00:00:02,500	Yes. Good evening. I’m Dan Eastgate, president of the Bismarck School board. It’s 5:15 p.m. on Monday, September 14th. I call this meeting to order. Welcome. And thank you for joining us tonight here at the Tom Baker Room and also online.

00:00:22,830	For anyone wishing to follow along, you can find our agenda under the School Board tab at WW Bismarck schools.org. We also have a few agendas at the back of the back of the room here. Please note that per century code, we will have our official budget presentation and hearing at 6 p.m.. So no matter where we are on the agenda tonight, we will go to 6:00 on the agenda at 6 p.m. Doctor Scherr.

00:00:39,570	Will you call the roll, please? Mr. Eastgate here, Mr. Auckland here, Doctor Jonas here. Mrs. Peterson here. Miss Preskey here. All board members present accounted for. Doctor Fastnacht, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

00:01:07,100	And to the Republic for which it stands? One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item one C is the mission, vision and values. The mission is to empower every learner to thrive. The vision states, together our strong relationships build inclusive, collaborative, and innovative environments that create, agency and inspire a passion for learning, excellence and discovery.

00:01:38,100	The values are inclusion, excellence, innovation and leadership. You can also find a link in the agenda to the Strategic Plan. Item two on the agenda is to adopt the agenda where the wishes of the board, miss Preskey. I’ll move that. We adopt the agenda. And we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Seeing none. Doctor Scherr. Auckland. Yes, Jonas. Yes.

00:01:59,430	Petersen. Yes. Preskey. Yes. Eastgate. Yes. Motion passes. Item three. Focus on success three. A is growing. Future educators. Doctor Fossen. Good afternoon, board members. Nice to see you again. I’d like to introduce our bring up to the podium tonight, Miss Stacy Geiger and Mr.

00:02:22,430	Steve Mandler, who are going to be talking about, um, our, uh, teacher pathway program. And some of your HR reports. So let you take that on. Stacy. Go ahead. Thank you. Good evening. President Eastgate and board members. Um, this evening, uh, Mr.

00:02:37,370	Adler is here just going to share with you about some things we’re doing, um, not only at century, but in our district as well, on what we can do to increase the interest of the pathway of going into the profession of education for our teachers. So thank you to Mr. Adler for sharing with us this evening. Good evening, President Eastgate. Members of the board. Thank you for having me here tonight.

00:02:57,870	I want to talk a little bit about some of the things that have been going on in regards to growing future educators. And so when we talk about this program and the programs that we have going right now, we really look at the power of the internship process at the high school level, or even, you know, as

00:03:15,930	kids are in high school. And so there’s a lot of things that go into internships, and it doesn’t have to specifically be with education, but internships in general. It gives students all of those connected, real world experiences. It gets to confirm or affirm or give them the idea.

00:03:36,270	Maybe I don’t see myself doing this in my career, or maybe I do. Certainly gives them a step up. Uh, amongst their peers who don’t have those experiences. And then obviously it creates those connections at a young age that can be fostered even further on as they start pursuing some of these interests. Post-secondary.

00:04:00,200	Uh, in our building, we started the peer to peer program about 11 years ago, and in that program, in that very first year, students are in the classroom. They’re learning about, uh, disabilities.

00:04:19,970	And then they work on, uh, not only learning those pieces, but then on some social interactions and peer engagement throughout the year, then students who opt to take it for a second year, they actually go into a classroom as a peer mentor within a class. And then there are students that continue with it for their third year.

00:04:39,670	And in that year, they have the opportunity to actually work as a paraprofessional, as an intern, for 2 hours or 3 hours a day during the school day. And so with that, there’s some dual credit opportunities for some foundation courses and some method courses.

00:04:56,870	And so we have a number of students who are in our peer to peer program that end up with six credits that are going to count towards some of those education courses that are needed post-secondary, if they choose to pursue that, you know, peer to peer has been up here as a program in the past as a focus on success about some of the things that it does for the culture, for the building and what it does for students while they’re in it.

00:05:13,770	Uh, tonight we’re going to focus on what that looks like after they leave us. Uh, the next one is our peer to peer, our excuse me, our exploring the teaching profession in and about the same time that we started the peer to peer program.

00:05:29,530	We started this exploring the teaching profession class, and we did it for a few years. And what did we want to promote? We wanted to promote a pathway of students who are interested in education as a career, to give them an experience of what that looks like on the other side of the desk.

00:05:47,770	And so, uh, again, the class talks about the art and science of teaching. It goes through some of the child development. It builds some of that instructional and collaboration skills. And then it has an internship that goes along with that. Our students will spend about 20 hours in the fall and 20 hours in the spring.

00:06:05,230	And so for those of you that took methods course, that Intro to education at the collegiate level, you know, there’s probably maybe six to 8 to 10 hours in that field experience.

00:06:24,300	Our students are getting 40 hours throughout the course of the year because obviously it is a full year in length versus a semester at the collegiate level. Again, we have some of those dual credit opportunities, uh, of three credits for that. The other piece of it, or another one that we’ve done, but it’s somewhat in its infancy.

00:06:43,430	I don’t have it up here, but a couple of years ago, we started a multilingual, uh, experience with our students from the high school going into our elementary school, working with students who English is not their chosen or their language that they’re able to speak. So our non-English speaking students, and that one is certainly in its infancy.

00:07:03,230	So we don’t have some of the articulation that we have with the, um, exploring the teaching profession in the peer to peer, but certainly something that we’re looking to grow, uh, the target students for that are students that have had multiple years of learning a foreign language themselves.

00:07:20,470	So they have kind of that insight or that insight, I would say, into what it looks like to learn a new language. And it’s certainly an asset for those students who are just starting to learn that, uh, English as their language spoken in school.

00:07:40,630	When we talk about the benefits for the students and to the schools and to the profession, certainly for the students that develops leadership, it develops communication skills and career readiness skills for the schools. It has an impact on our culture. Every one of those programs has a clear benefit in our building, but it also has the benefit in all of those buildings that they go out and serve. And so, uh, it really creates, um, that support network within our schools.

