Dr. Julie Trepa, Superintendent, Boone Community School District, May 12, 2026

On our program today, visiting with Dr. Julie Trappa Boone, school superintendent. Good morning. Good to have you back. It's great to be back. I said last regular meeting of the school year. Last regular meeting, yes. And we have a few more yet to go. We do. Some special meetings and such. Well we got, we'll get that all taken care of. But the big thing was, we have our list of, well first of all, recognition to the board. Absolutely. So the school district, take a little time to recognize the board. Well yeah, it's a school board recognition month. And I just wanted to make sure that we took some time to recognize the time and effort that they take and dedication to our district because they do not get paid anything. It is purely voluntary. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. They don't get paid to do that job. So very much appreciative of all the time that they put into and careful decision making that they have to make. And there's a lot of homework. There's a lot of homework. Yeah, they have a homework assignment before next Monday. So yep. We got a whole bunch of things that they have to keep doing. But once again, yeah, they all done voluntarily. It is. I guess they get paid nothing for this and sometimes don't get a lot of credit for everything Yeah, they make some tough decisions, but are always looking out for the best interests of students. And so I cannot thank them enough. One thing I did want to talk about outside of the little fact that we got our graduate list taken care of. Yay. And hope everybody completes all their work. We hope so too. Gets it done in a timely fashion. Yes. Because it will be taken part. Last year, and I had done an interview earlier with the woman that started the classroom clinic. Oh, yeah. And again, last year was your first opportunity to be able to use that service. Yes. And again, state funding helped with that. Yep. We did not. Yeah, a classroom clinic actually found the funding for us. I had shown interest several years back, but it was not our budget wouldn't allow for us to participate in that programming for our students. But last summer, got a call from classroom clinic saying, hey, we have found some funding. If you'd like to go ahead and participate now, are you interested? And so we absolutely jumped on that opportunity and have been able to utilize their services this year. And they recently received word that likely the budgeting will or the funding will continue through next year. So the big thing is, and again, this goes back to trying to be able to provide mental health services and really in the classroom through the classroom opportunity, telehealth. And it's one of those things that once they started it, people really found this is filling one of those niches that we were really having some challenges with. Fulfilling a need. There are so many different barriers when it comes to providing students with those mental health services, whether any parent that has tried to get an appointment knows that you can be months to years out in waiting. And so having the opportunity to have telehealth, we do focus on our secondary students with this particular support because we try to do the in-person with our littles. But having this opportunity where they can be in school, go ahead and have their telehealth appointment and then go back to class has benefited them greatly. I don't want to say our numbers are high. Folks, they're not overwhelming, but the ones that are using it, there is a need, definitely a need. Yeah. So it just demonstrated that the need was there, right? When they shared our data, we have 30 students that had utilized their service this year. And so what's exciting to me is that our staff have been so good at being able to identify and bring this service to parents and say, Hey, is this something that you would be interested in? So that's the one thing I wrote down here. Kudos to the staff for being able to identify and get students involved with it. Yes. Because that's the tough part. You have to be able to identify that there's a need and that's not always easy. Well, also, hopefully we keep that up because that meets that one need that, again, otherwise you don't have the funds to go find somebody to do that. We do not, unfortunately. So it really is dependent upon the funding that's being provided. We did have an opportunity to hear about the ISASP. For everyone, it took Iowa to test the basic skills. That's the equivalent. Yeah. This is the new version. Okay. They just gave it a new name. They do. And again, some of what Jill and James talked about was there's going to be new information that they're kind of assessing and looking at how to identify proficiency. Yeah. So it is a new test. So they always have to redetermine what they consider at the state level proficiency. So that's what we have not received yet. We won't receive that until the fall. But what we did receive were scores that would allow us to look at growth and the state shared at many of Dr. James' meetings, how we could do that. So that's something that we