Monthly Board agenda notes

Note there are two larger donations:

• $20,000 from PLTW to assist with the dollars needed to continue with all of our STEM courses 5K through grade 12.
• Wayne Jenson, former BASD teacher who has passed away, gifted 25% of his living trust to the Burlington Area School District to be used specifically for the school forest. The appropriate value is around $150,000. Wayne cared deeply about the school forest and our team met with his sister to discuss what he had hoped continues moving forward with the school forest.

• Eric Sulik will be shifting into the role of Activities Director starting July 1! Eric is currently a middle school teacher and our head football coach at the high school. He has been in the district for a fair amount of time and is well respected by his peers. The interview team did a great job working through all the candidates and we believe Sulik with do a great job within this role. Please note, we are wanting to work on calling this role "Activities Director" versus "Athletic Director" as he will oversee Fine Arts and all extracurricular club activities as well. So, he will not just oversee athletics. The Activities Director is a 220 contract (just an FYI).

• Jess Warren will be shifting from Interim Buildings & Grounds to Buildings & Grounds Director starting on July 1. He has done a great job taking on this role and the team is very supportive of the removal of interim.

Our team wanted to make an adjustment to the FMLA policy so that it reads, "a "rolling" 12-month period measured backward from the date of any FMLA leave usage" for staff to utilize FMLA versus "a calendar year".

Our "why" for this is so that staff who take FMLA in (for example) October and need to take 12 weeks cannot then also take another 12 weeks come January. This change will allow an employee to take FMLA once within a 12 month period versus following a calendar year.

Jess Warren, Director of Buildings and Grounds, will be sharing an update with the board about the capital projects that took place throughout the 2023-2024 school year. He will also share the work that will be taking place this summer to ensure everyone is aware of the projects taking place.

We have never had B&G do a recap of the year like this so it would be nice (afterwards) to gain your feedback in regards to... should we add this annually? Or no.

The Policy Committee met on June 4 to discuss the following policies for 1st reading and recommends that the full board accept the following policies and their adjustments noted in Board Docs.

• 5350: Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention
• Recommendation to the full board is to accept almost all options throughout the policy accept those that do not pertain to our practices within BASD.
• 5505: Academic Honesty (This is a new policy)
• This is a new policy that the committee recommends the district adopt.
• This policy relates to the importance of students submitting work that is their original work.
• 6236: Community Service Fund (Fund 80) (This is a new policy)
• This is a new policy that the committee recommends the district adopt.
• This policy simply protects and supports our Community Education Department.
• 7250.01: Memorials for Staff and Students (This is a new policy)
• This is a new policy that the committee recommends the district adopt.
• A main component of this policy relates to the importance of avoiding permanent memorials for any staff and/or students who pass away.
• The committee also thought taking the last paragraph that refers to not memorializing suicides is important to keep in the policy (section recommended by NEOLA but there as an option to accept).
• 6610: Non District-supported Student Activity Accounts
• This is a policy NEOLA simply updated and the committee recommendations taking NEOLA's recommendations.

• 7440.02: Smart Monitoring Equipment (This is a new policy)

• This is a new policy that the committee recommends the district adopt.
  
• This policy relates to installing smart sensor devices for student safety. One example of this is vape smoke detectors. We do not have these at this time but not a bad idea to have it in our policies in the event the district ever decides to install something of this nature.
• We do have sensors on our doors currently if they are ajar and/or left open.

• 7540.08: Artificial Intelligence (AI) (This is a new policy)

• This is a new policy that the committee recommends the district adopt.

• Jill confirmed that all the policies listed we have in place, which would include a newly adopted policy within this batch for approval - policy 5505 Academic Honesty.

• 8121: Personal Background Check - Contracted Services (This is a new policy)

• This is a new policy that the committee recommends the district adopt.
• This policy refers to contractors and/or subcontractors and the importance of having the ability to ask for background checks for those on site.

Our two district librarians, Sally Nie and Angie Thole, will be presenting information about:

• They will share how many permission slips were utilized to assist with how the changes have helped provide transparency for families.
• What the library plan was from 2021-2024 and then will be sharing the plans for 2024-2027. They also will touch on some data relating to the changes to the library policy given that the new policy was put in place this school year. They will share how many permission slips were utilized to assist with how the changes have helped provide transparency for families.

• The board will be asked to approve the library plans for the 2024-2027 school years.

There will be some adjustments to registration fees, class fees at the middle school level, and food service fees.

