We are going to start with our uh workshop.

And so we'll go ahead and uh start with Spencer.

I think we're gonna do both.

All righty.

Um good evening, Madam President, members of the board.

Fun to be here again for another workshop with some band warm-up in the background.

All right.

For your entertainment this evening, I have both a PowerPoint and a handout.

So and again, if as you recall from our last workshop, we kind of reviewed all the funds.

Um we had these three left that are kind of related, and then a general fund and and another little one for our next workshop.

Uh but today we'll be going over um our debt service fund, capital projects fund, and bond projects fund.

Capital projects, capital improvement fund.

It's one two names for the same fund.

It gets called both.

So you might see those interchangeably, including one different on the handout than what's in the uh PowerPoint.

So uh these funds are a little bit different than all the others because all of our other funds are very, very salary and benefits heavy.

These are very unique in that uh they're very little of those of salary and benefits costs go into these funds.

So if we start with uh our debt services fund, um that's fund 400, and that's gonna be page three of your handout.

Just to keep you on your toes, the handout pages are not in the order of the PowerPoint.

I just want to make sure that we're keeping your your mental mental flexibility in in good shape.

So what the debt service fund is, this is funded by local property tax.

And it's essentially I really like the uh the analogy.

It's it's to pay our mortgage, right?

This this fund is collected and it's used solely for nearly solely to cover our debt service costs, which is our principal interest costs of our bond payments.

So uh the health of this fund um can uh affects our ability to bond in the future.

If we do have excess beyond what covers our debt service funds, then it can be transferred to pay as you go funding, which is essentially where we can transfer that to our capital projects fund and use it for the very same projects that we would for bond funding.

Uh, you may recall earlier this year we did an amendment to cover to transfer $800,000 from this fund as pay you go as you go funding to cover the three buses that we had the opportunity to purchase.

Um so that's an example.

It's not common um that we do that.

And again, some of the reasoning being is by statute we have to have 50% of the next year's um principal and interest costs available at the at the end of the previous year.

So that's kind of the minimum requirement.

But if we only had that, that's like having the credit card maxed out and could affect our bond uh rating for our future bonding.

So there would have to be really good reasons and some prudence and a lot of good forecasting for us to take it down that low.

We are currently over 100% of coverage for that.

So it's in a good position, like I say, is the last couple of times we bonded, we've we've come out with favorable rating.

Part of that is is is the health of and the balance of this account being more than that.

50% is required by statute.

So the expenditures for this are very simple.

It's uh the principal and interest for our bonds.

Um again, the handout is is very similar to what we've done for the other funds that kind of shows hey, here's our salary and benefits costs.

This one's unique, there's none.

And then our professional services, our principal cost of 4.8 million, and our interest cost of 2.9 million.

That's the annual cost for our bond servicing for FY26.

In comparison to last year, that was 8.3 million, so it's kind of dropped a little bit, uh, but that fluctuates a little bit depending on how we we structure our bonds to kind of be the most beneficial for our cash flow and what we need.

Uh so that doesn't mean that though that will not always necessarily drop every year.

Sometimes we have some larger principal payments built in depending on the age of our bonds.

Um for the revenues for this, like I say, it's a local property tax component.

Um the amount that we receive comes from an estimate from the department of taxation.

Uh they're very good at uh that portion of what they do and give us some really good estimates to use for our budget.

Um that amount this year is 9.6 million, and then we do budget for 100,000 of earnings on investments.

That amount generally could be higher, but is in our past practice, we don't really recognize or realize that income until it's all said and done for the year, and then it it becomes available for the next year.

So even though it might be more than 100,000, we don't budget for more than that because we really don't want it to come in lower if something happens mid-year and and the interest that we've been getting is cut in half.

We don't want to have planned to spend that and get in a tight spot.

So any questions regarding fund 400.

All righty.

Uh next one is capital projects.

And that one will be on page two of your handouts.

So handouts going in reverse order of what I'm presenting.

This uh uh if you look at the bonding, so we do include the the costs for one project manager and his admin assistant.

Um those aren't actually budgeted in here because those get capitalized into our larger projects.

So they don't show as a salary and benefits cost when it's all said and done.

Um but typically those costs have come out of here or they can be budgeted for in the general fund, and we have some flexibility of depending on where things are looking, how we we treat that.

Traditionally, the last few years, those get capitalized in some of our larger projects.

So you don't see that amount budgeted.

Um those people are very beneficial.

I think you recall Mark Johnson coming in to present on the capital improvement plan.

Um there's a lot of uh red tape for lack of another word, around bidding our projects, making sure that we follow all the laws and that we don't get sideways with union groups or by not following the law or that kind of thing, and uh a lot of uh regulation and that those two do very good at maintaining to make sure that we are on the up and up with that.

Uh we did just receive requests from a union group for projects that happened two years ago for the information on labor rates and who did that kind of stuff.

And that's fairly common in the industry that groups can ask for that information as a public records request, and we have to provide it to them because they're looking to see did we dot our eyes and cross RTs on our projects?

And so those two do a very good job of making sure that we always are doing that to make sure that we uh are compliant with everything that we need to be for public funding for projects.

Uh so in addition to those salary benefit costs to get capitalized, the other um sorry, I'm I apologize.

Page one is what we're looking at for capital projects.

I would let me let me skip ahead.

We're talking about bond projects.

I'll just I'll reverse my slides here.

So carrying on on bond projects on page two of your handout.

So those salary benefits costs are capitalized into our large projects there.

Proceeds for this come from if we go out to bond.

Uh this year, we're not intending to go out to bond.

Uh, similar to our our debt service, we do uh budget for a little bit of earnings on investments, but again, we don't really recognize that until it's all said and done after the year, it becomes available for the next year.

And then our opening fund balance, as you can see, we started with 21.7 million in the bank, so there was no need to bond.

And that is all 21.7 million of starting fund balance.

We have 21.7 million of projects budgeted for the year.

Now, the unique thing with our um our construction season, it spans the middle or the end of our fiscal year.

So sometimes we might have 21.7 of this budgeted, but depending on how projects flow and the billing and and for happens for that, some of that might not end up happening until next year, and we end up rolling some of that budget of authority to the next year.

So at this 21.7 that happened with some of our last summer projects that billing came in later than we anticipated.

And so our our opening balance was higher, but it was also already spoken for for those things for those projects that were ongoing over the end of our fiscal year.

Um again, revenues for this are typically our bond proceeds, anything that we have from previous year bonds that haven't been expended, and then the small amount of interest on and earnings on investments of that.

Um any questions regarding bond funds.

So I'm I'm I get confused easily, sorry.

Sorry about that.

So just um to be clear, so the um the one project manager you said earlier is Mark or is he is not he is Mark Johnson is our capital projects.

Okay, so that's capital special projects manager.

Okay, and then he also has an administrative assistant.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So there's a there's a lot of paperwork that goes on behind the scenes for these construction projects, particularly with the public funding.

Okay.

Seems to sometimes make it difficult more difficult than you think it should be.

All righty.

If there's no other questions, we'll move on to capital projects fund, which or capital improvement fund.

This is page one of your handout.

And as you can see, no salary and benefits cost in this um budgeted in this.

Um, our project's manager and his administrative assistant do manage the projects for this as well.

Very similar to this, our expenditures are all property and project costs.

So we budgeted for two just over 2.2.0 million dollars of that.

Again, this one a lot of times will happen to have some shorter lifespan projects.

So if we're replacing carpet or we're painting the interior of a building, painting exterior of your building, a lot of those projects will happen here.

And the sole reason for that is when you use bond project funds, the average lifespan of the projects that you use to pay for that bond must outlaw last the length of time that you're bonded for that debt.

So for example, if we bonded for 10 years and the average of our projects only came out to eight years, that's against the regulations.

But if they're 12 years, then that's fine.

An example would be going back to the Eagle Valley expansion.

Um we bonded for that and some other rehabilitation projects in the uh in the district, you know, adding a building's a 50 to 80 year lifespan, depending on which calculations you use.

So any other projects that get lumped in with that is going to be above the average of the bond lifespan.

Um if we're bonding smaller amounts that are all rehabilit rehabilitation bonds as opposed to uh new construction, that's where we are are careful to make sure that we don't include projects that would bring that average down below to get us to where our lifespan of projects is shorter than the lifespan of the funding for them.

Uh, you may recall in the news some years ago, there was a district to the east of us that used some bond projects to buy iPads, which have a very short lifespan and shouldn't have been done in the first place, but that really messed with their their bond funding, their bond rating because their length of of their projects didn't didn't correspond with the amount of time they were paying off the debt for that.

So you sometimes you'll see some of those projects.

We see a lot of payment projects here that some like a slurry SIL um it's got a longer lifespan than than just uh a regular SEAL code, uh, but that's still typically four to five years.

We do a lot of those out of here because then we don't have to worry about those shorter lifespan things being calculated into our bond funding.

Revenues from this one comes for the basic uh government suburb uh basic governmental service taxes, and this is also uh estimates are calculated by the department of taxation given us, and we use their amount to budget for.

Uh we typically analyze that to make sure that we're good with the number they provide us, and and we've been through two districts.

I've been very happy with the numbers that they have given us every year.

So that's where we get the uh the 893,000 that we budgeted for revenue.

Uh you'll see on that we included a transfer from other funds of the 800,000.

That's the pay as you go funds that we use for the transportation cost.

Um that's not common for Carson City School District.

Uh only time I've done that in my career, actually.

And and I think speaking with Mr.

Fueling, that's uh he's maybe done that once during his tenure here.

So it's not very common to have that happen.

Um it did just make a lot of sense given our situation and our overall health of that account.

So again, with our other projects that span the middle of the fiscal year, a lot of times we'll budget a 400,000 dollar project, and it only ends up being 60% complete as of July 1.

So we end up with 220,000 of that spent and 180,000 of that rolls to the next fiscal year.

So you'll see we do have it had a we had an opening fund balance of uh just over a million dollars in this.

A lot of times that can be those projects that are in process over the end of our fiscal year, and sometimes they progress slowly, or in some cases we have a project done, but we don't receive billing until late enough that we can't include it in our previous fiscal year.

So any questions.

I I think on all three of these, um, we have a net surplus in those.

I'm not expecting any deficits in these in these uh funds.

So very good results on that.

Very, very good positioning in all of these.

Um we wish we had a bottomless uh pot of gold to dip from, but we'd do a lot more things.

But we've uh they've done very good job of uh especially with Mr.

Johnson's of taking care of our buildings and our facilities to keep them in good shape with the resources that we have allotted.

So any questions about capital projects or any of these funds?

Yeah, we'll go ahead.

Richard.

I'm just curious.

Um, what's the outstanding balance of our uh bonds that we will it is right around 72 million?

So we totally projected to be 72 million at the end of this fiscal year.

So once we make some payments that are the one more payment that's done in the last quarter of this fiscal year, it will be at 72 million.

Um Michelle, do you have any questions?

Or I'm sorry, Trusty Peterson.

Trustee What Roberts.

Uh Trustee Ramirez.

Hello, by the way.

Hello.

Um, okay, so I do.

Um I d and we'll look so with the the bond, the debt service surplus, the one point nine.

Okay, we're um with that surplus.

Does that then stay within fund four hundred?

So the surplus can become our pay as you go funding as it's commonly called.

So we keep it there because it's that's a good spot for it to be again that our when we go out to bond, that's something that's analyzed by Moody's and the other companies that look at our financial status for a bond rating.

So it's not a bad place to have that.

And then it also can become available for us for pay as you go.

I don't want my question is like, you know, say that somebody looks at this and went, oh my goodness, they have one point nine surplus in this account, they have 15,000 in this account, and they have, you know, six hundred and ninety-seven thousand in this account.

Why can't all of this go and pay for you know, some things that we might be looking at cutting out of the general budget?

And so if you can just in layman's term explain why not.

So we couldn't pay for educational positions out of these, or it's very very limited in what we can use primarily to to projects and the upkeep and maintenance of our building.

Upkeep and rehabilitation maintenance costs like heating, lighting, those kind of things can't even come from here.

So they're very restrictive what we can use them for.

Uh again, we've have them in a pretty good position to get by with the m maintaining the buildings that we do have.

Um, I appreciate that clarification then.

Very good.

Any other questions?

All right.

And these were this was the end of the workshop, right?

We have the general fund.

Okay.

A month from now.

And uh if memory serves me.

