District staff presented an overview of the Urbandale Community School District's at-risk and dropout-prevention programming and said the district will seek additional spending authority from the School Budget Review Committee (SBRC) to support the program.

The presentation described the program's goals—academic and vocational support, social-emotional growth, increased attendance and family outreach—and listed services such as MetroWest alternative programming, credit recovery, OASIS supports at the middle school, summer programming and transportation assistance. Staff described the team structure (at-risk teachers, family-outreach facilitators, a district social worker and counselors) and said many counselors are funded through at-risk allocations.

Staff reported program highlights including maintained four-year graduation rates and increased numbers of students served. They said the district is conducting a program review and will bring a status report to the board on Jan. 26 and will request SBRC spending authority as part of that process. The spending-authority figure read in the meeting was recorded in the transcript as "100000333836"; staff indicated they will submit the formal application for the Jan. 26 meeting.

Board members asked about referral processes and whether the district tracks students longitudinally after identification as at-risk; staff said the district has data and will include tracking information in the forthcoming program-review update. Staff emphasized that referrals and interventions differ by grade band and that support is tailored to academic versus social-emotional needs.