##VIDEO ID:HSAbfm8bDz4## all right at 6 o' I'm going to call the meeting to order all board members are accounted for uh we'll start off with the Pledge of Allegiance so please stand i al to the of the United States America the for it stands one with and justice for [Music] all right I'd like to make one small little addition to the agenda rate after the uh superintendent's report we will do a brief uh msba summary uh any other additions Jeff NOP that I would like to a motion for the approval of the agenda I'll make a motion I'll second any other discussion all in favor say hi oppose motion carries scheduled presenters we have no scheduled presenters tonight uh so we will move into public input comments are welcome from students residents of the District taxpayers of the district people with children in the district and employees of the district and must relate to to the current agenda and not exceed 3 minutes the board may or may not engage in the discussion during the common period but will take the information and find answers uh if that is appropriate due to data privacy concerns a speaker may not address criticism toward an individual District employee during public input individual complaints should be handled privately with building administrators Andor the superintendent as part of the board protocol it is unacceptable for any speaker to slander or engage in character assassination at a public board meeting is there anyone that would like to speak to the board okay go ahead please state your name at the beginning for your record uh good evening my name is leanas and I've lived in Canon Falls for 20 years I'm the parent of three children that attend Canon Falls Elementary School we stand before you today to address the agenda item of the approval of Miss Sha's resignation but while why is she resigning Miss shapi has been with the district for 10 years she has been a remarkable leader loved by students parents and staff alike her commitment to our children School staff and her ability to foster a fun safe and positive environment are truly commendable her capacity to establish and nurture relationships has been foundational this application for right resignation is concerning to all of us and we recommend the board to reject the approval our community deserves transparency however transparency has not been provided which has left us to speculate and what has happened to cause her to choose resignation the speculation being shared is this during Christmas break Misha came to the elementary school to care for the reptiles in the school office and she brought her children and their friends to the school where they played in the gym was she seen doing this by staff on campus at the time yes are there cameras on school property to provide actual evidence yes is this a correctable action yes I urge the school board to think critically about all the information before you and to demand more clarity regarding this situation should an employee choose to revoke their resignation the option could be to face termination termination requests are presented to the school board for review and approval if the school board approves a termination the district could be faced with arbitration which would place a financial burden on the school district in this specific situation of missa I am asking if a termination request is submitted to the board for approval you answer these following questions during her tenure has she ever come under scrutiny for blatantly abusing her privilege as the principal displaying misconduct or illegal Behavior are her yearly reviews filled with negative comments performance or child safety issues does the reason for termination involved drugs alcohol abuse violence money laundering disregard for child safety or anything else illegal does the reason completely disregard District policies and procedures are the allegations for termination so irrefutable as to put her career at Jeopardy if the answer is no to these questions then what reason could be so significant as to Warrant termination at the cost of taxpayers dollars during a time where budget cuts are occurring and funding for our school has faced failed voter approved referendums the financial incumbrance for recruiting orientating and retaining a new employee during a time of financial crisis is frowned upon by the taxpaying citizens of our Canon Falls Community this is fiscally irresponsible again I repeat this is a correctible action we are all human and make mistakes in judgment so put yourself in her shoes and ask what harm occurred in letting some children play in closing I asked the school board if you can't reject the resignation and you are requested to approve termination of Miss Jennifer shapi please reject the termination and reinstate her position as an elementary school principal thank you for your time okay is there anyone else that would like to speak to the board okay and just a couple of items from the agenda first off the uh legislative breakfast that you have planned for Friday just wondering if that's something that anybody can go to is that somebody anybody because the presentations look awesome look like it' be fun to go and watch yeah it's for it's organized to the southeast service Co-op as part of superintendents and board members only at that time so only School Board members and um legislators and superintendents and superintendents okay so um we're all legislators of invited to that or just legislators from this area or it's all the legislators from southeast Minnesota okay and then um just out of curiosity I don't know if anybody else knows but this breakfast the presentation actually had a nice presentation on Farm to school grants I'm just and has Canon