I want to say gifts of the donations, but I thought we talked about that.

So I don't know.

Yeah.

And then uh I have it on a sticky note on my desk, but I don't remember what it says.

And then uh with that, then if we can do um I think uh Trusty Verner and I were speaking about a somewhat of a recap of just kind of um breaking up down.

So then when we go to look at the um 500 page budget, we can kind of know what what we're looking at.

You know, like um like remember, this is where you'll find this fund, and this is yeah, just like everyone.

We certainly could provide a recap as well as kind of a relationship from funds one to another, and you know, for example, fund 400 can't be transferred to general fund to be used for salaries and benefits.

That those types of items we can kind of discuss that uh at the end of next week or next month's workshop.

Perfect.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that very much.

Um so if there's no further questions, this ends our workshop, and we'll go ahead and take a recess until 6 p.m.

Meeting back to order.

At this time, we will move on to agenda item number two adoption of agenda.

Do I have a motion?

Second.

Second.

Public comment.

Seeing none.

All in favor.

Aye.

Passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to agenda item number three with fake salute, uh, led by trustee Roberts.

All right, thank you very much.

And moving on to agenda item number four, which is superintendent's report.

This is for information only.

Thank you, President Wall.

Just a uh few things today.

First, a really important note to put on the radar.

We have daylight savings uh coming up here on March 8th.

Um all of you, every one of you is gonna lose an hour of sleep.

Just so you're so you're aware.

Um today up at Carson High was uh ACT day, which is a big day.

Mr.

Carson's um he he guaranteed me that the average score would be a 36 on on the ECT for Carson High.

So that's uh we'll we'll I'll hold him hold him to that.

I hope he's watching.

Um just wanted to recognize um five of our six elementary schools were all recognized for their work in multi-tiered system of support MTSS, um, all receiving diamond recognitions.

Um something that has been a long time coming long process for the district getting um getting a lot of our systems in place to better support kids um instructionally and behaviorally.

Um so just uh it's just great for our folks who are putting in a lot of work and have put in a lot of work over a number of years to to get recognized for that.

So uh very happy to share that.

Um I believe that is all I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh moving on to agenda item number four.

This is board reports, board member comments for information only.

We'll go ahead and start with our Carson High School representative.

Uh good evening, everyone.

For those of you who don't know, I'm Cooper Feeling, the uh Carson High School Student Body School Board Representative.

Um, just a few things for you guys tonight.

Um we have uh this past week in uh Anaheim, the uh Carson High uh varsity NJV uh cheerleaders had their national tournament.

Both teams did very well.

Uh and then today, uh, as you heard was ACT day at the high school, so all of our juniors uh took the ACT.

That is a graduation requirement.

But I do believe that we have some uh very smart people in our class, and we will do we will uh do very good for you guys, but keep our scores in your prayers.

Um and then uh as you all may know, uh spring sports have now started.

This includes baseball, softball, track, swim, and club voice boys volleyball.

Uh and then specifically for you, Mrs.

Peterson.

Uh bowling got first in the north for the 19th time in 23 years uh this spring.

Uh and that is all I have for you guys tonight.

Great, thank you very much.

Do we have a representative here from the surface silver campus?

All right, president.

I was told that there were no announcements for uh Silver Campus.

There were none.

None.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um for NASBEY, Nevada Association of School Boards update.

I I do not have a report tonight.

Okay, then we'll go ahead and start with Trustee Ramirez.

Yes, thank you.

Um Mark Twain.

Um, Mrs.

Crookshang said that um the multilingual learners finished all their access testing uh collectively.

They took 233 tests, and the staff is very proud of them.

And they're having a great time with the new CKLA curriculum.

Um they had a coach on site last week, and um she worked with four grade levels doing planning model teaching and debriefing with the staff.

Uh, this was a great experience, and they are making a good gains with the teaching methods using this program and the science of reading.

In conjunction with their new curriculum, they have been able to make many community connections.

They're finding opportunities to take the students to the community to see the teaching topics come alive.

She reminds reminds us that they have been able to take the students to the plenary at UNR at close of the space on unit.

And today they took the students to the Stewart Museum.

And they are these are great applications for this in the classroom learning, and it is building excitement for the for the units.

So that concludes my report.

Great.

Thank you.

Trustee Roberts.

Yes, from Dr.

Ward at Fremont.

We are having reading reading week next week with Bingo for Books on Tuesday from 5 to 6 30.

That's Tuesday, Tuesday, March 3rd.

And we are looking forward to welcoming community members and parents in as guest readers.

We have a lot of fun activities for students as well as fun incentives to read extra during our reading week.

For Carson High School Cooper really uh summed up everything well.

Um I only had one report back, and it was Mr.

Carson's talking about the ACT.

Um, and um giving a high five to uh Rodney Wade and Cheryl Macy for all the hard work that goes into preparing for that.

Uh I had a junior testing today.

He said it went well, and um everybody seemed pretty dialed in, like that has potential for chaos, but he said it was it was a good day.

So anytime a kid says they had a good day testing, I think we got to run with that.

Um Seeliger, Principal Prior says um Sealager would like to thank Virgil Berry and his ground crew for the awesome job with all the snow removal and Celtic would especially love to give a huge shout out to the fabulous head custodian, Mr.

DJ, for hours upon hours of shoveling and salting the sidewalks.

He is the best.

They also have reading week next week with dress up days, bingo, drop everything in read, a poster contest, and guest readers.

And then a reminder Seager's talent show is next week.

There are two performances.

This the students will be performed two on Monday during the day, and then the adults and families can come Thursday evening at 5 30 to see all the talent.

Hope to see you there.

Great, thank you.

Tristy Varner.

Yes, I have one for Boardwick Bray.

Next week is a reading week, and on Tuesday, March 3rd.

I'm gonna blow this name, the House of Revere.

With we'll be hosting uh the reading night with lots of fun activities from 5 30 to 7 p.m.

And they will also have daily dress up days all next week.

And uh please see uh Parent Square for further details.

And uh I would like to thank Mrs.

Laker at Boardwick for allowing me to come in and uh watch a reading lesson during their first grade, one of the first grade classes.

So I was really interested to see the young kids what they're learning in first grade about how to how to read, you know.

They did a really good job.

And then uh speaking of reading, um, I think I'll be reading at four different schools next week.

So I'm looking forward uh to that opportunity.

I always enjoyed it, I've done it for years and I always enjoy uh reading to the kids, so should be a good time, and that's my report.

I do not have one for Fritz tonight.

Okay, and I do not have one from Empire and um uh trustee Clapham does not have one for the middle schools either.

So that uh concludes agenda item number five.

Moving on to agenda item number six.

Do we have any association reports?

Seeing none, moving on to seven.

This is for public comment.

Do we have any public comment emails?

Yes, thank you, President Walt.

We had one public comment received via email uh from Trish Wold.

Uh, copies were provided to the trustees, and it will also be included in the permanent record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any public comment in the room?

Seeing none, public comment is closed.

Moving on to uh we are not ready for agenda item number eight at this time, so we will go ahead if you believe so.

We'll move on to agenda item number nine, or would you like to do 10 or 11 first?

Um so we're just waiting for um uh Mr.

Silva, and when he comes, then we'll go back to agenda item number eight.

Okay.

So we're how would you like to proceed?

All right, we're gonna go ahead and do number 10.

Um and just keep in mind we do have a flexible agenda, so we might be bouncing around a little bit.

So agenda item number 10 is informational update on the accountability matrix of the district strategic plan empower Carson City 2027.

This is for discussion only presented by our superintendent AJ Fueling.

Thank you, President Walt.

Um so this evening, just a quick update.

There's actually not a whole lot of new information, but it's just um that time.

Actually, should have uh done this two weeks ago.

Um, but just an update on the strategic plan metrics.

So this document should look relatively familiar um once a quarter.

We bring it back to you just to give you an update on um how we are doing.

So really this is uh supposed to be a reflection on the second quarter data, the the winter data.

Um a number of these we already had um the data for, and I just shared them with you last time.

Um so there's a number of them in the winter 2025 column that um that are black, and that's because we shared them last time.

The ones that are red are our new information.

So um and actually I'll just make the point too.

I right as of right now, it looks like spring doesn't have anything just because of the timing, but we will I have to come back to you with one of these items because we don't have that data just yet.

Um so I will be coming back again with this probably in um like April or May, just to update you on uh a few things.

Um it's always uh a little bit of work in progress with this document.

So if you go to uh goal two, the second page.

Um the two items that we have not spoken about uh we didn't speak out speak about last time.

Um is that top one, the overall high school graduation rate, um the goal being to have that higher than 90% and 50% of all students receiving a college and career ready diploma or CCR or advanced diploma.

Um so we have the graduation rate, and that has already been presented to you.

It's 83.3%.

Um we are still waiting to get the official percentage of our students that qualified for the college and career or advanced diploma.

I talked with uh Dr.

Medina about this.

Um it seems like it should be really straightforward that you would take the kids you know that earned a college or career ready diploma and the kids that earned an advanced diploma, and you would add them together, and then you take that number and divide it by the total number of graduates.

That is apparently not how they calculate it from NDE.

So he is um he is waiting, um, having asked the question of because he's gone, he's looked back at the prior years.

Usually this data is out by now, so that's why we don't have it.

He's looked back at prior years, and it it is not as simple as he thinks it should be based on that kind of formula.

So we are still waiting for um that data, and I will bring it back when I when I come back in the spring.

Um for then you go down two more.

Um and this has to do with the number of graduates that are post-secondary participants or post-secondary completors, and they're under the column that says success standards.

Um that's where there is a definition that I I won't say all of that, but has related to AP CTE or dual enrollment courses for both.

Um so the percentage of uh CTE post-secondary participants is 70.2%.

Um and the post-secondary completers is 61%.

So the participants actually dropped slightly from last year as a percentage, but the number of completors increased slightly from last year.

So it's um a bit of a mixed bag.

I don't I don't think either one is necessarily um uh that good or that bad.

I think this is to me, this is really one of uh of maintenance and trying to, I mean, we certainly would like to get up to the percentages that we defined.

There isn't any um the goals of 75% and 55%.

There wasn't necessarily any specific reason those were chosen, except that historically those were numbers that um we we know they're they're good numbers, um, and we're trying to get them back to what they were, I think prior to COVID.

So we'll continue trying to expand on or increase those um over time.

I I don't ever expect it, it'll ever never be 100% and 100%.

Um, and I don't really think that's the goal of of what we we do.

We just want to make sure that kids have these opportunities, they're taking advantage of the opportunities and that that they are having success in those opportunities.

Um on the next page, uh there is um a parent engagement survey that um uh needs to get out still um and we'll be getting that out this week.

Uh and and there's a a singular question on there that ask um parents if they believe they're engaged with their school and a partner in a success.

And we actually use that language.

So um last year I think we had something like five or six hundred responses, if I recall, and it was uh 72% to the to the positive.

So um we'll be getting that out again here shortly, and um hopefully we'll have um at least that much participation, maybe more and come back to you with that data.

And that is all I have to be updated.

So the the next time I come back, I will have that parent engagement data.

I very much expect that I will have the um college and career ready graduation rate.

Um and then I will take just take a look at some of these ones I have listed for summer of 2026 um to see if they can be pushed into spring a little bit earlier.

Some of them need to have a whole year behind them before we can say how we did for the year.

So I'm not sure exactly how that will work out.

Um, but we'll just keep bringing this back to you.

And and again, the the kind of the premise behind this um with the the district's strategic plan, uh, one of the things that the board um I think made clear was it's great to have this plan, and and oftentimes organizations will create these plans and everyone celebrates it and then they put it on a shelf.

And so to keep it alive and make sure that there is accountability towards what the community has brought to you is saying this is what is important to us, and you're ultimately holding me accountable for um this this work and progress towards it.

That's really why we we bring this back.

Um, and just to talk about our reflect on some of these things.

Um what I I guess just to put on your radar is that the strategic plan is empower Carson City 2027.

Um, and that time is very quickly coming to 2027.

So uh when we get into the next the next school year, we likely will be starting the school year with a series of of meetings that will continue for some time um to look at the strategic plan one more time and giving it a refresh.

Um I've been some some districts that I am engaged with back in the fall.

If you remember, we hosted the AAASA redefining ready conference here.

Um several of those districts have actually moved to having tenure strategic plans.

Um, but they're also um uh available for modification, I guess is what it is.

