Dr. Julie Trepa, Superintendent, Boone Community School District, August 11, 2026

Turn that up there so people can hear me. We do have a guest on our program today. Dr. Julie Trepid joins us to talk about what's going on in the Boone School District. Yeah, good morning. And last regular meeting before the new school starts. Yeah, it goes fast. It does, doesn't it? Well, that's one of the things that came up. Short summers, we're finding out there are short summers out there. The Boone School Board did meet last night, again, the last of the regular meetings. So really a lot of things had already been taken care of for the start of the new school years. Oh yeah, absolutely. We were ready. Absolutely, ready and excited to have our staff and students back for sure. Well, and really here within the week, what they start coming in. Yeah, we have our new teachers coming this week and the rest of the staff next week. So yeah, it's exciting. So we have, and I know that the chamber does the new teacher welcome and stuff, which they all of a sudden found out, we've got a lot of new teachers and administrators coming in for Boone, roughly just under a dozen. Just, yeah, about 10 from Boone. And yeah, what I really like about that event is it's all the entire Boone County. So our staff will not only get to know each other, but they'll get to know others in our community and see what Boone has to offer, which is my favorite part. We got that whole part of it there. Well, last night, I'm gonna start with Eric because hey, that was the most fun anyway. And then the more rain we got, just kind of took care of that parking lot project that's going on. Sure did, didn't it? Well, one thing is we did have a change order on that, which easily was not a big issue. In fact, the board even said, do we even need to bring those to us here? There's only $1,300. Big thing though is as the contractor started working on it, there's a lot of stuff buried over there. There's stuff buried in the parking lot that we've got to address and make sure that it's all taken care of before we can get it repaved. So yeah, so there is a delay. I guess it has maybe slowed it down a little bit. It did. As of last night, they're hoping to have it done after Labor Day now. So that means no, that particular student parking lot will not be available when school starts. So I would very much encourage students to carpool the first week. The only other parking that will be available will be at Gepinger Field, where they could park and walk on up. Yeah, until that parking lot is complete, encourage everyone to carpool maybe. Plan? Plan accordingly, because we still need the parking lot for our staff. We're going to have to do that. And you've got to make sure that, well, there's that. Yeah, there is a lot of other things. A surprising, yeah. We thought we had enough parking. Then all of a sudden, here we go. The big thing though that Eric, Eric Barron with the DLR group, and you guys work with them, that started to take a look at, and again, they've targeted again, a number of different facility things. And really we're looking at, we saw it at the middle school last year, the HVAC that needed to be done. Again, 20 years old. Yep. You know, that's not a surprise. You have to maintain the buildings just like we maintain our homes, right? Yeah. Yeah, so we're looking at Franklin for next summer, hoping to get started before the school, your ends actually, as Eric mentioned last night, that it'll be fairly extensive. And it's not the entire building because you do it in parts, some of that maintenance. But yeah, we got our first look at what that might cost. And so that was good information for our board to have so that we can continue to plan for these maintenance pieces as we move forward with our long range facilities plan. Just basically among the things that he talked about, basically it's an HVAC, again, like heating, cooling. It's been large part of the HVAC piece, but since they already will need to be out there, we have some drainage issues out on that playground that we said, while you're there, can you also address this issue? So that is a little bit of an add to the project, but something that we would need to do anyway and will actually be more cost efficient to do at the same time instead of separately, so. And for those that are wondering, it's what you think of just an HVAC unit, not so much, basically because changes were made, we have a geothermal system there. And part of it is going to be an expansion of what's there. Correct. So that's also gonna, that's why we're all of a sudden, we're going about 2.3, the rough estimate at this time. Rough estimate at this point, 2.3 million. That is really what it costs, unfortunately. So we will use our save dollars for that. And that's why the long range facilities planning is so important and why we'll be doing that process. Why we have pebble and things like that. Why we have pebble and why we have save, yes. Both pebble and save help with projects like this, because you do have to maintain the facilities when you have them. And again, those are just, those are some, I'm still waiting for a bus barn, so frankly. That's just me. So is Mike. That's me and Mike, yeah. Yep. Brian would like a maintenance building as well, so yes. We have so many different things. But again, it's part of it's prioritizing and doing what we got with the dollars that we have available. Absolutely. And this one in particular, they're still in design doing work on that. So there'll be more work that'll be coming forward on this. Absolutely. But they would love to, I'm guessing, maybe over the winter time do the bid on this so they could have somebody