Dr. Julie Trepa, Superintendent, Boone Community School District, March 10, 2026

In our program today we are visiting with Dr. Julie Trappaboon School Superintendent. Good to have you back. Thanks, good morning. We got back into our regular meeting. We did, which is great. And the weather is great, so it's a good day all around.

Well, we just keep going, don't we? Yes, we do. We had a busy, busy board meeting. Yeah. And a lot of different things that came up. So obviously now let's go with the school calendar. We have that. We know exactly. Yes. Well, we have an idea.

We knew it was going to be pretty comparable to the current year because that's worked out pretty well. But your committees, your people would like to be done before Memorial Day. Yes. So that is the calendar that we put forth and the one that was approved last night.

So two built-in snow days. So before Memorial Day as the calendar states now. Yeah. Okay. Again, only two snow days. Yeah. We'll do what we can. That's right. I know in board members, I think we mentioned this last time too, I asked about it.

But Narum did ask about the whole day off instead of the early dismissals. And basically your administrators and staff, they basically passed along. Yeah, we really like, this is more beneficial. Yeah, from the staff perspective, it's been a lot more beneficial.

It doesn't require our staff to teach all day and then think about really difficult things after a full day of teaching. So from that respect, it's been fantastic. An opportunity to also do some of that research and then some application on the same day.

So from the staff perspective, it's been wonderful. And then we have had positive feedback from parents with regard to not having to keep track of early release days. And we did keep our full days on Mondays so that could be consistent.

So feedback thus far was to try and continue to have the full day PDs. And they like it better. They can plan for their weekends a little better and do that. So yeah. Well, let's talk about the audit report. Yes. You get the audit report.

And once again, like everybody, we don't have a lot of segregation of responsibility. It's not big enough in that department. Well, there's even bigger ones. Yeah. That's a typical thing that most school districts get. It is.

They did note a couple of other things, but a couple of other parts of the audit report. Daycare, that is something that was started when we started doing our preschool. Yes. Preschool program. Yep.

And that's pretty well breaking even, which I guess that's about as good as you could ask. Well, and that is really the goal. We are not a for-profit entity. So we just need to break even.

And that's what the audit report showed was that we stay pretty even, Stephen, between the years. So that's what we should be doing. And if I say, people, when you go to the grocery store, are you spending more nowadays? Yeah. School districts are no different. Correct.

We do have a deficit on the school nutrition. And the big part there is just the cost of food. Yeah. Yeah, so really, it's a situation where we have enough money in our nutrition fund.

But the cost of food and just a wide variety of factors had caused us to spend more in the last couple of years.

So that's what Sarah talked about last night was just some of the actions that we've taken this year to kind of redirect so that our nutrition fund wouldn't be spending more than it's bringing in.

So this last year, we had to increase the food prices, but chose not to increase them as much as we could to try and help our constituents. But we're likely going to have to raise food prices again. We aren't having any kind of overtime staffing has been changed.

So it's taking some steps to make sure that that's even out a little bit more. And I think Matt Elthon said it well. It's not that we make a profit. We're just trying to break even.

And another one, we do have there is some debt that some accounts are not up to date and stuff like that. But as Dr. Neisperb says, kids are going to get fed no matter what. We are feeding kids.

Yeah, it would be helpful to have everyone pay their lunch accounts, though, because that is about $45,000 of that money that we're trying to make up. It would help. Yep. Let's talk a little bit about because Paulette gave a brief lesson on our property tax levy rate. Yeah.

And we do have the public hearing coming up in a couple of weeks on the 23rd of 5. Yeah. And I know she keeps inviting people. Yes.

We very much would like people to come and learn more about the tax structure and what the school board can and cannot have control over with regard to the property taxes. So just invite everyone who has questions to come in and ask those questions at the public hearing.

And so that's really what she was trying to do. I think one of the things, and she even pointed it back out to board members, it's not like your home budget. Right. All money coming in is not available for everything. You can only spend it in certain areas. Absolutely.

So I think last night she did a nice job of also showing the history of our tax rate, that we are still significantly below where we've been in the past. But we will likely be needing to raise it a few cents just to help cover our special education deficit.

And then also for our debt service to try and save taxpayer money actually when we pay back our debt for ledges more quickly. So we aren't having to pay the interest that we would otherwise. And that's one thing that people will look at.

They keep pointing out or people say, well, you have this much debt per student, which frankly compared to Waukee is pretty minimal. But there's a reason for that. People voted for that. Yeah.

So our debt service levy is what we use to pay off the debt that we incurred from Ledges Elementary.

And as Paulette pointed out, in the last four years we've been able to save $2 million, utilizing that tool, $2 million in taxpayer money by paying off that debt faster through that debt service levy. So it's actually a vehicle that we can save people tax money.

Again, it's one of those where you look at it. Again, that's what you would do at home if you start paying a little bit more, a little more than the minimum payment. It saves you that interest. It saves you money in the long run, yes.

