Dr. Julie Trepa, Superintendent, Boone Community School District, September 15, 2026

On our program today, joined by Dr. Julie Trappa, good to have you in. Yeah, good to be here. First regular meeting of the new school year. That's true, I guess so, the first one, yeah, since we've been in session. Everyone anyway. Yeah, well, yeah, it's, and you still have time. We have another work session coming up. You've had a few of them. Yeah, we have. One last time. This is something the board wanted to do. I will say, it wasn't the admin team that picked it, but the board actually wanted to do like their goal-setting meetings and some of those work sessions prior to their regular meetings. Yeah, exactly. Just as well, let's set it up and do it all in one night if we can. And actually got through, and it was busy meeting, you had a lot of stuff. We did, but really productive, yeah. So, one thing that comes up, and this happens every once in a while, you did have somebody wanted to make some comments prior to the meeting and brought up some points about graduation and cost of graduation in particular. Yeah. They had just shared out some of the graduation gowns and costs and things like that, and they shared with the board how much was being charged for those things, and I think valid points were made and something that we'll take back to our team and see what we can do about it. See if there's something that can be done, but. Exactly. And again, it is the public comment time, so really it's, you don't really respond. No, there's no response, but it is an opportunity for the public to share any thoughts they may have, and then, so she was able to do that. So, we got that done, and again, it doesn't happen often, but every once in a while. Some things that come up there. Well, we did have a lot of different things coming up. Students did a presentation at Ag Leadership, FFA, and very serious about their. They were quite professional, yes. They do a lot of different things, and once again, they did have that, and then followed that up with the FFA convention, and Jim Fitzgerald's, the annual, please let us take about a dozen students to Indianapolis. Any time we go out of state, there's a requirement for the board to approve it, and yes, every year Jim does come before the board and asks to take students to the state convention, which is a phenomenal opportunity for students, and I thought our Ag Leadership students did a nice job of explaining what they did when they were at the Farm Progress Show, how they incorporate our younger students with their third grade day, just gave some great examples to our board if they weren't already aware of what Ag Leadership does on a regular basis. They were able to highlight some of those things. And I think for a lot of them, because we've seen a number of ours have done pretty well in the state, awarding competitions over leadership and things like that, so they have a number of things that they work pretty hard at. They do work very hard, and they have, you know, they set their goals, and they work hard to achieve them, so it was just a really nice opportunity to hear from the students and the progress that they've made thus far and the plans that they have for the future. One that I always like is, it's not all about agriculture. Yeah, they explain that every time. It's not, it's about egg, but in a variety of settings. It's not just one type of agriculture, so. Anyway, that was one of the things last night. We also had a request about health occupation. Yes. And this was interesting. We've had some people that have been working in this particular area. We've seen this out of our school district anyway, working with DMACC, and I know they do others, but in this particular case, they would like to start, what is it, health occupations program, students of America. Yeah. HOSA. HOSA, because we have to have an acronym for everything in education, so yes, HOSA. So we got that, and once again, the board did approve that, the stipend for an advisor, and I know the numbers they said were a little low right now, but they're anticipating that. Yeah, so last year when Robin, our nurse who teaches those courses, did kind of more of an informal one. There were times we had up to 20 students participating, so really I think it's more a matter of wanting to make sure that we had this approved by the board, so they could say yes, we do in fact have this particular group that you can participate in, and now the recruitment process will really start in full, so. So and one thing the board members asked, how does this, does it compete with EDGE, does it feed EDGE, do they work together? Definitely work together. EDGE is for those that want to take it to the next level, I would say. Exactly, and when we talk about EDGE, there are prerequisites that we want to make sure our students have before we send them out into the workplace. We want to make sure they have the skills that they need to be successful, and so actually having HOSA helps our students be that much more prepared when they do go into some of those internship opportunities that they've had, so we really see this as just bolstering and deepening the strength of the program with EDGE, so. And this was another student-led presentation. Yes, definitely. Well, Robin, I'm not going to say Robin made her, but she did it, it was Hailey. Hailey. Hailey Johnson. She did a nice presentation, and had a PowerPoint and everything for it. Absolutely, it was fantastic, and it is exciting to have this also, because we have added two student organizations since I've been here through our CTE. We had several already set up, we have SECLA, we had FFA always, but we've added DEC and HOSA, and those are CTSOs, another acronym that we have that you want to have with your CTE courses. This is something that you want to have to make sure that you're giving your students the best opportunities possible. So board did approve that, we're all ready to move forward with that, and a couple of the things I wanted, let's talk copyright, shall we? Sure. The board, or actually the district, is looking to get copyright authority over the Torridor emblem. Yeah, a trademarking over our logo so that we can have a better control over our branding. That's something that most organizations do, and it's just something that hadn't happened in Boone yet, so that was the step that we needed to do was to formalize that process so that we could move forward with a trademark. And essentially down the road it's one of those where people are pretty good about asking for permission. It's usually pretty good about asking for permission, but it would solidify the requirement of permission to use the logo, and then if there's any profit made then this school would receive a portion of