lined up to start early. And as he pointed out, our summers are short. So unfortunately for those that think, no. They'd love to get started in May sometime if they could. Oh, absolutely. Well, we'll just see. I know all of a sudden when we were sitting there, Brad Winter really got over there to take a look at, what are we talking about here? Exactly, exactly. And again, try to get it done before school starts. So we got a lot happening there too. Let's talk a little bit about, we have some changes that are going on. And again, part of it was elementary counseling. We had made some moves to have on staff, people to do this counseling or provide this service. Yeah, the therapy that we have had historically for K-4 when our staff member decided to leave the district and go out in the community, we didn't wanna lose that service for our students. So that's really what Cindy talked about was bringing in an organization that could also provide that same service for our students. And it will look a little bit different. It is designed for students to have up to six sessions, not meant to be long-term. That's not the role of a school. So that's something that we, the board approved last night so that we could continue our services for our elementary students. And this is one of those things where we've made that move. Again, mental health issues are again, one of the big challenges that we face all over. And helping, because right away, I know she had mentioned that pointing it out was that if they're having an issue, it's an issue that is going to affect them and their learning opportunities. Yes, absolutely. And you wanna make sure that you provide them the support so that they can be learning. So that's really the purpose of having the services available in the schools. And this is an opportunity for us to still provide that service to our students, but at a lesser rate than what we've been paying previously. And I know she explained to the board, we took a look at a number of different opportunities, services that were provided in other schools who could meet what we're looking for. Yeah, it was really important to us to have that in-person opportunity because as you know, we do have classroom clinic that offers some online services for our secondary students, but we just feel strongly that our younger students need that in-person opportunity. So that was something that we really prioritized. So we are working with, again, the company out of Des Moines that provides the service and does it for other schools too. Does it for other schools? Absolutely. You will have the same individual that will be coming up twice a week, one day a week at Ledges, another one at... At Franklin. At Franklin, so working with the elementary. Yeah. Keep doing that. We're excited about that. All right, we now have a schedule for the school board meeting. We do. Okay, well, it's subject to change, but right now we have... Subject to change with regard to, we have a placeholder, right, in October for our facilities. I just think long-range facilities planning isn't something you go into haphazardly, so I anticipate the board spending a considerable amount of time on fine-tuning the plan that the committee has and will be presenting to the board on the 24th of August, so. You know, the facility, and I go back to... I can go back a ways here on this, way before you were here. Absolutely. Again, the long-range plan was, you know, and then all the way up to dealing with some of the elementary issues, which obviously Ledges addressed that. Now it's a matter of, we need to, again, get back to some of the basics and see, again, the maintenance. What are we going to be doing there? What other facility upgrades do we need to be looking at? We had that facilities assessment done for this very purpose, so we knew where our strong priorities were with regard to needing significant either remodeling or rebuilding, and those were athletic facilities, our bus barn, and our maintenance building. Those were all very... High priorities. Yes, very high priorities, and so those are things that need to be reflected in that long-range facility plan. Not as exciting as a new elementary building, right? But especially when you talk about bus barns and maintenance buildings, but it's very, very critical to the running of a school district. So those are the three areas that we'll need to have some high priority, but then at the same time, as we've talked, we need to ensure that we're still maintaining the buildings we do have as we go through that process. So that will be the task, and it's not an easy task. And again, we mentioned already, even with what's going on in Franklin, yes, we have new additions up there. We've done remodeling up there, too, but a lot of the bones of the building are a little older. The same with... Middle school. I'm sorry, but some of the new parts of the high school... High school. Oh, high school also, absolutely. High school, middle school, Franklin, all have. And it's funny how quickly things are no longer new, right? So ledges, before you know it, will be in a similar situation where we'll have some significant maintenance pieces we'll have to do, too. Well, just like we talked. At least within the long-range facilities plan, because that's a 10-year plan. And we talked about even last year when the work was going on at the middle school. It is 20 years old. The building's over 20 years old now. And we have to continue to maintain those buildings in the manner so that we won't need new buildings, right? So we have the big focus, really, is to spend some time and really work on coming together and solidify a long-range plan for facilities. Absolutely.

