00:00:11,100	All right. Let’s call the Mandan Public School District number one meeting to order its Monday, March 2nd, 2020 sixth at 5:30 p.m.. Uh, everybody, please join me with the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands.

00:00:33,070	One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everybody. Greatly appreciate that. Welcome to come the night. Thank you very much. Uh, we are going to adjust the agenda just a little bit.

00:00:54,530	Normally we have public comments right at the front of it, but we do have a little bit of presentation around Custer, so we thought we would do that first. So everybody had that information before they got up and talked. I think it just makes it everybody on the same playing field a little bit. So thanks, Doctor Bitz for mentioning that. I think that was a really good idea.

00:01:11,030	All right. Next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Uh, Doctor Pitts, I think you had a couple changes. I do, I have three additions to the agenda under new business letter C. Um, we just got a letter of resignation today.

00:01:29,000	Kayla Gomez Nunez, who teaches English at Mandan High School, and I believe that letter is in front of you. And then under letter D, uh, for certified retirements, Renae, who teaches special ed at Mandan High School, um, submitted her letter over the weekend and then under letter E, new Business, we have a request to hire Delaney Ziegler, who teaches English, will be teaching English at Mandan High

00:01:53,670	School next year to request to hire. So those three would be my. All right. You also gave me, um, a future meeting dates. March 4th. Our River CTA 6 p.m. Mandan D conference room and March 5th assistant Superintendent interviews at 9 a.m. in the Brave Center. Correct? Correct will be added. Yes.

00:02:15,500	Yep. Okay. Anybody else have any other changes? Uh, what are the wishes of the board of the modified agenda? I would move that. We approve the agenda with mentioned changes or additions. Excuse me. All right, we have a motion. We have a second, second, and we have a second.

00:02:37,630	Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing none, please call. Roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Shannon? Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item is the administrator report. Item on the agenda is impact of current technical education. Doctor bits. I don’t think they showed up so. Okay. So we’ll move that to a different meeting date then.

00:03:02,670	Correct. All right. Then we’ll move on to the presentation on the Custer Elementary. Doctor bits again? Yeah. Um, start off by saying that I love Custer. It’s a great school. Um, this is not something that I enjoy presenting on or want to talk about. Um, but our enrollment is shifting.

00:03:25,030	Um, we’ve got our middle school enrollment is increasing significantly, and they’re requesting staff with their property. We’re deficit spending already. You know, a million for, I think, or million six this year. And we aren’t able to add the staff there right now where our kids are. And I think it’s important for us to right size so that we can serve all students better.

00:03:45,770	Um, Mandan is not alone. Um, this has been going on across the state. Uh, Bismarck closed SACs in 2016. Grand forks closed west in 2021. Two years ago, Minot closed McKinley and Bell. Jamestown closed. Washington Elementary and Fargo was closing several elementaries in 2028.

00:04:10,330	They’re reorganizing and building a larger school to be more efficient. I just actually had somebody else tell me this morning that Valley City’s closed. Washington Elementary. Um, as part of their their building project. Um, there’s been rifts going on all over the state between the the state funding and the property tax caps. We’ve just been.

00:04:27,930	Schools have been hit hard and are having to make choices. Um, right now, Custer has 101 students and grades K through five. Um, we have 17 certified staff or teachers there and 15 classified staff. Those are our our cooks, our custodians, our administrative assistants. Not all of those are full time.

00:04:47,300	Um, but we do have 32 staff working with those 101 students. Um, 22 of those 101 students are, uh, fifth graders and will be moving to the middle school next year. So there’s 79 that will be returning to Custer grades K through four. And thank you, Carley.

00:05:11,800	So that will be returning to, uh, Custer next year. We when Mr. Steckler told us that he was resigning and not coming back, and we were going to be looking at hiring another principal, we talked about, that’s a position that we could repurpose and put it where our kids are up at the middle school and help them out.

00:05:29,870	We’ve got classes over 30 right now at the middle school, and we they need some relief. They need some staff. We just don’t have any any funds to give it to them. Um, we kind of looked at those numbers. I got her elementary principals together, and we said if we took those 79 kids, we looked at where they lived.

00:05:45,070	If we parceled them out to, um, the elementary schools in the area, would we have room? And every one of them said, yeah, we have three vacant classrooms in our elementary school, other elementary schools right now, and our class sizes, especially K through three, are relatively low.

00:06:05,070	Um, they all said that they felt comfortable with those numbers and supporting those students as long as the adults came with them. Um, so here’s our just our overall enrollment. And you can see that we’ve got a have a really nice growth. Um, going back to when I got here in 2010. Um, up until about 2022, it was just a pretty significant increase line.

00:06:28,170	It’s flattened out in the last few years. Um, that’s due to the birth rate. It’s due to the economy slowing down. Um, we’re still growing, but it’s relatively flat. Um, here’s our elementary and grades six through 12 are in red, and you can see they’re going. They’re rising. Um, grades K through five are the blue.

