##VIDEO ID:F79h4B3Hneg## two for the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands a nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all is coming and I'm right on time gr is sitting over there through me off hey welcome we just called the meeting to order sit next to you s I'm kind of I well if it's any consolation I would just hit basketball practice yelling oh okay not too much but hopefully that's what most of it is hopefully not okay can't be too sure these days talk to Chris more than me how that okay G keep I'm gonna keep my head down um Okay so we've called order we just did the Pledge so sorry you missed that um but I'll give you a quick second there to settle in um and then we'll just need to approve the agenda I make a motion to approve the agenda I second all right any discussion on that all those in favor I I those oppose okay agenda is approved uh 4.0 is our acknowledgements and recognitions um which we don't have any this evening uh 5.0 is our community comments and our recognition of visitors uh welcome visitors thanks for joining us for the January uh 2025 business meeting here um thanks for for being here and thanks to all of you on Zoom for being here as well hey there's a I just look at an email from Maria got it we're headed got it oh cool all right thank you Eric yeah um and our community comment section it's an opportunity for the public to address the board on an item included in the agenda in court in accordance with the guidelines printed at the end of the agenda um and we do have uh at least one comment for this evening and we've got Maria Bernett and she's coming in live on Zoom um Maria if you're if you're there and you can hear us go ahead and unmute you're up I think I did okay great we got you perfect okay I was just um I know it's the agenda item which is 8.3 um Chris and uh Eric was in on the U LC meeting that we had uh last night so just to make sure that um this is like a um how the chairperson told me a temporary approval because we do have to um let this new parent committee uh have time to review the IP and make any comments or adjustments deletions or whatever they want to do so uh we'll be working on that with next month so it's like it's not really a final stamp but temporary stamp of approval okay great well thank you for providing that context and we'll chat and we'll chat a bit more about that when we get to that item too so thank you thank you um all right great and I believe that is all the comments we have signed up for for tonight so we'll move on to 6.0 which are our reports um 6.1 is our principal report welcome Mr balang good evening everybody all right um so a little update in the school and I know uh Greta will share some stuff as well but in our Elementary School St b elementary um we continue to recognize the junior Viking values of being respectful being responsible being their best we've recognized over 100 students that are monthly Sawtooth assembly uh assemblies in the ACA um also this month we've been focusing on acceptance and inclusion as our theme for the month and we highlighted this on January 15th during our live unified day where uh members of our unified club club went into Elementary classrooms read stories talked about topics of inclusion and acceptance and the elementary students worked on a big art mosaic that's on display in the hallway outside of the cafeteria that represents um how despite individuality we can all contribute to something greater as a United Community so that's on display in the hallway outside of the cafeteria um also another fun update from our elementary school uh last week fifth graders started leading our elementary school in the Pledge of Allegiance um to the American flag in English as well as the pledge to the flag of Grand Portage in ojibway and so that's been a really fun um addition to our morning routine and that came from fifth graders asking to um be engaged and Lead that um in our elementary school so that's been a really um fun new thing that we are doing every the first day of every week as we do our as we haveen with the pledge to the uh flag of the United States of America uh in our middle and high school there is an ASVAB career expiration test coming up on February 6th that is open to Juniors and seniors this is a multi- aptitude test it's commonly given in the military um but it is used to ident ID ify potential career options based off of aptitude abilities and interests in students and so that's coming up on the sixth um and juniors and seniors can get signed up for that uh also tomorrow we're presenting to our ninth and 12th graders um in during advisory about the timber frame building class happening at North house Folk School in April um and so this is something that's been going on at the school for a couple of decades now um they spend a week down at North house and build um a stru structure uh for a specific purpose and so we've got our Outdoor Classroom there is one of the structures one year that was built the the bridge going over to the community center is another structure that was built and so uh we've got a teacher from The Folk School and one of our teachers at school would just be presenting to students tomorrow who are interested I'm in this week-long experience and then also tonight if we wrap up the meeting by 6:30 our onea play crew is rehearsing right now for their performance of Harper's uh Harper's promise and tonight at 6:30 they're doing a little free preview event uh for the community in the ACA at 6:30 so I invite you all um to head on over there and check out that performance