In policy debate, the tournament started with 196 teams and after 16 rounds of competition, our team of Tristan Win and Josiah Shaffausen debated Taipei American from Taiwan and finished as national runners up.

This year at nationals, our student our school earned top honors as a program by being awarded the school of outstanding distinction. This award is given to the top 10 schools in the country competing at the national tournament in combined debate and speech accomplishments.

Apple Valley also was recognized on the speech side for placing in the top 20. we tied with one other public school with the most students in final rounds. And so once again, of the 7,000 people uh at that tournament, uh Apple Valley had four national finalists.

We are extremely um we all live in service to something. Um these young people stand apart because they live in service to their message. They live in service to excellence. They live in service to leadership. They have lived in service to our school and by default district 196.

The projects were judged against districts of similar size from across the country. And I'm thrilled to announce that that Cliff's work and that of the team didn't just compete but set a national standard.

Ahead of the 2025 technology levy election, we needed to show our voters that the technology invent in investment was about much more than tablets. That and we needed to shift the focus from devices to our students future. Through the 12-part series, Cliff and many of our partners did exactly that.

District 196 is proud to support these values year round through programs such as Project Explore, Community Education, Special Education, Unified Sports, Best Buddies, Adapted Athletics, and many others.

One belief has only grown stronger. Data drives everything we do. It is the wind that directs our sales. But I also believe it's extremely personal. I often say every data point has a heartbeat.

Our department breathes this every day with passionate specific mission, educating, developing, and inspiring our students for lifelong healthy eating. Because when we fuel them right, they perform at their best.

Thanks to the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025, we are adding 2% milk as a choice. This provides a creamier texture, better seat, and optimal vitamin absorption.

I'm sitting here just thinking about, do parents know? And you know, anything that we can do to better help them know, especially I was thinking about do they know when when the sort of harvest days are or you know, when we're when we're featuring the the local foods because I think more of them should come visit maybe and and maybe don't know that they even that they can um join their students at lunch...

And that's why we have those kitchen cabinets where we bring a group of students together and talk with them and figure out what they do eat at home so that we can build those recipes and build those menus to represent our student population.

The inaugural family survey provides us a benchmark and a feedback point on the perceptions of parents and guardians have of our school, our culture, and the educational experience their child is getting. The survey really serves three purposes.

While the findings cannot be generalized to the entire population, they highlight highly valuable themes and sentiments that we can act on.

So, as the high school students are getting more savvy, um parents may feel like they have less control. So this is an opportunity for us to provide additional education um about how we what filters and monitoring tools we have available and direct people to some very um well-developed information and resources on our website.

And really the one that struck me and we've dealt with this for years is what is the best practices for teachers for communicating? Now you've got Square. How much how much communication do we expect from teachers? 17 emails or texts a day is excessive, but what is that sweet spot about how much I'm information is am I putting forward as a teacher...

Under compensation, the schedule, salary schedule, and longevity differentials are in the board exhibit this evening and demonstrate the changes in both of those areas. There's also an increase to the double school differential.

I'm looking for are we are we getting to livable wages for staff, right? And that's a hard benchmark to achieve um in all facets of our work. and and I'm just I'm so happy to see how far we're coming and and how much we are recognizing the hard work of of that team.

another group that we cannot do without in this district. These are the folks that keep our buses on the road every single day and provide transportation for our students. Not only that, it's also about the safety of our students and our bus drivers and chaperones while they're on the road.

Both of these, the nutrition and the vehicle services are I think we can be really, we should be really proud in our district that these are our people. other school districts you go to in their there's nutrition services are provided by companies their vehicle techs and their vehicle and their drivers are farmed out to other people and these are our people.

Approval of this resolution will authorize the district's financial adviserss and associates to solicit and proposals for bonds with the final sales to be awarded uh to the lowest bidder at a future board meeting.

Is this the last um sale of the issuance from the bond referendum we had? So this is the final one. This will be. So we did the first one in 2023 for 300 uh million and then the last one last year 100 million. So this will be the last of the three sets. Yes.