachers, 2IA classes.

00:48:05,170	My, my son was one of them that happened to be in the gym at the time, so I saw him running around. uh and then the number of custodians that were standing around the side with hands on tables. and the second, the gym class ended, it was like clockwork, tables were going out, it was.

00:48:23,100	well-oiled machine, washed in the way that they put things out and got things set up With minutes so that those kids could could have lunch, the gym classes exited. Place got set up, just, just clockwork. you know, having not an individual space for, for launch.

00:48:42,500	means, you know, gym classes have to shut down to that period of time. Um, one of the other things that I didn’t fully appreciate was talking about the scheduling and Ms. Swanson was talking about trying to get um the teachers their opportunities for their PLCs and how you have to try to stack these music classes with these gym classes and try to get everything just, just right

00:49:01,070	to allow them that time and, and how the scheduling component is, is. is difficult at times So we’re in the gym. Boom, set up like a lunchroom, um. and in walk the kids. I mean, it’s, it’s like military precision watching the way that things, things operated, um, it was fun seeing Mr.

00:49:23,000	Porter, the former gin teacher, was substituting that day, not as a gym teacher, but he was running lunchroom duty, checking kids in for lunch, um, so it’s fun to see him, see him again. So the organization really was, was amazing watching one class come in, eat lunch, get up, exit to go outside.

00:49:41,100	Um, the whole time as well. So there, there’s used to be a janitorial space that was um. living quarters. That was a part of Solheim. um, with the space constraints that’s been converted now into music.

00:49:56,170	Well, the kids at Exit Music have to go through the middle of the gym in all of this. So you have a music class exiting the gym. while lunch is happening and it’s, it’s funny to watch the two lines and, and Mr. Flores will hold the music kids back till he gets a gap and the kid’s going to sit down for lunch and off they go.

00:50:11,530	And it’s, it is really quite a feat to watch kind of the precision behind all of these moving parts during that lunchroom period, and it is, if it wasn’t as organized as tightly as it was, it could, you could see how that could become very chaotic, very, very quickly.

00:50:31,000	Um so with that, you know, we, we kind of walked around the building and looked at some of the other spacing issues. One thing that I didn’t fully appreciate either is, uh, Ms.

00:50:48,070	Swanson mentioned 80 staff members, and that’s a lot of people in that building, uh having been a student there, seeing what some of these spaces have turned into from my time there, um, what was the counselor’s office? I now their meeting room, and it’s tight. I mean, there’s not a lot of space in there. um we went into what I would call kind of the network room, you know, all the, the cables feeding in, in and out of that room, Doubs as an office.

00:51:04,900	I mean, they’ve got people on top of people. What was the old computer lab has been totally repurposed for for other uses to, um the, the theme as we tour toured the place was, you know, things are type of Miss Swanson said over and over again, hey, you know, we’re we’re creative with our spacing definitely efficient with their

00:51:25,630	spacing and the they make it work. She goes, my staff make it work. She complimented her staff over and over again and as a Solhen parent, I, I can’t agree. It’s, it, it is a wonderful community down there. Um, so as part of our tour, we also went out.

00:51:38,870	I wanted to see the portables, kind of see how those were set up. Um, as we were out on the playground, um, one thing that, you know, we had heard about in relation to, to, to Bell times. was it being dark in the morning.

00:51:57,870	Uh, Miss Swanson talked about how we had a community partnership with, um, our friends over at the Park District to turn on the hockey rink lights in the morning. so that it lights up the playground enough so the kids can be outside running around in the morning. So I thought that was kind of a unique partnership that they were willing to, to do that for us.

00:52:13,170	Um you know given all the things that are happening. in and around Solheim, I mean that staff’s been amazing, um, dealing with the stress that comes with having a, a school that has a lot of students. and part of the reason that it has a lot of students is because people really like that school.

00:52:29,800	They want to live in that area, they want to go to that school, and that’s, that’s a, that’s a good problem to have, um, again, Ms.

00:52:45,330	Swanson couldn’t say enough about uh, her team and how they, you know, manage the day to day stresses like all schools have in addition to, to the number of students and how the different things they try to do to, to build community with what is a, a larger school. Um, so I’m gonna end with kind of a personal story.

00:52:59,600	You know, we walk around with these principles and they always get hugs, right? You know, you see it all the time. And maybe occasionally we’ll get one. Well, so as we were walking down one of the wings, we have to come around the corner and my niece Slotty happened to see me at the other end of the hallway, and she beelined it a

00:53:12,230	little 2nd grader, bee-lined it all the way down to me and gave me a hug. And that was the highlight of the school visit is, is, is to get that hug, so I can see why principal’s kind of being the rock stars there are walking around the building, you can inflate that ego a little bit, right?

00:53:26,370	So that’s my, uh, school visit at Solheim, Miss Swanson, again appreciate all the time. Um, you gave me that day so that we could, could walk around and see these constraint points and these spacing issues that, that you’ve been working with and your staff has been dealing with and Mr.

00:53:44,730	Hansel as well for kind of covering his Miss Miss Swanson continued to lead me around for what I’m sure felt like forever for her. So, again, and the Solheim, uh. staff down there Thank you guys for all that you do as a Solheim parent, we, we really appreciate all the, all the work you guys do. So that’s my Solheim visit.

00:54:05,330	Uh, item 7 is the consent agenda. What are the wishes of the board? right I’ll move to adopt the consent agenda. Second, we have a motion in a second. Dr Scher. Lee, yes, Peterson, yes, Presy, yes, Eastgate, yes, Hager, yes. All right, uh, down to the superintendent’s report, uh, transportation and bell times.

00:54:35,900	Dr, we got to some, uh, some of the exciting stuff tonight. So, um, I’d like to offer to you, um, and the community, I guess as a whole. My recommendations for the 26, 27 school year in regard to bell times and transportation, and, uh, you, you’re OK, it might take 10 minutes, but just to walk

00:54:55,000	through some of the key components and uh share them with you, um, before we move forward. First of all um, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to you. Thank you also to really uh.

00:55:15,900	our change in belt time affected almost every citizen in this community to some degree, unless you’re not leaving your home, it doesn’t matter if you’re a parent, a staff member, or you were just reporting to work. right? All of our businesses had the effect that if you had anybody who had a child, there was some alteration in time. So, um, the scope of the change we made was dramatic.