00:06:48,330	And you can see that they’re dropping. Um, we this year alone, we had 70 fewer kids in our elementary, um, with our fifth graders going out and our kindergartners coming in. Um, we expect that to continue in future years. Custer has never been a big school.

00:07:05,470	Um, there’s one section of kindergarten through grade five in that building. Um, you can see that in 2021, we only had 100 kids there. So this isn’t even the lowest we’ve ever been. Um, there’s a couple of years where we had, you know, a mid one 30s in there.

00:07:19,870	Um, but Custer just it’s just a small school. It’s just there’s not a lot, lot more kids you can put in or take out of that school. Custer’s also are most mobile, uh, area mobility rate. Um, we average about 18% of the kids at Custer. Don’t start the school year or end the school year there.

00:07:38,730	That’s not necessarily bad. It’s just there’s a lot of rentals in the area. Uh, apartment buildings, mobile home houses that are for rent. Um, nothing wrong with that. I’ve lived in a mobile home. I’ve lived in an apartment. Um, some of the happiest years of my life were in those.

00:07:54,070	But when I was there, I stayed for a couple of years, and I moved or a year, and I moved, um, lived in lots of different apartments that just the nature of it. Um, Fort Lincoln has our lowest mobility rate there, less than 5%. But they don’t have a single apartment building in their, in their, in their boundary area.

00:08:11,130	Um, lot going on on this slide. Um, I think you have it in front of you too. But if you look on the far left hand side, that’s the number of live births. And Martin County, from 2005 to 2025.

00:08:30,330	Um, the lowest number, which is kind of in orange or salmon, we had 340 bursts in 2005. The highest number was 517 bursts in 2016. Um, five years later, if you look at that middle column, that’s how many kindergartners we had show up. And you can see the lowest we’ve had is 253. In 2007, the highest we had is 377. And uh, 2016.

00:08:55,970	Um, the percentage wise, we had, the highest we’ve ever had is 85% of those kindergartners that have come to us. The lowest we’ve had is 65%. But if you average it out, it’s about 75% of the kindergarten births show up for kindergarten five years later.

00:09:13,530	And if that happens on the bottom in purple or pink, whatever color that is, you can see that, um, this year we have 301 kindergartners. Next year we will have 345. If we get 75% of those births. And as you go down, then it would go to 2.993 28, 340 and 343 in the green box on the side. This year we’re down 70 from fifth graders go into the middle school.

00:09:36,000	To kindergartners coming in, we only had 301 kindergartners this year. We moved 371 up to the high school. Um, next year, if we have 345 kindergartners, which I’m pretty confident we’re going to be close to that within a few, we’re going to be down 27. The year after that, we’ll be down 85.

00:09:53,600	Um, and 28, 29 will be down another 47. Those four years together are about 229 students. That would be down at the elementary. Um, those students are leaving our district.

00:10:09,300	They’re moving up to the middle school and high school, and we don’t have the staff to serve them there right now. We also don’t have the dollars to hire the staff to serve them right now, which is the unfortunate thing. I we don’t have the ability to raise taxes to generate more revenue.

00:10:26,270	Um, we’re kind of the state controls our revenue, and we’re we’re locked into our revenue, and we have to choose where we’re going to spend our dollars. Is the the legit? Um, this is our average cost per pupil. Um, you can see up top in the on the left side. Um, Custer, this year is going to cost us about $14,500 per pupil. Um, Fort Lincoln, about $7,800 per pupil. Lakewood about 8200 per pupil.

00:10:48,670	And that’s just basically that’s just a matter of the amount of staff that it takes at Custer to get all the programming offered for 101 kids. Um, when we do snow removal, it’s for 101 kids instead of it, just everything is more expensive. You lose the efficiency with more students.

00:11:06,730	Um, and you can see, um, Lewis and Clark, 8400. Uh, Mary Stark was in the 7000. Last couple years since we opened Lakewood, they’ve been in the 10,000. But once they get more students put back into them, they would be back in that $78,000 range. Like all the other schools.

00:11:24,870	And then here’s just a graph showing that, um, you can see Custer’s up top and blue. Uh, Mary Stark is in the pink, purple or lavender or whatever it is. And you can see that when Lakewood they spiked. But it would bring all the expenditures back in order.

00:11:43,730	You know, I’ve had people ask, well, what’s going to happen if births start coming up? Oil starts rising, the economy turns around. Um, and we need space. And I don’t think it’s going to be anytime soon. When I look at those birth rates. But if 5 or 6 years from now, eight years from now, we do need to add space. Um, Custer is a grade school.

00:12:01,430	There’s nothing wrong with I Love Custer. I love going there. Great staff, great administration, great students. There’s nothing I can say bad about Custer other than it’s very expensive to operate. They they the per pupil, the adults that we need to have their per student just make it very expensive.

