Tuned In

With Josh Hyer, Josh of course superintendent from the Ogden School District, welcome to summer break. Thanks for having me in today, Jim. All right, we got all kinds of things happening. Okay, what's happening in Ogden for summer time? I know you usually have typically, I know you've got projects going on, but last meeting, basically getting things set up for what's going on here in the summer time. I know the big one is the school parking lot, which, as we said before, is going to be a little inconvenient for people, but they're working with it. Yeah, absolutely. People are really doing a good job. We communicated ahead of time on really communicating where people needed to park when they're coming to summer events and activities, and the project is well underway. They've done a lot of demolition work. So if you come to our campus at the middle school, high school, all of what used to be the parking lot is all but gone, and they've started to do some dirt work, met with the contractor last week, and they're actually anticipating starting to pour concrete the week of July 6th. So I mean, we're really not too far away, but yeah, all things considering, I thought they'd maybe be a little bit further, but it seems like during the month of June, we'd have a rain, it'd dry out for three days, and then yet we'd have another rain. And they were big enough rain to create some issues. But overall, the people that have come to our campus, they've been great. They've been parking in the back portion for our softball baseball events and understanding, you know, and I think it's a short term for ultimately a large gain that we'll be able to have. I know Ryan visiting with Reed, he says, you know, we're making it work, you know. People know, but once it's done, it's really going to be appreciated. Well you had fun days, and that's one of the areas kind of lining up there. A lot of people go by there to get set and lined up for. So they do. They knew there was going to be some congestion. Yeah, and honestly, even for that, I think overall it worked out fairly well. Worked with Shannon Saffley on kind of the parade route and allowing people to kind of park at our campus, and they had already completed some of the pouring in May of the parking lot, so they were able to park there, and overall it worked out well. We had that going on, we had the fun run for our cross-country program, and then actually our volleyball program started something new this year. The volleyball tournament, too. They had a little volleyball tournament, and it was for some of the adults as well as for some of the students, and overall I think it was a great first annual, and I'm hopeful that this just becomes kind of the tradition and the things that we do, similar to the fun run. Well, it's kind of like when you have those coaches that are willing to get their players to help, okay, because that's part of what makes it go, is having some of the players and some of the younger people help you get it going. But if they're willing to step up and do it, yeah, you can have a lot of great events happening there. You're exactly right, Jim, and behind all those things is a really dedicated individual, and I think prime example, Ryan Kabliska does a great job with our cross-country program. I'm sure he probably may be organized. I don't know the epitome of the fun run, but I'm sure he was probably behind it. I think that, well, you had a lot of runners, too. People that just like to run there, so that was one of the big things, too. Well, that part of it, and I know that was just some of the things that were happening, but again, bottom line is definitely having a lot of, it's highly visible, and everybody kind of knew it was coming, and now it's just the anticipation of getting it done in time. The other thing, of course, came up at the meeting, and we've talked about this, too, the second big part of facilities that you're looking at, and they need to remember, the parking lot's like a million-dollar project. I believe overall it was 1.3 million is what that overall bid came in as. Yeah, so if they're wondering by comparison, the little one that Boone's doing is like 400 and some thousand. Well, the bid was, they were estimating around 900,000, but they got it for about four and a half, so they'll take that. But the other big part for you, and you were kind of, the board was kind of encouraging your architect, let's get moving here. You did have more information came out on the project for the elementary, and obviously this is a big one. You wanted to get this thing going because you want demolition done before school starts, so again, this is a big step, and they're moving ahead pretty quick. Yeah, I'm really excited about this project. This was really the large portion of what you're mentioning that we're excited and hoping to move forward, and at our June regular meeting, indeed, the board did move it forward. So ultimately right now, they approved the final completion of those plans. They set the public hearing date, and they... It's going to be here coming up pretty quick. It will. July 27th is when we're going to be having that, and they also allowed us to go ahead and publish the notice. So what all that really ultimately means is that the contractors are able to start to look at the prints from FRK and determine do they want to bid on the project or not. Bids will be accepted until I believe July 21st, and at that time we'll have an opening of those bids, and hopefully then we will present to the board on July 27th, which would be a special board meeting. We'll have A, a public hearing about the project, and then B, after that, hopeful the board will accept the winning contract, and they'll sign into agreement, which will allow us then to move forward with the demolition, hopefully, during that short window before school starts. And that's all part of the contract. Well, the upside for the contractors is that it's far enough ahead they can look, they can gauge, okay, this part we need would have to be done by this time, and then we can go from there. And it's really a multi-step process, multi-phase, if you will. The demolition is critical and timely. We ideally want to get that done before