00:08:02,100	And it really is getting a future workforce for us as well. And as far as the profession, we all know we need more educators, not just Bismarck Public Schools, all schools across the state need more students going into education.

00:08:19,830	And so when we think about the overall goal, we look at it from the student and what that experience is going to be for them, what the preparation is going to take to get them there, and then how that’s going to make them career and community ready. So that’s kind of that whole pipeline of the pathway to close this out tonight.

00:08:35,570	I have a couple of former students, a couple alumni who have gone through these programs, and now we’re not going to talk tonight about necessarily what it was like for them.

00:08:53,970	When we’re there, a student, we’re going to talk more about what it was like for them to take those classes, pursue what they pursued at the collegiate level, and then ultimately become an employee of Bismarck Public Schools. Right now, in their first or second year, we have five former century students who are currently involved in our district. I wish that number was 50, but we have five.

00:09:16,170	Um, and uh, talking to our teachers, we have right now 20 that are in progress working towards a degree in education with aspirations of being a future educator. And I hope all 20 of them come back to Bismarck Public Schools. And so with that, I’m going to turn it over to our guests. Good evening. Good evening. I’m Teddy Jensen, and I’m currently a special education teacher at Jeanette.

00:09:42,370	Miri. Um, when I was at century, I actually had completed a complete different plan to go into the Air Force. Um, then I experienced peer to peer the experience, along with the influence of Sarah Borg, completely changed the direction I wanted to go with my life.

00:09:57,300	It helped me realize how much I enjoy working with students with disabilities, and that special education was something I could see myself doing. Peer to peer also changed me personally. It taught me how important inclusion is. It gave me a different perspective on life and helped me become more patient and a strong advocate for people with disabilities.

00:10:12,700	Those are still things I carry with me while teaching. After high school, I went to BSc in December of 2020, I started working as a paraprofessional at Moses.

00:10:28,930	I later learned about the para to pathway program through Minot State, and which allowed me to continue working with the district while going to school in August of 2020 for a year before I graduate, I was given the opportunity to start a teaching position. Then in May of 2025, I graduated from Minot State University with my bachelor’s degree in special Education and a concentration of deaf and hard and hearing.

00:10:45,970	I am currently continuing my education at Minot State, and I’ll graduate this May with my master’s degree in Special Education as a Behavior Specialist, and apparently I haven’t had enough school because one of my former century teachers, Raegan Urban, has inspired me to continue and began working towards my doctoral degree next year.

00:11:02,030	One of the things that has always stayed with me, from peer to peer, is the relationships I had with my mentees. He was a nonverbal during junior year, and then he moved to Texas after he had moved. I didn’t have contact with him for several years.

00:11:15,470	About two years ago, his parents found me on Facebook and asked if I would meet them up, meet up with them when they were back in the area. After all those years apart, I got to see him again and that’s the first time I heard him speak my name. That moment, that’s a moment I will never forget.

00:11:30,870	It reminded me of how meaningful the relationships we build with students can be, and how much of an impact we have on one another. One of the things I’m most proud of is that I’m able to carry peer to peer forward in my own career. While I was at Moses, I helped create a peer to peer program there, which unfortunately I don’t think is being done anymore.

00:11:44,030	But now at Miri, we are still continuing it there. We’re one of three of the elementary schools. Peer to peer didn’t just change my career path, it changed who I am as a person. It made me more inclusive, more patient and a stronger advocate and ultimately helped me lead.

00:11:57,300	Lead me from beginning a student at century to becoming a paraprofessional, to becoming a special education teacher right here in Bismarck Public Schools. I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to be a part of peer to peer, and now get to continue that experience for other students. Thank you. Thank you.

00:12:17,130	All right. Good evening. School board. Um, so my name is Rachel Dennis and I teach ninth and 10th grade at Century High School. So I’m teaching at the school that I graduated from.

00:12:37,970	Um, it’s also funny how things come full circle, because in May of 2021, I was in this exact spot telling you about the benefits of this class as a senior in the class. Um, so I can definitely stand here. Over five years later and tell you that my ideas have not changed at all.

00:12:55,300	Um, so for the sake of time, just a couple things that I want to call attention to as far as the benefits of this class, um, the Exploring the Education Profession class has a unique perspective because it’s taught by a teacher who is still in the classroom, and you can have the best undergraduate teaching program at any college, um, anywhere. But it cannot replicate the perspective of a teacher in the classroom.

00:13:17,430	The profession is constantly changing, and I had the weird, maybe privilege of being a student in the class, um, right around Covid. So I also got to see how teachers navigated that situation as well.

00:13:37,770	Another benefit of the class is it’s meant to replace the Intro to Education class at the college level, and most colleges, that’s a semester long class. But at Century High School, it’s a year long class, and so we get a lot of opportunities to dive in deeper into formative assessment.

00:13:54,970	Um, Sara Baugh also came into the classroom and gave us a unique perspective on teaching students with exceptional that I did not get in my undergraduate program. So that was a huge benefit to me as a general education teacher, to have that perspective. Um, and as someone who has lived here my entire life, I knew that when I graduated century, I wanted to stay in Bismarck.

00:14:14,030	And so the Exploring the Education Profession class also gave me the opportunity to network with other teachers and principals in the district. While I was in the class, I spent all of my practicum time with Angie Myerson at Horizon Middle School, and then in the spring of 2025, I returned to Horizon Middle School for my student

00:14:31,700	teaching and taught with Judie Cramer. And some of you also visited during my time student teaching there. Um, at the end of the year, with the Exploring the Education Profession class, we had a mock interview with some teachers at the school.

00:14:49,830	I actually had a mock interview with Steve Adler and Shelley Kinne, and we sat there and little did we know that January 2025, I’d be back in the same position interviewing with Steve Adler for the job. And I got a call in February for my dream job at PS.

00:15:08,500	Um, I don’t think without this class I would be the teacher I am today having the different perspectives, and there’s a special kind of trait in the teachers that come out of this class because we return to BS, knowing what it means to be a teacher and knowing the atmosphere and the type of strive and and motivation we want to put into our students. So thank you. Thank you. With that, we stand for questions.