00:12:22,000	And if we add on to Lakewood, which it was designed to do, it just pop out a little piece and put that on. I wouldn’t have to hire another principal. We wouldn’t have to hire new cooks. It wouldn’t cost us any more for snow. It’s just much more economical to do it that way.

00:12:36,130	Um, it don’t like to recommend this. Um, it’s just that if we want to serve our students in the middle school where our needs are, I don’t have another answer of how to do that. And I can pause for any questions that you may have. Okay. Thanks.

00:12:54,600	Mike, could you speak a little bit more about the employees and how they’ll be disseminating you, as you mentioned? Thank you. Um, Doctor Ralph and I went down to Custer. We met with the Custer staff. We’ve spent several meetings down there. Um, nobody’s going to lose their job. We’re going to take care of all of our staff.

00:13:10,600	Um. And we. You can look on your agenda. We’ve got several resignations, um, across the district. We’re we basically sent them a survey and said, tell us where you’d like to go, what you’d like to do. Give us your top three choices. We gave them a little text box.

00:13:28,200	Say, tell us what’s important to you. Um, so that they could do that and we could place them. We’ve got a pretty good plan, I think Doctor Ritter has been leading that, but I think she said she feels pretty good about where we are right now.

00:13:45,000	We did issue contracts to 370 some teachers, I think this morning, or Amy did. Those are due back in two weeks. We don’t want to place the Custer staff because we may get a resignation or two. That makes sense to put a Custer staff member in that we didn’t know was open.

00:14:01,500	Um, our calendar parks right now and Grand Forks and Fargo and in many schools across the state, um, they’re facing the same property tax caps, same birth rate issues. This is not a Mandan issue. There’s a lot of non renewals and a lot of rifts going on. We’re fortunate I don’t think we have to do that. This would just be repurposing positions and reassigning people.

00:14:18,370	Doctor bids. We issued contracts this morning and all of the teaching professionals. everybody just got their contract. Everybody got a contract in our classified staff. Um, this will be on recording. They they will have a job, I promise you will. Our cooks, our administrative assistant, our custodians, all of them pairs. They will all have jobs. Yep. Okay.

00:14:40,800	Any other questions? Yeah. Go ahead. Rick. Doctor Bitz, the cost per pupil. Will that rise or lower with the. When these students are distributed throughout the district. I believe at a lower. Just because we’re not spending the money at at Custer.

00:15:01,130	In other words, when I don’t have to hire another principal that’s going to lower our elementary expenditures by that, we currently have a couple of I think we have three opening teacher openings at the elementary school by reassigning Custer staff to those buildings. Those are three teachers. We don’t have to hire. Um, by reassigning pairs.

00:15:22,030	We have a administrative assistant in the elementary that retired or will be retiring at the end of the school year. We won’t have to replace her. So those are salaries we won’t. We’re already paying those salaries. And by repurposing these positions, we won’t have to pay up. I don’t like to do this, I really don’t. It’s just, um.

00:15:37,500	It’s a way to be more efficient and be more responsible to our taxpayers. And also for us to spend some of those dollars at the middle school where we were. We’ve got an extra 76th graders this year. Go ahead.

00:16:02,000	Doctor, you’ve been talking a little bit about efficiency, but I wanted you to talk a little bit about how those students will land in the schools, the land in and kind of our average classroom ratios, because I know that’s one of the things that’s nice about a smaller school is a lot of times it feels more attentive.

00:16:16,370	And could you just speak to that, please? It is we have about 900, almost a hundred between 90 and 100 elementary classrooms across the district. Um, obviously Red trail, I think got one student from Custer and Fort Lincoln got one student. The rest went to Mary Stark, Lewis and Clark, Lakewood and Roosevelt and Lakewood. Sorry, Mr. Morgan.

00:16:35,130	Um, we have three empty classrooms that I’m assuming there are. Those are going to open up. Um, once those open up, you know, and then there may be some classes that gain 1 or 2 students more than they have now. Um, at the middle school, our class sizes will drop significantly.

00:16:53,930	Right now, we’ve got electives with over 30 students. We’d like to lower that number. One follow up. What is the average class size to teacher ratio in our elementary schools? Would you? Do you do we have a general? Don’t I? I can tell you that what our goals are, what our

00:17:13,000	goals are. K through two, we’d like to be at 20 or less grades. K through. Excuse me, grades. Three and four. No, I mean K and one, 20 and less. Two and three, 23 or less. And four and 525 or less.

00:17:35,170	I think right now in first grade and kindergarten at Custer, we have 13 and 12, you know, so they the class sizes is nice. It’s a great environment. It’s just that our other schools don’t have that. Thank you for that. Yeah. Mr.. Anybody else have any questions? I was going to see. Do you know how many kindergartners are registered so far to Custer or. Um. Go ahead.

00:17:59,430	I don’t know, specific to Custer. We only at this point have about 156 kindergartners registered. Last time I looked, um, which is about about on pace for what we currently are at this year. How many are specific to Custer? I don’t know, off the top of my head.