students come in. But then really... I think they kind of block that area off, Ken, and they could just do their construction. Absolutely. During the school year, it's underneath the gymnasium, so it will not really impact, significantly impact instruction. They'll renovate and improve that space. And then when school is dismissed, about 11 months from now, we will actually do the final improvements in the spaces that are currently being occupied. So what are we looking at, I mean, because obviously part of this is kind of re-organizing, restructuring where things are located and stuff like that. So what are you looking to go into the area that will be worked on first? You're going to be shifting some programs and things there. Yeah, first and foremost, underneath the gymnasium, there's complete renovation, but our media center, our art room, our computer science, and our TAG program will be relocated underneath there. And then ultimately, by getting that square footage, and then in June of next year, May June, they will re-identify those spaces, and we'll have expansion of some other programs. We'll have some flex classrooms, so that way if we need more sections at the elementary, due to maybe class size overall enrollment, as well as our special education, making sure that we're able to serve the needs of our students. And then also just for outside agencies, you know, if we had a school-based therapist, where are we going to house them? If AA comes in for a speech-language pathologist, where do they actually have a space or a location? So it gives you some space flexibility. It does give us more flexibility without expanding out, and we're actually just being more intentional in using the brick-and-mortar that we currently had at that campus. The North Campus is actually a very nice campus. We're just being a little bit more intentional with the new design and maximizing all that brick-and-mortar to its fullest. Yeah, because while it was part of the old building, and then you had the new addition on there and everything. I mean, obviously, when you go down to just having the two buildings that kind of put people in, and are we making the best use of the space that we have? You're exactly right. And that's the thing that I'm excited about with this. I think that it's really going to allow us the ability to serve our needs, K5, for many years to come on that North Campus. And I know you, Madrid, has Boone's done it, but sitting down with facilities, you did have a lot of people come in and participate, community. Because that's the big thing, too. They may or may not have children that are in school or had them at one time, but maybe they have grandkids coming up. What's going to be the best? Where are we going to get the most bang for our buck? That's exactly right. We had that meeting with either administration, buildings and grounds director, some staff, and some community members, like you were mentioning. We really kind of tease the question of, what do you anticipate our needs to be moving forward? So we're trying to marry what our needs are versus also just the management of our facilities and the wear and tear. I think some of those things, they naturally wear down and break, and our need improvement. So we're not just trying to do maintenance. We're also trying to do the visioning of what does schooling and education look like, moving forward for Ogden for many years to come, and then ultimately create that space. With what you've got right now, of course, a lot of things had been completed, so we're not talking like major kinds of other work in carpet replacement, things like that. Painting maybe? You've got some of that. They always seem to find things to paint. Yeah, there will be some surface upgrades and improvements. Basically things like that. Yes, absolutely. They happen every year. Anna, I did want to talk because I know we've discussed in the past some of the financial part of it. Obviously, when the voters approved the pebble, that was big because that extended out the life of what you had, and that's physical plant equipment, and that's part of your financing for this. The other part was some of the state tax dollars that come in, and the legislature kind of made a move that kind of put some pressure on, at least what Ogden's done, and I'm imagining you're not the only school district that had done some long-range planning and had anticipated the kind of revenue stream that they were going to be getting, and now all of a sudden a portion of that's being taken away. So yeah, to really mention kind of what you're discussing there, physical plant equipment levy was extended for 10 years based off of the vote that we had and that we took to our patrons back in November. The projects that we have just been previously discussing are all going to be paid with the revenue from that pebble, and then we had some previous projects that were done, such as the new gymnasium that we completed. That was a save bond, and I think when you're starting to make those decisions that they made back in 21-22, they were going off of knowing that this is going to the save dollars that we're going to have, we're going to be for certain duration, and the last legislative session, they extended that, so I appreciate that, but they also reduced the amount of the portion that schools would be receiving, and they're really using some of that for property tax reduction. So just got to be really strategic with those dollars that we're going to be receiving, and working with our financial folks is just making sure that we can pay back those loans that we had for that project. Because they'll sit down and they can run the numbers for you, which is what that's why they're there. That's what you have. Yeah. Melissa's going, what is this going to do? Based off of the percentage that we will get, we get a per-mount per-pupil, and we'll be able to kind of anticipate the revenue that we'll be able to receive versus the debt that we have, and making sure that we'll be able to stay on top of that, which I believe that we'll be able to do. Right now, narrow margin. Let's go with that. A very narrow margin. Things will be tight for a few years. So we'll just keep our fingers