00:15:37,330	Pretty good, Mr. Mather. Pretty good. Um, board members questions, comments. Mr. Jones, Doctor Jonas. And what’s the process of how students get involved in this? I mean, self-select, just fill me in on that a little bit. Yeah.

00:15:59,430	I think the best recruiting tool is kids sharing their experiences and telling their younger brothers and sisters, hey, you need to do this. When we started with peer to peer, uh, several years ago, it was in the spring of the year that we started the class and we went into classes where they were already working with student supports. We went to our med careers courses.

00:16:17,130	We went to, you know, some of those courses that child development. And we just told kids about it. Uh, and then from there it just kind of took off. But certainly, uh, when, uh, kids are registering, uh, every year, the counselors will go through and they start building their four year plan and they start highlighting these things.

00:16:41,030	If you’re interested in this, here’s the complement of classes. There’s several of these classes that fit the, uh, educator pathway that the state has been promoting for the last several years. And so students are getting quite a few of these credits taken care of because they fall under that pathway. Thank you. Miss Preskey. Thank you.

00:17:06,000	Any idea like overall through BS, how many students have started or gone through the Educator Pathway program and then returned? I don’t know that I have that exact number, but I think it’s worth keeping track of because we were kind of shocked when we were just saying, well, I think this students in Fargo and this

00:17:23,100	students in Grand Forks, and then we started looking and we have five just from century. Us in legacy have been running the program for the same number of years. Uh, Bismarck High just started the program two years ago.

00:17:42,430	And so, uh, but just at century, we know that we between the peer to peer and exploring the teaching profession, we’ve got 20 students that are pursuing education. We’ve got droves of students that are pursuing other occupations. Speech path OT, PT, but 20 in education. And so I would hope I hope that number is similar at the other two because we could use all 60 of them.

00:18:06,300	And you said VHS just recently started their program. How many years then have Legacy and Century been? We’ve been we’ve been ten years. Mhm. Yeah. I know during one of my last school visits, um, I, I learned that legacy had a teacher that had just been hired that went through this program and was coming back to

00:18:28,170	teach orchestra. So it’s good to hear those success stories. And thank you guys for sharing your success stories. Love it. Mr. Rockland, uh, thank you so much. Thank you for the program. The work. You’re doing here. Also.

00:18:45,930	when the students are off at the college or whatever college they choose, or so we kind of encourage them come back to their student teaching at our schools and kind of mentoring them through that. Right. And yeah, absolutely. So do they pick that or are we kind of also helping them pick. Yeah. You know, every university is a little bit different in how they run their placements.

00:19:04,000	Um, but we’re seeing more than more and more where students are putting their requests out there. And requests with specificity. Uh, I want to student teach under teacher X at building D. Yeah, I ask because I also serve on several college advisory boards.

00:19:23,630	So I was going to go back to them and go, hey, how are you guys doing that? So yeah, that’s great. Yeah, I think, there were years that, uh, colleges wanted students to experience, um. something placements outside of home. Um, but I think that has changed because we get a number of students, former students that are doing their student teaching here.

00:19:44,270	But then we also get a number of students. When I think about University of Mary students coming from, you know, quite a range in the upper Midwest, we get a lot of placements from the university. We certainly want to reach out as far as we could. But yeah, no, thank you very much. Yeah.

00:19:57,830	Very good. Okay, Mr. Mather, you’re off the hook. Your other board members already asked the question I was going to hit you with on some participation. Um, to, uh, Miss Dennis and Miss Jensen. Just a couple of things, Miss Dennis. It’s. I do remember you presenting in 21.

00:20:12,270	It’s good to see you back. And at that time, we. I remember us asking a lot of questions, both of you and the other presenters of what those classes look like. Um, and what does that mean for our district, especially in a time, as Mr.

00:20:24,030	Mather pointed out, there are some teacher shortages, not just specific here, but all over the place. And it’s it’s pretty, um, it’s heartwarming, honestly, to hear you talk about it being your dream job. Dream job at PS, I mean, what a cool deal.

00:20:37,100	Um, and for you to have that, at least from the sounds of what you’ve shared, that, uh, that was the vision you had coming through when you were at century. So I just think that’s awesome. And Miss Jensen, um, great job on your, you know, continuing further in your education. And it’s very clear that it’s more than a job or a job title for you. And it’s about relationships.

00:20:52,000	And I know who your teachers are that you’re referencing. And I know what they teach those same principles in their classroom. It’s not just about a letter grade all the time. It’s about the relationships that are being built between teachers to kids. And then obviously you’re you’re living that out.

00:21:04,700	So, um, thank you so much. It was very this is a great, great presentation on on how this program is again, more than a program. So thank you, doctor Fastnacht. Well, I’d be remiss, first of all, Miss Dennis, miss Jensen, thank you. Thanks for choosing PS.

00:21:21,330	And the next time I’m visiting your schools I’m coming to see you. Okay. So I’ll have coffee in my pocket. We’re going to say thank you the right way. Thank you. I want to applaud Mr. Mandler. Thank you and your colleagues. Steve, thanks for building these programs. I think it’s vitally important. We’re at a point.

00:21:37,530	I think we’ve shared it here before where, um, K through education in North Dakota has done a really good job for years building plumbers, building construction, HVAC technicians, um, diesel mechanics, all those things we’ve done really well building those career pathways.

00:21:58,800	And it’s not just until recently where I think education as a whole, BS included has said, but we got to focus on building our own. We got to find that talent that’s in our classrooms. Obviously in our high school classrooms, um, and nurture it and foster it and grow it. And, uh, we see schools, large schools that have a lot of, um, visa or foreign teachers are coming in to fill the gap.

00:22:17,770	Bismarck’s not there yet, but we see it on the horizon. We see when we’re filling 110 to 120 positions a year with new teachers. Um, and I think that’s reasonable, but it’s like, where do they come from? And it’s great to hear 20. Right? But I think, as Mr.