00:18:15,430	Um, yeah. When I visited with Mrs. Power about that last week, she said we’re trending almost identical to where we were last year when we had 301 kindergarteners. I assured her we were going to have 345 because of the birth rate, and that it’s going to pick up, so I hope it does.

00:18:34,070	And another question. So the parents had a choice to request a schools. They did. And we gave them, I think, a deadline of April 15th. Um, we’ve talked about two things we talked about.

00:18:51,200	I think we tentatively set May 1st, where if you make the decision to close Custer, we would like to bused the kids over to the to their new school, give them a tour of it, let them, I guess, feel it. We’ve also talked about having a parent night at each of the schools affected. And, um, state putting staff to stay for a couple extra hours and meet the new students and families.

00:19:08,730	So with that, is there going to be a cap on the request if some like, there’s a large influx that wants to go to one school because there’s a lot of concerns of parent, the friends that are moving away. And yeah, no, I think we we always do.

00:19:23,200	I literally we get I’ll say hundreds. It’s hundreds might be high, but we get dozens of requests. I would say 50, 60, 70 requests in the elementary school to go to a different building.

00:19:40,870	Um, we try to honor those to the extent we can, um, when we start getting into 27, 28 in the classroom, it’s like, okay, I, we can’t do that. Um, you know, we do have some vacant classrooms that we could open up or that we will open up, um, once we know where students want to be will make those decisions.

00:20:04,330	Um, how would I want to word this? How many concerns were brought up to you from the public currently that, um, through emails or phone calls or anything of that nature that. I didn’t take any phone calls? I don’t think doctor redrafted either. I did, um, get two emails from a husband and wife, and I did get a email from a great aunt. So three emails. Three emails. Okay.

00:20:24,070	And then, um, the the staff at Custer, um, generally, are they okay with closing Custer? What’s their feelings? A lot of them are here. I won’t speak for them. No, they’re they’re great people.

00:20:42,270	I think they when we shared this presentation with them, we’ve, uh, Doctor Roth and I have shared this presentation with all of our elementary schools at. In the middle school. And I think everybody’s head and heart tells them a different thing. Their heart tells them that we love Custer. We want it to stay open. Um, I love going to Custer. It’s one of my favorite schools to visit.

00:21:00,030	Um, I don’t like to be in this situation, but I think I don’t want to speak for them. I’ll let me. Just to add to that if I can, I think they’ve been nothing but professional and and, um, like Doctor Betz said, their head and their heart tell you two different things, and they’re a family.

00:21:15,870	And I’m not a big crier, but I think I’ve cried at least three times talking to them, probably over the last month. But they’ve been professional and they want to do what’s best for kids, um, and their kids and all kids. And so I can’t say enough about how they’ve conducted themselves and how Mr.

00:21:31,400	Enzi has led them in general, but especially over the last month, because it hasn’t been an easy month for them. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Did you want to talk about what’s the plan for the building. I’ve had? This is crazy. I’ve had without advertising.

00:21:52,970	I think we’ve had five parties express interest and every one of them I said, we’re not even going to have that conference. This conversation until the board makes a decision. Um, to close it. I don’t want to walk people through like a realtor when when people are still there.

00:22:12,500	Um, my recommendation to you is that if you close Custer or vote to close Custer, that we eliminate the building. I think that increases our savings. Um, and I think there’s going to be plenty of interest. I know there’s going to be plenty of interest. Um, so I would hope that we close it. I also hope we keep that.

00:22:29,030	We work out with whoever buys it that they keep, uh, the playground equipment and the park there. And I think that that’s something that I’ve talked to the people that have called about that. That’s a neighborhood park and playground. One more question.

00:22:45,600	Um, I know we’ve talked about this a little bit, but maybe to talk about why, um, it was brought up to me, maybe moving special ed programs into that building and why we couldn’t do that. We did. A Bismarck has bicep, and they run it in. I think it’s the old is a rich old building in Bismarck. Um, they also have head start. Come in.

00:23:04,270	You can’t move all your special ed kids into one school and segregate them and say, all of our special ed kids go here. That’s almost like discriminating against them and putting them there. If we do that, we’d have to have a bunch of of role models, um, that would come in and, and do that. So it and that doesn’t make a lot of economic sense.

00:23:26,130	That wouldn’t allow us. The reason we’re kind of doing this is the middle school and the high school are saying we’re getting more kids. We need more staff. We have to serve them, and we have no way of levying more dollars other than redistributing a dollars and putting the position where the kids are.

00:23:49,070	Okay. Anybody else have any questions? All right. Thank you, Doctor Pitts. Well, sure. We’ll have more when we get around to discussing it at the end. And after some presentations before we go to public comment, we got one other piece. Do you want to talk about the notice of annexation hearing? We’ll be quick.