And just I think there's some recognition to, you know, the the desires of the community might change faster than 10 years, but it's also it can be quite a big process to go through and create this whole thing.

Um you go through that process and create it, but then as time goes on, it may be that some board members feel like you know that maybe this isn't really represent what we want anymore, or maybe it's something that just isn't um well, I don't know.

There's just the possibility that things can be modified over time.

It's usually not significant, but um, so anyway, so that process will be coming up uh next year to roll out um either a revised modified or entirely new strategic plan.

Um actually the one other thing I'll mention there are some districts, and I'm not sure how I feel about this, but they their strategic plan um has gone down to one page.

They call it uh uh plan on a page.

And there's people who are doing consulting and making a lot of money helping districts make a plan on a page.

So I don't think that's really necessary to uh hire anyone to do that sort of thing.

But I but I think the the benefit there is a reality too, even within this document, that it it's covering a lot of ground.

And and so is there benefit to maybe narrowing down what are ultimately those most important goals and not maybe getting necessarily into all of the nitty-gritty detail that maybe you would find in the objectives of here's all the all the things we would want to see within that, instead of just saying here's the bigger goal, you know, we we want to see better academic achievement for our students and just kind of keeping it there, and then we do the work.

So just throwing some of that out there and what's to come.

Um happy to take any questions if there are.

Um yeah, before I ask mine, we'll go ahead.

Uh uh, Trustee Ramirez, do you have any questions?

I do have um your question, and thank you for bringing this back to us.

Um, I know that this is a document that was you know recently um um created and it was thanks to your efforts and and your your vision and making this happen.

So I appreciate you working on this and bringing it back to us.

Um on the goal number three, the parent engagement and families.

Um the information that we're gonna be um getting back to um president uh Walt regarding the um input that we get from principals on um parent engagement.

Will you be um will it be beneficial to you to um take that under consideration and and and include it on this document for the next time that you bring these back to us?

Um it is far the that that matrix document that shows all the different yeah, I I mean that could maybe be just be a part of this too.

We could do a little presentation on some of the results we get out of that parent engagement survey and then bring that up too, and just to kind of talk through some of those things that are going on.

Um yeah, I I'd be happy to share that.

Okay.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

Interesting, Ramirez will you?

I mean, I remember, but when you referenced that was from our workshop from our workshop and all of the board members were asked to go together, go ahead to check with your um principals that you know from the schools that you represent and ask for feedback from them in regards to how um what's working for them uh in regards to parent engagement and what's not working for them.

That's my recall.

Right.

And that is true, and I'm glad you brought that up.

Great forum for this.

So if board members, if you could give me that information, I'd greatly appreciate it.

And I want to uh Robert for getting it to me.

Um but yeah, if you guys could get that, then we'll go ahead and and I think that would be helpful for goal number three, that information.

Thank you.

I just had a question about how who all has input when you create the strategic plan, like who's all involved in that process.

We really just lean on you, Trustee Roberts to come up with all the ideas.

Um, no, so historically, uh the the first strategic plan for the district, I believe was created in 2012.

I hope that's right.

Um, that's not right.

It was before that.

I think it was maybe 08 or 09.

Um and so it's been a uh historically it's been a five-year document updated every five years.

Um it has been at the time, I think there was a uh a lot of interest in the community in doing something like that to because I I know there was a lot of interest from the business community, so there was a long series of meetings.

I think at that time it actually was facilitated.

I think they brought in somewhere from the outside to help facilitate that whole process.

Um and then uh every again, every five years after that.

So it's always been a in it in every revision, it's always been open to the community.

And really the community um connection events, community PLC events we have quarterly, that's where that really kind of got the start of bringing folks back to kind of talk about this and and then when it's time to upgrade update it, use that forum to do that.

So it would be something that the it is something that is open, open to the community, certainly um open to board members, uh open to staff and students.

Ultimately what comes out of that meeting as here is you know the final draft, it's really the final draft to be brought to the board for approval.

So ultimately it's it's your document.

You are going to be uh asked to approve that document, but it's supposed to reflect the wider community's wishes on what they want for the schools.

Trustee Peterson.

Trustee Hardner.

I do uh do you know when our next community connections meeting is going to be held?

I believe it is at the around the end of April, Ms.

Renee might know.

Yeah, I I'm I'm it seems to me late April, because I I think we've tried to avoid May, because May just gets really busy in the schools and and for for everyone.

But I think that's that's the next one.

Um so I do have a few questions.

Um you said that that there are school districts doing like a 10 year, that I kind of look at it as like a working strategic plan, right?

If you were to do that, um, you know, and you would be able to modify you take off when you know things graduate off, and and then you would add things on.

How would you go about or I mean, how if you can think of this, how would this I because it's interesting to me, but um with the strategic plan, you know, we have it, we have workshops where there's a lot of feedback.

If it was a working plan, how would you add things on?

How do you see that?

Or I mean, you could get back to me on that one.

Yeah, I I don't exactly know the process some of these other districts have used, and I I can certainly uh look into it.

I I would my my guess is that they probably have defined points in time where in talking with the board or say a dedicated one of these um you know uh community connections, community plc meetings, where you know it's the reason we are getting together is to take a look at the strategic plan.

Um we're looking for, you know, are there any suggestions or modifications that we feel are um worthwhile to bring to the board to consider going forward?

I I think I think you would I don't think you leave it up to just randomly if someone has an idea, then you do it.

I think you just probably plan out, you know, if it's every two years or something like that, just to go back and take another look at it or every three years.

Um during the yeah, I would um I I think it's a very interesting idea.

Um I think it it would um would continue to have momentum then.

Do you know what I'm saying?

If things, you know, um, so if you wouldn't mind looking into that, and that might be the way that we decide to move move forward with it.

I think that would be interesting.

Um my next question is um on the the chart that you gave us, like all of 20 spring of 2026 is blocked on.

Can you explain that to me?

Um yes, I can.

I so I believe I'm just gonna look at a prior year.

Oh, I think I shifted them.

So there were I think two, I think there were only two things in spring of 26.

Um, and I realized that I actually have that data earlier than so.

Normally spring of 26, I'd be reporting to you in April or May.

But whatever I I could go back and look at what were the ones I had in the spring, but I actually have that data earlier.

So I think I just reported it earlier.

Um a lot of the school data we we have and the way we look at it, it is after the school year has completed.

And so what did the data like how many volunteers did we have during the school year?

You know, things like that.

There are some things that we have right at the start of the school year.

So how many uh staff vacancies do we have as of October 1st, that sort of thing.

So that's kind of our checkpoint.

And then the next one is in like getting into like November, December, we start getting a lot of our state data from the prior year.

So then we we can start looking at some of that and and giving that information.

In the the third quarter time frame or like early fourth quarter time frame, there's really not anything new that's coming in data wise.

And so, if anything, I mean we we could, you know, just as the example, this parent engagement survey, we could certainly just shift that so it just stays as a spring um item.

So in the in the third in like April time frame when I come back to you, um, you know, if there's a couple things that we can we could come back to talk about.

There, there's really no other good reason other than the timing of the data we receive.

There's really not a lot coming in in that time period.

I can I I don't remember what I had in the spring.

It it's it really is just I've shifted them, either I shifted them to summer or I shifted them to winter.

Um, but I just I don't recall at the moment which which ones I did it to.

So, but like looking at like just so I I'm getting it, but I just want to make sure.

But goal number four.

So just look at now goal number four.

So in um fall of 2025, you were able to report on um 4.2, the first one, and then uh winter of 2025, you were able to report on the second one for 4.2.

You don't anticipate being able to report on 4.1 in spring of 2026, but you left summer of 2026 in white up above in the right corner.

You left that in white because that's when you anticipate being able to have those results.

Is that correct?

Yeah, you're you're absolutely understanding it correctly.

Okay, okay.

Um it's actually interesting because the school climate data survey information.

We do have that right now.

And you have a presentation tonight on it, actually.

Um so that like that could be an example of one that we could move into that spring time frame, but I could potentially even move it into winter.

So we'll we'll just take a look at it again.

But yeah, you're you're tracking.

Yeah, I'm tracking.

Okay.

Any additional questions on the board?

Okay, all right.

Well, thank you very much.

President Walt, if I may, the next community PLC is April 22nd.

Great, thank you.

Carson High School.

Yes, that's correct.

All right, thank you.

Did you all see April 22nd, Carson High School starting at what time?

Usually they start at six o'clock.

All right, six o'clock.

Great, thank you.

All right, so we're not seeing that um we're prepared for agenda item number eight just yet.

So should we go to 11?

We'll jump to 11.

Yep, come on.

All right, so we're gonna go and jump to item agenda item number 11 informational update on staff and student climate service surveys for Carson City School District for fall 2025.

This is discussion only presented by Mr.

Brandon Greenhurst.

All right, good evening.

Thank you, President Walt and trustees.

Pleasure to be with you this evening.

Uh, this is an update on our staff and student climate survey results as was discussed.

We definitely are um see some alignment between this and things in the strategic plan, and we're working to do to more regularly update the board on results that we have from our our students and different measures that we have of progress, and this is certainly uh one of those important measures.

So, what is these uh what are they the staff and student climate surveys?

It is a survey that is given annually to students.

It is for students who are in grades five through 12.

Staff survey used to be annual, but it is switched to being every other year.

So there was a staff survey this year, there wasn't one last year, and both of these surveys are surveys that are administered by the state.

The surveys collect data on the following areas, two main domains of engagement and safety.

Under engagement, it has uh an area that they call cultural and list linguistic competence, and another area uh group to as relationships under safety.

You have physical safety, emotional safety, and bullying.

And then on the student survey, there is a section on social and emotional competence.

All of the results from these are publicly available, and you can find them there at that website.

I would note that the staff survey results are up there and publicly available.

The student survey results are not yet on that website and publicly available, but I do have some of the highlights of those included in this presentation.

The state is waiting on some more data calculations to get the averages together for everything to be posted on the student side.

When we look at our connections to the strategic plan for Carson City School District, there are three main goals where we see a high level of alignment with the results here and things that we're shooting for in our strategic plan.

Goal number one, exceptional staff.

Goal number three, engaged parents and families, and goal number four, healthy generations of students.

In reading these results, they are scored on a scale between one and 500.

And the state breaks those categories into three categories, and you see those there.

Needs improvement is anything from 100 to 345.

346 to 375 is considered adequate.

And 376 and above is considered excellent.

So we'll start with some staff survey highlights.

We had 537 members that completed the staff survey this time around.

When we look at goal number one, exceptional staff.

In the emotional safety category, Carson City School District average was 375, which would put it one point below the exceptional.

So that is a solid score in the emotional safety amongst our staff.

Couple of things to highlight there as well.

It breaks down some categories of staff, and one of those categories being staff members that have been with us between one and three years.

And we see some of the highest scores there in that group suggesting that our work to onboard and integrate new staff members is going very well.

This again is from the staff climate survey.

And the domain of relationships, that domain of relationships asks questions of our staff.

Let me pull up some of those questions really quick.

Things like staff do a good job helping parents to support their children's learning at home.

The school asks families to volunteer at school.

School communicates with parents in a timely and ongoing basis.

Those are some of the questions that make up this domain.

And in this domain, our score is 369.

97% of elementary staff agreed on the communication with parents is ongoing.

So this again shows that we are doing well in this measure of engaging our parents as measured by the staff climate survey.

There was a district-wide gain from 2023.

The score in this category was 362.

So in 2025, going up to 369 shows progress in the right direction.

Goal four, healthy generations.

So in this, we focus on the physical safety and bullying.

And see in physical safety score of 354, which again falls in that adequate realm, and bowling 386, which would be in the excellent category.

Shifting to the student survey, we had a little over 3,700 students take this survey.

This is again for grades 5 through 12.

That equates to a little bit more than 80% of our students that completed this survey.

An area to highlight on the survey, it references social and emotional competence, which would align with strategy 4.1.1, which talks about maintaining a social and emotional learning program.

And this in the social emotional competence, it asks the students questions about their self-awareness, things like they know what their strengths are, they know ways to calm themselves down, social awareness, they know when someone needs help.

And this in the social emotional competence, it asks the students questions about their self-awareness, things like they know what their strengths are, they know ways to calm themselves down, social awareness, they know when someone needs help, they're able to recognize people's feelings by the look on their face, their self-management, they're able to do their homework even when they don't feel like it.