00:22:36,430	Adler said, we could use 20 times, 3 or 20 times four. So how do we do that? I would, uh, applaud his work, applaud the work of our educators that are helping to support that. But I’d also say there’s more to do.

00:22:54,170	I think that the teacher pathway, the educator pathway that we’ve recently put out and the states helped to support, we need to help bolster that. We need to find some really good friends in our community that will help entice kids with scholarships to go out and go to college. We need some friends in our community who will say, we’ll take those kids that do really well in class.

00:23:11,100	Finish the pathway. Now we’ll give you a scholarship to go to Mary. We’ll go to BSc wherever. And then I think as a district we got to say, well, how do we then entice them back? How do we get them out of college and

00:23:22,300	come back to us? I mean, I know they all want to work for us because we’re just great. But I mean, let’s try to hook them a little better and say, how can we come back and make your transition back home easier and do that? I think those are all

00:23:35,200	part of what we have to just intentional steps the district has to do to make sure we’re attracting our best and brightest to come back to our classrooms. So, um, again, thank you, Mr. Mallard. Well done, well done. Thank you. God bless you. Thanks for coming back. So. Thanks.

00:23:54,400	And thanks, Miss Geiger, for helping put that together as well. Um, certainly a focus on success. Moving on in the agenda, we’ll go to item for public comment. The board recognize the central role that parents play in the education of their children, and support active parent involvement in the educational process. The board’s practice of public comment reflects and aligns with policy.

00:24:12,000	BCB, in the spirit of its intent for classroom issues, it’s best to follow the chain of command from the teacher, then to the school principal, assistant superintendent, and ultimately the superintendent for district wide issues. Please reach out to Doctor office. Excuse me. If you do speak tonight, we simply ask you be responsible, be helpful, and be respectful.

00:24:29,730	Our students deserve to have adults model the expectations that we have for them. Groups are urged select one spokesperson. Individuals will be limited no more than four minutes. We’ll be notified with 30s remaining to conclude their remarks. The board will not debate issues as presented, but will take such matters under advisement.

00:24:46,630	With that, please stand and approach the podium. If you’d like to speak tonight. Seeing no one approaching the podium this evening, public comment is now closed. Moving on to number five, monitoring district operations. Uh, five A is o e for personnel administration. Doctor Frost. I think I’ll get this one right this time.

00:25:10,300	I think I jumped the gun last time with you, Stacy, but I’ll bring Miss Skeeter back to the podium to share our E for report. Thank you. Good evening. Um, before you, you find oe for report, and in the report, you find that we have met compliance in all areas other than 4.8.

00:25:31,570	Indicator five, which is the compliance with exception. We did not quite meet the 5% or lower for the secretarial and custodial employee groups. So we looked at that and after receiving some feedback on, you know, how difficult it is to lose a secretary in your building, there, one of the main hubs,

00:25:49,730	um, in your building, we took that data and we heard that we’re probably not receiving enough support onboarding. So we developed a mentor mentee program, kind of like we do with our teachers and also a leadership team with our secretarial group, and also giving them some PLC time to

00:26:08,370	work together as a group and help us find solutions for situations they may be having in their job role. And we did see a 12% drop in our turnover rate. So hopefully this is working. We’ll continue to monitor and hopefully that will continue to turn our turnover rate even lower.

00:26:30,300	Um, custodial turnover is up a little bit. We are going to continue to review and monitor there as well to see what we could do with that employee group as well.

00:26:49,130	Um, we’ve had great success in the implementation in our first year of the Marzano teacher evaluation, we are continuing this work by shifting our focus to more on the innovator, reliability and strengthening our evaluation, collaboration and consistency, and also just promoting shared expectations, consistent evaluation practices, and meaningful feedback to support teacher growth. So we were very excited. We had a committee, um, that was teachers. It was administrators. We are so excited. We actually first time have a evaluation handbook.

00:27:14,030	So great success to that. And we will just continue that work. Um, to have that evaluation process, be an intentional, meaningful process. Um, you will see our retention rate for teachers is 95%. Um, however, you, you know, we are seeing a significant impact on our application pool. I won’t I know most employers might think, well, 95%.

00:27:39,170	That’s that’s great. That is great. However, our application pool is just getting smaller and smaller. And the number of students going into the teaching profession. So along with Mr. Adler’s work, we thought, you know what? We’ve got all this data we’ve been trying to collect mentor’s demographic. All this information.

00:28:02,300	How do we put this all together and have it more intentional to help us with retention? So we are working with the personal committee, um, led with Doctor Jonas and myself and hoping that team can help us to find those questions and the why.

00:28:21,930	The why are and who is leaving us and why they’re leaving us, so that we can also retain the teachers that may be leaving. Other than retirements. Um, so I appreciate your time this evening and thank you. So if you have any questions for me. Board members, any questions, Miss Peterson? Thanks. Um.

00:28:43,570	Miss Guyger, I just have one clarifying question when I was reading through this, because I know that when I first started on the board, um, there was a utilization of several different, um, models. And now with what you said, everybody is on the Marzano, um, leadership.

00:29:01,630	Would you say that’s across the board with teachers, or is there still decisions at each school that they can choose different evaluation models? No. All teachers, um, and some are in a non classroom, some of the depending on the groups. Um, but then we also have all teachers and all school leaders and the cabinet as well are all on the Marzano. So there’s no option there. Excellent. Thank you. You’re welcome.

00:29:19,530	Any other questions from the board? Seeing none, what are the wishes of the board, Mr.. Uh, President Eastgate, I moved to accept the report for personnel administration as fully compliant. Second.

00:29:43,230	Can we do the Doctor Scherr? Can we do the in compliance before we do the retain? Am I read the wrong I’m sorry, I’m at the wrong spot. Sorry. You’re good. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion. Clarifying question. Compliance. Without it in compliance. So we checked it. Sorry Miss Preskey. Yeah, I guess I was just going to point out that I. I agree with being fully compliant.

00:30:04,830	Those positions are our tough positions. And we’ve heard over the years about the turnover, especially with the custodians. So, um, I appreciate that we’re taking the steps that you’re taking to really try to bring bring the secretaries up to speed and give them some mentorship along the way.