00:55:34,070	I also want to extend some awareness. I know we had challenges. We all are aware of that, right? We’ve heard some of them this evening and um and people let us know that, and that’s appreciated because some things we weren’t aware of unless people let us know, and, uh, that some of that awareness

00:55:49,700	has been kind of brought into this report that I’m offering you in the community, um, using that input uh actually was the basis of the recommendation, um, parent input, parent survey input, phone calls, emails that I received, and um what I’ll share with you are just facts that we’ve been collecting as

00:56:08,800	far as the efficiency of our systems and the how it’s been working. all are part of the recommendation I’m putting forward, and I hope you and the others that read this and I can see that. It’s really taking all that into, uh, one singular view and trying to make a a recommendation for the future.

00:56:26,270	And with that, um, we may make changes today. but that doesn’t mean we’re not making changes tomorrow or next year or a year after that, I think, uh, we had intentions going into the school year that materialized and they worked and we had some things that didn’t work, and, but we’ve

00:56:44,530	also used good data to make recommendations for the future, because now we say, oh, we can make this adjustment. It can work if we tweak some things, and I think that’ll happen in the future too. I think your questions about the transportation contract are reflective of that.

00:57:01,530	We need to keep looking at the system, looking at this operational component of the district and continue making tweaks into the future, and I’ll share some of those with you. Um, so if you get into the executive summary, that’s just really an introduction page, not too much there.

00:57:16,530	I’ll leave that for people’s reading at their leisure, um, and get into the background and the why. I just want to help remind people why, why did we even embark on this journey that’s now. well over a year old from today, um, remember we had operational challenges, um, buses that were not showing up on time in the morning or at night. We had, we were doubling up routes.

00:57:39,600	We had routes that just were inconsistent, um, and particularly we had kids, um, at our middle schools for 60 to 90 minutes waiting for their buses to arrive.

00:57:56,630	That was really pointing not only stress on our staff and our systems, but also kids and parents because they weren’t getting out of school and getting home the way they should be, um, with that, we also had a driver shortage, which was compounding part of the operational problem when there was enough drivers and no fault to any of the operations, Harlow’s included, when you don’t have drivers, you have to now double up

00:58:12,730	routes. You have to make routes shorter or lengthen them, and that day to day confusion caused a lot of stress for people. So going from 52 to 40, you know, having 52 routes last year and only 47 available drivers has put a huge pinch on our work and um it, it just, we knew we had to

00:58:32,870	do something and if you’re going to help address driver shortage and try to compensate drivers more or help to increase their wage so we can get more drivers.

00:58:51,000	We had to lean down our system, and I want to just some people have asked me as of recently, it’s like, well, you’re not paying your drivers enough. You need to be more appreciative of your drivers. Since 2018, I don’t know if I’ve shared this with even you, is the districts increase their uh driver pay by 22.9%. I’ve been really trying to increase wages for drivers over this time period.

00:59:09,700	Um, so we continue to work on that, something we need to continue to do. So if you go on to concerns and survey page, the next page. Thank you, Mr. Barnhart. Um, this page is trying to quantify the concerns we heard this fall.

00:59:27,700	I’ve given a link to the stop criteria, which I’ve shared with the board earlier this fall of the neighborhood stops and the criteria we’re going to use to make sure that they’re consistent, safe, and, uh, uh, uniform across the district, but the bottom you can see graph. We ask parents like, are you satisfied with um the current school start time uh for this year. We kind of got into that start time question and overwhelmingly it leaned no.

00:59:48,170	We’d had struggles with start time. I wanna characterize that though cause a lot of times we’ve lumped that concern into elementary because elementary start time was 7:50. When you look at the parent data, that’s really falls into two buckets. Elementary, but also the lateness of middle school.

01:00:04,630	cause middle schools are pushed out to 350, and some of just getting kids activities and getting them through their practices and a push practices later, I think on both ends were something that we heard in the parent survey.

01:00:20,630	Also want to say before I forget, within this document you’re going to see links to the parent and staff survey. So the summary documents that I’ve created for the board and, and the community are linked there.

01:00:35,630	And if you want to go even deeper, if you’re just a survey nerd, um, you can, there’s links in each of those summary documents so you can see every single response, uh, every line of the survey you can see in totality, um, whatever that may be, and so we provided, you know, full uh access to the survey documents. On the next page, page 5, concerns the survey.

01:00:57,000	This page really focuses just what, uh, the, the input from the parent survey that helped inform my recommendation to you this evening. Um, you can see on the, in the blue box there’s dissatisfaction with those start times uh across doesn’t matter again if it’s middle, high school, or, uh, elementary or if you’re mixed grades, I think it did impact all of them,

01:01:14,170	uh, even though high school really didn’t tweak too much, I think those, those that time really didn’t change a lot, uh, going into this year, and we asked parents in the survey, if we could change elementary start time to 8 o’clock.

01:01:32,800	Would you support that? This? bit of information definitely impacts my recommendation because the majority, you know, 55% said yes, it would, they would favor that change, and you’ll see that in a little bit. um parents still want it in in the survey, they still wanted their system to be reliable.

01:01:49,870	That was the most important aspect when they look at the services we provide, and they were not in favor of us adding um increasing walkouts or charging for the service, even though the committee and I know you have talked about that over the course of the last months.

01:02:05,800	Um, they were not in support of that Uh, if you go to the next page, page 6, I, I don’t know if this page is really needed or not, but only because we had so many comments from parents inside of the parent survey, and I will also say even some of my staff survey about

01:02:24,470	go back to the root of what we were debating this time last year is who goes first? Elementary or secondary, and I know it was front of our operational Excellence Committee last year, and they brought forth a recommendation, um, Elementary first, so I’ve tried to articulate what we went through last year again

01:02:42,730	for parents and the public to understand the option that was given to us, um, in Option A and B was again, elementary first or secondary first. And if you look at the elementary school, which is the purple line, in both those graphs, you can see there are reality.

01:02:59,230	We picked A, and that’s what we did, OK? Little minor tweaking at the middle school level, but that’s about what we did, OK? Because of the difference in the instructional day because a high school day is 7 hours, and an elementary day is only 6.

01:03:13,900	5 hours long particularly if you look at the tail end of the day on option B to get our routes to have at least an hour to run two-tier system at artificially pushed back the start time for elementary again, because of the difference in the length of their day.