Pardon me. That's fine. But we also know that regular meetings are going on and you kind of did revamp some things, like let's put some work sessions together with other meetings. And then even part of our educational thing last night was can we have a little better direction on some of these work sessions? So we want to know that they're being productive. Yeah, I think the board shared that they want to ensure as they're going through their own board learning. One of the roles of a board is to provide staff, myself, the administrative team, and our teachers with clear expectations and direction for the district. And they were just having conversations around, do we feel like that's happening? And how can we ensure that the board is accomplishing that goal? And so I think it's been fun. We're only into chapter two of their board learning, but I think it's a quality conversation that ensures that we're continuing to be continuous learners as a district. And that's how you get better every day. I did like, again, this is part of the commitment, I guess, that you do as a board member, again, because of the massive reimbursement you get. Thank you. But leadership for learning, and again, this is stuff that comes out of the School Board's Association, basically. It came out of the Iowa Association of School Boards providing school board members with some professional development to kind of know what the role of a board member is and how to exceed and excel in that. So I applaud our board for taking that kind of time, because they had to read that on their own. They have to develop their leadings, these chapters themselves. And it's a real commitment beyond just showing up in a meeting. They really do have to invest a lot of time outside of that meeting time to accomplish the goals that they have. So, and that's what, it was interesting watching, because, again, they're kind of, well, obviously, one of the first things was, again, making sure that we all have the same story. Yes. We know where we want to go. And the question is, how do we? That we're in line throughout the district, that it doesn't matter where you go. We all know, yeah, what is our vision and our mission, and that we all know that. And we're all headed in that same direction. That was part of the educational session. It was. Chapter two. Chapter two. Mr. Narm has the chapter three coming up next to me. Yes, he does. The board last night, again, this was an easy one. We've done this a couple of years now. It has to do with the nutrition fund, the indirect cost transfer. Again, it's just a bookkeeping move that's made. To pull it. Took care of that and explained everything to him. Yeah. It goes back to those pots of money that school districts have to work within. So I'm just ensuring that those general fund types of expenditures are actually put into the general funds. All right. Here we go. Policies, and there were a lot. And all school districts are going through this at the same time, because you all have to do this. New state laws have created something. Probably the big one had to be disruptive behavior in classrooms. And that's something that legislature passed, governor signed, and basically went into effect right away. But we don't have much in the way of any guidelines on what to be looking. Yeah, the rules, the way that works when a bill is passed and it becomes law is then the Department of Education has an opportunity to develop rules for all of the school districts around that legislation. Unfortunately, their timeline is usually around December. And we have to enact it in July. So we are working together to ensure that we're implementing the bill as we believe is it was intended to be implemented. And as more guidance continues to come out, we will adjust and shift to ensure that we're compliant with those implementation rules. Which means we don't know yet, but we're going to say this is the law, so we'll follow it. Yeah, and I think that you will find across the state that we're all handling it very similarly. So yeah, it's going to be great. It really will be fine. I think that we have an amazing staff and an administrative team that we feel like we already kind of know how to handle situations that may be disruptive. But this law just helps clarify what school districts need to ensure are happening. I think some changes might be just some pieces around when parent meetings must happen versus when we feel, you know, hey, we think it's time to bring parents in. The law requires parents to come in at certain times for a variety of reasons. So that's one thing. Yeah, it will be something that we'll all work to fine-tune. It's one of those challenges. And once again, the legislature, this is one they went after. So we'll work with it. Absolutely. And we're spending a significant amount of time in our professional development in the beginning there to help our teachers understand what's expected and understand what the bill