falls ever received any or applied for any we've received a lot okay over the past couple of years and working with local businesses for that all right and then are those grants only available to public school districts or are those grants also available to private schools or like hom School co-ops anybody know Public Schools as far as I know only public school okay all right um and then there was a nice present ation on um funding of special ad programs and I'm just wondering like when I look through the budget you know there's an idas bill you know 15 and 30 is that related to that individual individuals with disabilities Education Act is that what that bill comes from is that special education that's receive the funding from the state so that is State funding to the district and why does that vary from month to month it's made it all through the state that way is it based on like number of school days in the period the the general fun Revenue that comes to the district so it's the essentially the funing that St provide for public education uhuh do it all equally it's just me it out throughout the year there are PE and Valu sometimes uh higher load to pay when the property taxes come in we receive our tax payments from andot County our ideas payments are reduced okay so it's we as a district state meter more or less okay all right and then um the other thing too was in relation to the committee members and the committee selection that was in your um meeting minutes that are going to be approved from last meeting the one thing when you look at the district advisory on curriculum and Technology um um it the description of that committee says work with staff and admin on curriculum but Minnesota statutes actually suggest that at least two that U 2third of that committee include parents and like General community members has that you know for one that description probably should include Community your parents instead of just staff and admin but I'm wondering if that committee has any plans for recruiting people from the P you know from the community to participate in that curriculum review is there anyone want to come to that not I can submit it and you guys can send me something I guess I know that we are actively always looking for new community members on a lot of our committees okay and then um the LA the next thing would be um the other thing for you would be when I was looking through the budget there's like income that like it was miscellaneous what was it some kind of miscellaneous income maybe see it was monthly receipts so there were monthly receipts that were listed for the end of February and for the end of March which varied a little bit from you know one month to the other but there was nothing listed for the end of January what where are those monthly receipts coming from or what's the source and why was there nothing there for January they were in January the board par goes out entally January is done it's really a cash flow so it's projecting what re rece other than our state AIDS it could be now could be kids Revenue preschool Revenue other Revenue come in the district just kind of a planning mechanism so board report was in January most of that month has been done so for my purposes for cash flowing I take that to January those those been received by the district and they would show up at the bank W when January is complete so is there a reason why that again why that varies from one month to another month different days in the month there different number that come and then the last there was like an outstanding expense listed standing checks checks that aren't cash or through the bank okay and then um manuals we spent a lot of money on manuals for the checks that go each Friday manual batch of checks it's all the system used to batch our checks each week could be called manual checks so it's just the checks that go each week there could be for utilities gas oh so it's not for man like mans because that's what it looks like I'm like well all right um don't worry I asked that question probably twice when I first got on okay and then um and then just another couple items about the Committees finance committee again on we're at six minutes so try to wrap it up please all right so that's if you have one more quick one go ahead okay just finance committee um again will you be recruiting any discussions from the community because that's probably going to be pretty important to people here as to how we do have Community okay and then for the msba um maybe you'll have update today now that you added it are you going to be updating your title Title 9 policy align with the recent decision from the US Supreme Court thank you is there anyone else that like to speak to the board all right what's up Johnson um and response to her about transparency now is the time definitely for transparency with the amount of failures we've had lately with referendums and whatnot and if we are talking about simply playing in the gym I was told by Mr Samson that any School employee can enter the school at any time they want with who they want as long as they enter the building with them so if that's the case where's the problem thank you is there anyone else that like to speak to the board all right then we will close public input uh consideration to approve the finance report uh Josh I feel we come through most of it um top part would be the cash flow balance uh we're at we're really kind of in a spot in here where things are really routine The Debt Service payments have onone out they are due uh this week and they were sent out prior to this week so they be listing the outstanding uh parts of the checks they actually been cashed so um the only things I really to highlight