did. And that's why Dr. James wanted to share with the board, hey, this is what we've learned thus far about the test. She was pretty excited about it. Our staff are pretty excited. Our staff are very excited, yes. So we've done pretty well. And again, parents, as it's coming home, especially I think middle school right now is the one that have been out, make sure you ask. Ask. Yeah. So we're just really excited that when you looked at, I think a couple of data points that Dr. James highlighted were that eight out of nine grade levels, our growth scores were better than the state average growth scores. So eight out of nine grade levels. And then also our seventh and eighth graders on average grew over two years worth of growth. So that is phenomenal. It's been one of those things too, and I always go back to, I remember, it seems like that forever ago, but they had the hard, you know, you need to be, show this much improvement. Now if you didn't get up to that, then they said dinged ya, kind of. But you had growth. You had growth. Yeah. And so in the school performance profile, they do look at both growth and proficiency, but we don't know proficiency yet. If they were to use the old scores, we did really, really well. But we'll see what the new scores are and see where that falls. But we're excited that there's so much growth because our goal is that every child will grow at least a year. And we had large numbers across the district that grew over a year and a half. And that is not a small feat. Yeah. Those are good. And that's not only students learning how to do tests better, but again, teachers coaching them on how to do better. And I think that parents who have had many children in their system probably have noticed that the rigor in our classrooms is higher. And I think that is being demonstrated in the growth scores. So that's what we're after. Absolutely. We did have a discussion going on about advertising, sponsorship, and naming rights. No final decisions yet, but you've asked the board to do a little homework on that. Yeah. We really wanted to have some feedback on what the board would like as far as policies. We want to make sure our practices are matching the policies that we have. And currently we don't have any policy, board policies around sponsorship or naming rights. And so that's just something that I wanted to gather some input from them so that I could bring to them some drafts and then also a potential agreement between the Booster Club and our district as well when we are going out and trying to get sponsorships as I'm sure many people in the community know the Booster Club is doing. They're after that because of the scoreboard project that they are pursuing. And again, it kind of sets up a good opportunity to try to get this policy in place. Exactly. Okay, here's one where the funding didn't stick around. Yeah. I don't know. This is what people forget. Critical incident mapping. So this is something that for emergency responders basically. It is. And the state had it in place, had a third party vendor doing it and then they pulled the funding. Yeah, so what they did is across the state they funded the ability to have law enforcement to have maps of every school and throughout the state so that when, if there were a critical incident that law enforcement would have access to all of that information and yeah, had been funded and then we learned very recently that there was no funding. So I just shared with the board that our Boone County superintendents are letting our law enforcement and county officials know that that funding was taken and see if there can be some kind of sharing in that funding. So not sure how we're going to do this, but we'd love to be able to. We would, we'll continue. We just would very much like to have some assistance. So we'll try and work together. The best part is Boone County has been phenomenal about all of us getting together and being on the same page with regard to any potential critical incidents. So I just wanted them to be aware of the conversations that we're having. Well, we'll keep working on. Yeah. We have not had our professionals that lead the talented and gifted program. How's that? We haven't had them an opportunity to go off to an experience, if you will. So we have a closer one coming up. I think the last one was in Minneapolis. It was. So that was a close one. A couple of years ago. Yeah, a lot of years ago, I think 2018. So eight years ago that they were able to attend a national convention. There is something to be said that's different about those. And so it is a driving distance. I think it's in Wisconsin this time. So yeah, Christina shared the different pieces that she felt she would be able to gain from as well as Phil Kramer. And so presented her her proposal to the board and her request to go funding is funding is already in the budget. So that was not an issue. It's out of the professional development budget. So that is something that was easily taken care of and the board supported that. One of the things I caught out of there is she's excited to come back and share. She is. So very much so. And she does. Every time