01:03:30,170	And what um we were talking about this time last year with the help of Transpar was that would mean you’d have to have like a 9 o’clock bus arrival, 9:20 start time for elementary. I want to just be clear Everybody on that committee was like for two reasons.

01:03:50,730	One, both of our community partners that do childcare, neither one was wanting to do childcare in the morning and thought they would have been impossible to ask the man or have workforce at that time in the morning to watch kids before 9 o’clock or 9:20 start, um. and we just didn’t think as much as parents are concerned with 750, and they have been.

01:04:12,370	We thought we’d have more parents concerned with a 99 o’clock start when the vast majority of us are at work well before, you know, 8 o’clock time frame. It just becomes very uh unique challenge.

01:04:31,370	So I, I shared some thoughts about um the order question again, and then I shared a little of information about St stopfinder, and you heard that, you picked up on that tonight with um from Dr Cher about the new contract, some of the challenges we’ve had with the technology this year which have had a stumbling and falling a little bit with the St stopfinder um app and really technology has been a challenge for us, and I think the new um

01:04:49,730	contract with Harlows will help improve that. Um, reliable digital GPS on Oliver buses with drought to route turns and those things will help us be more reliable and hopeful pass that information on to parents through our app next year better than we are this year.

01:05:11,800	Um, on page 7, I did share um information from our staff survey and also just some information we gleaned from PowerSchool. I shared the times that we’re at now, um, people have asked like, well, you’re, your teachers probably don’t like this time either. Actually, the staff survey says opposite, um, Elementary, which is the gold gold bars and secondary, which is the blue bars, are leaning more to the positive.

01:05:31,500	They’ve been supportive. They liked the new time change, um, but we’re probably going to change it for them again, but overwhelmingly elementary teachers have liked the time change, even to 7:50 Um, people have asked about attendance and tardiness. You can see over the last 4 years that’s relatively unchanged.

01:05:52,730	Um, minuscule, minuscule parts of a percent, uh, it really, um, through the Thanksgiving break for both previous years and this last year, um, to try to track that and see if that’s had an input impact, um, one of the things that was the reason why was that middle school pickup time, that’s 60

01:06:09,430	to 90 minutes, um we have dropped that down to 10 to 20 minutes after dismissal be. and, OK, you’re out at 350, mm, we know it takes a little time to get to the bus.

01:06:29,730	The we are consistently in that 10 to 20 minute mark and all buses are departed like rolling wheels and out of the parking lot heading towards home, OK? Uh, and this, your scenario, they’d drive by the, they’re gonna head out from the middle schools and get going, but, um, on their routes, but that is a huge improvement over where we were last time, and all my middle school principals say that’s a consistently happening So, uh, much improved

01:06:48,800	and last, lastly on this page, our students ready to learn? Again, that graph, elementary being gold, um, are they ready to learn? That is skewing towards a positive.

01:07:08,800	They are awake, even though we did hear on the staff concerns on the secondary side, particularly middle school, that kids are getting tired By the time you get to 3:20, 3:30, kids are getting tired of the middle schools, and is there a way we can address that? So again, you’re going to see that in my recommendations this year. Um, by the numbers, again, I kind of like when, uh, Mrs. Meyer was up, superintendents, we worry about the numbers.

01:07:24,000	Um, you can see the cost now. The bar graph only reflects 24, 25. We’re in 25, 26. I don’t have that number because we haven’t concluded it. Um, our, our actual contract with Harlow’s is down a little bit, but again, that’s because we reduced routes.

01:07:44,970	We cut some things even though we expanded CTE routes, um, but as you articulated, uh, board member Presky. that’s projected to go up 650,000 total next year, um, from where we are sitting today. So we know there’s expected um implications for the budget.

01:08:04,270	Um, I would like to point out to people, I think I’ve shared this before, the state only reimburses BPS 19% of actual costs for transportation. Um, the, the, the state’s goal for regular ed is, you know, they want to be in that 70, 80% mark of reimbursement, um, and transportation they’re desperately lagging in that that compared to the actual cost. I gave you, um, just for everybody reading it, I gave you route and driver information, so you have that.

01:08:25,430	And then, again, a little snapshot that uh that transpar analysis is on our website in great detail. You can look at it, but what we are hoping for in a two-tier system was a see us picking up all those kids, getting them on buses and delivered to their school and then a little bit of a gap

01:08:41,470	before I went out and picked up secondary kids. Um, that analysis was on December 5th, I believe. I get that date right. Remember? Um that’s what we’re seeing. It’s, it’s working. Um, is it working perfect? Nope, but it definitely is, oh, we can see it functioning. We can see it’s emulating what we’re striving to get to.

01:09:01,100	So all that information really boils into my recommendations. I think that’s what people have been waiting for and, and eager to hear. Um, my recommendations for next year is to maintain the two-tier system, um. we really as a district have no capacity to go back to what we have, what we had.

01:09:18,800	a couple of years ago to, to add that number of routes back in a world where we can’t find drivers this to, to fill them is the definition of insanity.

01:09:35,530	There’s no way to get back to that, that system, uh, and, and provide a reliable system that hopefully is at people’s doors when we need it to be at people’s doors and get kids to school on time. Um, so the, the two-tier system is working. Does it continue to need refinement and maybe some adjustments, absolutely, but, um, the neighborhood stop concept, the two-tier system, um, I would, I am recommending for next year to continue.

01:09:56,170	However, with that, I am recommending time adjustments and bell time. It, we talked about some of these times last year in full transparency, but we didn’t know how it was actually gonna work. We had Transpar was saying you need X number of minutes to make this work based on your riders.

01:10:11,170	You need to, you need to do this, uh, let it run. Uh, we’ve let it run and we know we’ve stressed some people with that, um, as we look at our times this year, with real data like tracking how it’s working, uh, we really feel like we can make 8 o’clock in the, in the elementary division work.

01:10:28,170	So moving our start time for elementary to 8 o’clock with a dismissal at 2:30. Doesn’t change the minutes, just adjust some 10 minutes. Um, AM buses would run at the same time as they are now. We’re just shifting that probably more for our parent drop-off time.

01:10:45,370	Given our parent drop-offs are, are a little bit more time to be a more, a little, not so early in the morning before they’re heading to work and a little more logical time for them to drop their kids off. Um, the other high schools are unchanged, and then you see middle schools, middle schools made a dramatic shift.