00:24:05,630	Yes. I don’t have a it’s not up on my computer now, but I believe it’s April 6th. We have a family in the in the Mandan School district who borders Sweet Briar, is petitioning to annex their land from Mandan into Sweet Briar. And I think the date is April 6th at 4:00.

00:24:23,270	Is that hearing? I will be there to represent you. I don’t think there’s much we can do other than show up. All right, so that’s just informational then for everybody. All right. Now we’re on to the the good part here where public comment. We move this down. Normally we have it higher up. We’ll move the down.

00:24:42,770	So you could at least listen to Doctor Pitts presentation in relation to it. So it’s a public comment period. Um, we ask if you step up and going to comment, state your name and where you’re live in regard to it, and try to limit it to five minutes and provide your information to the board in

00:25:00,070	regard to it as a board. We do truly want to hear what you have to say, so please step up and provide comments. Now in regard to it. Okay. Anybody willing to want to step up? Thank you. Hello. My name is Patricia misa.

00:25:23,530	I live on 10th Avenue Northeast in Mandan and I can see Custer down my alleyway, out my front window. Um, I know that we mentioned that we could not move the special education preschool students to Custer because it would be considered segregation. However, um, preschool is not mandatory in North Dakota. Neither is the special ed preschool program.

00:25:46,070	So we could move them to the Custer Building and put in a program not unlike Community of friends of Bicep and make revenue with it. I believe it’s something like $100 per student for a community friends student. That could have changed.

00:26:08,070	That was the last summer I had gotten a few years ago from friends who had children in that program. Um, to me, as a person who lives down the street, I can’t imagine losing a school in that neighborhood.

00:26:30,100	And because it is zoned for very interestingly as commercial and residential, I swear if there’s another bank built there, I might lose my mind. Um, yes, it would be fantastic if the playground stayed. There’s no playground in that neighborhood. There’s no place for my kid to go play during the day, in the afternoons, in the evenings, in the summertime.

00:26:49,600	Um, however, it would be a loss of an entire building that property taxes have paid for its loss of community. There are things that that school provides for that neighborhood, regardless of whether there’s children there or not. It’s nice to see children on the playground in the mornings, going to school.

00:27:07,870	My son is obsessed with school buses right now, and he loves seeing all the school buses in the morning. But I think that our numbers might be off. I have three new neighbors on my street, alone, on my block. All three of them are young families like myself who don’t have kids yet, but are actively trying for children.

00:27:27,930	So in five years, that’s at least three families just on my block alone that could have children. We have houses for sale up the street from us. There’s houses for sale, three doors or three blocks down from me.

00:27:47,270	And to say that we are just going to tear this building down or repurpose it, or sell it to somebody for a private entity of something else, I feel like that would be a loss for the community, not necessarily because I want us to waste, quote unquote, waste money on the small classrooms. But I feel like repurposing that building and keeping it in the school district would also make sense for a special education preschool, in my opinion.

00:28:11,270	Um, I think it would be a huge loss if we just sold it off and whoever wanted to do what they wanted with it could. And being as in my neighborhood, it makes me nervous about that. So I guess that’s just my $0.02.

00:28:28,330	I think that it’s something to explore, to have the special education preschoolers go there along with a community friends type. Um, program because it’s it would be a huge asset. Um, and it would free up even more classroom space in the other elementary schools for those kids who are leaving Custer. Thanks. Thank you.

00:28:49,800	Patricia, have you signed in on the document just so we could make sure we get all the right names in there? Yep. Okay. Just want to make sure that was done. Thank you. And if you haven’t signed in, please make sure you do that before you leave. All right. Amy’s got it up here. You can. Somebody hasn’t. We can get it signed in. All right.

00:29:03,030	Anybody else want to provide input? Anybody else? Lots of people here. Nobody wants to provide input. We’re here to listen. Seeing none. The last one. Last time. Anybody else? Well, thank you all. Well, then, we’ll move on. Next item on the agenda is the consent agenda.

00:29:27,700	First item on the consent agenda is review. And consider previous board minutes from February 2nd, 2026, except the wellness minutes from February 2nd, 2026. Accept facility and finance minutes from February 9th, 2026. Except policy and personnel minutes from February 23rd, 2026. Review and consider a special board meeting minutes from February 24th, 2026.

00:29:54,330	Review and consider January 2026 bills review and consider January 2026 revenue and expenditures. Review and consider approval of a final reading of the following policies. Libra jury duty Libra drug and alcohol free workplace GBR AA drug and alcohol testing for safety sensitive employees GBH professional leave of absence GB family and medical leave GBR three R Family medical leave procedures review

00:30:22,530	and consider approval of the final reading to delete the following policies GBK professional Workload what are the wishes of the board? I would make a motion to accept the consent agenda. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Second. We have multiple seconds. Please call roll. Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes.

00:30:44,400	Yes yes. Uh, next item is unfinished business. We have no unfinished business. President Wolfe, Container Service, our speaker and our Deca speaker on CTE was able to arrive. She was stuck at the state Deca conference competing and has now been able to come.