in this in this part would be the bus lease is about a quarter of the way down uh that bus was supposed to have been arrived before the school dist school year started uh with the way that things are going with manufacturing of buses that gets delayed uh we should have that in about a month or so and that will start then the leas payment on that vehicle and then about 2third way down the uh project 2022a reimbursement uh we had been doing some cash flow through there to earn interest um that's reimbursement on the parts of those projects that happened in the CTE hbac project and we had to do some withdraw on that so it had been a balance of about 1.5 million we had to pull in some of those funds so that we could keep our cash flow going um other than that it's just the normal ins and outs of payroll and ideas payments coming to the district have any questions I can do my best to answer does anyone have any questions for Josh if not I would look for a motion to approve the fin I'll make a motion R second oh second any further discussion all in favor say I I oppose motion carries consent agenda items under the consent agenda are considered routine and will be enacted under one Motion in the event a board member wants to discuss any item it will be removed from the consent agenda for separate action uh Jeff if you like to read off uh the donors to the district yes uh we received $3,000 from the VFW for girls soccer $2,500 from the VFW for the dance team $1,500 from the BFW for the high school student council $40,000 from the Donald W and M Maryland Anderson Foundation directed by the Anderson family in memory of Susan a rutelli uh $1,500 goes to the softball program with a remainder to be used to purchase new microscopes for both Middle School and High School classes as well as other science equipment and will be used to fund the eighth grade stem Pro or skateboard project in the future $750 for Hur keys from hn Keys heating and air for robotics $100 from Redwing manufacturers for robotics $3,500 from Aloo Learning Center for robotics uh we had Terry Roode drop off some clothes for the nurse's office $1,884 from the Ed foundation for third through fifth grade book challenge for Missle $14,500 from the Ed foundation for fourth graded Eagle Bluff for the fourth grade team $661 for the Ed foundation for 10th through 12th grade DNA biotech labs for Miss Thompson and $ 62063 for the Ed foundation for literature materials for fourth grade Mrs thank you all generous donations to all uh if any of you don't want anything pulled out separate I would look for a motion to approve the consent agenda I'll make motion so in on the motion second any further discussion all in favor say I I oppose motion carries Super Jeff yep I just got a few uh items up here for dates to be aware of uh this coming Friday as Don mentioned we do have the legislative breakfast that board members superintendents and area legislators are invited to that we are hosting uh this year uh we are planning on an 810 arrival and then we will have a breakfast highlighted by the farm School initiative that we have going on here with uh some area business owner Representatives coming in and then we'll have presentations throughout the morning uh we have invited our uh Social Studies classes to come in and visit and uh especially our EP government classes to see how to interact with local government officials uh so hopefully all of you guys can make that um if you can't make it please let your I know and we'll take your name off the list um for all board members also on February 5th we have the GC board member orientation down at River Bluff uh starting at 5:00 p.m. and and this is a very good program to get uh you initiated into the uh partnership that we have with GC and all the programs that we have available on February 11th three of us or actually four of us three board members and myself will be attending the February 11th negotiations Workshop in Rochester all day just a reminder of that and then also one thing that wasn't on my report that I added late was March 18th is our Career Fair date that we've been hosting here for the past two or 3 years now and so I would encourage you guys if you can make it for that part of for any part of the morning to come in and check out the career fair in um the field what are the times on that uh is that usually like a 9 to 9 to about 1 yeah and we'll have about roughly 12 to, 1400 kids come through here here with quite a few schools from southeast Minnesota and about 100 vendors set up in those and that's a good partnership thing that we have going on with the southeast service pill up as well that we are lucky to host other than that unless you guys have questions that's all I got questions for Jeff okay then uh yeah we'll just have a little discussion on the msba uh two weeks ago uh all board members plus Jeff and uh Lori we attended uh msba up at the convention center uh the newbies were really lucky they got to be there Tuesday through Friday uh and then the rest of us came up on um wedn on Wednesday uh bunch of different workshops get to learn and uh all sorts of different uh things and further educate yourselves on different things that uh we learned in the past also my favorite part about it is uh the networking uh meeting other superintendents and other school board members and uh uh discussing similar situations uh and figuring out how other schools handle them and uh and vice versa um Jeff and Luke and I also assisted in a presentation with uh Ellers our financial consultants uh Jeff asked uh Luke and I to help participate with the with the expectation that uh thought maybe it was going to be 15 to 20 people and uh it ended up being a little over 100 uh