01:11:00,800	We’ve, we’ve cut 20 minutes of instructional time off per day. Um, that is a recommendation from our middle school principals. It’s a couple minutes per period and a little bit of their, their, um, um I’m thinking wind time, but it’s not wind time, that’s elementary, thank you.

01:11:16,800	Um, it, so we’re gonna shave a few minutes off, but we can get uh middle school kids dismissed at 3:30. I think that’s a concession by middle school, um, but also addresses the the what we’ve heard from parents, like, we need to get kids out after school activities and hearing

01:11:33,530	from our educators that those get to be really long days. Kids are getting tired and, uh, taking that into account. Um, so, both those are the dramatic changes for us. Um, I did not make any recommendations for early childhood special ed or Head Start, those board members are coming.

01:11:51,630	We are not solidified on those times yet, so please know that that’s something we have to continue to work on and um I’ll inform you and the community later what we’re doing with that, OK? Um, last recommendation, uh, Dr Sher kind of hit upon was, um not only keeping our neighborhood stops, but also

01:12:09,700	that concept of registered riders, actual writers, and what we are finding the better our technology gets in our, in our, uh, accounting of writers and actual writers as we have, we have a system that was built on the idea that you sign up for a bussa, all the parents, you just sign up for bussing

01:12:28,370	We’re probably realizing more and more how many people sign up for bussing as almost an insurance policy. So then when it’s a really crummy day and I kids, maybe my kid got in trouble. I’m thinking of my own son, when he messed up and he, you’re not driving your car there, Junior.

01:12:43,370	Um, you get to ride the bus for a week, are using it in that capacity, so we build routes, we fill buses based on signed up riders when really we could be limiting routes, reducing routes based on actual riders, and I think that’s something we need to look into is how we can make the system more

01:13:02,000	efficient and adapt more to actual kids riding buses, um, on the fly during the year. So that’s something our technology, as we’ve mentioned a couple times tonight, should help us with in the future, but I did put the cost in there because it came up at our operational excellence, like what does a

01:13:17,530	seat cost? A seat for registered riders, $925 a year. But when you only look at our riders, and I’m looking at one day that transfer did that. That is over near $1400 per seat. That is significant. Um, so ridership matters, right? So, and, and it does help us improve the system.

01:13:41,530	um so that’s my recommendations for next year, I guess, before I get into other considerations. Do you have any questions over those recommendations? OK? Uh, future ones, um, that we have talked about all year.

01:14:02,330	You have talked about at the board table, um, operational excellence is talked about a few things I think are in the future yet that why I’m saying it could change next year, could change two years from now, is still considering charge for service. There are school districts that charge. They charge for in-town bussing. They charge for out of town bussing.

01:14:23,100	Is that some model that we want to use within um our, our system and really that’s about driving ridership thinking that if you charge, people are going to put their kids on a bus cause I’m paying, right? And if you don’t want to pay for it, you’re going to find another way to school, and it’s really about leaning the system down through the mechanism of charging.

01:14:37,700	The other way to lean the mechanism down is walkouts, um, as I’ve shared before, West Fargo has much larger walkouts, the elementary and secondary level, you just begin to move your walkouts area where you are not serving those kids in that circle with transportation, and you push those resources out in more into the edges of town or the

01:14:58,970	rural areas to help serve those children, particularly when you have less and less buses and less and less drivers to do that work. Um, I think that’s something we can look at in the future.

01:15:14,330	And, um, I think it’s been mentioned is does this district based on the reimbursement from the state and the challenges we’re having, do you have bussing in town at all? I think many people have talked to me. about my age group, maybe a little older, say, we didn’t have bussing when I was a kid.

01:15:32,600	It’s something that’s kind of a new new thing and should we be because of the challenges of bussing and reimbursement and transportation be reverting back to what used to be the old model. And lastly, I just put a note about the technology. We’ve said it multiple times.

01:15:49,100	I think the technology will help and as we begin to improve technology and, and accounting writers and and route actual route runs and where they’re going. we can become more and more efficient with the resources we have, and when you have limited resources, you have to become very efficient, and this will help us do that. So, um, that’s my recommendation for next year. Um, and I’d stand for any questions, Mr. Eastgate.

01:16:06,730	Yeah, thanks, President Hager. Dr Fasan, thanks for the presentation on this. Um, obviously it’s been, as you said, it’s been something we spent a lot of time on. Um, I sit on the operational excellence Committee, hold that portfolio now.

01:16:21,170	I, I want to say first off, thanks to the, all the community members that are part of that as well as your staff, um, between we have parents and business owners and, um, a number of different people across the community that are helping give us some input on that. So I just want to say thanks for their time because they’re volunteering to be a part of that.

01:16:34,000	Um, and, and these things do get talked about at length from a number of different opinions and perspect ive s at that meeting, um, just last week we had a meeting, then we had our board workshop. This has been a document I’ve become very well acquainted with.

01:16:47,800	Um, but it’s important that we get it out and communicate it. I just want to say, and I, I’ve stated that those other meetings too, I, I feel like the, uh, figuring out this bussing is, is truly been, uh, a long process and to pretend like we just have it fixed.

01:17:04,500	I shouldn’t say fixed, but that it’s just perfect now it would be, would be wrong because we don’t, um, and the comment I keep saying is if you’ve ever driven at all in North Dakota, that’s not gonna go away.

01:17:15,000	Um, I don’t, I don’t think it is and so some of my comments have just been even, and I know it’s just a recommendation, some options in the future when we talk about charging, um, I think the bigger issue is the ridership and just figuring that out. I think that’s been addressed. I think the district knows that, that especially at the secondary level, how much fewer kids are riding the bus home afterwards.

01:17:28,470	They either drive themselves or even if they’re registered for the bus, they’re finding a friend or somebody to get a ride at the end of the day. So different things like that, but I still think it’s important for the community in particular and as well as the board has had a chance to look at this, but to

01:17:40,000	look at some of those different options, we still stating whether we charge or not, we’re being as safe as we can be right now with where it’s at. We are trying to have the best bussing we can do.

01:17:51,600	We’re not trying to have a product out there that isn’t, but Rhodes in North Dakota can be tricky, and timing is for a huge district. We have a lot of variables that are, that are beyond our control at times, um, for how many riders are going to hop on that given day.