00:30:25,200	Um, so that’s why I would, um, fully support the fully compliant, um, recommendation. Thank you. Mr. Preskey. Any other discussion from the board seeing none. Doctor Scherr, call the roll, please. Jonas. Yes. Petersen. Yes. Preskey. Yes. Auckland. Yes. Eastgate. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you very much, Miss Geiger. Thank you.

00:30:51,270	Uh, next up, we have GC two governing commitments. And one second, as I get that up in front of me here. And this is the public reading of GC two governing commitments. It’s a bit of a long one. So rest back and we’ll get through this together.

00:31:12,170	The Board of Governance lawfully, with primary emphasis on results for students, encourage full exploration of diverse viewpoints. Focus on governance matters rather than administrative issues observed. Clear separation of board and superintendent roles. Make all official decisions by formal vote of the board, and govern with long term vision. Number one, the board will function as a single unit.

00:31:33,130	The opinions and personal strengths of individual members will be used to the board’s best advantage, but the board faithfully will make decisions as a group by formal vote. No officer, individual or committee of the board will be permitted to limit the board’s performance or prevent the board from fulfilling its commitments.

00:31:51,100	Number two, the board is responsible for its own performance and commits itself to continuous improvement. The board will assure that its members are provided with training and professional support necessary to govern effectively as a means to assure continuous improvement. The board regularly and systematically will monitor all policies in this section, and may assess the quality of each meeting.

00:32:11,130	Number three to ensure that the board’s business meetings are conducted with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, members. Will A come to meetings adequately prepared? B speak only when recognized. C not interrupt each other. D not engage in side conversations. E not repeat what has already been said. F not play to the audience or monopolize the discussion. G support the president’s efforts to facilitate an orderly meeting.

00:32:36,500	H communicate openly and actively in discussion and dialogue to avoid surprises. I encourage balanced participation of all members. J practice respectful body language. Number four.

00:32:57,870	The board will use a consent agenda as a means to expedite the disposition of routine matters and dispose of other items of business it chooses not to to discuss all administrative matters delegated to the superintendent that are required to be approved by the board will be acted upon by the board via the consent agenda number five. An item may be removed from the consent agenda upon concurrence of a majority of the board members present, and voting six.

00:33:16,570	The board will direct the district through policy. The board’s major focus will be on the results expected to be achieved by students, rather than on the strategic choices made by the superintendent and staff. To achieve those results. Number seven, the board by majority vote may revise or amend its policies at any time.

00:33:35,830	However, as a customary practice, a proposed policy revision will be discussed at one session of the board prior to being approved. At a subsequent board meeting. That is, the end of the reading of GC two. Governing commitments. Any discussion or wishes from the board. Miss Petersen.

00:33:53,930	, I really always like, um, this particular one because I think it kind of reinforces the the why we do certain things, you know, even just that last presentation, I think we all would have wanted to think and, and really emphasize what we just heard, um, you know, brought a tear to my eye, even thinking about the different educators.

00:34:10,430	But I think this really talks about how we can be the most efficient with our time, the why that we do, the governing that we do, the the preparation that we all put in ahead of time. And so with that, um, I would move to retain GC two governing commitments. Doctor Jonas. I will. Second.

00:34:28,600	We have a motion and a second Doctor Scherr the roll please. Petersen. Yes. Preskey. Yes. Auckland. Yes. Jonas. Yes. Eastgate. Yes. And how’s the board find us, Miss Petersen? I would also move to find us fully compliant with GC two governing commitments. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Doctor Scherr.

00:34:58,470	Preskey. Yes. Auckland. Yes. Jonas. Yes. Petersen. Yes. Eastgate. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Board members. Um, again, as was noted at the beginning of the meeting, we are to six a, which will wait until 6:00.

00:35:17,770	Um, so we will continue moving on through the agenda and we’ll be returning back to that at 6 p.m.. Six B is board member school visits. I do not believe we have any to report yet. Is that right? Board members looking for any lights? Mr.

00:35:31,100	Auckland? I don’t have any to report, but I have contacted all the schools that I’ve been assigned and heard back from all of them. Um, really looking forward to have a couple scheduled already. So awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Seeing nothing else on board member school visits, we will come back to that one. We are to the consent agenda number seven, miss. Miss Preskey. Uh, I would move that. We approve the consent agenda.

00:35:50,770	Mr. Auckland. Second, if a motion is second. Doctor, Scherr the roll, please. Auckland. Yes, Jonas. Yes. Petersen. Yes. Preskey. Yes. Eastgate. Yes. Motion passes at this time. Um, we were actually going to just call a short recess. Uh, it’s 5:51 p.m.

00:36:15,370	and we will come back to address six a public hearing on fiscal year 2026 2027 budget at 6:00 sharp. Thank you very much. I don’t know, do we need to. There we go. It is 6 p.m.. I’m going to call this meeting back to order.

00:45:18,300	Um, as mentioned at the beginning of tonight’s meeting, we have the public hearing on fiscal year 2026, 2027 budget at 6 p.m., which it now is. That’s underneath item six in our Agenda Matters reserved for board action. Doctor Scherr is at the podium. I believe it’s ready to present. All right. Thank you. President Eastgate. Members of the board tonight. We’ll we’ll talk about the FY 27 budget.

00:45:34,430	You, of course saw the preliminary budget that’s been posted on our website for since, uh, for a while now. And, uh, we’ll have the budget hearing today. We’ll take any feedback that you all get. We receive, and we’ll incorporate it for the budget approval on the next board meeting, which is September 28th.

00:45:56,970	So again, talked about the purpose of this. It’s interesting. We don’t actually have to submit our budget to the county, but we have to post it on a, on a website.

00:46:13,430	And then the legal requirement for us to need to um, so we all got the, the tax thing that said, when we’re when we can go, um, attend all the public hearings, um, school boards is tonight. That’s why we are here. Um, talk a little bit about budget goals and guidelines. Um, I remember a year when it wasn’t this, uh, good. We were far off from our goal, but. Oh, five says we need to have a balanced budget, essentially.

