Dr Julie Trepa, Superintendent, Boone Community School District, February 26, 2026

On our program today, we are visiting with Boone School Superintendent Dr. Julie Trepa. Hello. Well, it's been kind of a busy month. It's been a very busy month. So who would have thought we would have had above normal temperatures and then a day off. Right? No. Right?

And you know what, the snowfall amount was more than actually we had in February last year. So if you want to feel better about that, I guess. I know it does. I just would like this to be it so that all of our snow make up days are accounted for now.

We'll go to school on April 27th and let's just keep it at that. All right. We'll do our best on that. Just make sure the weather cooperates, Jim. That'd be great. We'll do one. Like I have a lot of control. Speaking of weather, well, not necessarily, but school calendar. Yeah.

And we started out, we kind of had a couple of ideas. Again, Jill Janes was talking about it. We had a couple ideas and then after the activities and again, restructuring that we were doing in middle and into the middle school and elementary for art and PE and stuff like that.

How are we going to need an early out Wednesday? So they kind of threw together a quick calendar for that. Right.

So we threw one together originally, just in case that would be necessary and really looking at the schedules, we think we're pretty confident that we can continue with not having their early, like weekly, early releases.

And so we did share with the board yesterday that that's something that we would not be moving forward with a recommendation on, that really we were focused on calendar two, which is the calendar that gets out before June. That's our goal. That would be the goal.

And again, very kind of comparable to what we've got this year. Very comparable. There are a couple of early releases before breaks in the next one compared to this year, just because of where the holidays fell.

But keeping the full day PD days instead of the early releases, very comparable. I think, yeah, that's really the main difference. And then I think we would go to school on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I believe.

Instead to again, try to compensate so we wouldn't have to go past that Memorial Day date. We'll work on it. Yeah.

So I did want to ask again, because now this, this will be coming up again, the board will actually do the public hearing and vote on it at their March meeting, but the full day for professional development has it been working as well as you had hoped, because it does give you more time.

It gives more time also vertically, so that even between buildings, we can do a lot of work that teachers could get together for that you don't always have that opportunity when you don't have as much time. So I think it's been a very popular change.

We feel really good about the quality of time that we do have with our students, not having those early releases.

I think it was pretty well known that those early release days were a little crazy and not having those has been beneficial to student learning from anecdotally anyway.

So people have been really happy with the full day when we spoke with our SIAC partners, our school improvement advisory council. They as parents really have appreciated having the full day over the two times a month of early releases.

So we were happy when we were able to say pretty confidently that we could not have that early release calendar out. So I think that I think the big thing was for a lot of parents, is it early out this week or is it not? Now it's just, are we having a long weekend?

Exactly, and so we'll continue with that. That's our proposal. So March 9th, the public hearing for the calendar. We'll have that going. Let's do the public hearings first because one of the next ones, I think all the school districts did the same date and time. Did we?

I think so. Just a mess with you, Joe. It's the property tax, the maximum property tax levy.

You're required to do the publication, put that out, do a public hearing on it and get it to the auditor so she can do the mailing, the mandated, I got to, I'm gonna pin it on the legislature because they're the ones that did this.

The mandated mailing that puts out all these property tax rates, levy rates. Gonna be on the 23rd of March, five o'clock, I think a solo meeting, right? Or six o'clock. The five o'clock is the first one for the public hearing. The second one is six, I believe.

Six at the certified budget. That's what it is, yeah, for the certified budget. That's in April. In April, yes. We had lots of meetings that we talked about. Yeah, I know you did.

Yeah, so unfortunately, because of the way the law's written and timelines, there are certain time frames that we have to publish these public hearings and time frames that you have to have the public hearings in and you do have to work backwards like Paulette said.

Start with the end in mind, this is when they're due. We need this much time for, you know. To get all that done. To get all that done. So really need to be done by, yeah. April 30th, well, pretty much. Very, very quickly.

So yeah, lots of public hearings coming on on the tax pieces, yeah. And you will have a special meeting, next Tuesday, actually. Next Tuesday. Yep, I got that one right. I made a note here. Budget, certified budget. So you'll be working on budget.

So that we can then make sure that when we put that out, paper that it's accurate and we all know what it means. And we feel pretty confident, 2% is what it's gonna, well, that's what they sent to the governor. That's what they sent. That's what she had asked for. That's correct.

We are anticipating that to actually go through, yes. Well, we do have, you could work on all of that. We got a lot of numbers. All that can work through those. Yep. But we did have a number of other things that we're going on.

Speaking of numbers, we got the, I always get a kick out of the fast. Oh, yeah. Dr. Janes kind of reviewed some of the information on there and raised some questions because I did like, in fact, she picked second graders.

Because I'm looking at that and you see, okay, in fall, they read, you know, they had this fast and they had this accuracy. And then all of a sudden in winter, they went down and everybody's going, oh no. But the accuracy was way up.

So now it's a matter of getting the right blend. Yeah, well, so as she shared, I think it was really nice to look at some of that data a little differently than we have in the past to look at the growth of the students. So how much did they grow?