Those make up the social and emotional competence.

These are the trends that we see over the last three years on the student survey.

You can see in bold and underlined is the highest score, and you can see in all three elementary, middle, and high.

This last year we had the highest score, so we are trending in the right direction.

You'll note that these aren't scored on the same scale of 100.

Um it is a percentile score instead.

Then when we look at the physical and emotional safety, again, I've broken down this information into the averages by level and bolded and underlined the highest score in over those three years.

The only area where we haven't where we don't have the highest score in 2025 would be at the elementary level in the emotional safety.

It is fairly close to what it was in 2023, although slightly below.

I would note that the physical safety in the elementary of 414 is well above that 376 threshold that we look for for excellent.

And you'll see the trends in all of the grade levels are certainly moving in the right direction, and some pretty significant gains in the middle school physical safety.

You're looking at a gain of 20 points over last year, which is certainly significant.

Um also seeing some fairly large gains at the high school and gains consecutively year over year.

Those scores, however, um when we look at emotional safety at the middle school and the physical and emotional safety at the high school fall below that 345 level that we want to hit for that adequate.

So we are progressing towards that level, but certainly still have some room to grow in that area.

Any questions regarding these survey results?

Um I do really quick.

Um I noticed shoot.

Um, the numbers, you know, that you that you state for example.

Ah we go.

Here we go.

Um, just for example, the um like the 326.

Are they all when you go through, because I'm on the website now, and if they go through one, and I because I don't want to open up every single one, but like for example, it says results for staff characteristics.

100 to 345 is needs improvement.

Correct.

So is that the same for all of them?

Yes.

Okay.

So like for then the high school average emotional safety, we're still at needs improvement.

Correct.

And then do you go through, because I know this was like a school district average and then you know, overall, and then we went elementary, middle, and high school.

Do you then go through and look at all of the different elementary schools in the two different middle schools and kind of look in and pinpoint that as well?

Yeah, we do look uh school by school.

This information has been shared with each of the schools as well, and so each school is involved in their own analysis of what their particular trends are.

We also um we got the student climate survey results a little bit sooner.

And so in a previous principals meeting, we spent some time in that principal meeting analyzing uh some of the results, particularly the results around relationships.

Now that we have the staff climate survey results, we have our principals meeting coming up in a couple of weeks, and we will be diving into those, and so using our principals together in a professional learning community.

We look through that data just the same way we expect our teachers to look through the data on their results, and we'll be doing the same thing.

We meet with our deans and vice principals, and with the dean's advice principals, a lot of that uh focus will be on the physical safety, where that is an area where a dean's advice principals play a large role in that uh category.

So the individual schools have the information and do some analysis, and then when I bring them together in those PLCs, we do some further analysis and learn from one another on what's working and what's not working, so that we can make some improvements.

Okay.

So the slide that you have presenting right now, that's for the students, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

So then both for middle school and high school, emotional safety is in the needs improvement position of that.

So with that being said, I mean, how does the school, you know, I mean, it's pretty easy to do physical safety on that end.

But I just would find it hard, you know, for us to secure emotional safety.

I think that's what it comes from home.

Yeah, that's a great question.

Let me share with you some of the questions in emotional safety, and that might help um understand a little bit more.

So in emotional safety, it asks the students things like, I feel like I belong.

Students at this school get along well with each other.

At this school, students talk about the importance of understanding their own feelings and the feelings of others.

At this school, students work on listening to others to understand what they are trying to say.

I'm happy to be at this school.

I feel like I am a part of this school.

I feel socially accepted.

Does that yeah, that those are makes sense?

A little bit more school related, yes.

And I and at that point then I could see why it would, you know, the emotional safety would decrease a little bit going into the middle school and into the high school.

I do see I see that.

Certainly one trend that we see that is interesting, we definitely see these scores trending down in the upper grades.

Conversely, when we look at the social and emotional competence, which are those things like my self-awareness and things like that, we see those going up as students gain, are more mature and developmentally have grown more.

Um their ability to understand their emotions and things is certainly uh improved over when they are six or seven years old.

So we see that social emotional competence goes up in the upper grades, but we see that the physical and emotional safety goes down in the upper grades.

And then just uh, and I'm gonna throw it out there because it's a public meeting, and I see that um with this survey, I think it's a great survey, and I'm you know, excited that the state puts the survey out there.

But then does the state by any means throw um any funding to improve our scores to help us with that?

You know, like to encourage us to go from a needs to an adequate.

I mean, in all honesty, the the results are great, this is great.

You have a survey, right?

But what when you have a survey and you see that things need improvement, you need to be able to put action towards getting that from needs improvement to adequate.

Does the state do anything to help the school districts in that direction?

Thank you, President Walt.

Um, I think in terms of physical safety, um that really is mostly borne by the school districts or the schools.

Um except for that there are you know, there will be requirements for um I don't know, certain things we need to do in school or certain trainings we need to have, that sort of thing.

Um but in terms of like when I think of like capital facility type things, that that really is on us, on you when we're talking about capital projects and changes.

And I I think um the the good thing is that we have staff that are living it every day and and they see things and where there could be improvements.

Um so when when we are uh looking at what do we want to like what are we going to be considering for capital projects in the near future, we're going around uh you know, talking to the leadership in the buildings, like what are you hearing?

What are the things that need to be taken care of?

Where are there maybe safety concerns?

And and I would I I would argue um one of the the significant improvements that has come out of that has been um the adjustments to the the style, like the open concept restrooms that we we have at the the secondary level or some of the secondary schools.

Um so in that regard, I think that's mostly on us.

As far as emotional safety, um there are some grants here and there that potentially could support us in doing some of that work, but I think so much of it ends up being the culture of the buildings themselves and and how things operate, how kids interact, what the expectations are.

And I I think you know, I I think some of that is is kind of wrapped up in our MTSS work, but some of that really is um I think in the schools with the leadership and the staff, what what is going on there to try to improve relationships, um, and just what the feel of that school is, and that you know, physical safety is easier potentially because you can throw money at it, whereas emotional safety, I think really is an investment in in time and resources in your building.

I would never really expect emotional safety numbers to jump, like when you see that you know, 20-point jump in physical safety at the middle school.

I I would never really expect emotional safety to move that fast because I think that that is much more a a culture and climate part of um of that building itself, Mr.

Bringers.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Yeah, I I agree with it.

And we um we do get some training from the state around some of these things.

For instance, there was just a training on cyber bullying and bullying, and it was really around the protocols that the state has in place for addressing those.

Um we don't so that we get some support that way.

Um as far as um funds or an extensive, hey, we see that you're in needs and improvement in emotional safety.

Here's some things we can do to help you with that.

Um I don't see that directly from the state.

Great questions?

Just Steve Arner.

Um uh on the physical safety.

Do you have some examples of questions that are on the survey?

And all the questions the same for elementary, middle, and high.

The um the questions are the same.

Uh the questions are things like I feel safe at this school.

And for each of these questions, they rate strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree.

I feel safe at this school.

Um, I feel stay safe going to and from this school.

Students at this school um threaten to hurt others.

Students at this school fight a lot, students at the school damage or destroy other students' property.

Those are the types of questions in the physical safety.

Are they kind of rated separately?

Each question?

Each question is uh we we get each score broken down separately, and then that goes into an aggregate score that gets you this overall number that we have here.

But then we also have each score individually, which is helpful when we have these discussions with um our schools and school leaders, they're able to go break things down and not just say physical safety, that's kind of big and broad, but able to say, oh, it looks like we're doing well on the I feel safe at this school, but maybe we're not doing as well on damaging property of others, and so we can be targeted more targeted in our um efforts to improve.

Yeah, I think we'd be scored a little bit higher in physical safety at the school.

We've done a lot of work in that area trying to make the school safe, you know.

Yeah.

So I guess I'm a little bit surprised that uh it's still rated and need improvement or not adequate or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I would say some of those um uh improvements are certainly things are trending in the right direction.

That physical safety we know to the big jump at the middle school.

We can also at the elementary school see there's a significant jump there for 390 to 414, 414 is really an exceptional score.

Um, but we have room to grow.

Um we have room to grow.

Um can I you I think you answered this, but can I clarify there are only four options for each question for their responses?

Correct.

Okay.

Um you had given us uh just over 80 percent for student participation.

What was the percentage of staff participation?

Do you know?

There's a number, but I um I don't have the number on the staff participation on on the top of my head.

I apologize.

That's okay.

We do have um was a little bit tricky.

There were some it it's open to all staff, um, not just teachers, not just, and not just school-based staff, but central office-based.

So that I think threw off our results a little bit.

Um in the school by school breakdown are elementary schools and middle schools, most of them were at or above or near or above 80% participation.

Uh high school participation was a little bit lower.

It's obviously a super the number of staff there is is huge, and it factors in that percentage factors in everyone, teachers, cafeteria, custodians, everyone at this school.

Um is there any incentive for them or an expectation, or just please?

Just please.

And that certainly was part of the challenge, as some of the staff members that are here would attest.

It wasn't necessarily a super short survey.

It took a solid 30 minutes, which in your, you know, your teeth day or your custodial day to say, okay, I'm gonna sit down and not not do my other work for a half an hour to do the survey.

Um it's not easy.

And then are these um it's put out by the state.

Do we have any influence on on what appears on it, or is it every school gets the exact same one, or do they cater it to your particular district?

So this um this we do not have input on it, and it's the same for every district.

There are some districts in the state that have developed their own and then can give that one and kind of opt out of this one.

They've gone through a different process to uh to do that.

Um most of the districts in the state, I think there might only be one that does something different than this um than this survey.

Are there any fill-in-the-blank opportunities on these um to elaborate on why your responses might be what they are, or is it just check the box and move on?

It is just check the box.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Trustee Roberts.

Yeah, I have a couple.

Most of them are answered.

Thanks, Trusty Peterson.

Um are the students given these during the school day, or is it at home?

They it is during the school day.

So we have high participation rates there with the students because they'll do that in their advisory time or in some other uh time during the school day.

So we're able to capture most of our students that way.

Okay.

And is it just like a given day?

And if they're there, they take it.

If not, they're yeah, there's a window, and uh within that window, a school will say, okay, everybody's gonna do it on on this day.

Obviously, um, if they're absent, we try and catch kids and get them to make it up.

That becomes a little bit of a challenge to do, and it doesn't have the same stakes with it as say the SPEC test where we're gonna chase down every single kid to take it.

Um we do our best to get as many to take it as possible with the with this climate survey.

Okay.

And then since it's just the agree or disagree um responses with no no way to get feedback, I'm assuming you just kind of go off of the specificity of the question to kind of determine where they might not feel physically safe or emotionally safe or whatever the question is.

Yeah.

The broken down questions gives us some level of specificity.

Um, but there ends up being some level of interpretation where you know I feel safe at this school relatively broad, right?

It might be we've made significant changes in in, for instance, how the bathrooms are set up, um, but there's not a specific question about different areas of the school where I do or where I feel more or less safe.

Sure.

And then with it just being the fifth graders at the elementary level, they're now leaving.

So you've got a new group of students that are taking it.

So it's not necessarily like the same kids, you can't really test to see if there was a change, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so it is really tricky when we look at the elementary because you're looking at well, we look we are looking here at the elementary average, it really is solely fifth grade.

So if you think about that, the number of students you have in an elementary school, you are only surveying one sixth of them, roughly, your uh fifth graders, and and you're getting 80 to 90 percent of them to take it.

But it's a pretty small snapshot to generalize things for the whole school.

And to your point, that group of fifth graders leaves the next group of fifth graders comes in.

Um we do believe that when they take this as a fifth grader, yeah, especially well, a lot of these questions, um, their answer is informed by not just what happened to them that day or that week or that month, but throughout their school their time at that particular school would kind of influence their choice.

But it's at the elementary school, that is a I think a statistical challenge that we deal with, that it's a pretty small sample size that we're talking about.

Yeah.

Um, and then in that principal's meeting, when you go over this data or the teachers are going over their data, um, is there discussion about what to do, how to improve, make plans and like some follow-through on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's where we want to get to, and where we especially when we're able to get together as a group and look at some of these things and we can see campus by campus, maybe a particular campus made significantly more growth than others, and what is it that you're trying?

What did you do?

Let me see how we can maybe apply that at our school.

We've had some very um thoughtful and robust discussions, and it's super impactful because you're talking to the people that are the practitioners on the ground that are doing the work, and then this is not the only indicator, but an indicator of hey, are some of these things working or not?