01:18:04,470	And so I, I, I appreciate you looking at this. I know you and your staff have talked at length with Operational Excellence to the board, um through different surveys, and, and so, and I, and I appreciate that we’re learning and that we’re willing to pivot.

01:18:19,100	And so if we’re going to change bell times based on transportation or that they because they do go hand in hand, um, that our district is saying, no, we’re willing to continue to look at this and try to make it better for our parents. So. um, thank you, and we’ll, we’ll certainly continue to keep working on this. Miss Presky Yeah, thank you.

01:18:35,630	And I really do appreciate that we’ve stayed engaged with the public and asked for their input even though, you know, it we knew that we would see a lot of that very dissatisfied, come up in the survey. It’s still good to hear from them and find out how we can make those improvements.

01:18:55,470	So appreciate these recommendations. I think 10 minutes is 10 minutes and moving it to 8 from 7:50 is more than likely going to, um, to make a lot of those elementary parents, uh, happier, uh, I think it just does, it’s a mental thing going from a 7 to an 8 instead Um, as far as like options in

01:19:16,470	the future, I guess I’m glad that we’re at least putting it on the table and letting the public know that we, these are potential, um, potential things that we’ll have to look at in the future.

01:19:39,230	I mean, we just approved a contract that’s an 18% increase, all while being under an a 3% cap, so we’re limited in the amount of funding that we can increase every year, but then we have an 18% increase in transportation alone, not, not to mention any of the other increases that we have to balance.

01:19:57,900	And so these other opportunities for looking at cost savings or something that we might have to look at, and I think it’s really good to have it on the table so that the public knows these aren’t easy decisions, but they could be a reality in the future, but again, also echoing that the enhanced technologies that’ll be on these buses will help us make these decisions as well. So thank you Mrs.

01:20:18,100	Peterson Um, thanks, President Hager, and, and again, I think everything that’s been said has been been really helpful, and I think that along the way, um, to Miss Pressy’s point, that there’s, you know, each year is going to be a different budget situation and a different, um, opportunity we’re gonna live

01:20:34,870	and learn, you know, we’ve actually only been 4 months into this, this current test as we’re making, you know, decisions for what it’s gonna look like next year.

01:20:50,230	So I always just like to kind of point that and even in those 4 months, there’s been improvements and there’s recognition that some things we wouldn’t be, won’t be able to showcase that they’ve been proved until we, we roll it out again next year.

01:21:06,170	But with that said, I think the, the public and, and as we kind of segue into the facility update, um, what we heard from, um, President Hagar’s Solheim report and, and just these financial decisions. I think that at the end of the day, the reason why that this has still been something that we’re even talking about is we want all kids to be in the building at whatever level that they’re able to be, because we know they they can’t learn unless they’re,

01:21:21,070	they’re there, they’re on time, that we’re able to get all students and families, um, this opportunity, so it truly has been something regardless of how much it’s increased regardless of what the state is, is putting into it.

01:21:41,230	We’ve still prioritized it, but those priority priorities may change with different decisions, and so up until this point, even though we talk a lot about the logistics in the 10 minutes and and so on at the end of the day, I think that we’ve all recognized that we want to have opportunities for all kids, including in um, but when faced with some other budget, you know, constraints that that may

01:22:01,330	change. And so just, um, want to appreciate the work that’s went in by all of the community members that that Dan said, but also just, just knowing that, um, you know, things are gonna change with each, with each year and, um, so not only with what the community wants and those personal surveys.

01:22:19,870	There’s also external factors that go into that as well, but I’ve appreciated the opportunity to reach out and do the forums and, um, and that continues with the facilities, um, conversation as well. So, so thanks for all the work and these recommendations and look forward to kind of seeing the next steps.

01:22:38,000	Thank you, Dr Faustadt. I know the, uh, the amount of work that your team has put in, put into this bell times in particular, and as Mr. Skate alluded to, you know, that it, there’s not a, a perfect solution to this, um.

01:22:56,000	I appreciate the continue to reach out to the community that you’ve done and your team continues to do on this topic and others and try to garner that that input from them as we look to try to make things better.

01:23:10,800	Every family has a different situation and everybody has a different perspective, and those are the things that we try to balance. We make these decisions. So I appreciate you and your team on this one. Well, thank you, and I probably forgot. I appreciate Mr. Eastgate saying it, but yeah, the people who have been on, um, operational excellence. Thank you. I mean, if you’re watching, I mean, I really thank you for your service.

01:23:25,530	Thank you for giving us some of your time and, uh, helping advise us as we’ve done this for the last year. They’ve been a voice throughout, so thank you. I was re mi s s not doing that.

01:23:40,730	Um, to that, I guess we’d move on to the next thing, uh, Dr Scher would, on behalf of myself and him would like to present to you our updated long-range facility plan. If you remember, months ago, you charged us with updating the plan and addressing some of the things, uh, um, Mr. Hager, you were talking about tonight.

01:24:01,330	So after our community forums and surveys about transportation or facilities, uh, I think he’s ready to share what we’ve found out, so. Dr Scher. Thank you. Uh, President Hayer, members of the board, um, you have, you have 3 attachments. Um, there’s actually more on our website.

01:24:20,630	I think the, the, the detail for each buildings there, all the, the feedback that we received from all the community members are there, summaries of those are in these documents, the executive summary, but the first tab is just kind of the overview and you know, we’ve had plans in this district. Um, when I came in the district back in 2004, we had a plan that we were working on.

01:24:37,630	Um, we sense a fine tune many plans like our roofing plan and our carpeting plan and our parking lot plan. But in 2020 was the first time that we actually took a community committee-based effort to develop the plan that became a supplementary document to our strategic plan.

01:25:00,600	Um and it really provided a roadmap because it’s not only about the deferred maintenance or the programmatic, it’s a guideline on how we move forward with class size with boundaries with with everything before we did Elkridge and Silveranch, we essentially drove past buildings to go to other buildings. We don’t have that anymore. We have truly, what we can call neighborhood facilities in Bismarck public schools.

01:25:21,170	Um, so it’s much more than just stuff that we need to work on, but most importantly, um, I’m here to say that this update, what it did is it, it validated the plan. Um, we did go out and have many community meetings and I’ll talk about that on the next slide, um.

01:25:41,630	so if we go next slide, um, so this one just really really tells you it reinforces our district commitment to strategic data-driven decision making. Um and we just wanna make sure that we’ve got same experiences, similar for all students. They should, they shouldn’t be able to have to.