00:31:03,630	Do you mind if she shares for a few minutes? Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. Step up to the podium. Thank you. So much and sorry for the delay again. There’s actually an accident apparently on the highway on towards Bismarck. So they made everybody reroute sort of while they cleared that out. But thank you so much for your guys’s time today.

00:31:19,370	My name is Brianna Santiago Davila. I’m from the Mandan High School, and I am the chapter president of Mandan Deca. And I just want to talk to you guys briefly about the importance of Deca and other CTE programs at school.

00:31:35,700	Do you guys have any questions on what Deca or CTE is? Program is in the first place? Maybe since there’s a bunch of people here, maybe just give us a one minute kind of overview of what it is. So everybody knows, right. So CTE and Deca go hand in hand.

00:31:51,830	Um, Deca is empowered by this specifically at Mandan High School, the marketing CTE class, which gives students real world education access and CTE itself, stands for career and Technical Education. All it means is that it’s teaching students about how to apply what they’re learning to the real world. Okay. With that? Sorry. Some of the benefits of CTE, such as Deca, is that it cultivates critical thinking skills and it promotes team collaboration.

00:32:24,800	It allows for students to work together and learn this to especially in today’s world, we need to learn how to work together more properly to solve issues quicker and become more of a unionized group. It also fosters an entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial mindset. Basically, it fosters the future.

00:32:41,000	Leaders of our community such as you guys, for example, where you guys make major decisions for our community. It also encourages goal setting, where students basically come together and set goals that are real for our community and also real for them, while also giving them educational benefits. Compared to traditional education. It’s very straightforward.

00:33:00,100	It’s kind of geared for all subjects and doesn’t, and a lot of students can’t see how they’re connected to it. A lot of students ask how, when am I actually going to use this? It’s like one of the most iconic questions ever.

00:33:13,030	While CTE programs kind of connect that, it shows how they’re going to use those skills and put it towards possibility, like possibilities, like a career in marketing. For example, if bridges the two gaps where students stop asking, how am I actually going to connect this and how they actually can use it? And while learning still. Success stories. Here are some statistics about CTE, specifically Deca as well. 85% of participants reported that they’ve seen an increase in confidence themselves.

00:33:34,800	I know for myself, my since my freshman year, I’ve gained a lot of confidence with public speaking, public speaking. I normally wouldn’t stutter as much, so sorry, but freshman year I don’t think I’ve ever would have. Since my freshman year.

00:33:46,700	I don’t think I ever would have gotten up here to actually talk in front of people. So I know myself. It’s definitely helped. 70% of CTE students find jobs in their field after graduation, meaning that they’re able to find actual jobs.

00:34:05,800	A lot of people today, especially young adults, are saying that they are struggling to find jobs after they graduate college, high school, CTE, such as CTE, such as Deca, bridges that gap. We also see a 10% increase in graduation rates among CTE students compared to their peers. Students who partake in CTE often graduate on track more, ten times more likely than their peers.

00:34:27,330	90% of employers prefer candidates with CTE experience, because obviously a lot of employers right now, they’re looking for people who have the skills, who have the education already. And a lot of times what CTE does is that it just it contracts. It contracts you with those people. It says, hey, we know people in this industry who can actually teach you how to get this job in the future.

00:34:42,600	It’s just a real valuable knowledge that everybody can use in their day to day life. And then 95% of Deca students develop essential teamwork skills. We learn, especially in how to work with others, to create solutions to our issues, how to work together and efficiently solve problems while talking to other effectively. It’s sorry.

00:35:08,730	With Deca, we also work. We we like to work together with local businesses. We like to collaborate and learn because it’s a great way to get students involved.

00:35:21,000	What we do, for example, today, if the state Deca conference is that we got to network with a bunch of local businesses around North Dakota and work with them and talk, and we got to learn how to actually talk to businesses and what we can do to them. Even some people learned that this is how they can maybe get into that future career world that they really wanted.

00:35:40,370	To sum it up, basically CTE, such as Deca, are are crucial programs for students in Mandan and not just Mandan across the state and nationwide. It’s so important that students have access to CTE programs. That way they can learn how they can actually apply any skills, and not necessarily maybe a career, but the skills of teamwork, communication and anything like that to the real world.

00:35:57,930	Do you guys have any questions for me? Any questions? You’re over at deck at the state conferences. Yeah. Tours today. Um, it was yesterday, today and tomorrow as well. Well, good luck to you all very much. And everything you do over there, it’s a big thing. And doctor bits.

00:36:13,800	I was going to say I just looked and she did send me a message saying she was going to be late. It was. Yeah. But said I was right before the meeting and I didn’t check it. So thank you for the message. And yeah, and also thank you for moving it.

00:36:25,830	I know you wanted to comment at the last meeting and we didn’t have a meeting, so thank you for that. No it’s fine, don’t worry. Obviously things happen. And good luck on the deck. And I teach at the university level and there’s Deca as part of that.

