LONE TREE

The Lone Tree FFA chapter is exploding on the popular social media app TikTok, with over 2 million views and counting, thanks to the Lone Tree FFA Drive Your Tractor to School Day. The video that helped spark Lone Tree’s TikTok page featured comical and rapid interviews with various students who participated.

Before their social media rise, the club faced a different challenge.

In January, they voted to attend the Battle by the River Rodeo in Coralville to satisfy curriculum and FFA requirements.

Lone Tree FFA Officers met with Superintendent Tyler Hotz to see if FFA fundraising dollars could pay for admission.

Based on school board policies 705.4 and 705.4.R1, or ‘Expenditures for a Public Purpose’ adopted in December 2023, along with the fact that fundraising did not specify the Battle by the River Rodeo, Hotz declined use of public funds for the event.

This forced chapter participants to pay out of pocket to attend.

Afterwards, the chapter attended the Lone Tree school board meeting on Wednesday, March 27, to speak during public comment.

“This rodeo was listed in our program of activities under the healthy lifestyle quality standard. Therefore, if we did not attend, we would be considered a delinquent chapter,” Bailey McGrew, an FFA Officer, said.

“During a meeting with Mr. Hotz over this topic, we were told that if the activity or opportunity is not offered to all students, including those that are only in an Ag class not in FFA, we cannot spend the FFA funds and therefore does not meet the definition of ‘public purpose,’” McGrew added.

The Expenditures for a Public Purpose policy states, “The board recognizes that school district funds are public funds, and as such, should be used to further a public purpose and the overall educational mission of the school community.”

To Hotz, it was merely a miscommunication between himself and the chapter.

“Moving forward, a rodeo or something that is part of the programming, that’s something we can allow,” Hotz said. “I think the reason it wasn’t allowed, my interpretation at the time was this was just a rodeo to go to and watch. It’s my fault for not doing more investigation, I should have.”

The board seemed to favor some flexibility in policy language.

“If they don’t know their purpose when this fundraising starts, but they know they’re going to use it for their organization, there’s no way that we can [create a] policy that gives flexibility?” board member Michael Hotz asked, adding, “If the organization had a purpose statement, part of what we’re fundraising for is to purchase tickets for agricultural events, would that then mean there was no problem?”

Business Manager Sheila Tharp answered, “The purpose of the fundraiser should also be given to every single person that donates money to or buys products for that fundraiser. So, it does need to be specific.”

High School Principal Andrew Koshatka would later say, “It’s a requirement for them. It may not specifically say ‘rodeo’, but some sort of activity like that, an agricultural experience, is required. If they don’t participate, they can’t apply for scholarships, they can’t be chartered. One way or another, they have to be able to do some of these activities. Otherwise, they’re not an official FFA group.”

Memorial flowers

The Lone Tree FFA Chapter had another central issue to discuss with the school board: memorial flowers.

They wanted to use fundraised money to buy memorial flowers for their national convention chaperone whose grandparents passed away.

School administration denied the chapter from using school funds for this purpose.

“We buy flowers for direct family members of our staff,” Superintendent Hotz said. “That’s been the limitation. [It’s] what we’ve got as a best practice.”

But the FFA chapter feels this prevents them from functioning properly.

“We, as well as other service organizations, have been struggling to conduct our primary purpose – to serve our community,” FFA student Cate Sexton told the board. “These struggles are again based on how the administration views the term ‘Public Purpose.’”

The chapter felt mixed emotions following the meeting, especially since the board could not make any changes to the policy at the time.

“It feels nice to have the school board kind of helping us, on our side. [We’re] a little frustrated with administration on where they’re coming from, saying what we said wasn’t clear,” Kelly Marshek, Lone Tree FFA student, said. “But what we said before was clear, and it was made obvious that it was a requirement. We just made it clear tonight; we just restated what we said already.”

Proposed amendments

Interpretation of the public purpose policies are left entirely up to the school board and administration. Because of this, the FFA chapter called for “common sense guidance” amendments to prevent future issues.

Presenting the amendments was first year FFA advisor Payton Lorack. Some of Lorack’s ideas included adding “activities and projects that are required for the student club or organization to operate in accordance with their national organization charter and rules are allowable as a public expense,” to the 705.4.R1 policy, and adding clarity about memorial flowers and to fully define the term “public purpose.”

Board members seemed intrigued with the proposed amendments and will likely revisit this topic at a later date.