Wonderful.

Um, and then this website that has the results.

Um, how far down is that broken for the public to see?

Is it state, district?

Can you see school by school?

You can see school by school.

Okay.

Wonderful.

And then last question are they anonymous?

Yes.

I'm assuming.

Yes, they are.

Cool.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Rusty Ramirez.

No questions.

They've already been answered.

I just want to say thank you for bringing these reports to us.

This is very helpful.

And I'm very impressed of the number of students who completed the service.

A kudos to your teachers who work with them.

So thank you.

Go on back around.

Anything else?

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Seeing that our um auditors are here, we'll go back to agenda item number eight.

Presentation possible action on the FY 2025 annual independent audit audit and report on financial statements as required per NRS 354.624.

This is for possible action.

And this is going to be presented by Spencer Winward and David Silva.

Thank you for coming.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for letting us barge in and disrupt your time frame.

Um my mom always used to tell me don't go any place for a visit without bringing something.

So indeed, I did bring you something.

Um there are printed copies of what you've already received in your agenda packet.

So, first of all, as always, we thank you, we truly thank you for your business.

Um, we appreciate working with uh the district and and everybody at the district that we get to work with.

It is a real pleasure.

And um, just want you to know that we certainly appreciate you.

Just have a couple of things to point out in the audit.

Um, if I may, let me give that to you.

Oh, it's here.

Um first of all, you do have what's called a sometimes it's called unqualified, and I don't really care for that word, so I'll call it a clean opinion.

Um that's the highest level of assurance that a CPA firm can provide.

Um, and that that's certainly as board members, that's certainly what you're looking for.

So that's always a good thing.

The other thing that is um really good to note, and this is the kind of comment that I do like to make, is if you would like to turn to page 51.

Um, if not, I'll just talk about it.

Uh one of our requirements as your auditors is to take a look at your compliance with um the NRSs and the NACs as they relate to the financial administration of the district.

And then um as a result of that look see, if you will, we have to report anything that um we note that is adverse.

Um there was nothing to report um this year.

So um certainly that is um a very positive comment.

Um again, that's something's board members that um you're probably looking to see.

Um I do want to speak in um general terms about the audit for for just a moment.

What you have in front of you is the financial audit, as you're probably aware, we're engaged to audit your financial statements, and that's what you have in front of you.

But we're also engaged to audit your federal programs.

And you you don't have that yet.

That is issued as a separate document.

And over the past several years, that's been issued after the financial audit.

And as a matter of fact, um our crew did complete the um field work portion of that just in the past couple days.

Um so what happens on the compliance audit is um we have to select based on certain formulae, we select the um programs that we need to test, and those are called major programs, and there were what Hamza maybe about six of them.

And then we do an extensive amount of testing on those federal programs, and that testing is um pretty much dictated by the feds.

Um and um there's uh uh really not a lot of leeway in terms of the audit procedures that were required to perform.

So um one of the big ones this year um was the uh nutrition program.

Um and um pardon me?

Uh SR3, okay, thanks.

Um and I'm sorry, I'm remiss an introducing uh my partner, Hamza Khan, he pretty much directs the the field work for the audit.

Um so that report will be available um probably in a couple of weeks, and um I don't believe there are any findings to report in that, which is um that's a very good thing as well.

So what you have in front of you back to the financial audit is a no-finding audit, and that's um uh while that may not be a surprise, it is still a very very good thing, and it's the kind of news that we're always pleased to deliver.

Um I think in terms of the numbers themselves, I don't think there are any surprises.

Um you guys are you receive um financial information on a regular basis.

Um, but you uh the district is in a um this is my opinion, a fairly strong financial position um at this time, and um that's a particularly good thing when we're looking into the future, which as always unfortunately seems to be a little bit uncertain.

Um so um I I think you're as um postured well as you can be um and um certainly better than than some other districts.

So um again, um it's always a pleasure to to work with the district, and you know, we believe we provide a good function, and I hope that that you all feel that way as well.

Any questions?

Yes, I believe there are.

So go ahead and start with trustee barner.

I'm just curious on page seven of the district's net position and deficit um the current assets um are down three point or six point three one percent.

What caused the decline in the assets here?

I suspect that that was probably spending of bond proceeds money, uh the cash account in the the bond issues fund.

Um for the total assets too.

Sorry, Spencer Wonder.

The flux there typically is related to the amount of our bond funding that we have available and what's spent.

Um without looking at that further, that would be my uh top of top of my head answer.

And I believe also that receivables were um considerably less in 2025 than they were in prior year.

Thank you.

Sure, trustee Peterson, trustee, trustee Ramirez.

Um page leave it is um I'm gonna get to your page because our we didn't have page numbers on our page now.

Um of them actually can't find it.

Hold on.

Yeah.

Page 28.

You bet.

The general fund?

Yeah.

So the um and maybe this is more for Spencer, but so for the fund balance of the general fund after 2025 actual is 8.5 million.

We have never heard that high.

Have we?

I don't think we've ever heard that it was ever that high that our fund balance was 8.5 million.

I'm sorry, say that number again.

I thought it was we had like a fund balance of 12.

So on page 28.

Our fund balance as of June 30th.

Or 18, what did I say?

8.5.

Oh, sorry, 18.5.

You scared me for a minute.

Yep, I scared.

I would say that's the first one.

Dave was about to take back as qualified or unqualified opinion.

Yeah, the 18.5, and we've always heard 12.

So we're so many of our discussions are based around our projected ending fund balance or our budgeted ending fund balance.

So that oftentimes is lower because we uh it typically has been the last several years, we don't spend every dollar we budgeted.

So when we do have our financials that are done, our ending fund balance typically has been higher than what's budgeted.

Um so even if in a year like this last year of 2025 fiscal year, where we had a budgeted deficit spending, we actually ended up with a slight surplus.

So again, this year we kind of had a plan spend down.

We had a uh for FY26.

Um so our budgeted deficit would be lower, and uh I don't think we'll end up in the surplus category this year, but I don't think it will also be as low as our budgeted ending fund balance.

If we look back every year, typically our our audited ending fund balance has been significantly higher than our budgeted ending fund balance.

So probably what you're thinking of is our budget ending fund balance because we see that so many times throughout the year, and then when we compare it with our actual numbers when they're all audited and done, it typically is higher.

All right, thank you.

Um and then this is just general to the um uh to the audit itself.

But so you have said, and I just want to reiterate that you didn't you did not see any, you know, like material weaknesses or significant no, none to report.

Okay, and then um any corrective actions or timelines or nothing, so we're good.

Right.

There is no corrective action required um because there was there was nothing reported.

Um typically um in that note too that we talked about a few moments ago, um the state requires uh submission of a corrective action plan if there was something reported.

Um usually what um uh governments find in that footnote um would be over expenditures of the budget and then a corrective action plan is required to address that, but that's not germane to you this year.

Okay.

Um I don't have any other that's great.

Thank you very much for your work.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Spencer.

Thank you, Spencer.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, uh members of the board, and certainly we do appreciate the uh professional relationship we have with uh Mr.

Sylvan and his team and for all the hard work that they have put into preparing this for us.

Thanks.

I tried to look through some of the numbers, but man, there's a lot of them.

There are a lot.

All right, all right.

This is an action item.

So do I have a motion?

I move that the Carson City School District Board of Trustees accept the Carson City School District annual financial report and audit for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025.

And instruct the Chief Financial and Operations Officer to file the report as public record in accordance with NRS 354624.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second public comment.

Seeing none, um, all in favor, please say yes.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for your thank you all very much.

Have a great evening.

Thanks, you too.

Bye-bye.

And that moves us on to agenda item number nine, was which is the presentation of the superintendent on the state of the district.

Informational overview of the Carson City School District for the 2025-2026 school year and beyond.

This is for discussion only.

Presented by our superintendent, AJ Fueling.

It is.

It is actually um so the retro vintage thing is really popular right now.

So yeah.

Oh, sorry.

Couldn't quite find the right one.

Yeah, so I I first saw this picture actually in our our transportation department.

Um when you when you walk, so if you don't know, transportation is located um right off of Robinson Street, sort of um behind Carson High School next to the tennis courts.

And uh I think the first time I walked in there many, many years ago, they had this picture in there.

And um uh this Mr.

Sadler, uh I think two years ago put me onto a uh state archive website that had a bunch of old pictures from Carson City School District, and we have many of them up now in the district office, and and this exact same picture happened to be there.

So um I think it's it's pretty good that kid sick in his head out the window doesn't look real happy.

I wouldn't either if I had to wear that hat, I guess.

But um yeah, just truly one of the things that I I appreciate so much about Carson is the history.

And I just uh as a former server so former social studies teacher, that's uh an important thing to me.

So thank you.

Um so this is an annual presentation um that we call the state of the district, really uh just a bit of an overview of what has been going on.

Um one of the things I I want to mention and um a lot of the information, the the data going into this, and and again, you you will have time to ask questions, and if there's anything else you'd like to see, we can certainly um come up with that.

But um I ended up it just made me reflect and you know, thinking of this time period.

I I'm assuming this is from like the 1930s.

I I don't I don't know exactly when it's from um but where we were here and now you know a hundred years later and we are just drowning in AI and talking about that and and and what is what is happening.

And so I I took some of this information and I um I I had it in and I'm gonna talk a little bit about this tonight, but in one of the products we we have access to, it's called Notebook LM.

And um it it was I I had it, you know, I I asked it just to search are there any any highlights like data points that would be really good to um bring up and some of the this all this data that we're drowning in.

And uh so it it it had a couple that it pointed out, but then it said, well, would you like me to put together a one-pager infographic that you could share with your board members?

And so I'm not gonna share it with you officially tonight because I because then Renee has to post it and all that sort of thing.

I just thought it was really cool because it is incredibly professional looking.

It took it all of about five minutes to create this thing.

Um and and it is just a real stark contrast, I think, to to that picture and and that time you see, and and I think where we're going, which is um really exciting and and really frightening all at the same time.

And I think you've all kind of probably read enough to understand that.

So anyway, so I'll I'll talk a little bit about um just uh the AI piece, and we're actually planning on a uh presentation later um at another board meeting, but I did want to just mention a couple of things tonight.

Okay.

Um so tonight we'll we'll review uh a little bit of um information on our our students uh on our staff and on some other just general district activities.

Uh a lot of the data I I pull for this, I to try to excuse me.

Sorry, Lysik.

Um to keep the data consistent.

I I try to pull as much as I can from Nevada Report card.

Um, because so that is a publicly available website that uh all of the I think it's 426 reports that we have to submit every year.

A lot of that data ends up getting aggregated and put into um that website.

So just to try to keep it consistent and um and that way if it's questioned, I I just I I know what the source is um for the most part.

So um, so this isn't anything new and had similar verbiage last year, but um, we've talked about enrollment, enrollment tends to be trending downward.

Um and really it it overall it has been trending downwards since 2002, 2003.

We did have an upswing after the great recession and leading into COVID enrollments were increasing again.

But still, if you look over that kind of 20-year time period, really there is a slight downward trend overall.

But um we generally attribute that to reduced birth rates.

So we just we know families are having um fewer children.

Um when we do have new construction, as as you all see around us, there is a lot of construction going on in Carson City, uh, but we are not seeing young families moving into a lot of that that are bringing kids into the district.

It's just just the reality.

Um we know housing affordability continues to to be an issue as well.

And we at this point projections are that this would continue to decline um over time.

And this graphic, I think is shared um back in January, but again, just kind of that role the roller coaster of enrollment that we have seen here over this going back to the 1990, 1991 school year.

So our demographics in here um compared to 10 years ago, just to um, I guess give a good point in time of of changes that we have.

Um the 24, 25 demographics haven't changed substantially from last year, um, but they have definitely changed from 10 years ago.

Um and most notably our Hispanic population has grown.

Um our white student population has decreased um over that time.

Looking at the um categories of students, so this slide is set up a little awkwardly, but I um have the Carson data, the Nevada data to the right of that, and then the data from Carson 10 years ago um at the bottom.

So we wouldn't necessarily expect um special education populations to change, but there are um realities to the um I'm forgetting the term, but the basically the categories of students when they are identified for special education, those do change over time.

Um so that could be um some of this.

We we do know there are certain disabilities that are becoming um more frequent frequently diagnosed.