00:36:39,730	And the skill set you’re talking about people that are hiring, people are looking for, you’re getting there. They they’re actually telling us that’s the skill set they want. So keep up doing what you’re doing. It’s a great thing. They’re in a Deca side. So all right, thank you so much for your guys’s time.

00:36:53,900	All right. Thank you. All right. Now we’ll move on to new business review and consider approval of a recommendation of the Facility and finance committee to close Custer Elementary at the conclusion of the 2526 school year. Um, doctor.

00:37:13,130	Bitzer, anything you want to add to what you had there before we move on, or, Mr. Enzi, if there’s anything you want to add to you, feel free. Okay. No, I would just say that preschool or special ed preschool is required by federal law. We do have to do it. Um, Bismarck does it.

00:37:29,670	They combine with head start over in Bismarck. Um, we don’t run the Head Start program. Hit us. We did explore that avenue. Um, a year ago, and they were not interested. Right now in they have a lease at the building they’re at. They were not interested in moving at this time. Okay. So thank you.

00:37:47,870	And just for everybody’s knowledge, this actually went before the facility and finance committee a couple of weeks ago and. Into January, I believe. Uh, February 9th. February 9th. Yeah. And uh, their recommendation at that point was to do this in regard to it.

00:38:04,930	So just so everybody’s aware that was also discussed there in regard to it, I don’t think it was anonymous, but it was the motion that came out of that one. So what are the what are the wishes of the board. Any comments, any questions? Um, what are you thinking here in regard to it? Yep. Make one other comment. Yep.

00:38:18,330	Go ahead. I just want because there’s a lot of people from the public. There are a lot of people here tonight that, um, we don’t hear about these things for the first time at these meetings.

00:38:29,930	So I just want to be clear on that, because sometimes people think that we’re getting information right away, but these are things that we, um, learn about and know about. We get all the minutes from other meetings and we talk about things, um, or we, we know, we know the lay of the land before the meetings, often because of the reading that we do. So I just wanted to clarify that I think it’s important.

00:38:42,770	Yeah. Anything else anybody wants to add? Any comments? What are the wishes of the board? Get us started. It’s up to you guys. I believe what whatever we decide.

00:39:10,100	Um, we we as a board will have to look and see what to do with the building as far as, like, a bank was mentioned that. Yeah. No, it’s something. Well, something we would still maintain. Something to do with, uh, young people, you know, educating young people, whatever it may be. But, uh. I guess with that. I would, I would move that. We closed Custer school.

00:39:40,970	All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second? We have a second. Any further discussion, any further discussion? Any further discussion? Seeing none. Please call roll. Yes. Thank you. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The motion has been made and seconded to close Custer Elementary at the conclusion of the 25, 26 year.

00:40:24,730	Um, further conversations. What we do with that building will happen through the board process and probably the facility and finance committee. Also. I will say I think we do have some at least one option of repurposing that for kids. And I think that that’s whether that’s the most financially benefit to us or not.

00:40:42,070	I think that’s one that we should really see if we can make work. Okay. Next item on the agenda is review and consider approval of Amended Joint Powers Agreement with Mend and parks. Uh, doctor bits. Correct. We had a we’re required once a year to meet with the park district. Um, we have two board members on that.

00:41:01,300	That’s Mr. Horn and Mr. Haugen. Um, and we met with the park district in early January, and we kind of went through and we updated our agreement that we have we have a joint powers agreement with them. There were no substantial changes to it. Um, we changed the the pay rates.

00:41:22,470	We were sharing everything equally at the All Seasons Arena. We’ve kind of moved out. So we’re we’re paying but not an equal share. Different. Um, we had hadn’t added Lakewood in and they do run an after school program in Lakewood. So we talked about that as well. Um, the rest of it were just cosmetic changes.

00:41:40,070	The Park district approved this at their February meeting, and it would be our recommendation that you approve it as well. All right. What are the wishes of the board? I’d make the motion to approve the amended Joint Powers Agreement with Mandan Parks. All right. We have a motion. I have a second.

00:41:56,530	Second, we have a second. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none. Please call. Roll. Yes, Peter? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes yes. Next item on the agenda is review. And consider the following certified resignations. Uh, Katie Vardy math amended middle school Cloy Markovic health amended. Middle school. Tanisha Warner, agriculture, up Mandan High school. Courtney Wise, fifth grade at Fort Lincoln.

00:42:27,000	Stephanie Jan, second grade at Mendon Middle School, and Kayla moon’s English at the Mendon High School. Doctor math. We would recommend that you accept these resignations and thank them for their service in Mandan. We wish them nothing but the best. All right.

00:42:44,630	What are the wishes of the board? I would move that. We accept the letters of resignations. All right, we have a motion. We have a second. We have a second. Any discussion? Um, I would just like to thank all of them for all their, uh, dedication to the students of Mandan. We thank you for all what you have done.