Because what we receive in those fast charts that you have in front of the board typically is just that benchmark piece. So you could have a student that grows aggressively that maybe didn't reach the benchmark.

So it doesn't show on that, but then, you know, okay, we are on the right track because they're growing aggressively. They will be able to close that gap and they will be successful by the end of the year.

So I thought it was really good for her to look at that information from the growth perspective because that's really what helps us know whether our interventions are working or they are not.

For most people, if they just look at the numbers, they go, well, you're not getting better. But you might be getting better. It's just, you're not seeing it yet. And our scores from the benchmark perspective actually were higher than they have typically been in the winter.

We've always, for whatever reason, seen a lot of dips in the winter and then it spiked back up in the spring.

So we were actually encouraged even with some of the benchmark data, but even more encouraged by the growth indicators that we were able to identify for each student so that we could ensure that every student's growing because as we've shared before, maybe someone's already meeting that benchmark, but if they don't grow, that's concerning to us as well.

So being able to see that they're still growing, even if they started out proficient, they're still growing, that's what we really wanna make sure happens.

I did like the, and some of the terminology, I even backed by Brad Winters, had to explain some of the thing about collegiate. No, it's not for college prep folks. It's just some of the terminology that gets used for it.

But again, proving that, so I'm aggressive in this category, I might not have hit that level, but I had huge growth. So it's one of those things it's all, gotta look at all these numbers. And those that were proficient, that they were also maybe in the advanced level.

So it's more than just, did you meet that mark? But how far above that mark were you? Because I believe the example that Mr. Renner gave, there were half of the class were in the advanced category, which is far above that benchmark.

So lots of different ways to look at data, and it's good to do that. But these are, again, the board, well, the required test passed, is that fair? So this is something that I know we keep getting information on and stuff like that.

Yeah, everyone's required to do that test three times a year, and yeah. So it's something. We'll do it again in the spring. Another mandate? Yeah, it is another mandate. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Do, is this the one that's done online? They do do all of their assessments now.

Okay, done online. I was gonna say too, the part we just talked about reading, but math, you guys are really doing well. Yes, yes.

Saw some great strides in math, but keeping in mind that we did make some curricular changes before we did the language arts, so it makes sense that we're seeing some of that, some of the results from those changes in math, and that's encouraging.

So also encouraging that we might see that in language arts as well. Well, we had a lengthy presentation from Lindsay. Yes. Again, we're talking about district, career and academic planning, and again, it sounds like we have mandates on this too. We do have mandates on this.

Again, and people wonder why we have to have people doing these things, because we get these mandates. District career planning, and now they've just added in, you have to do middle school as well. Yes. But this really is, how well are we doing? How are we making that contact?

How are we delivering the opportunities to students? Right, how are we ensuring that there's some kind of career awareness, career planning that's happening, not just at the high school level, but the middle school level?

And I do feel that Boone had a little bit of an advantage in that we had already been working with middle schoolers on some of those items.

Now, we just have to make sure that the things we're doing are meeting what the mandates are requiring, and maybe formalizing it more than what we had before.

So that's a lot of what Lindsey talked about, was how we're doing some of those things in fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade that we've been doing at the high school level. And obviously, you adjust it for the grade levels that you're with, so.

And she did say, I don't like to go back, but we had to go 24, 25, and 25, 26, and how are we doing, and how are we building? Yeah. What a very nice PowerPoint, by the way. People want to go online and find that presentation. Yeah, like she said, the report itself is 57 pages.

So yeah. It's there. It was, I found it pretty interesting, some of the things that she was saying. I did, one thing that's coming up, and John Johnson wasn't there, but Justin Johnson was. We're talking about the high school course handbook.

We got some changes that are coming, but this is not uncommon. This shows up. We always have changes every year, yeah.

So really just talked a little bit about how shifting, because of the new social studies standards incorporate a lot of financial literacy pieces that they didn't before, and it's really coming more in the econ or economics class. Used to be more business focused.

Now it's more social studies focused just because of standards. So that was one of the changes. Mr. Johnson also talked a little bit about how Mr. Truckett Miller is going to be able to accommodate any of our orchestra students in grades nine through 12 next year.

If they still want to continue to play their orchestra instrument, stringed instrument, they'll be able to participate in the band with their stringed instrument. So kudos to Mr. Truckett Miller in ensuring that they can continue on that path, that that's what they would desire.

So that message was sent out to parents so that they'd be aware as their students were signing up for classes in the future. So Mr. Johnson just shared a little bit about that. I'm just trying to picture the sheet that he handed out so I can remember what else he shared.

There weren't a lot of changes. It was just, just shifts. So they talked about information systems and how we will still have Boone TV. Really trying to have more of a career focus on it though. Just as we talk about staffing, it makes sense.

Our kids that go through Boone TV do oftentimes have a desire to go into that field. And so really trying to provide some more opportunities, more through edge with Boone TV as they get into the higher levels versus a standalone course per se.

So that was something that he talked a little bit about how trying to maybe provide more career minded supports around Boone TV and information systems. Just doing that a little bit differently.