01:25:59,970	um, they should be able to go to any building and really have a great experience at Bismmore public schools. So if you go to the next one, this was the community engagement process, um, we went, we visited all those buildings. We asked the the people that attended those buildings for their feedback.

01:26:15,470	And then we had some folks that said, you know what? I, I couldn’t make it and I’d really love to give feedback. So Dr Fossnott opened it up to everybody. So we got anybody could allow feedback.

01:26:35,230	We had some uh, facilities that were um OK attended, and we have others that were great, great attendance, um, so again, all that stuff is in there for you to look at. Um the engagement activities. I talked about the parent but back with the principal also Jason Middstead and myself went through and said, OK, we’ve had this plan for 56 years. We updated it with the help of Mr. Hager in 2023. Now we have this plan in, in 2026.

01:26:54,970	We have been able to address some of those things over the years. So we made sure that we, everything that we did was off of the plan. Um, so we did validate all of that. So kind of what we heard from, from like on the districtwide themes is deferred maintenance remains a priority.

01:27:11,900	Um, the other thing is the programmatic and structural space needs we need to address. Now I’ll say that, um, there’s some buildings that don’t have any programmatic or deferred maintenance, and they shouldn’t.

01:27:31,730	You know, Lincoln, Liberty, Elkrid, Silveranch are still fairly new buildings, right? But we have some, for example, sunrise, where we have some minor stuff, it’s green, right, but we have to look at flooring already.

01:27:51,100	It’s interesting because there’s still some people in our community that think Solheim and Centennular less than 10 years old, but they’re 30+ years old, not trying to aid you, Mister Hager, but, um, and, and you know the things that that we need to address in, in my opinion is we really need to address ADA. I mean, we have to get a handle on that, um. we have to make sure that we’re, those students that need the most help and help and student support services.

01:28:06,370	Do we have adequate facilities to do them in their neighborhood school that ties to ADA also, so that they can get those services, um, the access to multiple floors or even getting into the building. Um, so they have that.

01:28:25,070	The other thing that was loud and clear at a a few of our sites was you know, just a simple traffic analysis and are we doing it the right way. I, I will tell you, I’ll just use Solheim for an example, because that’s probably our hottest spot for traffic flow. Uh, Dr Fassa and I met with city leaders.

01:28:43,730	We met with, um, and then my team and I went back and, and met and what’s interesting is, even something as little as thinking about if we would reverse the flow at Solheim. What would that do? And it’s like, that’s actually a great idea because what’s happening now when you come into that lot, what do parents want to do? They wanna drop off little Darren at the front door, but

01:29:01,270	guess what? They need to move all the way to the end, which is further from the front door, but if you flip it, guess what? Front doors at the E, the end of the line, so that might be something so simple that could improve.

01:29:13,230	But those are things that we need to further look at and address. And if we go to the next slide. So it really comes down to this, um, you have the long range facilities plan.

01:29:32,470	This is our recipe and map to move forward as far as facilities, right? I think the board needs to weigh all the deferred maintenance, some of the programac programmatic issues and decide what are our next steps and then provide direction. How do we want to move forward? How do we want to tackle these things? You know, we talked about in our workshop that we are not able to address these simply with our operational budget.

01:29:49,970	That’s to operate our schools, right? So we have to do something else and we have some options. You have the building fund, um, that could do some projects, but it’s not gonna be able to to maybe uh check enough of the boxes for for us to get where we need to be

01:30:06,370	So with that, I would answer any questions related to the long-range facilities plan. I don’t see Dr Sher Me. So go right into the financial report. OK, so tonight, uh, financial report, we got some good news and we got some not so good news, uh, I’ll, I’ll tell you two things.

01:30:35,870	I had a pre-meeting with uh Moody’s because we have the certificate of indebtedness coming up to help our, our bull project, um, it was a very good project, but it reminded me again. um again we talked about, you know, growing or ending fund balance and doing some of those things, but, um, it was a very positive meeting.

01:30:52,370	I, I anticipate we’ll come out. Uh, we will learn on Wednesday what our rating is before that bond sale, which will be, will come here for approval at our next board meeting, um, that we have that same rating, but the uh the thing that’s interesting is, um the, the, the trend that we’re going with our ending fund

01:31:11,700	balance is heading the right direction and then even the good news for right now, if you look at where we’re projected on revenues and expenditures compared to last month.

01:31:28,170	Remember now this, this is for ending of November and you’ll get ending of December at the next meeting because of how long it takes us to close the books, so we’ve not closed December yet. We will by the 15th. But you can see that we’re trending in a positive manner, 1.8. uh over on revenues and 1.1% under an expenditure so that’s moving in the right direction to help build that, that, that endnding fund balance, um.

01:31:48,970	now for the not so good news is if you go to page 6. uh, on the document. where we got that nailed down, I said I’d promised I’d get those page numbers on there and we got them on there this time.

01:32:04,530	Um so on page 6, if you look at the second line where it says building and site repairs. we budget $1.1 million to do that. And as of the end of November, you can see, I’m sorry, we budget one,040,000. We’ve expended more than that by 100,000. So it’s really critical only type things, um, but this is not an improvement budget.

01:32:30,100	This is the stuff that fixes toilets and and we did have one large, we had to do the chiller at Soliim, um, so that came out of this fiscal, but, um, so that, that’s the part when we think about moving forward with a long range facilities plan. It’s one thing to try to get those projects done.

01:32:48,270	It’s another thing to say, how are we setting up the future administration and school boards to say, OK, we, we need to do this a little bit different so that we, we, we do have more money to address those challenges. So that’s really all I have for you on the financial report.

01:33:04,800	I’d answer any questions on the financial report. board of members, questions, comments? I don’t see any, so budget brief. Dr Fosna. All right. Last thing this evening, um, sharing this with you, um, before I asked Mr.

01:33:28,900	Koons to share publicly, and it’ll go out on social media probably along with our, my proposed recommendations for transportation and bell time, um, probably go out tonight, tomorrow, but, um, did this the last couple of years provide kind of a one-page simple um explanation of the new proposed budget for the upcoming year, um, just so people can look at it, digest it, and so what I’ve offered you in here is,

01:33:47,000	um, kind of a picture where we’re gonna be tightening. We’re gonna be tightening our belts. It’s probably nothing you didn’t hear last year. I think that’s why you’re hearing this report from, um, Dr Scherer’s revenues are doing better. Expenditures are doing better because we’re tightening.