with standing room only uh but I don't know if Jeff you want to talk a little bit about that presentation at all sure 's Financial or financial advisers as uh Clinton mentioned uh asked me if we would be interested in helping present up at the msba conference and I jumped to the chance and they asked if we had a couple of board members and so I Vol and told uh luk and Clinton that they would take part in that process and they readily agreed I think readily agreed uh to present at the very last uh session on Thursday which you really don't see a whole lot of people uh sticking around for that last session but like Clinton said uh we had close to 100 people in our room uh listening to talk about school finances and how things work from uh property taxes uh all the way through the the budgeting process and so it was a good hour presentation and we got a lot of positive feedback on that so um was happy to help out with that presentation while we start on this way Jolan you want to share anything about M um yeah like you said I I really enjoy um this is my third year going now and meeting the other schools and the other superintendents meeting with people who have worked with Jeff um years down the road and stuff like that I really enjoy um getting to meet and talk and stuff like that um but the couple breakout sessions that I really enjoyed that I went to um I usually always try to find one about upto-date information on like school safety and stuff like that because I really like going to those um they always have new tidbits and what other schools are doing and stuff like that um and the other one that I went to that I liked this year was um how to utilize the community ed better in your community right not necessar um just reaching out to really bring the community in um like do we how many how many classes do we offer do days can of Falls that maybe appe peas to the adult crowd in can Falls we used to but maybe not So Much Anymore um but um and then utilizing a teer is there a way to utilize it for maybe additional funding um so there was good ideas on that too so I like that one um I as Clinton stated am a newbie so um I went to phase one and phase two which was great um lot of information thrown at us but um just a good reminder that you know we're here as as a board collectively for you know with the goals of the district and the students in mind um and that was phase one phase two was all about school Finance which any of you guys know me you know I love that kind of stuff so um that was good to learn about um the finance world of schools and stuff some of it I knew some of it was new information to me um and then on Thursday there was a main speaker um Mickey Smith I encourage you guys to look him up if you haven't heard about him he was great um yeah his main message was just to make sure that all students are seen and I think we all agree with that that um you know we want all students to be seen and then some of the breakout sessions I went to again were Finance school that um I did attend um Jess and it was it was good you know it taught us a lot about school debt you know unfortunately that's what we're facing right now a lot of public schools are we're not alone so it was nice to hear from other schools districts too and know that we're not alone um and then I also went to a cell phone um restriction breakout session I know Jalen was there too and it was really interesting North Branch has instilled some policy to really restrict cell phones and um it was interesting to hear from they had a panel of um the principal as well as some students that talked about how that affected their school and it was pretty strict but everyone hopped on board and um it was really interesting so um yeah it was interesting to hear from another school about cell phones because we know that that's a problem in our school it was impressive how much the kids supported it actually correct yep I think it's because it they just came in very strict at first and then it just yeah did get support because they realized that they were able to focus in class so yeah it was very educational definitely thanks Ry Jody um I'm with Ry too I'm new and so phase one and phase two were very beneficial but very overwhelming there was a lot to take in a lot of terminology a lot of acronyms so I will be going to that for reference a lot um tended a couple different ones um and workshops and capturing kids heart was one that really was a good one for me um it's like basically the culture um and how music can set the tone when you're going into a classroom um you know when you wake up you have your wake up music or if you're you know getting ready for a sport you have your music for that so it was just different ways that we could model you know how we are to then the kids will reflect on that yep everyone first time as well so went to session one and two um I realized how much of a Powerhouse msba group is there was 421 new board members across the state that was attending that session and then realizing ing the amount of tools and resources that the msba puts together in the community to leverage and how they work with the Department of Education that was something I came in learning of Don you luded to one of the statutes right and how many statutes and policies are fundamentally there already and then how do you interpret that as a educator but also as a community member right and how do we get those resources and how can we do a better job to you know accumulate all of those and then selling that back to the community so mostly just learning all the resources and the tools that are available for the school board members and the community yeah for me uh kind of like Clinton said it's a