she's been able to do professional development, whether it's at the state level or other professional development opportunities, she's taken advantage of. And Phil Kramer are great at coming back and sharing sharing the wealth. So yeah. And she did have to point out again. We know that a record number of high school students graduated with their associates degree from DMACC again. This is yeah system wide. But for us, we've always over the years have had some that have done it. So she pointed out what from 2014 to 2025, we had 16 16 total. And this year we had seven seven this year. That earned their associates degree. So before they get their diploma, which is it's yeah, overachievers. No, they're good. It's fantastic. We're it gives them an opportunity. It does. Well, we did have another contract. They came up bound. Yeah. This is where I'm going to ask you about the cash. Yeah, that's fine. Well, it is a boon had always in again, we talked about being cashless in when we were bound and this was like almost two years ago, really. Yeah. And we the hard part was just we it was going to be difficult to go totally. Right. And we had not gone totally cashless, but the goal was to receive funding from bound was to hit over the 80 percent mark. So we were really highly encouraging digital kinds of payment. So still would very much like that because that helps our budget with regard to this contract, but we always accept a cash. And so with the recent legislation, that obviously will continue. So well, there's yes, that's part of it was the legislation. Are we seeing more and more because to me, we see less and less cash. But yeah, more and more people just are becoming accustomed to it. Yeah, it's so much easier. Well, you got, I mean, if you go over to see why Stevens or anything like that. There's no cash there. Yeah, no cash there either. So you get a lot of those things. OK, this is the one that gets to be dicey, the debt collection. Yeah. And we've talked about this in the past, too. I think it was earlier this year. We had talked about this year or the late last year. I think it was the end of last year. Talked about the debt in the lunch program in in particular. It was around $40,000 at that time. And it has escalated. It's at 61,000 now. So Boone, not the only school district dealing with this. No, no, this is across the state. I know in my recent meetings with other superintendents, this is a topic of discussion. The rise in prices of food also are hitting our food service budgets. And and unfortunately, yeah, we need to be able to have enough revenue to sustain. It's not about profit. It's truly about maintaining and sustaining. So that's something that we had talked about before with the board was, hey, you know, we try and try and try to collect. And at what point do we want to engage in debt collection and have reached the point where we feel like we might have to elicit that support. But at the same time, we want to make sure families have ample notice. So following this, we will be letting families know through invoices what debts they may have and giving them opportunities to go on payment plans or try and set things up so that it doesn't have to come to that. Because we don't want that. Yeah, it's really about collecting the debt that's owed. So and I guess say, you know, I know people right away go, well, no kid gets it did not. Right. Kids don't get denied a meal. Right. So we know that. Right. And some will say, well, do donations and you do have. You do. So we've always had a donation opportunity. There is board policy on how that gets disseminated. So that is something. But that was something that was brought up that we will be looking into is making it easier for people to make those donations through infinite campus. Matt Althon had heard of another district doing that. So we will be investigating that to see how we can make that easier for people if they wish to donate. Sure. Right now, you basically write a check and and let us know. Send it to the yeah, that you want it to be put towards food debt. And then we follow our board policy. But if there are easier ways to encourage donations, then we are certainly going to look into that. Well, we will do that. Again, it's one of those where it's unfortunate we get to this point, but it doesn't look like it's going to get better with the way. No. Conditions are now. Price of gas and everything else. Exactly. Unfortunately. We are going to get a new bus. We don't know when, but we are going to get a new bus. Last month, I had to reject all the bids because they didn't follow the specs. But this time we got one. We got one and one that matched what we needed. So, yeah, $168,000 for a new bus. Yeah. And dollars for that, folks, come from the save money. They do come from save. That's the one cent sales tax that goes to the school, which, by the way, gets used for that's one of the uses is for that. It's for facilities. It's for when we talk about our parking lot. That's something that save dollars can go towards. So it's for those larger purchases. Yes. Capital projects. Yeah. Anyway, $168,000. Now, I think the last time what delivery