01:34:06,170	We’re trying to make sure, um, setting our priorities, but, um, to Miss Presky’s comments earlier. You can see the big 3% stop sign because that’s new legislation. Um, all public entities are facing that same challenge as we navigate taxation and within North Dakota, but when you have a 3% cap on growth inside of your general fund, that’s the operating budget, and that’s true in our building fund.

01:34:27,630	That’s true in a couple other of of our funds that that we, um, um, use for um collection, um, there’s a limiter now that we have not had in the past. It just means we have to live in that reality.

01:34:43,730	I think that puts um setting priorities even more of a priority as we move forward. The other one is a little far ther down, Mr. Barnard is a state budget. State budgets this year and next year are already set as far as that reimbursement rate, that is 2.5%, and that is locked in. It’s not gonna change for another year.

01:35:00,630	Um, I think between the tax caps and the state revenue being um particularly tight this next two years. Um, and then we compound that with what we’re projecting a little over half a million dollars and tightness in our federal budgets by pur just some projections where plan um planning for all three of those constrict um the revenue

01:35:22,000	side of the budget, which means we have to constrict the expenditure side, um, so on the rights based on that, on the right side of the page, uh, you’ll see our projected revenue budget for next year at the top at $227 million and then you also see the projected expenditure.

01:35:39,900	um, next year we are sitting on the positive side, revenue over expenditure. I would tell you a year from now, that’s projected to flip lip So we have some work to do before we get to the 20 728 budget to get that on the right side of the, uh, um, a ledger,

01:35:56,730	uh, but, uh, what I tried to project down there with a little school bus logo a little farther down, Mr. Barnard is really you look at the increased costs inside of the expenditure budget, 650,000 is really in that professional services line due to our bussing contract, transportation contract, and the rest of it, if you

01:36:17,000	if you take all that in totality, about 84% of the increase is really going all to salaries and benefits of employees. So when people challenge us, challenge me, challenge you with taking care of our people, so we retain teachers, we retain custodians, we retain bus drivers. I think that’s what we’re doing.

01:36:37,970	We’re, we’re projecting almost all of our new money into those salaries and benefits, um, and in a world where I can’t increase revenue, I can’t make money to to help pay those people anymore. Um, we’re, we’re giving out, I’ve really almost everything we have to increasing those salaries and benefits.

01:36:57,170	And I just characterizing for the people really goes back to what we’ve already said 3 times. We got to identify priorities that have meaningful impact on students and then start saying that’s where we’re putting our money, and if it’s not making um heavy impact on students and it’s not helping us meet the law, federal requirements, things

01:37:13,600	like that, then we got to have hard conversations about them. So, and that’s just our work. We got to do that all the time. So I’m just sharing this with you. Hope you like it. And again, we’ll share this with the public so they’re well aware of our where our budgets are going.

01:37:28,000	Ms. Pearson Thanks, President Ha Hager and Dr Fassnot and Dr Sheriff for these, these import, you know, these important reports and I think it’s always timely when all of these things are taken in totality along with the workshop that we’ve had, the committees that have gone on.

01:37:48,100	And I think what I want to commend Bismarck Public Schools and your team plus, um, the taxpayers and everybody else is that I think we’ve done a really good job of, of doing exactly what you said. If we want to make sure that we prioritize and we’re looking at what our our funding is and what it is not.

01:38:01,630	we are able to kind of do things within the, within the means and, and we’ve really made some, some good decisions. We’re going to continue to prioritize.

01:38:16,630	We’re looking at the programming that we heard earlier on in order to make that kind of a, a budget neutral, but also like kind of um increased parent choice and and paired opportunities but do that in a budget neutral way.

01:38:31,100	And I think that that’s, that’s been an important um directive that those of us that have been elected have have come to know, but I think it’s also clear that when we look at anything extra, and I always look at the word and kind of chuckle a little bit at deferred maintenance and the thought that we had the long range facility in 203.

01:38:46,470	Now we have it again 3 years later, and a lot of that stuff, yes, um, to Dr Sher’s point is he’s been able to make improvements just really, you know, chip away at certain, certain things, but we are sometimes one, I don’t wanna call it a disaster, but one crisis, um, away from a boiler going out or a roof caving in or something like that.

01:39:04,170	These, these buildings are are used, they are used with military precision as Mr. Hager talked about with, with what we have to do at Solheim just to accommodate students in the space that we have.

01:39:21,270	So to not acknowledge that not only that there is this growth that makes it really easy when, when you’re growing and your community is increasing, it’s easy to say, well, we have to have a school because we have to put the the students somewhere.

01:39:34,730	I think these decisions are a little bit harder because we are stabilizing a bit in our growth or although it moves in flex, you know, flexes kind of, you know, with, with the growth of the community, but what happens is there are improvements that we would want to make.

01:39:53,230	We would want that anything that you’re getting kind of a a Solheim or a Wilmore is exactly what you could get at an Elk Ridge, um, and I think that those things, um, we hear from our community, but in our current budget cycle in the current, you just, I don’t want to call it status quo, but in the current just even funding that we’re receiving, we’re not able to do that and we’re not able to just slowly chip away at some of those pieces.

01:40:08,270	And what’s even more concerning to me is some of the more detailed things within the long-range facility, and I would encourage anybody that’s in the public to actually read through kind of some of the specifics. There are some, there’s definitely some wants in there.

01:40:24,730	100%, um, there’s, there’s those things are gonna happen just as we grow, but there is a lot of actual needs and ADA compliance issues and, and accommodations that absolutely can be and have been made at these local schools, but also ones that probably shouldn’t need to be made, you know, students being carried up and down stairs or students and families having to go to maybe not a neighborhood school

01:40:41,270	and go to another school because it doesn’t have the facility needs that, that another school does. So I think that as we, as we make these hard decisions and we talk about what the the community needs, and we’ve gotten a lot of input. I hope that that is something that is, is taken into consideration.

01:40:58,100	And as I look at this budget brief I, I think that the, that the state and um local tech, you know, taxation is has put us in a bind to do, to capitalize on what we have and the decisions that we can in this moment.