00:46:33,230	So we need to have revenues over expenditures. Uh, so we we do have that currently, and we are getting real close to the board goal of 10%. Now that’s I call it the starting fund balance. Um, we will be better than that. On the ending fund balance.

00:46:49,970	So, um, if we look at truly the ending fund balance and end of the year, we should be over the 10% budget efficiency. We always look at areas that we can improve Dr Fastnacht not had a stern conversation with us just last week about, um, with some of the restrictions that we have on our budget.

00:47:10,430	Also that potentially with flat enrollment or slight decline in enrollment, um, we can’t operate the same way that we have been. So we have to we have to look at ways that we can become more efficient. So a little bit on the revenue, as you’re all aware, um, our dollars are capped at 3%.

00:47:25,170	We do get to I mean, the caveat there is we do get to keep the new growth. Um, the other thing is the state caps us at 2.5%. So when you couple those two together, 70% of your funding kept at 2.5%, 20% kept at 3%.

00:47:46,970	And your remaining 10%, that’s decreasing by a couple hundred thousand really makes it challenging for us to give probably appropriate living wages to our staff. So that’s something that that we continue to struggle through. Um, comparison from 26 budget to 26 actual to 27 proposed. So you can see the the dollars there.

00:48:10,800	Um, we collected a little less on revenue, but we expended, uh, considerably less on expenditures. Um, you can see that we started the year about 60,000. Revenues over expenditures ended about 2.4. Part of that is staffing that we just couldn’t hire for majority of the year. And that’s where a lot, 85% of our budget is staffing. So that that contributes significantly.

00:48:29,430	You can see we started at 9.1 and ended at 10.3 for ending fund balance. This year, we’ll start at 9.9. Hopefully. Um, ending above that 10% threshold.

00:48:51,300	The other thing I want to point out is the state does, um, allocate over $11,000 to us, but with the integrated formula, um, they do a property tax reduction. So the state it’s a way to keep all districts in the state, um, create some equity property, poor property, not so poor districts. So we all get the same funding. So either collect more locally or you collect more at the state.

00:49:07,830	So that actually amount for us is less than $9,000. After you take the local contribution out of there. This one is is a nice graphic to look at. You can see that a large percentage of our dollars in our budget go to people. You can see salaries and benefits.

00:49:26,070	Um, and then the rest is all divvied up with everything else to operate a school district, salaries and benefits. Um, came to little over 5.4 million. That was 87% of our new money. That’s up from last year, which it was. 76% of our new money was used for salaries and benefits.

00:49:47,370	Um, then you can see the in the total increase in expenditures. Um, wish we could give more, but with utilities, transportation, contract, all those things, um, taking a chunk of that money, that was the most that we could move, uh, or do for salaries and benefits. Just a little recap on what we can do for Mills.

00:50:08,270	This, of course, changed. Um, we used to have a little more leeway as a board. Now we’re capped in our general fund or miscellaneous our building fund. Um, and then the other funds, the special reserve. We don’t use, um, we could levy up to three mills. That that would be capped if we used it.

00:50:29,700	So you could go to the full three mills to take over the 3%, uh, to get more than the 3% tuition you can levy up to what you need. That’s that’s not capped at the 3%. Um, and then special assessments is also you can levy what you need.

00:50:45,600	Um, we make our minimum payment for special assessments and then a little additional. So, you know, we bump that up a little bit this year, um, which will result in savings to our taxpayers in interest savings. So how do we compare? Um, this is very interesting.

00:51:06,370	I think a lot of you have seen this graphic, um, trying to talk. Doctor Fastnacht not into removing Jamestown on this list so that we could be at the bottom, but, um, we, we use them in other comparisons, so it was only fair. But if you look where we’re at, we’re 15% lower than all the rest.

00:51:21,730	Um, I think this board has done a really good job of of keeping mills low for taxpayers. So you can see what the state average is. You can see what where we are currently. And then we’re proposing that same mill levy moving forward. Um, and in November, if the bond would be successful, you can see we’re still below the others.

00:51:45,370	This this one talks about how much do we spend per student and at. When I used to look at this, I would struggle a little bit because I wanted to be at the top of that list because I always thought, well, we should be spending the most per student.

00:52:03,500	But then if you self-reflect and look deeper, it’s like, no, why don’t we be at the bottom and still be the best? Why don’t we outperform everybody else but still spend less money? So I think that’s where we’re at.

00:52:19,030	I think we do a good job of using both state and local dollars, and we do pretty darn good. Um, spending the money we spend. I know that was rather quick. Um, just for a reminder, the actual preliminary budget is out on our website under Bismarck Public Schools backslash budget. You can find all of the historical ones and the preliminary budget on there.

00:52:44,100	I would answer any questions the board would have on the preliminary budget before we allow open Mic. Board members. Any questions for Doctor Scherr? Um. I don’t see any questions, doctor, but I certainly do appreciate.

00:53:03,970	I know you said it’s a slide that we’ve seen before, but, um, when you talk about those mills and the cost per student and like you said, I certainly like to believe not necessarily organizationally arrogant, but that we are DPS is number one, number one school district. And we’re also the largest. Um, and I think that’s something else that should be pointed out at times as well, that we, we have more kids that are being served at that that mill amount as well.

00:53:18,370	So, um, thank you for all your work on this. I know this isn’t just a show up and just have all this information at your fingertips, so we certainly appreciate you being here to present and on the budgets as we do at every board meeting. So thank you, Doctor Scherr.

00:53:31,300	Thank you. Um, with that doctor Fastnacht, I guess I’m just going to defer and make sure that you’re good and we’ll. Okay. And we will open it up now to, um, for public hearing for our budget.

00:53:49,670	So with that, similar to our earlier comments regarding public comment, um, we would just ask that people be respectful. And obviously in this case, we are speaking just to, um, fiscal year 2026, 2027 budget. If you’d like to speak tonight, please approach the podium. Um, I believe we have a sheet of paper up there to write down your name.