Um and so there likely will be changes over time, but we wouldn't necessarily expect um any significant fluctuations.

It is estimated.

Um, I don't know that it's exactly known, but estimated that about 13% of all students nationwide qualify for special education services.

So our percentage at 12.8.

Um, this last school year was fairly in line um with that.

Um our English learner population, 13.1%.

Uh the the stat I use when I'm out and about talking about this is that one one about about 1,000 of our current students um are in our English learner program, and another 1,000 of our current students used to be English learners.

They are now out of that program.

But just to give a sense of um, you know, it's a it's a substantial percentage of our students that English is not their their native tongue.

Uh, and then our free and reduced lunch population.

Free and reduced lunch has become a really strange statistic.

And I I don't know how telling it really is anymore.

Um over the years, there have been modifications to the uh national school launch program, NSLP, um, in terms of how the identification happens.

But then also there is some specialized programs, some of which we participate in.

One is the community eligibility um provision program, where whole schools may qualify students as 100% free and reduced lunch, even if, and so that every student eats breakfast and lunch for free, even if not every student in that school actually themselves qualify for free and reduced lunch.

Um the statistic that I I think you will start seeing used more often, and it's not as far as I know, it's not publicly available for other districts or other schools, is something called direct certification.

Um that is when uh at least five times a year, we are required to um share information to find out if if our students qualify for some kind of federal assistance.

So it might be like SNAP benefits, it might be um TANF, it might be Medicaid, and if they're qualifying their families qualify for some kind of federal assistance, then those students would automatically receive free free and reduced launch.

Um and that seems to be a a more stable and um I I don't know, I think just uh it's a better statistic to share and to be able to make comparisons with because of some of the weird things that have happened with the national school launch program and how free and reduced launches qualified.

So um, but for now, this these are the the percentages that that are reported.

And I think we we do know just looking back at 20 Carson 10 years ago versus now, those rates have gone up.

And and we we do know even with that direct certification number I was talking about.

Um, when I started here back in 2014, 2015, I think that number was around 22% district wide, and it it is now closer to 40% district wide.

So it's there's a lot of families that that have um have a lot of need uh in this community.

There's there's a lot of poverty in this community.

Um this is uh to me, just an interesting statistic.

It's something called transiency.

Um basically kids not finishing the year in the same school they started.

Uh this is something nationwide, Nevada is considered to have the highest transiency rate in the nation.

However, not every state actually captures this information.

I think for a lot of states that have very low transiency, they're they really don't see a point to trying to capture this.

Like it really just doesn't matter to them.

Um but in Nevada, and and we know Nevada tends to be a transient state.

I think these numbers um reflect.

And so we're at about uh 20%.

Um I I have read that they estimate the national average is somewhere between eight to 10.

But the what's interesting about that is the the impact of transiency, the the effect of that on a student's learning is similar to what it is if they are an English learner.

And so it it really does have an impact.

And you think of you know, if a student is starting a school year, they they get to know their teacher, they have friends, they get comfortable, and then they move.

That that can be a pretty significant event in a kid's life.

And so not every child makes that that move without some impact.

Um so our number has actually decreased.

Um, I think uh the year after COVID, and and clearly COVID impacted this.

All every district's numbers were much higher during COVID.

Ours was over, I believe over 20% during COVID.

So it has come down.

So that that is um good in terms of the you know, just stability for our families, stability is for our kids, um, so they can have more success in school.

Uh elementary class size ratios.

So this is something a state reports on.

Um and two or one thing to really note with this is that um there are there are class size requirements that the state put into place back in um uh well the the law came in effect in 88, but it it started like you had to start meeting them in 1991.

And so at that time, um, and I actually I have the ratio somewhere of what our class sizes were back then.

I think kindergarten was like 28, and and I I forget the others, and for some reason, first grade isn't on here, and I don't know why.

So I will have to go back and find that.

I clicked the wrong box.

Um but what you'll you'll notice is that most of the districts actually have pretty similar sizes for their um K through three grades, but then in four and five, you'll notice a bump.

Um not so much for Clark here, which doesn't make sense to me, but you do notice it in Washoe for sure.

Um, there's actually two versions of the class size requirements.

There's uh a version which is the traditional class size, where the only grades it applies to are um kinder through third grade, really well, yeah, we'll say kinder through third grade.

There's also what they call the alternative plan, or in school circles, it's known as the ELCO plan sometimes.

At some point, Elko went to the legislature and said, hey, you have these really, really small class sizes, K through three, but then everyone's grade four or five class sizes explode because now you don't have the requirements.

If we agreed to keep our fourth and fifth grade classes a little bit smaller, but allowed our kinder through third classes to go up a bit higher, would that be okay?

And that Elko presenting that that was that came through the legislature.

I actually don't know when that came around.

Um, but we have been following that alternative plan, um, as does every uh rural district that I am aware of and has for some time.

And that's where you see just the for all the rural districts represented here, that continuation of relatively smaller class sizes through fourth and fifth grade.

Um, and I'll note the the districts I have here tend to be, I mean they they are the larger districts in the state, um, with uh us included, clearly Clark and Washo are much larger than we are.

Um is actually the closest, I think, in population to us.

They have about uh 6,000 students or I think high 5,000s for students.

Um Lion and Elko both are in the low 9,000s.

Um and then Douglas has, I think they're just under 5,000.

Clark has 270,000.

Washoe has like 60.

And there are about 70,000 kids now, I believe, in the state charter schools.

Um so this is graduation data as far back as I have it for the the state and the district.

It's not really fair to compare all of these years against each other because the rules on graduation have changed over time.

Um but it still I think just gives an overall sense of where the state was, where the district was, and how how far we have come along, really.

Um this year it was reported that the the district's graduation rate was 83.3%.

We had a presentation some months ago that um that talked about that.

So it's a slight increase from the prior year.

Um still room for improvement, certainly, that we will be um that we are actively um working toward.

Um interesting thing with the the state number.

So the state number jumped pretty substantially.

Um when you look at state educational data, Clark is the biggest swing factor in any data.

And so what you see is if you if you look at the individual districts, Clark County School District's graduation data really bumped up this year.

Um I I think part of that, one of the things they made a change about four years ago, so it makes sense in certain in terms of the timing, is they stopped giving zeros for grades.

So the lowest grade you can get is effectively a 50%.

Um, and and if you if you think of like a scaling of zero, one, two, three, four for grading, zero is like your 50, one is a 60%, two is a 70%, three is an 80%, right?

You're you're moving up through it.

Um, and so I I am no expert in uh grading philosophy and methodology.

There are a lot of people who really really get into that.

Um, but that that is something that is thought to be um more representative really of what kids are doing.

Like what why is it that an F is from zero to 59%, but every other grade is only a 10% increment, right?

That that I do see some of the the logic or the questioning of that.

Um but districts that have made that change tend to have a lot of pushback because everybody has gone through school and they know that grading system, and it seems crazy to try to change it because everyone has had it forever, and why would you ever change something like that?

So that that's a discussion for for another time.

I'm sure Mr.

Bringhurst is probably drooling back there wishing he could talk about this, but uh I'm not gonna allow him to.

Um, so this one is a uh has a big old blue X on it.

So this is one of my was one of my favorite things to report on.

Um, and this was any any student from uh your the school districts going into any NC institution, how many of them needed remedial classes?

And so I think it to me that would give a really good sense of how well are we doing preparing our kids for the next step.

And it's about the closest thing we can we can come to that, I think.

And so um it it occurred to me this year to ask NDE, because the thought was, you know, it would be really good information to have.

If if we could actually identify who those students are, and then backtrack through their progress in high school to see, you know, were there any red flags we missed?

Were there some things maybe we could have done differently?

And so the the answer basically came back, first of all, no, um, because you they can't uh with like FERPA violation, your like privacy regulations, you can't share back that data because they're adults now and and that sort of thing.

Um the other thing was though, uh, they actually said, well, we don't really have remedial classes anymore.

So we can't give you that data.

And what do you mean?

Well, now they have what are called co-requisite classes in NC, which if I if I understand instead of putting the student into a remedial class, so I don't know what the remedial classes are.

Let's say it's English 95 or something like that.

Instead of having them in English 95, they would keep them in English 101.

But I think there would be this additional course they would have to take to provide support to them.

So it's not truly a remedial class anymore.

Um, which uh is is probably a good thing.

I'm sure there's good reason they did that, but um still it would be nice to be able to identify those students that need co-requisite courses and again be able to backtrack.

That was something I when we met with um Superintendent Wakefield when he visited, that was one of the things I shared with him.

I I don't know if it would take legislation or what it would take, but I think that would be really valuable information for school systems to have to know which ones of their students need that extra support.

So we can go back and see was there something better that we could have done along the way.

Um so anyway, if you go to the Nevada reporter now, this data will just be NA for every district because it doesn't exist anymore.

We apparently pointed out a problem.

Uh superintendent, before you move on, what I found, can you go back to the slide?

Sure.

Interesting is um, you know, we're at the last data we had we was 19.2.

And the charter schools were at 26 uh percent needing remediation.

I find that you always hear how much better the charter schools are performing, but actually we're performing at that time better than the charter schools, it appears.

I I think I think that's a good point.

And I guess even outside of the comparison, I it just goes back to why I think this was actually a really good point of data.

To me, you know, there's always questions about well, you know, if you're looking at GPA, well, how are you know, teachers and schools scoring things differently?

And so it's not maybe apples to apples to look at GPA.

Um you can look at ACT scores, right?

But ACT is supposed to be predicting this.

So this is really where the rubber hits the road.

This is really the data point that I think is the most meaningful.

Um, and so I I mean I I think our teachers should be proud.

I think our principals should be proud.

I think you should be proud.

We we really relative to the rest of the state, we're doing a really good job preparing our kids for college if that was the path that they chose.

Um student attendance.

So this is not chronic absenteism, this is average daily attendance.

So this is basically what percentage of uh in any given day, what percentage of our kids are in school.

Um and you can see I I have so this is a little harder to see.

Hopefully, your screens up close, Mr.

Mr.

Varner will help with that that small text.

Um, but I I think it's interesting to look at the 2018-2019 school year, because that to me is the last full normal year of school we had, and then COVID made everything get really strange.

But so in that year, we were at 94.4%.

We are now at 92.8%.

So it's clearly down, but I I think we get so um wrapped up in the chronic absenteeism discussion, and and it it is really complicated what chronic absenteeism really means sometimes.

And I've talked with Dr.

Medina about this because it's a it's very formulaic and it gets very complicated.

This to me is just a really straightforward way to look at you know, our kids going to school or not.

Um we are certainly down from where we were prior to COVID, as is everyone else.

And um, but this number, I think last year's number, um, that was actually in the strategic plan uh document I shared earlier, the metrics.

I think it was 92.5.

So now we're up to 92.8.

So it interesting, I guess, you know, we're the the chronic absenteeism number is a much harder number to move, but in terms of actual kids just being in school every day, it seems like that we're actually making progress, a little more progress.

So that's that's good.

Um, and here's the the chronic absenteism uh numbers that the state reports.

So and again, looking at 1819, I don't know if I can I guess well, it doesn't matter, I guess.

Um, but again, 1819, your last really normal year.

Um for us, we were at 15.3%.

Now we're sitting at 27.2.

And and again, you can see every district is in a worse position than they were back in 1819.

Um and everyone continues to to focus on this as recognizing not everything in this number is in your control, really like every a lot of things in education, we really can't control everything.

Um, but certainly there are things we can do to do our part to try to make it better.

Um, and a lot of that is simply just communication with families.

And so we we do our part um to try to improve that.

Um looking at staff breakdowns.

So um 939 total staff, 27 school administrators, 503 certified, 388 classified, 21 district non-represented staff.

Um, when you look at the budget for the current year, 87.5% of our general fund budget is in the schools, and 12.5% is outside the schools.

Of that 12.5%, about half is transportation.

There's um, I think about 44, no, 40 um uh folks in the transportation department.

No, actually I think it is 45 to 50 in transportation.

Um, so it's just there's actually a lot of people in in that department.

And and although they transport kids to schools, I don't consider them necessarily inside the schools.

That's why I have them on on the outside there.

Um but I think uh what I take from that is just that you know, I I think you know, we're having some difficult discussions right now.

We talk about trying to make sure that you know we we are trying to take care of what is inside the schools, and I I think historically we have that that has been something that we have been cognizant of and trying to get resources in our schools for for our kids.