that as a result of the use of the logo. But all ready to start moving forward, it doesn't happen instantly. It does not happen instantly. It'll take a little while. Yeah. We still have that. A couple of different things that came up, we know that the education options, Cindy gave a little more of an update on that, but it offers a couple of alternatives, and John Johnson had presented the information on this previously, and he was not at the meeting, but it was one of those where the board did decide to go ahead and support this. And really I think it was... Let me raise some good questions. I think the good questions, and I think what Cindy shared was this is a way to explore this option to see if it's a viable option, and if not, we want to know that when the costs are low, and not when you go all in and realize, wow, this isn't really what we want to do. So really kind of dipping our toe into that option, because that is what a lot of districts utilize if this is something they use for their district. So we thought it would be good to see if it would be a good match or not for us. It's called EdOptions Academy. It's kind of an alliance. EdOptions Academy. So what it does is it puts an actual teacher alongside the online opportunity versus it being all asynchronous. You have the opportunity to have an actual teacher monitoring and to ask questions of, et cetera. So we will see if the right situation comes along, then we have that option. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Yeah. And one of the, right away, of course, the breeze is the question of AI. Yeah. And there was some discussion about that, too, but yeah, I think AI is everywhere, right? So it's about teaching your students when it's appropriate, when it's not, whether they're in our classroom, whether they're participating in EdOptions, whatever it may be. So we did, we did talk about it when Levi did a lot of work. Absolutely. Levi did, yes. It was one of those where talked about how best to incorporate it, and this was last year. Absolutely. We have a board policy. We have a committee, actually, within the system that highlights the AI tools that we allow in the system because they aren't allowed to use just any old AI system because they are not all the same. We have FERPA rights that we need to protect. We have student information that needs protection. So we do limit it fairly significantly as to what is available to our students. And we have stuff that identify, I mean, staff, and our staff's been trained, yeah. They learn how to do it. I know even, yeah, those that teach at higher levels, when you start talking, even at the Des Moines Area Community College or DMACC, and I would state that that's a challenge of being able to pay attention to what's being done and how they're doing. So it's even more important that we teach students how to use it appropriately so that when they get into DMACC or Iowa State or post-secondary education that they understand the repercussions of misusing it. Well, let's talk facilities. Sure. I called it the kayak parking lot. Yeah, I know. I think that's a kept raining. Well, because it keeps raining and it's going to continue to be a pool of, yeah. We just haven't made a lot of progress. Every time I thought we'd get like four or five days when it's pretty dry, it's still pretty muddy over there. It is pretty muddy. There was, initially it was coming to the board as a change order for the project. It's got to do with the storms that run through that property and it's not functioning. It's not functioning, yes. It needs replacing, ultimately that's the issue. And the pricing that we received originally was not satisfactory, so there's an alternate bid that was out there and until that's finalized, the board can't approve it. So the exciting part is we found an alternate bid that will cut the cost in half of what we originally thought it might be. So we're just waiting on that change order to be able to approve and move forward. Your engineers went after this. Absolutely. They said, no, this seems too high. There's got to be a better price. Yes. Yeah, DLR, the engineer in charge of the project has been very good at scrutinizing any costs that come forward that weren't already in the contract and so please, that that continues to happen because again, we want to pay a fair price, right? There will be, even though there was not a change order presented, it is going to be there. It's just going to be at a later date. There will be and I think we're looking at sometime next week having a special meeting once we know that that paperwork is there and the reason for the special meeting is to keep the project going along because we would like the project to be completed. At some point in time. So they can't order the parts until the board approves. So we will continue to move forward. And again, they are out in front working with your contractors. Absolutely. They're saying, no, you're a little high on us. We're going to have somebody else do it. Let's talk about school lunch program, meal debt. Sure. Again, no action for the board last night, but basically an update from your meeting last spring. Yeah. So we had shared last spring that we would be sending out letters both for food service as well as for our general fees that are charged to our families and just trying to recoup some of the outstanding balances that were there. I think what was nice is families appreciated receiving it through the mail because sometimes it's not as obvious what your fees are. And so we did do that over the course of the summer and had a really nice response and lots of families working to pay off that outstanding debt. And so really it was just an update to say that in the fees, not food service, but the fees alone, just the electronic payments were around $30,000. So that is a wonderful thing to have happen for the school. And I know families felt better knowing kind of where they are now. And so really it was just to let the board know that if families have refused to engage in a payment plan or talked with us about how they might try to handle that outstanding debt, then those are the entities that will be contacted. And we want to point out, it's not just Boone. Nope. There's a lot of districts that are going through having to deal with this as well. Absolutely. It is a challenge. Yeah. And you do have, again, for people that say, well, for the meals or for food service and stuff, you do have a program available where people can contribute to it. Absolutely. So that's on the website. You can go and you can contribute to food service, the fees, if you'd like to help families that maybe don't already qualify for free and reduced, but are struggling. That's something that you can go on our website and contribute for. So