00:54:17,570	Seeing nobody approaching the podium, I’ll now close public hearing for the budget. Um. Anything else? I think that’s it for that. Uh, that item on the agenda. So with that, we will go to item eight, superintendent’s report. As Doctor Fastnacht was talking about budget implications. Doctor foster. I don’t know how to lead this off.

00:54:37,770	After Doctor Scherr called me stern. I’ll try not to be so stern with you. Um, but I get to deal with the realities. I guess we both do. He does too. I will say I do before I get into my presentation, I got some slides to share with you, but I will say, um, I also appreciate those two slides.

00:54:54,500	Doctor Scherr, um, shared. And you kind of comment to Mr. Eastgate. Um, and really our nearest the almost exact if you want to look at school size, you know, scope of work. What we do almost like staffing size. Our, our nearest partners, West Fargo.

00:55:15,700	So if you look at that, um, what we spend per kid, we’re right near each other. But then you go look at the taxation rates between those two schools. And there’s a stark difference. And yes, West Fargo has gone through their own pressures.

00:55:33,900	I will say that respectfully, knowing my colleagues there, um, very rapid growth over a decade, they’ve had to do some more debt and take on some more debt as a district than this district has. But, um, those that’s that’s where my eyes go to when we talk about operations, how to how to serve our kids, or how to operations and business.

00:55:50,600	We talk a lot with West Fargo because we are so similar, uh, in composition. But if you can, I think, uh, Mr. Berner has some slides I’d like to share with you and just talk a little bit about some aspects. I guess, from my view, my desk for the budget that Doctor Scherr just presented.

00:56:08,230	I think the first thing, uh, the present, the now, um, we have a balanced budget. I mean, I think that’s something from when I started to now we’ve really got that honed in and tightened up that we are presenting to you.

00:56:25,970	Uh, revenue, expenditure, neutral budget or slightly advantageous on the revenue side, I think that’s good. And as we have shared over now, my fourth year in the district, at least the past three, good budgeting, just like at home starts with you. Look at your revenue and you probably underestimate a little bit. You hope you make a little more than you do, but you underestimate that. And expenditures.

00:56:43,530	If you’re a good budget, you would over overestimate that a little bit. And at the end of the day, if you can make a few extra dollars and save a few on the expenditure side, you’ll you’ll end up on a in a good place at the end. I think that’s what we’ve tried to do. Uh, within the organization.

00:56:57,900	So pretty happy with that. Um, on the revenue side, I’ll focus on revenue. Um, Dr. Um, Scherr kind of on the next slide, um, Mr. Barnard, I think you he hit on that is those modest increases, and I’m sorry, those are desperately small.

00:57:19,130	I don’t know if you have them on your slide deck, but, um, desperately small. Even if you look at the local over the last three years. And. Okay, so you don’t have the 3% caps on there for each of those years, that’s about 4.8% year to year to year, um, increases on the local side, state side has been 3.2 over the same time period, 3.4 total.

00:57:38,870	And I think that is, as Doctor Scherr said, where some of the challenges are not that we can operate there. That’s what is wanted. That’s what legislators want. That’s what people want is to be tight and fiscally prudent. It just becomes really difficult to keep up with the wage side of it. When there’s so much wage pressure.

00:57:58,030	And so, um, we’ll talk about that. I have a graphic to represent that you kind of already got that with the dollar graphic, but it’s really hard to keep up with that on the inflationary side. That’s putting pressure on wages and what people are wanting and expecting to make.

00:58:14,870	And again, as again, Doctor Scherr said 83% of your budget is in the wage side, is on the salary side. Um, you really feel that pressure to be able to keep and retain high quality people? Kind of like we talked about today, keeping high quality teachers and staff at that puts some pressure on the organization.

00:58:32,200	Um, when we talk about the 3% caps on the tax side, I’m going to pay particular attention. He called out which ones are are subject to 3% cap. I’m just focusing really on the general fund, the building fund. I’ve said this before here. I’m just saying it again.

00:58:49,870	Um, I have made, um, strong arguments with our legislators that I don’t think the building fund should be subject to the 3% cap. That’s the legislators work to do. But that was voter approved in the 1950s by this district, assessed ten mils for the building fund to help deal with facilities and facility needs and maintenance. And those things.

00:59:07,300	However, legislation puts it under the 3% cap because it’s been under the 3% cap this last year by not being able to fully capture ten mills worth of taxation in that account, that was $96,000 of unrealized revenue for the district.

00:59:28,170	And when you look at what we’re also asking voters to consider in November, I would tell you, as the leader manager of the district, we could use $96,000 to help keep some of the things that we see as facility needs. That would be great. We could definitely use those dollars.

00:59:46,900	And over the course of multiple years, and I think I have that on the next slide, when you look at that over the next five years, when you get out to 20, 30, 31 and we shared this last spring, when you look at the compounding effect of that 3% cap and just the building fund, that’s the highlighted the delta line. If you look just at the building fund, that becomes $2.9 million in deficit.

01:00:07,830	So that’s unrealized, $2.9 million that we could use to fix Grimm’s road or help with work at pioneer, or replace a boiler at DHS. I mean, it’s just those things that further strain, um, our ability to maintain the facilities that we have.

01:00:29,630	Um, and so next slide is really what Doctor Scherr I’d already shared with you. We share this one often. Um, I would tell you, I’m happy. I’m glad we can do so. Well, we do a great job with our kids, I believe. Um, and do so at one of the lowest taxing large schools in the state. And I.

01:00:45,730	Honestly, he’s probably right. He asked me many times to remove Jamestown. Jamestown is a large, uh, they play in the WDA for basketball, but they’re not nearly the same school as the rest of those on the list. When you talk about school size.

01:01:03,800	Um, so when you look at our, um, comparable districts that are over 2500 kids, we are right at the bottom. We’re the lowest taxing of all those districts. Um, So I think that’s positive.

01:01:21,130	And as we’ve said to, uh, depending on the question in November, even if that would pass, uh, we’ll still probably be hopefully will actually be under the state average by that time. We’ll see what happens this fall, but we’ll be near or under the state average. Um, next one is the dollar bill. I need to actually, I was just making a note. I need to make the blue a little larger. I think I underestimated the blue slice. It’s not quite a quarter of the dollar.