Um this is a breakdown, and actually I'm I'm showing it just a little bit differently from the Nevada report card website.

Um, but when you look at what percent of our budget is spent um on people um and broken into four four categories, and they they just break it into four categories.

This is part of one of the um financial reports that we have to submit to the state um during the year.

But if you look at and I'll just stay with the state, the state data at the top.

So for the state for personnel expend personnel expenditures related to instructional positions on average is about 49.4% of the budget.

Um instructional support positions, so this might be um uh paraprofessionals, counselors, um, things like that.

9% is the average in the state, operations positions, so that might be um positions in human resources, fiscal services, information technology, 11.4%.

And then leadership is 7.6%, like leadership is school leadership and district leadership.

And so um this actually brings in um not just like what they call state and local funding, but this is actually also um bringing in um federal funding.

So it really gives you a bigger picture of like within all the state grants, within all the federal grants and all the other funding that we receive, kind of how are we spending those funds?

Um and so when you look at the instruction instructional personnel spending, we are at 52%, which is the highest in the state.

And and I should say this is last school year, right?

Not necessarily the current data.

Um instructional support, we're almost the highest in the state.

Washo um is slightly above us.

But again, I I think just going back to like what where is the district putting its funding?

Where are we putting our our financial resources into?

And we're we're trying to get them into the schools.

Um, and then you look at leadership, and we're at 5.5%, which is 2.1% lower than the state average.

Um and the lowest of any of the like the larger size districts in the state.

So again, I just I think it's it's really important.

We um and I've talked about this in prior discussions.

The we we generally staff our school administration in line with what we may see in other districts.

So the only thing remaining then is district level leadership.

And that that's really where a lot of that difference comes from.

When you're when you're only looking at state and local funding, um, we we still have the lowest percentage.

Um, and I think I I had figured out last year that it would be um we were about 2% below the state average, we would have to add about 1.6 million dollars in new district leadership costs to be average with the rest of the state.

So just again to make the point that we we are we are not heavy on administration in this district relative to what you see in other districts in the state.

AJ, what what is the district office staff fall in this besides the leadership like budget?

Um so the so if if if you're an administrator, like a truly in an administrative position, like uh if you're in a school, you're a principal, if you're at the district office, if you're a director or if you're an assistant director, you would fall into that leadership category.

For our um uh support staff in the building, a lot of our administrative assistant positions, our um like HR analyst positions, our IT techs, they would fall under that operations.

Yeah.

Um teacher uh attendance is actually another data point that is collected.

We're at 94.8% average daily attendance, which um is is uh uh an improv has been slowly improving after the last years.

I I think um, and really most districts are seeing some improvement.

I think Elko's number is not accurate.

I I have a really hard time believing it's 99.7%.

I'm sorry to the elco, if you're watching.

Um but um but but I I think all of these numbers tend to be increasing.

And I I think that is really just reflective of um the the move away from the COVID days, right?

Like things have really kind of started to stabilize.

I think now if we're sick, we'd we just say we're sick and and we you know there's no like days you have to be away.

And so I I think over time that this this is just will continue to continue to improve um the Jack survey.

So this one in the upper right hand corner.

Um so a step back annually at the end of the school year, we um there's the joint advisory committee.

Um and this group, like there wasn't it's it's supposed to be an advisory committee to me, but it was decided a few years back that it would be really good to get a survey out to staff just to see how staff are doing in various ways.

Um and so there are a few questions in that survey that really haven't changed over the three years.

Um some of them have modified a little bit.

But what's really interesting now is um and the way it's presented here at the bottom is you can see the question.

I believe I work in an atmosphere where there is mutual respect among staff.

That data below is are the answers to the question from this very last school year, the 24-25 school year.

So you can see how many certified staff responded to the survey, um, and then what percentage of certified staff were in each individual category.

In this case, 76% certified staff strongly agreed, which is 25% of our total certified uh respondents to this.

And then you have classified staff um right there next to it, the total number and the percentage, and then the total at the right.

So for that that total number, um that is what the graph above then takes.

And it's looking at the total, so the far right bar are the same numbers as are in the total in that bottom portion.

So that's the 24-25 school year total responses, and then to the the bar to the left of that is what those total responses look like in 2324, and to the left of that in 2223.

So now now that we have three years of data, we can actually kind of see trends like how is this going over time?

Do people, you know, are we seeing that there seems to be in this case that there's a real um lack of respect building among staff in the buildings?

Is this something that is improving over time?

Um I know when when we're looking through this data that um as as is natural with humans, sometimes there's perceptions of of clickiness sometimes amongst certain staff and things like that come up.

So um, but I I think overall, like in this case, you can kind of see that trending at at least stable, and I I think it's in a good place and maybe slightly improved um in this last year.

Um, but anyway, I think it's an interesting way to look at it now that we kind of have some longitudinal data to actually look at.

Another question from that survey, and I should say too, since we were talking surveys earlier.

This is not a um uh a required survey.

Um, it is something that is highly encouraged.

This last year it got kind of weird because we wanted to do it on one of our early last few early release days.

Um, and then we had the snow days, and we we got rid of the last three early release days, and so it was kind of like please fill this out, but there's not, we're not necessarily giving time to to do that.

So we did we didn't have as many responses this last year as we did the year before, but we still had 418, which is still um you know, 40, 40, 45 percent of of our staff.

So it's a a good end size to to take assumptions from.

Um, the next question, I believe staff members are recognized for their performance at my work site.

Again, pretty positive responses, and and it that is held relatively stable over the past um three years.

So I think um so much of this is due to the work of our principals.

Um when when you are in the schools and talking with them, ask them about some of the things they do to show their staff how much they appreciate them because you're gonna hear about all sorts of carts going down the hallways with with treats and hot chocolates and various other things, and I saw a nacho bar once.

I mean, I I and our principals to a great extent are doing a lot of this out of their own pockets because it's really important to them and it makes it, it does it does make a difference.

Uh next question, I believe I get valuable feedback from my supervisor.

Uh again, good results, and and I think um I think that's really important just for for anyone working that they feel like what they're what they're getting for feedback is actually something they can use and and do something with.

Um it's uh generally a very positive um response from our staff.

And it's actually if you um is that the same one?

Yeah, it's it it it seems as though it's actually improving.

And I think if Mr.

Sadler were here, um as much as I know there are frustrations with NEPF, and there have been over time, I I think it's also been something it's been around long enough that we're um kind of getting used to it and learning ways to use it better um and be more streamlined with it and not have it take nearly as much time.

And so I I would I would think that would be a part of it as long as well as our principals and and school administration and other administrators in the district just improving what they do over time.

Uh next, I believe my work atmosphere at my site is our site is positive and inviting, has held fairly stable in the positive for the last uh three years.

I believe I have opportunities to work within a team to achieve goals.

Um has also held pretty strong over the last few years.

Um so again, I just I think the leadership overall is doing a good job.

It and even I think you know, some of this, I I think I think our schools generally just have good cultures.

There, there's a lot of camaraderie um in each of our schools, and I think that just makes a really really big difference.

And I think this is the last one I'll share.

Um, I believe I've received proper training from CCSD that has helped me do my job effectively, and again seemingly trending a little it it's been positive, but seemingly trending even a little bit better just in the last um last set of um responses.

So then lastly, just some other district activities and things going on.

Um our elementary teachers have um, and I I think I've said this one or two other times, have taken the brunt of two years of new curriculum between math last year and ELA this year, uh back in the first year when I started in this position and going around and doing little listening sessions.

Um the biggest complaints we had were about our math curriculum and ELA curriculum at the elementary level, just feeling like it wasn't very good at for for what we wanted.

Um so we have new curriculum now, but it's a lot of work to implement a new curriculum.

And asking all of our folks at the elementary level to do them back to back is an enormous effort, and that doesn't go unrecognized.

Um we saw some real improvement last year in terms of growth um and achievement with um our math, the new math curriculum.

So that was really encouraging.

Uh this year, Amplify CKLA.

Um I've heard uh so the first quarter was was a little rough.

Um I heard a lot of there were a lot of folks who it was just it was a lot.

And it was um it's very um prescriptive and structured, especially initially when you're you're getting used to it.

Um but it seemed to hear much less of that now.

Um, and just some really cool lessons, kids learning about um learning about science and and history through all of this work, it's just fantastic.

I was over at um Fremont Elementary School, and um they had lunch and kids were wearing togas because they were studying ancient Greece, and I just thought that was the coolest thing.

So um anyway, so that's a lot of work and and it will um still be, but I I think definitely moving us in the right direction.

Um the MTSS work, again, we have the state recognitions I mentioned earlier tonight, and and those just keep growing.

So that's um a real positive, and I think good for our sites to be recognized for all the work they've done.

It has been a long haul getting a lot of these systems in place.

Um, but we we are really coming to a good point with um with that.

And I think they're still building and there'll always be modifications, but I think it's a much more normal way to talk about how we approach what we're doing in our schools.

Um a really interesting example that I I'm not sure, I I can't remember if you're aware of, but our middle schools are they've kind of changed their behavior matrix expectations and to call them um it well, and they've modified them and they're now employability skills and the idea of talking, like being able to have conversations with kids and with parents when kids are maybe doing some things they aren't supposed to be doing, and instead of um you know, framing it like, well, this is the behavior we expect.

Well, this is the behavior an employer would expect.

And I think that's something that parents can relate to much better too.

It's it we all want to defend our children, right?

And but but when you when you frame it in the context would look like Johnny someday is gonna be working in a place and he's not gonna be able to do this sort of thing, right?

Um, so I think it just it makes it a little more relevant.

So I'm I'm really proud of um the work they've done trying to bring that um on board.

And also I think um it has helped us that there's a phrase in this world of uh so MTSS, you have tier one, tier two, tier three, tier one is kind of the basic, but everybody gets tier one and then intervention levels um depending on the level of need, you move up to tier two or tier three.

But the phrase is you can't tier two, can't tier two your way out of a tier one problem.

And and so the idea that you know, we we've really honed in on what these interventions are that we're doing in our schools, the support on the academic side and support on the behavior side.

Um, but it really brings focus back to that tier one, like what are we doing for all of our kids before we get to those tier two pieces?

Because that tier two isn't gonna fix if something is wrong in tier one.

So that that focus is coming back, and I think um our our lot of the work our principals have been doing with going back into classrooms and seeing what is um kind of what does instruction look like.

And I think a lot of the support that Mr.

Bringerhurst has brought um with his kind of new view coming into the district, it's uh it's I think there's a lot of good work to come.

Um proficiency rates.

So these are actually in the um the strategic plan metrics that we just looked at previously.

Um, but again, over the past three years, what has happened um generally had a dip last year in most things, but we have rebounded quite a bit, and we're um for the most part in a better place this year than we were two years ago.

Um, but there's certainly solo ways to go.

And I think it's just really it's really important to say um because these kind of this data gets thrown around, and you know, when you're looking at the ELA proficiency for elementary is at 40.6%.

That that does not mean that only 40.6% of our kids can read.

That is not what that means.

And that's what seems to out in the public be the thought.

That is not it's 40.6% of your kids are effectively at grade level meeting or exceeding the expectations, right?

There are kids not there that we are working intensively with to get them to that point, but they are reading, they're just not reading up to that level.

Um some AP data that has come out.

Um we continue to have a lot of success and growth in this realm in the total number of students taking AP classes, the number of exams being taken, the number of those students that are passing with a score of three or more.

Um and so on the on the right in the bottom uh row, you can see the percentage of total AP students with scores of three plus, and that has progressively gone up each year over the last five years.

And it's going up while we have increased the number of kids taking AP classes pretty substantially.

So I think that's a that's a big, a big win for us.

Um, and our exam pass rates are greater than what is called the global average, so just the big old the big average overall of everyone taking these, are more of our kids are passing on average than other places.

Um, and then 99% of our students that are in these classes are earning a C or better for their grade.

So I think the idea that they're they're in it to win it when they're in these classes.

Um, I know my own son um who graduated last year, but um taking some AP classes that really pushed him.

Um and so earning that C was a really big deal.

Um, and and then he ended up having success on the AP test, uh, at least getting a three um on those tests.

So that was that was a big win.

Um in jumpstart, 97.21% of our um classes were passed in jumpstart.

So that's a that percentage has been increasing the last number of years.

So kids are being more and more successful.

We're having fewer kids um that are failing classes, more kids getting A's or B's in those classes.