crossed, everything will work for that. Yeah. Well, and those are some of the things that the legislature did that, you know, they may have talked about it, I'm not sure, but the consequences, and again, the Ogden district not the only one. All the districts that were doing financing like that, or it had plans for those resources, now all of a sudden it's changed a little bit. Yeah, I talked to a couple other superintendents across the state, and they were all but ready to pull out safe, and they had to go back to the drawing boards with their engineers or architects, and really maybe narrow the scope of the project, because maybe they were anticipating X amount of dollars, and with these changes, well, they just had to go back and revisit it. And for patrons, yes, there will be that property tax reduction part, but bottom line is still you might have some issues coming up for your school buildings. That is one of the... Basically, it's the buildings, because that's what a lot of the saved dollars goes. Saved dollars are specifically for similar, and pretty similar to the pebble physical plane equipment levy, it's dollars that we're able to utilize for ultimately some of those improvement areas. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed for you. The legislature did a few other things. Let's talk a little bit about some of those. One of them, screen time for kids, that was one of the things I had heard about. What kind of impact does that have? Yeah, so we just got done talking about a lot of the projects, and we're overseeing and managing a lot of that during the summer. We're also in the midst of planning and preparing for the start of the school year, and one of those things is we need to know what legislative changes came out, and when do they actually are enacted. Some of them are upon signature. Some of them, they give us a year to process and analyze. Some of them have an August one start. The one that you just previously mentioned is screen time. They are limiting for K-5 students, ultimate screen time for students 60 minutes a day. That's something that we're really just analyzing and looking, and we're going to do an audit of how much screen time our students actually have. I think there is a push for the increase in usage of technology, but we want to make sure that the usage is intentional, making sure that there's some thought behind it, and I'm confident that our teachers have already done that, and they're going to really look and revisit this. I think that we're going to be within the 60 minutes, and if we're not, we're just going to be really intentional with how are we using that technology and that screen time and maximizing and ensuring that that technology is an enhancement to their learning and ultimately their instruction. Those would be one of the things the boards, obviously they pay attention to things like that. We're not on the screens to go watching Bluey or whatever. Most of it is networking. Even at an early age, young kids, you get groups that work together on things. I think they talk a lot about collaboration and communication and creativity, and we want those things. We want to make sure that we're using technology purposefully and intentionally for those purposes. I think sometimes maybe when it's not used for those purposes and intent, I think then we get a bad name, and then we get legislation that really limits those types of things. Again, I think that we're probably okay based off of initial conversations with some of our administration, and if we're not, after we do the audit, again, we're going to follow the law, and we're going to making sure that our lesson plans and our structure and how we're using those technology tools are intentional and making sure that our kids are getting that 60 minutes or less, but we're going to make sure that we are continually using that technology, too, to enhance. Knowing the former government teachers, I'm sure the civics test question is, you know, that's not a big issue. Well, that's another thing that came out, yeah, so there will be a civics test. I think that's probably what you're mentioning there, and all graduates, before they walk across the stage, they have to be able to pass a civics test exam. We've been known actually about this for a while, but it's actually going to come in place this school year. So we'll have to do that, even though they probably already are well-versed. I think that they're probably going to be okay. The great thing is, is that, you know, you can start to administer that test at any point during the high school career, and we'll make sure that our kids get multiple opportunities to be able to assess and making sure that that is not a barrier to their graduation. I did want to ask, because I know other districts get the presentation, so I'm guessing you do two fast test results. What did they look like for Ogden? Can you kind of summarize a little bit on where we're at there? So we use fast testing. We do that three times a year. It's kind of a diagnostic. That's what I was going to say. Yes. Not like on the scores, but it gives you an idea if we're headed in the right direction. That's correct. We do a fall, a winter, and a spring, and really our teachers are utilizing that information as a data point on how are the students progressing in their ultimate growth, and then hopefully use that information. Not hopefully. We do use that information in what's called MTSS, multi-tier systems of support, and if some kids are tracking with the appropriate growth, we know that tier one instruction, which is basically the day-to-day core instruction that they are receiving, kids are doing well with that. And we know some kids maybe need an extra dose, which we would call that tier two or tier three, and we use that fast bridge testing to really kind of tease out where are those kids at and do they need that extra dose of tier two or tier three. So that's kind of how we use our fast bridge testing to monitor all students. It's literacy and math. It's literacy and math is what fast testing is, and again, we are just using that to making sure that all kids are growing, and some kids just grow at different rates. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, I know on the math side, some of them that I've seen, they're making improvement, but they might not be in one specific area that was assessed, and then you're going, well, we haven't even broached that in class yet, so. That's correct. And that's another thing too, is sometimes they're being assessed on a domain that maybe we haven't taught, so it may be the winter fast testing, and maybe they're struggling in some of the geometry skills, well, geometry might be that next unit that those teachers, so there's some rationale or understanding on that, and then we're able to cover those skills when we get to that unit. The literacy one, I know, I've seen some that have done really. Well, a lot of it is retention, and I mean, there's different aspects of it to follow, but it also includes speed of reading, you know. Some do really well, read well, understand and comprehend, but they don't do it very fast. I mean, you know, there's a number of different things that you pick up out of that. Yeah, absolutely. What you're mentioning there is it says some of our lower grades, fluency is a critical aspect, and we might have students that maybe aren't proficient with their fluency, but they are comprehending. So, we, I mean, I care about both. It covers everything. But ultimately, I think we want kids to be able to comprehend what they're reading and be able to interpret that information. Let's talk about eighth grade sports, or eligibility. Eligibility. Yeah, the eligibility of eighth graders, and Ogden district, maybe you might have some, I don't know, again, different athletes turn out differently. I've seen eighth graders that would start varsity basketball games, but I've also seen eighth graders that would not be doing that. Yeah. For our listeners, they ultimately, they previously had eligibility if you were to transfer. It was a 90 days, but then when I say 90 days, that's actually school days. And with a number of either year round schools and or specifically, we had some that were going to four day school days, that 90 days of instruction was not equitable. So in the last legislative session, they went from 90 school days to 140 calendar days. And they also allowed eighth graders to be eligible for varsity high school competition. So the DE has kind of looked at that, gave some guidance. And now our association, both the boys and the girls are trying to make an understanding and interpretation of what actually that DE information provided us. And now they're giving school districts guidance. So we're really trying to sift through all that information and make heads or tails of it because by August 1st, across the state of Iowa, our eighth graders may be eligible for high school sports. What I would tell you, Jim, with that is as we're going to make the right decision that's in the best interest of the student. You know, and there are maybe going to be case by case situations where an eighth grader actually could be successful and it's the right move for them. I'm thinking, and this is Joshua speaking, you might have a cross country runner that might be a top six or seven runner for a smaller school. And it's appropriate for maybe that head coach to make that choice to move them up. Whereas you might have a very successful eighth grade football player, but they're also 13 years old and moving them up to compete against 18-year-olds maybe isn't necessarily the best interest of that individual. So rather than me brushing a broad stroke on this and saying all eighth graders are now going to be, it's going to be on a case by case decision. And there's more conversations that we need to have internally to really figure out exactly what this is going to look like. The association's really starting to go to work on what kind of advice can we provide to them? And they already, I was on a webinar last week and they're able to really start to delineate exactly some of this information so that then we can ultimately work with our boards, work with our athletic directors, and then also really communicate this information to our families so that they understand exactly what does this mean. Plenty going on. There is a lot going on and really that's just prime example of the summer. I think a lot of times people have that misconception that we're not doing anything this summer or two. There's truly a lot of things that are going on either with projects and making sure that the facilities are getting upgraded, deep cleaning that's going on, but then also just getting ready for kids when they walk in the building that we're ready to go and we have a good understanding of what's all taking place. So I know that obviously Reg Bride is going to be coming through on the 21st. So boosters, are they doing something? Are they teaming up with others? Do we know what's happening? Yeah, I have a somewhat of a deeper understanding. I'm more excited to host Reg Bride before they head over to Boone for the overnight, but they will be on the 21st coming up a portion of Highway 169 entering into our town and then exiting I believe on old Highway 30 as they head over to Boone. You're going to make a loop there. Yeah, we're going to make a loop in our town and we're excited to host them. I know that our activities, I believe our fine arts boosters and our athletic boosters are going to be doing some things and then I know our elementary campus, they're going to be having a kind of an event or a venue. So there will be a number of opportunities for the riders to stop by and support our programming within our school. I know more about being a bulldog. Learn about being a bulldog and how great it is. So multiple meetings for you in July, regular meeting what, 13? We got July 13th, which will be our regular meeting at six o'clock and then we do have a special meeting as previously mentioned on July 27th at six o'clock and that would be a two-fold. We may have some business that has to get done, but the main purpose of that meeting would be A, the public hearing for the elementary project and then the B would be the board to take action on the contract that we would be issuing to the little bit. Joshua Hire, Ogden Superintendent, our guest. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.