01:41:11,730	I think that what we are gonna need to do and ask the public and, and ask each other about what we would go is if we want those extra that’s in that long range facility we’re, we’re gonna have to come to the community and really hear from them on, on what we want to do to make sure that

01:41:27,730	these schools, um, are, are really the, the facilities that we want. And I, the last point, because I know that you guys will all have comments on this is that if we think about just the I know Dr Sher talked about traffic, the actual physical traffic that is coming in and

01:41:42,170	out of our, our school buildings every single day to get kids in and out. We’ve talked a lot about transportation, but the just foot traffic that are in our our buildings, whether you’re talking about a small school like a Prairie Rose, you’re talking about the large elementaries like we did with Solheim or our high schools

01:41:58,800	that are just having just foot traffic. in and out. I mean, these, these floors are walked on. There is students there all the time, adults that make these places, their, their home, they’ve got to be the these buildings, and I think that we’ve done a lot.

01:42:13,730	I mean, I’m obviously a Bismarck high grad, so I know how old that building is and just the, the tradition that we’ve had to keep a very strong programming in a very old building and have made it like accommodating with some of the improvements, but the everyday foot traffic that is in these buildings, I think we

01:42:31,270	just have to acknowledge it and, and some of the stories that when we talk to Darren in the facilities team, and you hear about just how much inflation has cost to make these simple repairs.

01:42:46,730	I don’t know if we’re always able to acknowledge that when we’re talking about just the, the, the basic needs and the technology that we need to make sure that students have and all of those we’ve just done it on kind of a budget neutral space and I think we’re gonna have to be really honest about whether we can continue to do that and, and make sure that we’re meeting those, those students’

01:43:00,070	needs. So I know those are some conversations we’re going to have in the, in the spring, but I hope that the public is realizing that that doesn’t mean that we’re not still asking you guys to make good priority decisions on what we’re doing with staffing and, and, and, and thoughtful things

01:43:13,170	about the programming every single day, but some of that is gonna be outside of that. I, I do believe. Miss Presky Um, thank you, board member Peterson, because that really kind of set me up for my question as well.

01:43:30,600	When you hear about the long range plan, you see this budget brief. It’s, I mean, we’re maybe a million dollars over revenue from expenditures from what is being projected today for the next budget. Um so then you look at the long range plan and you see the totals there.

01:43:53,500	How, I mean, what, what are our options and I’m sure we’ll have those further discussions down the road, but I, I mean, I can tell the public that it’s, it’s not because none of us want improvements at our schools. We want those improvements at the schools, but we’ve just had our hands tied by financially by trying to be, you know, conservative and, and, um. uh.

01:44:15,870	in our, in the budget process, but um I, I guess I’ll just end it there and see if you have anything you want to throw at us with that. Um, let me reiterate, uh, to you both your points. I mean, one, as I walk around schools. Bismarck has exceptional schools.

01:44:36,730	OK, we’re blessed to have the facilities we have, but there’s also day to day, week to week work, OK? So, um, yeah, 14,000 kids, 2300 people just work inside of it, go through buildings.

01:44:55,900	There’s a consumption, right? Um, but even besides just the wear and tear, I think you have to recognize that, and I’ll, I will pick on ADA to come into this district and realize that we have schools where children and staff have been carried upstairs because there’s no elevator to get to this. bottom floor or the 3rd floor. It’s 2025. Um-hum. Really, that’s what we’re doing.

01:45:17,630	I think you have to take a pretty hard look at that, and that’s in the plan. I, I encourage people to go look, because there are some schools that really need some of those spaces to help ensure that every child has access to a similar standard of school education experience, um.

01:45:38,630	I, I think you have, as Dr Scher mentioned, some schools that are not even listed on the list, right? Because they’re relatively new. They’ve been on the edges, they’ve been on where in the last 15 years we’ve seen a lot of growth.

01:45:57,900	Those are beautiful schools, beautiful learning spaces with tremendous opportunities not only for the children within those spaces, but the educators are in there too. And I just would encourage people to think about some of the schools that are towards the center part of the town. Are they meeting the needs of their kids today? Yeah, but you can’t compare those two.

01:46:17,730	Those, those are really diametrically different, and I think the district has an obligation to invest in those schools as much as where the new homes are being built. We have an obligation for the kids in those neighborhoods as well. Now to Miss Pressy’s year’s point. Yes, that number in that plan becomes a very large number really fast. Um, Dr Scher mentioned 1.

01:46:39,000	4 million, right? We had a maintenance, um, we’ve, we’ve consumed all that well ahead of schedule for the last 2 years. So just general maintenance is eating that away. The limitation of general fund is for general operations. It is to keep teachers in classrooms, custodians in hallways. It’s to keep bus drivers and buses. It’s to keep us operating.

01:46:59,270	If you’re gonna use that budget to do the thumb of the things that are on the facility side, you would be making drastic cuts in programs that people would not want to see because of the cost it takes to keep the facilities up to, up and going.

01:47:17,900	You have a building fund I remind people you’ve been le levying about 10 mills in your building fund, which is about $6.57 million a year, but you’re also paying for a couple new schools out of that building fund and even that when you’re talking about millions of dollars, we have been knocking some things off the list.

01:47:38,270	floors, additions, chillers, things of that nature, roofs, you know, we’re doing $300,000 a year just in a roof work every year when you have millions of square feet, not millions, how many square feet? 2.8. 2.8 million square feet of just floors and roofs to take care of. So I think, um, to your point, M.

01:47:58,000	Pressky, it’s that we have to go back, look at the priorities within the facility work and say we’re doing that on the general fund side, but even the facility work, what’s the priority list? What needs to be addressed most immediately? How can we fund it, come back with you with options, saying we can do this within the building

01:48:11,870	fund on a 3-year plan. We can do this within the general fund on a 10-year plan to maybe get this done and some of these things, there is no plan.

01:48:27,330	Besides, we’re gonna have to go find another way to pay for that because it’s such a large project over such a scope of time and space that there’s just no way to do it. And if you chip off that work over 50 years, I’ll guarantee you there’ll be another 50 years of work right behind it. So it’s just a matter of setting those priorities and then asking people what do you want to do.

01:48:38,530	But some of the big things, as you mentioned, Miss. Peterson, I would tell you our stark absolutely right in your face things that the district needs to address for um the learning spaces for some children in some parts of town. Thank you, Dr Fossnott. Thank you, board members. All agenda items have been considered a