• Registration Fees:
• Overall we made an increase ranging from 20% increase to 4K registration to an average of 31% increase to the current fees in grades 5K through grade 12. The exact adjustments are listed in the Excel document found within Board Docs.
• Middle School Class Fees:
• At the middle school level we had not been charging fees for classroom materials. However, Kristen Dixon along with staff from Karcher will share a presentation as to the why for adjusting fees at the middle school and ultimately share that STEM and Art classes will have a fee of $10.00 per trimester.
• Part of the thought process really comes back to ensuring that if students are taking materials home that there is a fee for those materials.
• *** At this time, we have not added a materials fee to the elementary schools.
• Food Service:
• As we move into the school year we will longer be providing free breakfast for all students across BASD. Part of our why here is because now that we have Data Wrangler in place we need to utilize the Fund 50 dollars to offset the cost of utilities for food service. This then, allows us to use Fund 10 for other necessary needs.
• Remember though, families who qualify for free/reduced lunch will still receive free breakfast/lunch.
• Additionally, an adjustment to the cost for a student and adult lunch will be applied. It is not an huge increase but there is an increase. The increase is in the Excel Document.
• Event Admission:
• This also include an increase to event admission for plays and musicals from $5.00 to $10.00.

• The board will be asked to approve the increase in fees for the 2024-2025 school year.

Asbestos abatement is needed at Cooper to remove the tile and adhesive that is holding the tile to the concrete in three areas of the building (the library, room 206, and room 202). Two of the areas will then be covered with carpet and one of the areas will be covered vinyl VCT tile as this space will be a STEM space for the building. The total for the asbestos abatement from Balistriei is $28,725.

This is coming to the board as it is over $25,000.

Reminder, this entire project (including the asbestos abatement) is paid for by the Sullivan Family Charitable Fund for a grand total of $185,000.

• The board will be asked to approve the Balistriei asbestos abatement for Cooper Elementary School.

Jess Warren, Interim Buildings and Grounds Director, will be asking for approval of a $106,000 quote to replace controllers for HVAC equipment. This is only a small portion of the necessary replacements for the high school. The full cost would be around $490,000 to replace all of the controllers for the high school. These controllers are 15 years old and need to be replaced because the current ones are failing and replacements are not available. Only one quote is being brought to the board for this project because Siemens is the vendor we use for most of the district HVAC controls. The only building not using Siemens is Karcher (Trane is the company used at Karcher).

By doing this portion of the project we will have spare parts to use for other areas in the building until we are in a better financial state as a district for us to have the funds to pay for additional replacement parts.

• The board will be asked to approve the Siemens quote for the controllers needed for our HVAC units at the high school.

The Thomas Bus Contract is a total increase of $96,269.76 from this year to next year due to fuel costs along with the need to keep up with CPI increases. The reduction in school days was an overall transportation savings of $20,700.00. It is not a huge savings for BASD when it comes to transportation and the reduction in school days because private schools are still in session, therefore, Thomas Bus still has to run routes. The overall cost for the contract will be $1,600,484.76 for the 2024-2025 school year.

• The board will be asked to approve the Thomas Bus Pupil Transportation Contract for the 2024-2025 school year.

The board will be asked to approve the final budget amendments for the 2023-2024 school year. This is what Ruth talked to the board about at the first budget workshop we had on May 22.

• The board will be asked to approve the final 2023-2024 budget amendments.

The board will be asked to approve the preliminary budget for the 2024-2025 school year budget. This is in relation to the budget board workshop held on June 3, 2024. This budget includes the preliminary school year budget along with the estimated tax levy for the 2024-2025 school year.

• The board will be asked to approve the preliminary budget for the 2024-2025 school year.

The only committee that can provide an update at this time is the policy committee.

Additionally, the following are the dates for upcoming committee meetings and/or board workshops:

• Finance Committee: June 13 @ 6:ooPM
• School Board Workshop: June 24 @ 6:00PM
• The first hour will be to learn about self-funded health insurance
• The second hour will be with School Perceptions to receive the report/feedback from the community survey about operational referendum options.
• Personnel Committee Meeting: June 26 @ 12:00PM
• BEA Negotiations Meeting: June 26 @ 6:00PM
• Board Governance / Communications Committee: June 26 @ 6:45PM (following BEA meeting)

Looking into July:

• There will be no dinner prior to the board meeting in July!
• We added a board workshop to July 22 @ 6:00 PM to discuss the 2024-2025 operational referendum options.

Also, the Annual Meeting has been set for August 26, 2024.

• Nora is working with Dave to determine the best location for the annual meeting. In the past, it was in the auditorium at the high school. However, we do not have the right equipment to livestream located in the auditorium. We are going to see how 8th grade recognition goes tonight with the livestream at the middle school as we may shift the annual meeting to the middle school as the sound and livestreaming capabilities we believe will be better at Karcher. Stay tuned!

As a reminder, the following information is presented at the annual meeting:

• Superintendent's Report
• Approval of the minutes from the 2023-2024 Annual Meeting
• Treasurer's Report for the 2023-2024 school year
• Presentation of the budget for the 2024-2025 school year
• Resolution A: The 2024-2025 tax levy
• Resolution B: Board member salary
• Resolution C: Board member reimbursement of expenses
• Resolution D: Date, Time, and Location for the 2025 Annual Meeting

There might be a need for closed session to give an update to the board about HR.