yeah. All right. So the business office is having a party today because they got all the certified reports done. The big one, Paulette Neubull talked about the annual report financial review. I think the one thing I made a note to myself about it, she thought solvency was good, but she didn't like the declining numbers she see. Yes. And that's great. You'd like to see it a little steadier. Yeah. So typically, our board policy actually states that it needs to be between 15 and 20 percent. We ended the year at 16.8 percent, but if you look the trend line, it is going down. And so that's the reason for the reductions that we've had the last several years to try and kind of make that slow down the decline and try and even it out. And last year, very successful in reducing expenditures. And that was last year. So all of those decisions were made the year prior. So last year's reductions will impact this fiscal year. So that gets a little confusing for people. But yeah, because we were scheduled to have spent over a million and we spent, I believe, kind of overspent this 700,000. And that's one of the things, yeah. She pointed out, kind of reviewed the numbers, so the board had a feeling for where they are at. Absolutely. And so trying to flatten that curve, and that's what... That's a challenge. Yeah. It's good about last year's numbers. The special ed got that report and we did have a deficit. To me, it seems like it was lower than it was. Yeah. I'm not sure. It was a little lower. But still, it's 385,000. It is. But... It's one of those. It is lower. When you compare across the state, it is a lower number than a lot of schools our size. So... So we will go to recoup that. How does that go through? What's the process for that? So last night, we approved the authority. So in schools, you have to have the authority to spend money. So we recoup the authority and then there's a cash piece that will come later that we will ask for the cash to then be able to offset that number. You start with the authority. Start with the authority. Start with the authority in school funding and stuff. Yes. All kinds of that. You can't just get cash and spend it. You have to have the authority. And it's in what category, too? A lot of policies. Once again, did we get updated on our disruptive students? Yeah, that came out the day after our board meeting. So we had a new one that went before the board this time and a lot of second readings from changes in our policies due to legislative changes. So... Got those? Anyway, a lot of it is just kind of a routine thing. But someone's got to read all those. We do and have to make sure that it aligns with the law as best we know. And again, our school board update, but Neil did it last time this week or this month. So it was almost like it was planned, right? The topic was goal setting for the board and we had just had a work session on that. So the conversation around the board table and learning around the goals. He had three questions that he had the board respond to to make sure that they are focused on the work of the board. So... Keep going forward with that. Let's see a couple of other things. Oh, I got to ask you about facilities. We did have obviously the work session on facilities and that was a long one. Yes. We knew it was going to be, but we've got a lot of things targeted coming forward. Yes. So on the 28th, we have another work session for the board around facilities. At the last work session, the board had asked DLR to put some numbers to some of the items that the committee had put forward into different phases so that the board could then examine the plan or the phases that the committee had come up with alongside the numbers. So on the 28th, they'll have that information and be able to go to the next step. And I know the goal is to have a rough draft of a long range facilities plan by the end of the meeting. So that is the goal. We'll see. Again, the big part for the board is, how are we going to fund? Correct. I think there's a lot of agreement on what items are out there. It's how to... How are we going to fund it? The next example is going to be at Franklin with the HVAC up there. Yeah. And a lot of people are going, where did that come from? But it's aged out in the system. It's aged out. Yeah. And it's time to replace it. And it's not even replacing the whole building. The part that needs replacing is about $2.3 million. And I think that's what people need to understand is just how expensive a lot of the maintenance that we need to do is, and so when Paulette shared the end year and data, she also shared what was currently in our SAVE fund, which is a fund that we would utilize for Franklin. Also talked about PEOPLE fund, because again, that's another bucket of money that we can use for facilities. And really, that'll be part of the conversation as well as how do we utilize the funds that we do have to make sure that we're maintaining while we look forward to how do we continue improvements. And Boone will be impacted like all districts on that, what the legislature did with the SAVE fund, with the actually the one-cent sales tax that comes with it. No, one-cent sales tax that allows us to do facilities work will eventually be reduced by 25%. I believe this next year it'll be 17% that it's reduced. So less revenue coming in. And so we need to plan accordingly. And there are some districts that had tied that to projects that are going out several years and now are we going to be able to pay for it? Yes. And so we're fortunate not to be in that position, but that definitely was something that happened in many districts. They were already tied up because there was no indication that that particular topic would occur. And so they had borrowed against those SAVE dollars with the assumption that that was going to continue. Continue at that level. Correct. The legislature made that change. Yes, they did. Otherwise, what do we have coming up here? Mostly just our ban and tree leaders are going to be in Puffer Billy. So look for them and you know, it is a long route. So if it's hot, give them water. And it's actually a great time for our ban because then they go to contest shortly thereafter. So it's a good practice for them as well. But that's something. And then we do have a lot of home events every week. So please check the bound app for all of those events because... And we do have theater. Theater is coming up with the... Yes, that is coming up. They are pretty excited about that. Yes. So I'm in the parking lot going in and we'll have arrangements to have them some of them on. Frozen, I think. It is frozen. And a very large cast. So it'll be phenomenal. We'll do that. Dr. Julie Trapp, our guest on our program today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.