So still offering all those things but trying to help our students think more post-secondary about it as well. No. Busy? I mean, these are changes that, and I know that some of the board thought, we need to make sure that parents know this. Yes.

And that these changes are coming and it'll be out there. Yes, so they do share with parents this information.

So please read those newsletters that you get and the updates from the high school because they will be sending that information out so that you can help have those conversations with your student about signing up for classes that match the plan that they have.

That was something that Lindsey talked about. Was there individual career plans that they have to develop in eighth grade? And that's part of what helps them decide what to take in high school too.

Well, I know that, and I did wanna jump back to that because right away people will say, well, you're talking about the career plan. You're talking about edge. No. No. Edge is part of a tool. For this. Correct. It's not what it's about. We've always had.

Every student will have has a career plan, every single student. And so yeah, edge is one of the vehicles they can use to leverage that plan that they have, but not all students leverage edge to follow their career path.

So it can be a wide variety of ways that they can fulfill that. Again, it was one of those, because I know when we're talking about career, and I remember many years ago, that was one of the things counselors were doing was trying to see, do you have a career?

What is your interest? Do you wanna go to? Now this is just refining a lot. It is refining it, and we put a lot of emphasis on that through edge, obviously, and our Portrait of a Graduate.

One of our goals with Portrait of a Graduate is allowing students to be prepared for whatever path they may choose. And the only way you can help prepare them for that is to prepare them for any choice they may have.

And a lot of the jobs that they're going to have aren't in existence yet. So we need to allow them to shift and pivot and have the capacity to do that. So that's the goal in giving them these opportunities while they're in middle school and high school.

I was gonna say, one of the things she showed was some of the data, the survey students, are you thinking of going into post-secondary? Yeah. And that number kinda dropped off here in the last couple of years.

Partly, I'm guessing, because students are starting to see that there are opportunities that they can pursue, and still down the road, if they want, be able to attain a degree.

Yeah, and so I think it's difficult because they don't include all post-secondary opportunities in that data. She shared the military's not accommodated in that, and some of our trades pieces are not accommodated in that data.

So sometimes it can be a little misleading, but what we're wanting to ensure is whatever they choose to go into that they actually follow through with and are able to maintain.

And there's so many factors that go into that that are beyond our control, but we wanna make sure that we're looking at that data to see if we are helping make those decisions and feel confident in those decisions. I know. We got a lot of work. We have a lot of work, right?

It seems like a lot of work to me. It is, it is. Not like the old days. But it's great work, yes. Not like the old days when I showed up and you did industrial arts and you did home. Right.

Yeah, there's a lot more, and to your point, there are mandates, and the mandates are there for a good reason. They're to ensure that our students have great opportunities. So, but that is a requirement.

I would be remiss if I didn't say, Heidi came, Heidi Hicks put in a request, once again, to accompany students to the FCCLA just because they did so well last year. That's right. They always do quite well, yes. And this is, would be a July conference.

So it's after school, but really it is school-sponsored. Yeah, it's still school-sponsored. And really, in our board policy, we do, the school pays for the adult that does accompany students, but they fundraise for the ability to go.

So that was really just permission to be able to travel out of state, because our staff have to get permission to travel out of state in our board policy, and then also permission to fundraise for that purpose.

So the board was hopeful that they would be as successful as they were in the past and be able to enjoy that time. We always get some. We do. Is it? Costume design, I think it was, she wanted last year.

So if you get approached by some student that says, I'm going to the FCCLA National, Yes. Help support them on that way. Please help support them, yeah, that'd be great.

All right, now the downside, the city did come and say, you have a lot of water meters, and we found one that was not working right. They actually, I think, found half a dozen of them. Boone School, they apologized, just happened to be one of them.

Me did, and unfortunately, it was for a lengthy timeframe too, since 2022.

And so they came and presented what they had found and shared with the board that they were confident in being able to determine what that amount would have been over the course of time, and that would be about $61,000.

So right now, we are seeking just some legal assistance to determine what we need to do for next steps, and then we will come back to the board in March and determine what we need to do. Try it. It's one of those, I don't know, it happens to people. Yep.

Well, it was one of those things. Otherwise, most everything else going pretty good. We are wrapping up, we wrapped up some of our fall, winter, sports things, but Swim Team did very well. Very well, yep. And now we're moving on towards. Yeah, can you believe it?

Doesn't feel possible. And we've got an awards, I think, tonight, right? Could be. I think that's tonight, and we've got some more, some makeup concerts coming up, so pay attention to that. You warned people, watch what's happening, because we're filling in.

We had to shift some things around due to the weather, so yeah, we need to make sure that we can still come out and support our students that work so hard to present to us, so. Dr.

Julie Trapp, a guest on our program today, so work session meeting on the budget on Tuesday the 3rd. Regular board meeting on the 9th. Public hearing on the calendar that same night. Okay, and that'll be for the calendar, school calendar.

And then, away we go, try to get everything resolved. In the spring. Keep our fingers crossed. That's right. Again, thanks for joining us. Thank you.