lot about the networking and and chatting with other board members and seeing how they deal with certain things um but one of the breakouts I went to that that I thought was important and I know we've been working on it here is um student reps on the on the board um we've had it in the past for years and years and we hav't high for a while now and it was interesting to hear from them because the students were there that were doing it and just their ability to learn how to put an agenda together and what what a professional agenda looks like and how you follow U one of those in public speaking and in front of your community and and out the community I thought that was it's important to me that we have someone to do that and then um to go up there and see the kids to see how important it was to them in their experience and then there's also um and I'm not sure if you've done this in the past but there's uh Grant or scholarships available for those students if they choose to be a part of that so um some schools did it uh you had to be a student council member some schools matter you apply you get selected so I think we need to get back to that and uh hopefully we can do that soon all right thank you all all right we'll move on to action items there is no old business new business consideration to approve the Baseball spring break trip to Florida spring of 2026 Bucky hello thanks thanks for giving me a minute here tonight I don't know how many of you have seen this I sent it but I don't know if it got to you and that's fine um this is just to request a trip in 2026 during spring break uh the purpose of the trip is to keep the baseball Squad together during spring break which has gotten challenging and to be in favorable weather in March in Florida instead of Minnesota um it would be right during spring break so no one would miss any school approximate cost when we went last time in 2024 was 30,000 I expect it to be about the same um if you take 20 players that's $1,500 per plate that's how we did it last time we did all the fundraising parent group got together we got donations we did the fundraising ended up being anywhere from 400 to 800 per kid that they paid at the end um and that was in a short period of time so that was from September to March this time was will have 14 months to get ready so that'll be much better um three or four coaches uh location Florida um probably Jackie Robinson training complex that's where we went last time had an awesome experience so probably same place um last time many of the families baseball families made it a family trip it couldn't have worked out better they did their vb's and and uh airbnbs and and it made it a really good time for Ames to get away during Spring Break um I surveyed our parents back in June when the season ended about their thoughts for 2026 and I it was overwhelmingly yes pursue it go um they'll read the they'll lead the fundraising efforts again um and now we're getting some things that end up being annual fundraisers like alumni concessions chili feed for uh the uh deck the falls and so on so I'm here to ask you permission to go because it's High School league says we can't go unless the board approves it any questions uh do you have something in place for families that uh have a tough time affording this um it wasn't a situation but yeah we can definitely make that work sure because we have other volunteers that help with fundraising and they're willing to give their funds they're not parents like sure people like Wanda y um they'll they'll they'll donate what they've earned to kids so it's already happened other questions it's it's amazing that you guys do it it's awesome you would have done it 20 years ago that would even better that's what you said last [Laughter] time any other questions for bucket awesome thank you for your time thank you all right then I would ask for a motion to approve the Baseball spring break trip to Florida for the spring of 2026 I'll move to approve I'll second Luke on the motion Jen on the second any further discussion all in favor say I I I oppose motion carries consideration to approve a resignation Jeff uh yes this is for Jennifer shapi uh we to thank Jennifer for her time and efforts in the district over the years um I do recommend approval of the resignation all right uh Jee how do we plan on going forward down at the elementary uh Stephen uh stros I almost said Johnson is uh in uh currently as the elementary principal uh we will be opening that position up here in the next probably month or so uh to put the permanent uh person in that role moving forward is there any other questions for Jeff if not I'd look for a motion to approve the resignation of Jennifer shapi I'll make motion Jena on the motion second Luke on the second any other further discussion one thing so when when we have a resignation does that person have the chance to pull that before the board approves it yeah okay it's all right and I'd also ask with a resignation do we actually does the board actually have to approve that according to msba okay we actually got a letter on that actually the other day as sent out to schools so this is just to be transparent with the community yep we and we've always done it this way um teaching staff and professionals as have to have them as an agenda okay all right we have a motion in a second any other discussion all in favor say I I I oppose motion carries all right next regular meeting will be on February 10th at 6 if anyone has anything that you would like to have added to the agenda please speak to Jeff or Lori else I would look for a motion to adjourn make a motion jod on the motion r on the second any other discussion all in favor say I I oppose motion carries