says or what the law says and ensure that we have consistency across our system. Because now teachers will have in each building a committee that they have to leave. So that is a change for them. There's more in there, too, folks. There's a lot of new policies that they're working through. But these are the ones that are still going to kind of raise some questions for folks. And it's going to be out there. And again, the administrative team updating handbooks and things like that, too. Again, you've got to leave some information there. And we'll have some infographics for parents, as well as Neil had said, hey, can we just also link in the actual law? So if people want to read the law themselves, they can. And absolutely, we will do that. Because I think it's important if people have that interest that they know how to access that information. So our buildings are not totally quiet in the summertime. They are not. We had Jed Hammond. Actually, he was recruited. He was. He was going to bring a student with him. But they had, as he said, got a better offer. So anyway, again, it's part of the Thespian. He works with that particular group. Described it kind of as people are familiar with the structure of FFA. And we have our local FFA. And then there's the state. And then there's a national group. Thespians have the same kind of structure. Absolutely. And he did say that we got to host an event, a leadership event. Yes, last weekend. So a leadership event. So similar to other organizations, Thespians have a local leadership group and then a state leadership group and national. And so really, we hosted a leadership event for the entire state at Boone High last weekend. And I think there were, what, about 120 or so students? Over 150. 150. There you go. 150 leaders from across the state that came to learn how to continue their leadership skills. And as they progressed through their Thespian organization. And so we had five attend from Boone. And as Judd said, it was really nice to get to host, because normally we're on the road to wherever he being hosted. And he shared that there were many compliments around the facilities and how much people enjoyed being at Boone. So that was a lovely accolade that we were able to receive hosting this leadership event. So and came as he said, basically, coast to coast and border to border. They all came to Boone. I think what's exciting is we do have our own student that is on the state board and was elected as a sophomore, which is highly unusual. So that is really exciting to have our own local area represented at the state level as well. So again, it was pretty interesting. One of those where nobody really knew it was happening, but here we had people from all over the state were checking it out. So I appreciated Judd's ability to come last minute, because I was like, you know, it'd be really great if you could share about this, because it was really exciting. Let's see. School ready to start. So 24th for you guys. So the 24th for secondary, a reminder that all of our elementary students, parents meet with teachers those first two days in parent-teacher conferences. So elementary don't start till the 26th preschool even later. So there was a district newsletter that went out at the end of July that had those dates on it. So if you don't recall that, please look at that district newsletter for those important dates. For those that may have missed doing any registration things, do it now online. Yep, please register now, because that will also ensure that you'll be receiving these district news letters every month, as well. We hope are helpful in providing you with information that you need. We also had sent out earlier this summer, fairly recently, some applications for meal benefits, if that's something you have to reduce prices. There is also a waiver there if you need that to be applied to fees, as well, because those are two separate things. So that's something that went out. I believe there is a parent square message that went out yesterday, as well. So just keep in mind that if you aren't sure, just fill it out. Because you may be able to benefit from that help. The free and reduced, even if you know you're not going to qualify for it, fill it out anyway, because that data is all used when federal information is sought. That definitely impacts the amount of money that we receive. So it's very beneficial not only to families themselves if they were to receive the benefits, but to the school district if we can accurately reflect the numbers of students that have that need. Well, we're always going to have someone going, I know that something came out, but I missed it. Where do I go to find out more? You go to the website. Go to the website, which, by the way, is new and updated. Yeah, parent square is running our website. You just go. Got it done. Julie Trep, Dr. Julie Trep, our guest on our program today. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.