And one of the other things too, and it keeps coming back, and this has always been an issue for the Boone district, but you are what they call more student rich value poor. Yes.

And we have, I think, Madred's kind of in that same boat while Ogden united a little bit the other way around. We've got a lot of value and a fewer number of students. It depends which district you're in, what it looks like. Well, yeah.

So because the majority of our tax base is on the shoulders of individual homeowners, that's why we're considered property poor. And so the tax rates tend to be higher in communities that have that kind of tax base.

If you happen to be in a community that has a lot more industry or farmland within that district, then your tax rate tends to be lower. So that's just how that works. Well, you rank 282 out of 375. We are. Yep. The one that just makes me kind of laugh is when they say Okaboji.

Yep. A small number of students and a lot of value. Yes, yes, for sure. There you have the leg. So that'll do it. Yep. Two million. Two million. Wow. And Okaboji. It's a bunch. Yep. Let's talk about, because we do have a few things that we are still working on.

We got that hearing and we'll keep reminding folks about that. And then we'll have in April, we'll have the certified budget. Yes. That'll be coming up in April. But we do have projects. We do. And we do want people to know, yes, we do.

There are dollars that you can't use for salaries that can go to capital projects. Well, so this, yeah, so the money that we would be using for these capital projects are saved dollars. And that's not money that can go to salaries.

So it can only go to facilities and only go to, yeah, whether it's maintenance or anything facility related. That's all it can be used for. So that's what we're going to do is use it to maintain our facilities and make sure that they stay in good shape. And we do have priorities.

We do. Well, actually, you have a lot of priorities. And if you had a lot more money, you could be doing those. Right. And the big thing is, like, you had to pick and choose what's going to be most immediate, the biggest impact. So we're doing a parking lot or at least we are.

Yes. And I know that doesn't seem like something that most people would say, why is that a priority? But it's been kicked down the road for many, many years. And we do have students and families that use that lot that it can potentially be not so great. It's not great on cars.

And then when we try to plow, it has done some damage. So it's absolutely time to get that parking lot fixed every year when students write papers on what they'd like to see some improvement. I get inundated with the parking lot request.

So I'm happy to report to the students that that is something that we'll be doing this summer. And unfortunately, something that seems as simple as a parking lot is not inexpensive. So it's just something that we have to do, though. We found that out when they bid the the audit.

That's right. It's not that expensive. So we are talking to what we call the West parking lot. The West parking lot. And once again, DLR will begin doing the work on that. You also have, Brian kind of keeps it kind of open on where to go with this.

But HVAC, again, heating, cooling up at Franklin. And the issue is how to how to best do this. Right. So really get a look at a couple of different options as we try to update the HVAC at Franklin.

And the only reason that's not really happening this summer is just availability of parts. It takes a long time. There's a long lag time. So that'll be a following summer project that we would do.

So right now we're just looking at what would be the best course of action as we look to update the system. And you did have good questions on here. Why are we looking at, you know, and we do have basically it's a geothermal system up there that's in there incorporated.

So it does you got to plan a little more for that. Yeah. We just have to decide, yeah, what's what's going to be the most fiscally responsible while also longer lasting and make sure that it's something that's easily maintained.

So we will go through that process and come back to the board when the time comes back in January. We did have our director of student services Cindy Bassett Bassett did have a presentation about at risk and dropout and some of the things that were being put into place there.

And there are some mandates in there that kind of that are being talked about about is this actually going to be good for students or not. But the at risk in she gave a little more detailed information about how it is impacting some students. Yes.

So in January when we went before the board with our at risk dropout plan, the question was like why do we have so many more students that were identified as at risk? And that's really what sitting wanted to come back and help explain to the board maybe why it seemed to grow.

And what she talked about were some of those mandates that you're discussing that may be highlighted students that would then meet the criteria that were given to use to identify at risk students maybe more readily than they would have otherwise.

So everything from the new attendance law, our requirements with regard to reading and now math that that's something that she didn't really talk about last night but now we have requirements to provide individualized reading and math plans for students that are struggling in those areas.

And so that is a way to specifically identify some students that would meet some of those other criteria.

So there are criteria we need to follow when we're identifying at risk dropout students and Cindy mentioned that at the high school they had a better way of tracking students that were not participating in extracurricular activities and that all by itself doesn't qualify as student but it might have pushed some students into that category because they were struggling in academically as well.

So she just talked about some of the causes as to maybe why we saw the increase but then also pointed out that we were close to the same number that we were this year in previous years as well.

So it's just something that we will fluctuate and we'll try to make sure that we're explaining any increases more readily when we get there. What might have an impact on it? Exactly.

And when you get the mandated ones like enrollment and stuff it's a little, well okay well here's really one of the driving factors but how do you correct that you can't really correct?