and then uh last week was the end of our semester and tomorrow uh grades will be finalized for first semester halfway through the school year got last minut homework G um great any questions all sounds good yeah thank folks best of luck on the second semester are you is that a request so all right well let's we we'll do that building level stuff sure well let's yeah let's Jump Ahead to the student board report 6. three Greta young doll to tail with the principal report hello Greta how are you doing I'm good good to see you um so I got the opportunity to meet you all the other day but if you happen to forget I'm gr young doll and I'm the student School Board representative this year I'm really excited to work with all you guys um semester two has just begun this week after our unexpected yet very needed extended weekend um students have been very busy turning in work and studying and taking finals winter sports have been in full force our Alpine ski team just competed in a double race in the freezing cold temps the boys team took uh first place in both races whereas the girls team faced some tougher competition um with five races so far in this season the boys have had a clean sweep and they've gotten first place at all of them W and our girls have also been doing very well finishing second at every race except for the last double race uh Nordic King has also been fantastic this season the younger kids are especially thriving right now um they've been um placing at races and taking the extra time to do a lot of skiing on their own um at almost every race they've had somebody on the podium which is super ex s and their sections are coming up so we'll stay that our girls basketball team won their first game against BAC the other day which gives them the record of one and 13 they're placed 15th in the conference at this moment and despite despite this they have been putting a lot of heart on the court this year is definitely a building year for them and then for the boys basketball team they just had a really good win against massabi East which makes them five and eight overall and four- six in the conference um they had a rocky start to their season but they've been showing their potential recently and then these next couple of games will show how the rest of their season will go and then for close this month our Varsity knowledge bow just had their first meet last Wednesday and they took first place and then as Mr ban said the one act play started um there's about like 10 or so students participating this year and then tomorrow they're on their way to to Harbors to compete with other schools and then the UniFi Club did an art takeover to teach the elementary students all about inclusion and then last week on unified day they read to the preschool class and had a lunch discussion and what it means to be kind and what un unified day is all about and last and viron received their scenario for 2025 and their project tackles forestry conservation and Land Management and they're taking a deeper dive into how that all ties into native land and that about sums it up with the Student Life lately and if you guys have any questions you can reach out to me through my email and yeah thanks I feel like I have to clap or something yeah thank you Greta um could you talk us through a little bit about what the the knowledge Bowl um program looks like like what's the format and how that works do you do you know much about that um I know a little bit so they meet our our Varsity I think meets every Tuesday or Thursday I want to say in Mr ly's room and then they have probably a meet like every other week I'm I'm not sure how their schedule is exactly but last week was their first one and they've been pretty successful like what is that like what is the do they do well they go to as far as I know they go to like the other schools and there's like a bunch of teams and they get a question they working teams I think teams then they get questions yeah I so when they're practicing getting these like trivia like question yeah okay my son is the speaker for the Varity knowledge bow and he he says it's kind of like trivia yeah but more formal sure and then last year they went to um went to state to one conference went to State one of them did yeah and U the year before they had like some some sort of Celebration he was like we all showed up in our sweatpants and all the other teams showed up in their suits so there's so even my son who's like really deep in this now Year too is bless about what they're really doing but he do well enough to you know take first place it's very much a team sport work in the small teams and they have to come up with an answer as a team sure and only one person on the team gets speak is why like I know team family then I always like was there a question you're really proud you got right and he's like we get them all right Mom so what's um we were just informed that the first semester just ended second semester starting what's what's the vibe amongst your uh student body and how how's everybody feeling halfway through the the year I think everyone's feeling very excited I'm very excited first because now I'm closer to being a senior true cool who's the secretary now of our we don't have a secretary cler I'm the cler oh it's going to be some great minutes and Shirley wanted to know the vibe I was like waiting for him to throw out like that sounds Sigma K is the one who takes our oh okay so include personal inquired about the vibe I can explain to you what that means later all right well awesome thank you Greta appreciate that in