So our kids are having more success.

And what one of the things that um note is that the the percentage of our Hispanic students that are participating in these classes actually has increased pretty substantially over the past three years.

So the the hope is that um the participation would reflect kind of the greater part um population of Carson High School.

And so I think that's uh that's a good thing to point out.

AI, I just so I didn't get a response on this tonight.

I'd sent an email, but I was hoping to tell you how many of our um staff are using magic school.

Um if you remember at the NASB conference, there was a presentation from Magic School.

You may or you wasn't required, so you may or may not have been there.

Um we signed on with them last year.

We already had 156 um staff members that were using it before we even signed on.

They had individually gone to sign on for um with the product.

I would imagine that number is significantly higher now.

Um there have been some more recent meetings and the these things are just evolving so quickly, and they're coming up with all sorts of new tools.

There's um some new work being done with our English learners.

Uh and I think it's at all grade levels with a tool that Magic School has built for us.

Um it's just it's it's exciting to see.

It's just happening very uh quickly.

And it's one of those things too, where the idea of providing really significant training around this is really hard because it becomes obsolete so quickly.

It just changes so fast, and there's always new things that come out.

So it's it's not your your average Joe um type thing that you can train on, I would say to a great extent.

Um in the district, as a we we are a um uh Google, is it Google Enterprise district, I think.

So we we have um a lot of the the Google products in the schools, Google is used everywhere.

Um and so uh currently for staff, there is access to Gemini, which is Google's AI platform and something called Notebook LM, which is an AI platform, it's a little bit different.

Um, and it's it's both are pretty incredible in in their own unique ways.

Um, but so there is access with those and um use, I think that will uh just continue to grow.

Um we do have um a small pilot going on with a uh um actually a local uh engineer who's developed a writing program, and we're trying that out in a few schools to work with our fourth and fifth graders on um building writing skills.

Um currently getting into some discussions with on a pilot of uh an AI platform that actually works to engage parents at home, supporting their K through two kids with the the ELA curriculum.

So that CKLA curriculum.

Um it it and I'm not sure this is gonna happen, but I think it's a really neat idea if we can make it work.

But it basically sends um a text to parents at a specified time that the parent says at night, and when they receive that text, they can click on it and it takes them through like a little 10-minute lesson that is completely aligned with what has been happening in the in the class regarding their ELA lesson.

And so it just goes through a fun little like 10-minute thing where the parent and the the kiddo can read along, and it I think it depends on their age.

Um, but it reinforces everything that happened in school that day.

So that's it's kind of a neat, another neat use of AI.

So there's just some neat stuff.

Um still a lot of capital project work going on.

Um our buildings are not young, and so we continue to do that.

And uh Mr.

Winward just wrote off our 12th consecutive year, I think, of a clean financial audit, at least.

It was probably more before that.

I just I just don't know.

So that is all I have.

Great, thank you.

Um, do we have any questions?

We'll start down with Trustee Ramirez.

I do.

Um, congratulations.

This is a huge celebration.

I think there's a lot of good things happening here in the district.

Um I do have a question about the um survey that is sent out to the staff.

Um for the strongly disagree response.

Do we provide um uh an additional um section where we ask people to provide feedback on why they responded that way?

We we do, yeah.

So there is a narrative feedback, and and I should say this is in this is an anonymous survey.

We're not sure, sure, sure.

Collecting data to go, you know, look at who's saying what.

Um the so yeah, there is a narrative port, every question has a narrative opportunity.

Um it it is really interesting.

Uh and I and I will say too, there are literally thousands of narratives because there's I think 14 questions, and every question has a narrative, and then you're getting 400 to 600 responses.

So it it's a it's a lot to go through.

So when when I haven't done as good of a job this year going through it with our principals, but it's been a available to our principals um in past years, sat down to go through it with them.

Um the the the narrative piece, everyone naturally goes right to the negatives, like well, well, what is it, right?

Well, what why is this strongly disagree or or even disagree?

Um, and what's really interesting too sometimes though is the disagrees, if you look at the narrative responses, they tend to they I wouldn't much of the time they actually end up being kind of positive.

It's really strange.

Um the strongly disagrees just tend to be very just very negative in I guess about everything, or it's just like a strong negative response, and it's not necessarily a lot of detail.

Um, but even then the agrees sometimes you'll have some things in there that are kind of negative, even though they they agreed.

And and one of the really hard things over time has been with really good and pure intent, wanting everyone to have that access, have the ability to provide that narrative piece.

The reality of trying to process that many narrative responses is really difficult.

It's just it's over, it's impossible.

Um what is interesting is I I think now I've been playing around with this and and trying to um sort of summarize it with using AI, like actually taking some of this information and putting in there, and it you know, within minutes can just distill this down to here's some of the most common things that come up.

Here's where there's issues.

And I I mentioned you know, the clickiness thing comes up sometimes.

That's always I mean, again, we're humans.

Um I I think that will make this even a more effective survey.

It I mean, this is something that we have been looking at for years and reviewing the data with the the Jack Committee and reviewing it myself, reviewing it with principals, but I think there there are possibilities for ways that we can um break this data down in a way that makes it even more useful and actionable.

So I I'm optimistic about where this goes as long as um again it we we don't can't force staff to do it, so we just have to make sure that um you know that we have staff participating, but I think it's something that we can actually find more benefit with going forward.

Of course.

I just think that it would be helpful, you know, to give those individuals the opportunity to um uh not only provide their comments but also um make in it welcome, I don't know, making it um enticing them, I guess, to reach out to their administrators, to their supervisor for you know, and schedule an appointment to meet with them.

That you know it's it's important to have that dialogue, you know, kind of making like a welcoming environment for them.

And speaking of welcoming environments, so I also um think that it is important to recognize that you know our student demographic has changed uh from the last 10 years, as you noted on the on the data, recognizing that our uh Latino student population is not the majority.

I think that's one of the reasons why I um continue advocating the importance of having a bilingual staff member at every office at every school in our district because it just again makes it a welcoming environment for um our families, and being that you know it's it's the majority of our student population.

I think it warrants yeah, that type of service.

So thank you.

I know I know we've talked about these before, and I know I know that's that's um, you know, that I know that the administration is um mindful about that.

So thank you.

Christy uh Robert.

Uh yeah, sorry if I missed this, but the surveys are they it's just general to the district, or you can see which schools said yeah, you can break it down uh by school and then by um category if it's a classified staff member or a certified staff member.

Um and then you said with the remediation survey or data, that's something that would have to go to like legislature to bring that back, or what happened there?

Yeah, the remediation, yeah.

So um well, I I think they could legislate it something into existence to get that information for us.

Um there I I don't think there is the right system set up now or at least right understanding where they like right now they would have to de-identify the student data before they gave it to us.

But if they do that, then we can't find the history of the student going back through school to be able to say, oh, here's maybe where there was a flag.

So it's figuring some of that out.

And there's a so there's a federal law aspect, but I think there's also the forcing between NC and the K-12s to work together that would help be helpful to legislate.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

This is really good stuff in here.

And thanks for presenting it.

Uh hopefully just one easy one.

Um, on the cost breakdown, when it's talking uh by district, um, and it shows what percentages in instruction, instruction support, operations, leadership.

Um the majority of them all total up to high 70s, low 80s percent.

What is unrepresented on that?

The um non-personnel costs.

So that so um supplies, services, uh got it.

Yeah, equipment, things like that.

Okay.

That's all I got.

You did great.

I have a dozen questions.

Okay.

No, actually, I I don't have any.

Uh just thank you for all the work you're doing in this area.

And I'm real familiar with the uh survey because I sit on that committee.

Yeah, and Dr.

Ward, I know that she has a lot of input on that.

So thank you, Dr.

Ward.

Uh thank you.

Very comprehensive, um, very informative.

Um, so one question I think I addressed it in an email, and I don't know if you I honestly can't remember if I read the response.

Um, but it would be interesting to see what the staff breakdown.

So what it is now with enrollment to then what it because I believe our enrollment is comparative to 1994.

And if there is a possibility to get the staff breakdown of what it was then with the enrollment, I just think that would be um important for us to look at when we're looking moving forward with the budget on that end of just you know, so we're kind of consistent with the enrollment, although I do know that with statutes and all of the other things that the state has um told us that we had to do with unfunded mandates.

Um I understand that, but it would just be interesting to see if we could get that staff big breakdown on um just to be consistent with enrollment.

Sure.

Yeah, and and I I think I I did respond.

I know there's a lot of emails that go back and forth.

Um but it's a really good question.

And I actually would find it fascinating because I I love the historical kind of look at this.

Um I I think to your point, um, you know, you it you would there are certain changes that have happened over time.

For example, we have a director of assessment and accountability.

Um I am I I there is there's no easy way for us to pull that old personnel information.

It would it would be really interesting.

We could do it, it would just it would take a lot of effort to do it.

Um, but I can guarantee you that position didn't exist in 1993 because there was effectively no accountability for schools at all in 1993, like federal accountability didn't exist, there was no NSPF system.

There would have been no, and really there wasn't a whole lot of data activity going on at all, except for you know, adding to averaging together your students' grades and putting a grade in the in the grade book.

Um I think of like IT.

We have a we have a director for um innovation and technology, uh I uh information technology.

We now have 11,000 active devices in the district, and in 1993, we I mean maybe we had 20 to 100.

I I you know I just I don't know.

So I I think there are kind of to your point again with the changes in NRS and just expectations.

Certainly there are some positions now that didn't exist back then, but I don't I don't know all of the ones back then, and there's not there's not really an easy way to gather that information without spending a lot of time, I think digging through old files to try to see it's not just in a it's not in our current software system, and I don't think it would even be in the one before that.

It would I don't even know if there was a software system back then for HR related stuff.

Right, because I think it would be important though, too, for just like even for certified classified to see like you know, the positions in which were grant funded, and then we didn't get the grant, you know.

So say like in 2021, we got a grant, the grant ends, but then the general fund takes over those positions, and it would be interesting to see um what those were, you know, when it um yeah, just to even like certified, classified the non, you know, just the total, you know, staff, um, if that is possible as well.

On that end.

Um and then on that note, too.

I think I would like to be able to to see how many positions we have within the school district that would that were grant funded, no longer are, but now then are put into the general fund.

Like any additional positions that we had had, and that now we pay for them out of the general fund.

But that's all the questions I have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

No other okay, all right.

Okay, that concludes then uh agenda item number 10.

We've already done 11, so that brings us to agenda item number 12, which is the approval of the consent agenda.

This is for possible action.

Do I have a motion?

I am moved that the Carson City School District Board of Trustees approved the consent agenda as submitted.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Oops.

Oh, sorry.

Any public comment.

All right, seeing none.

All in favor, please say aye.

Uh motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

So glad we have legal.

Moving on to agenda item number thirteen informational items.

This is for discussion.

No action will be taken.

Did you all have a moment to read the informational items?

Any questions?

All right.

Seeing none, we will move on to agenda item number 14.

Any requests for future agenda topics.

Anybody?

Are we going to revisit the calendar topic?

Is that coming up on the near next agenda or do you want to talk calendar?

I don't know.

Didn't Mr.

Bringhurst uh exited.

Yeah, we we're planning.

I I believe the next meeting we're planning on bringing it back.

And then um, just so we all are aware as well.

Um, I believe the um the filling of the resignation for trustee walker that closes on the fourth.

Am I correct?

And then we will be doing um the interviews at our March twenty-fifth meeting.

Which one?

March 24th.

Oh, yep, sorry.

Missed a day.

So March 24th meeting.

We will be doing those interviews.

Okay, so that's on the um and then so then on that one as well.

We'll be doing the workshop for the finance, correct?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're prepared.

That one will probably be a longer meeting.

Okay.

So we're all prepared.

Okay.

All right.

So any other future.

No, just a clarification.

The one that we canceled in April was because we are instead doing the like recognition night.

Okay.

Same time, I'm assuming that it's just in the or where did I miss that last year?

I was out of town.

So was it here still in this room?

No, it was in the it was in the it was in the theater.

Okay, and we're looking at it being the same, correct?

Six o'clock.

Okay.

Starting off at six o'clock.

Thank you.

If anything is dependent up.

Okay, great.

I would assume budget issues will come up before long, too, right?

Recommended budget.

All right.

Well, great.

Thank you for that discussion.

And that moves us on to agenda item number 15.

The meeting is adjourned.

Thank you so much.