No, no but the idea behind identification of students that may be at risk of not being as successful is to allow us to give them the supports they need.

So really it shouldn't be seen as a negative if that's something that a student is identified as needing that it's just a way to provide the supports to ensure that they're going to be successful. And just being identified doesn't mean they're not going to be.

So it's just a process that we're mandated to use so that's something that we're doing and trying to do well so that we're putting the resources where we need to.

I think the one of the things that I think it came up you mentioned that the mandate to have students have to take extra curricular activities as well. Not always probably something that's going to benefit students.

Well so we talked last night about there are many students that have activities that are not school sponsored that they're participating in that may not necessarily count in this particular report but is giving the students the same benefits as perhaps one of the school based activities.

So yeah I'm not sure we do know that when students feel like they belong they do better and there's research to show that if they're in activities outside of just the academics that that's beneficial but yeah we're not so sure that we would go as far as to mandate that.

That's one of those. Well that's a whole challenge. Several other things came up obviously AEA purchasing for food. We'll go back to the food nutrition and that's something that district's done a long time. Absolutely. And again it does save you some dollars.

It saves quite a bit of money actually going through them and as Paulette pointed out they also are very familiar with all the federal regulations that need to be followed and they do that for us so that's very helpful yes. We don't have to.

We have kind of I guess a new board member so to speak. It's taken a while to get all of the candidates in there. This is where your administrators they were busy going through this.

There were a number of students that had expressed an interest in this student school board position. So we're going to have two. Yeah I think there'll be two with one being at the board table every time.

Just to give them some more flexibility because our students are active in extracurricular activities and so. Somebody was doing honor band last night. So just one of the students will be at the board table at every regular board meeting but they'll kind of share that.

And Bethany Van Dyke. Yeah. She got sworn in last night. She did. Yeah. And her and Paulette I think that's they both like statistics and accounting and things like that. Yes. She said they asked her folks what's your interest. She said I like accounting.

Anybody else like accounting. Only Paulette raised her hand. Anyway that's she'll be doing that in. Yeah she is pretty interesting but board members already mentoring. Yes. Saying here's why this is happening. This is what's going on. Yeah.

I think as we go along in this process year after year you're going to see students feeling more comfortable engaging those conversations.

And they are a non-voting member but they can absolutely participate in the discussions and we will have after both of them have been sworn in we'll make sure that they have their own little report to give so that they can share with the board what's happening in their high school lives.

Well we know that again yeah she was on there last night and it's not an easy process so people are wondering how do you pick those.

Well basically they show an interest and express that and John Johnson kind of redacts certain parts of the like a resume and kind of a description and then students get to actually.

Yeah they had an application process and students had a rubric to follow to identify it was blindly scored so that there was no way for students to identify who they were scoring so a nice blind scoring process and then after the students have had an opportunity to do that then the teachers did as well so that's how we arrived at the two that I believe we have before us now.

You said you're interested come to the meetings. Yes. Nothing took her oath last night. Yeah. We want to go back to again the meeting on the 23rd that's going to be five o'clock and are we going to the auditorium do we know exactly how many.

Right now we're still in the board room but we'll see I do think that I'm hopeful I would love for us to be able to move to the auditorium honestly.

Yeah I would love the opportunity for us to be able to share because there are there are tools that we can help share that are property tax you know you can see what your private taxes will do for yourself there are tools to use and we can share that information.

I think it's really important that when they get these documents that they are confusing so that's why we're encouraging people to come and hear the explanation of the documents and to understand that the tax rates that are going to be on those documents are maximum amounts.

This one we do believe will be closer than the previous because yep because last year we didn't have SSA set this year we did so we think they'll be maybe a little less of a gap between what we send out and where we land but it's important to know it won't be higher than that but it could be lower.

So and this is going to be a mailing that within the next week yeah yes in next week or so people should have and basically it'll show depends on where you live it'll show your school district that you're in it'll show your community or your city and county yeah so those are the seven taxing entities in our county but the only three on that document and so again it's a very confusing paper so we're encouraging people to come and have the explanation provided and be able to ask questions about it because we want to inform our public.

So that'll be the one on the five o'clock in the afternoon on Monday the 23rd yes and again open yep public encourage public encourage yes when you get your mailing too it says on there please go and ask yeah absolutely again that will be there and then we'll have the certified budget on the middle of April yep on the 13th on the 13th of April yeah you're done yes and spring break coming up so yes kind of a they're off they had Monday off yeah parent teacher conferences they're out early and away we go so yeah Friday and all of next week you've got your kids to yourself and then we'll take them back on the 23rd okay back then yeah I do appreciate you coming in talking about last night's school board meeting and once again I think what it is recorded it is recorded you can go online and see it's on YouTube and you can go online and see the any of the meetings that you'd like to watch and yeah so we'll do that and once again come to the public hearing please alright Joe Chappabon school superintendent on our program today