01:01:38,970	But again, just trying to represent that 87% of our costs are going to people. They’re going their salaries and benefits. That is not uncommon. However, it has been creeping up that that percentage, I’ll show you on the next one that that portion of the total for salaries and benefits as inching higher.

01:02:00,370	And when we look at total expenditures this year, increasing 6.3 million, that is absolutely 5.4% of the or 5.4 million of that is due, went directly to salaries and benefits. So when you talk about yeah, your your expenditures went up 6 million. Accurate. Absolutely accurate. The vast majority of it went to salaries and benefits.

01:02:20,170	So um, not like we’re spending it on something else you might say. Or utilities or supplies or other things of that nature. Um, the last one, this is the one, again, terribly small, but I’ll share those for people can see them.

01:02:36,170	If you just look at salaries and benefits and what the increase is, each of those three years, if we go back between 23, 24 and 2425, that was, um, 76.6%. Was that that increase that the difference between those two numbers, 76% of it was due to salaries and benefits. If you go the next year, it’s 75.8%. So it moderates a little bit. This year it’s 87%.

01:03:00,930	So again we’re seeing that kind of build out. And I would tell you again that’s from really tight on the revenue side. Constrictions on the revenue side and inflationary pressure on the expenditure side. And I think we have to be honest, do we want to keep the best and brightest educators? Absolutely.

01:03:22,770	We want to keep electricians and custodians and HVAC technicians and bus drivers and all those things. Absolutely. But the wage pressure on those people is real. We got to keep up with that or we’ll lose them. We’ll lose them to something else that’s willing to pay them. Um, next thing I, I get this question on line a little bit.

01:03:39,530	So I thought I’d address it and I, I is it enough? No. And this is probably where I stern with my team is we need to be really prepared to cut. Where are we going to find those cuts. And this is over my tenure as superintendent.

01:03:56,270	So during my three years, and I would tell you, my first year we didn’t do much of this because it was my first year, I was just getting my sea legs, you might say.

01:04:07,430	So year two and three, we spent a lot of time like, how can we find those cuts? If you think about last year, year three, we are implementing, um, a two tier bus system and changing bell times and those things. That was to save a little over half $1 million. And and really that was unrealized expenditures because it didn’t escalate as fast.

01:04:25,200	We were able to save money because the cost didn’t escalate as quickly as we if we would have stayed the normal practice, we didn’t see those big escalations coming. So we deferred some costs. But recently you’ve heard about Head Start busing, which we cut last year, 190,000, uh, nursing, even though that was Covid funded, dollars that went away. It really wasn’t locally sourced dollars.

01:04:45,900	We didn’t replace those Covid funded nurses. That was $230,000 of unrealized expansion in our budget. Um, we had fourth grade orchestra because we had a lack of candidates. We couldn’t find orchestra teachers that year. So we made the we just constricted it. And it’s never come back. That’s 80,000.

01:05:06,730	And then we’ve also constricted some positions within the business office. So when that opportunity arose, um, we just didn’t fill it. And we, we backed up, um, that saved 70,000. I would tell you the other thing, and this is probably where. What, um, Doctor Scherr's referring to is I just say no a lot. I mean, this is like raising your children.

01:05:26,970	I just say no a lot. I mean, we could use this. No, we could, we would bend, our kids would benefit. No, I mean, if we only had, you know, two more of anything. Pick the pick the position. No, it. Because I truly believe my background is, um, you live with what you have, you don’t overspend.

01:05:48,900	You money doesn’t grow on trees. You can only spend a dollar once. All those cliche sayings are real, right? So you have to just say no. And that’s kind of what we do.

01:06:05,430	And I but I would tell you, um, based on where we’re at this year, uh, and knowing that actual enrollment projections are flat if not declining just a little bit, um, that’s what I told my team is we got to be ready this fall and winter to say where the hard decisions we got to be assessing hard decisions, what programs work, which ones don’t.

01:06:24,400	Uh, how are we going to make those decisions? And I would say, um, we need to do that collectively with our leaders, but also our teachers, our staff and our parents. And those people have a stake in the game.

01:06:42,300	We have to start asking hard questions about where are we going to try to constrict if the dollars continue to, um, be short? Um, so I think that’s worthy discussions. We need to have them together, but they’re never really comfortable. They’re not. Nobody wants to have those discussions, but it’s necessary. Um, and I think lastly, I have I just wanted to hit the five year plan. This is even worse to see it.

01:06:59,370	Sorry, Miss Preskey. Um, but I just wanted to reemphasize. Reemphasize the people that we shared this slide before this was, um, remember the building fund and it’s cash flow? It’s a cash flow sheet.

01:07:20,230	When will we have enough revenue generated over the next five years that we can do some of the projects that we were part of the the bond question in June. So we took those three big projects out. That was, um, a Willmar Pioneer and some of the work at DHS.

01:07:35,830	And we just said based on cash flow, based on whatever we can tax and what we can collect, here’s the pacing that we can do that work. Remember, that’s pushing us out to 2030, 2031 before we get those three projects done. I know that doesn’t seem like that far because it’s 2026, almost 27 right now, but it’ll be another 3 to 4 years before we do that. And you all know this already.

01:07:55,670	But for people listening, all the rest of those things, those other 23 projects that are in the question in November, they just wait. They wait till whenever the cash flow allows us to address those in a in a timely fashion.

01:08:12,470	And we’ve said, that’s the 20 plus year plan, right? Because it’s going to take that long to cash flow. So, um, with our present funding. So I was going to share that with you. I guess I’d stand for any questions that you might have and I’d give you. I just want to give you a couple of tidbits from my desk. Maybe not Doctor Cher’s desk.

01:08:25,830	So thank you, Doctor Fastnacht board members, any questions for Doctor Fastnacht? Not this evening. I don’t see any, um, which very comprehensive budget discussion and report tonight. And we certainly do appreciate it with that. All agenda items have been considered. I just I