was about a year, it was a little over a year before we got them. Hopefully this will be a little quicker. We're hoping district does. And he's got Mike's got he's he tries to rotate. He tries to get a new bus every year so that you can rotate them out. Yes. So that we can, you know, we have one to come in, then we can let one go and make sure that we have reliable transportation so that it's safe and reliable for our students. You don't have the biggest area to cover for busing students, but they get used a lot. They do. They do. There's that. The parking lot. Yeah, we talked a little bit about that in DLR has been working on that. It's the West side, folks. We're on the West side. The student parking lot. Yeah. There's not. What do you got? Like 80, eight less than 90 parking around 90. And they figured out a way to add maybe about another 30, 40, 133 parking spaces that we would have, which come graduation time is going to be very handy, not this year, but next year. Yes. So we got that. Anyway, that's a project that will be bid and done here over the summer. Yeah, we're hoping. So that's, we have some public hearings coming up. That's something that, you know, we have all those public procedures to follow. But that is something that I can assure you that every year that I've been here, I have received letters from students about that parking lot and the need to address it. So I'm hoping that students see that we were finally able to address the parking lot. Yes. There's a lot of them. They would like it. But I mean, you know, they take a lot of work. There's a lot of traffic. This one is in dire need. Yes. This one's been there. Yeah. And again, it's when we call the West parking lot. So it is. And I know they were talking about the handicap accessible or shifting a little more of that closer. Yeah. So there won't be any in that particular lot because we have so many that are closer to the building, which is more appropriate anyway. We have budget amendment coming up again. This happens for everybody about this time of the year. If they didn't do it during when they were doing their certified budgets and for Boone, you did not. You held off a little bit. Me did. Mm hmm. We've just got some changes that need to be addressed for the current year. Increased. Yeah. Increased energy, I believe. And I did write down all the little things. Utility costs, fuel costs. There you go. Fuel and utility, whether the main reasons that we need for the budget amendment. So that'll be coming up 26 special meeting. Yes, special meeting on the 26th. Okay. We got that graduation coming up. Everything else we're going along. Yeah. Graduation on the 30th, 31st, 31st, 31st, whatever that Sunday is May 31st. May 31st. Two o'clock indoors indoors in the gym. And yeah, futures graduation is on June 1st at seven. So our graduations will be occurring and yeah, we have exciting things coming up a lot and we've got our scholarship night tomorrow night. Okay. That's a big one. I know six o'clock tomorrow asking about that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a great time to celebrate all of the students' accomplishments, honestly. So we've got a lot of different things. And on policy updates, which is one I had to laugh at because it's a wellness policy, but legislation has changed it. So go ahead and approve this. And when the new one comes, we'll bring it back and we went ahead and did the second reading because we need to have that on every three years anyway. But the governor hasn't signed the legislation yet. So we will come back once the governor has signed it and make sure that matches the legislation. So. So only the early information comes out on what's happening with property tax reform. I'm pretty sure Paulette's been perusing all the information so far. It'll affect your save dollars. More will be coming out. Yep. Absolutely. And the save dollars that some for superintendents that have planned commitments and spending, that's going to be a cut. Well, so we use save dollars for the roof at Franklin, this parking lot, like a lot of the maintenance projects that we do that are fairly expensive. Purchasing a bus, purchasing, purchasing buses. All of that comes from our save dollars. And so without those save dollars, we won't have some of those things. So in some does some of that apply to some of your debt that you've been doing for us? Yeah, we will. That will not affect us. OK. That part will not not for us. OK. But again, this is one where we'll still be able to pay the debt. But a lot of a lot of people are a lot of districts are looking. So what's happened is folks, the save dollars, they are taking some of those save dollars to apply towards the property taxes that schools generally ask for. And so they're taking money off of that side. And you're still going to be down. Oh, well, yeah, you know, we'll find out the details as it comes through. And then we will continue to try to communicate with those changes mean to us and for a best foot forward work with what we've got. That's right. Dr. Julie Trapper, our guest on our program today. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.