00:43:04,400	And congratulations. And wherever you’re moving on in regard to it, we wish you the best in that. Please call roll. Yes, ma’am. Yes. Yes. Yes yes. Yes yes. Next item is review and consider approval.

00:43:31,670	The following certified retirements Tammy Kelly, social studies at Mandan Middle School Sandra Pfaff, Ela at Mandan Middle School. And Renee Bryan, special editor at Mandan High School. Doctor, reiterate. Again, we would recommend your approval of these retirements and thank them for their. All three of these have long served Mandan and have been outstanding educators for us, so we’re sad to see them go, but wish them the best of luck.

00:43:48,700	All right. Thank you. What are the wishes of the board on this one? I would move that we accept the certified retirement resignations. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. We have a second. Any further discussion? I’d just like to thank all.

00:44:07,730	All three of these for all their hard work and dedication. And I wish them the best in their retirement, um, as they go through that. So thank you all for everything you’ve done there. I would also like to thank all three. I worked with all three and, uh, we’re losing three three Eagles. But best of luck to them in their retirement.

00:44:28,130	Any further comments discussions. All right. Please call roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item reviewed. Consider request to hire the following certified staff. Michaela Schneider, social studies at Mandan Middle School and Delaney Ziegler, English at the Mandan High School. Doctor Roth.

00:44:53,870	Both of these individuals have been long term subs for us and have been doing outstanding jobs. And so we’re excited to have them join the Mandan family. And we’d recommend their approval. All right. One of the wishes of the board. I would move that we approve the, uh, the two applications. All right. We have a motion. We have a second.

00:45:11,170	Second, we have a motion. And a second. Any further discussion? I would just welcome and thank you for the long term, uh, services that you provided so far to us. And welcome to you being full time employees. So welcome aboard. Please call roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item. Review and consider approval.

00:45:36,770	The superintendent. Summative evaluation. Now it’s included in there. Pretty much everything was really good in regard to that. And everybody was wishing you congratulations on your retirement. Thank you. So we wish you the best on your retirement. I don’t know why we even filled it out because it has no bearing anyway, because. The law says you have to.

00:45:55,230	It says I have to. Yeah. All right. What are the wishes of the board? I’ve. Go ahead. I make a motion to approve the superintendent’s summative evaluation. All right. We have a motion. We have a second. We have a second.

00:46:16,730	Any further discussion? Any further discussion? It’s the last time you get to evaluate him here is one to roll it on him now or not. Yep. Again. Thanks, Mike. Uh. Please call. Roll. Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes. Yes. Yes. Next item review and consider. Request to approve open enrollment application. Seeking a deadline waiver. Uh, we have several of those in front of us. Um. Only one of those.

00:46:48,070	One of them doctor bits. Go ahead. We have one of those, um, your next item is open enrollment for next year. Um, and you have several of those in front of you. Um, those are students who live outside of our district who are requesting to come here next year.

00:47:05,830	Um, but this one is somebody who, during the year moved out of our district because they moved during the year. The requesting to stay with Mandan for the rest of the year. It would be our recommendation that we accept it. All right. We have a recommendation of the wishes of the board.

00:47:24,970	I would move that we that we accept this application, this open enrollment application. All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Any further discussions? Any further discussion? Seeing none, please call roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item. Review and consider a request to approve open enrollment applications for the 2627 year.

00:47:49,100	I will let the board know one of these individuals in here, um, is my nephew and his wife or their child. If you would like, I will step off from this. If you have nothing. I got no financial gain or anything with it. But if you would, I would. Okay. Seeing everybody’s okay with that. We’ll proceed.

00:48:06,000	Uh, doctor Bitz, anything you want to add on this one? Um, no, I’m just. That would be our recommendation that you approve all these. All right. We have a recommendation. What are the wishes of the board? I would move that. We approve the, uh, open enrollment applications for 2627. All right, we have a motion. We have a second.

00:48:25,770	Second. Any discussion? I would like to say something. There is a pile of papers here. This really goes to the people in our community and our schools and our educators and everybody for all the work they do, that people want to come in and be here just like those that cluster in every school does an

00:48:45,630	excellent job, because there’s quite a few of them here. In regard to it, I just want to say thank you for that. All right. Any further discussion? If not, please call roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Shannon. Yes. Yes. Yes. Next item on the agenda is future meeting dates. March 4th. Our river CTA 6 p.m.

00:49:10,730	Mendon CT conference room. March 5th. Assistant superintendent Interviews 9 a.m. The Brave Center. And there’s four of those. Correct. March 16th. Regular school Board 5:30 p.m., City Hall. March 23rd student achievement 5 p.m. at the Brave Center. March 30th the Wellness Committee 4 p.m. at the Brave Center. April 16th or April 6th. Excuse me.

00:49:34,770	Regular school board meeting. Any other meetings that should be identified for the board? If not, we will adjourn the meeting. Thanks, everybody for