your thorough report for sure would you like to go next sure yeah superintendent report 6.2 sure there's a few things in my report I want to um cover first uh in my report I offer a thank you to some of our staff members um it's been kind of a a week around Cook County schools with cold weather technology issues um snow plowing pull in law day long days and and then having our staff kind of prepare for not having Internet and then having internet um so just a thank you to our staff the flexibility the hard work the willingness to just roll up their sleeves and get stuff done is really really really appreciated uh another celebration is our bond rating our bond sales took place uh and uh we had a really good rating and then when we sold our bonds we got an interest rate of just over 4% which is very low um and that's really due to the fiscal management of this board over the last five to six years so you can pat yourself on the back for having um gotten that great rating and then having a good sale um when you get into the into the math of that it it means that um the taxpayers will ultimately end up paying about $3 million less than projected because of the good rating and the good Bond sale so uh it's a celebration for our community uh all the way around and and part of the conversation about what what we do next in my report is a document with a list of uh legislative priorities that I've put together um for board members to know and use as you communicate with our representatives and our Senators um you know looking at some things that are important to us the special ed cross subsidy will always be a big deal to Cook County and the more that the legislature can Target chip in way at that that helps us a great deal um and a couple other things I put in there is um the required now unemployment insurance for hourly staff during the summer um that was a Mand put in place and there was only two years of funding put in place to cover the cost of that so it it falls back on the back of the um the districts if the legislature doesn't come up and fund what they did so that is a legislative priority for all school districts in Minnesota uh and then the last top one that I listed was last time last session Senator house child championed uh seasonal recreational property Levy replacement bill um the bill wouldn't increase the to our district but the the bill would reduce the tax burden of the levy levies yes levy on our homeowners essentially and our commercial businesses so uh that bill is a big deal to Cook County um residents and I think it would it would bode well for that to pass for any District that has a high seasonal Recreation aka the Jesse Ventura repeal Bill y so it got a good chance I don't think it does but um it's definitely worth pushing for is it a Partyline thing or is it a is it a regional issue or both I think it's a FIS fiscal issue um that benefits about 35 to 45 districts in the state heavily and the rest of the state would be like right so it's regional it's a regional thing yeah bummer um but the way the um in the past there's been talk about moving seasonal wck back to being part of our um Levy referendum and while that was Dead on Arrival I did think that house child's strategy with this one was a little bit smarter rather than move them into a different tax area it just funnels the money from St to St Paul and then back to the to the district home homeowner so it's a different approach I think maybe it has a chance in a smart in a smoke fied room at the end of the session when they're cutting deals you never know what's gonna get there so um I've got those listed there for you uh board members to take a look at and make sure you have n working knowledge as you're communicating with the legislators and then last but not least at the top of my report I shared about uh the meeting this morning and it's a it's an exciting meeting uh I'm grateful for Dan and for um April walstrom um to join me uh Reena was going to go but she ended up not able to go we went to it RB with Gary cven who you met a month or two ago from the puson group and um interestingly when we got there uh we sat down and the people that walked out of the conference room ahead of us were the people from the aen school district and if you remember when he was here he talked a little bit about trying to work with a project in aen and a pro a project here in Cook County and seeing if he could legislatively line that up with it Tri RB funding so he had both districts there this morning speaking with the folks at ierb uh we walked through what took place last November and uh what passed what did not pass and ultimately put an ask for ITB to um provide some matching funds if the district wants to go out next November uh so rather than asking for 9 million maybe we're asking for a havy havy a four and a half and a four and a half or a five and a five um we put the ask out there in the pitch and now we have to see what happens uh this is separate from general fund dollars in the legislature which is important to remember the money is there it's just a matter of who gets it so um it's about getting the politics to line up and that's why we had what was the vibe as our chairman it was really positive I I I walked out of there going wow uh I mean there's even there's even talk about you know what about a little bigger dollar amount oh and um for us as a board we have to be thinking about okay well if it's a match of seven and seven that means we're asking our taxpayers for seven not four or five and what's politically um helpable to our public um going back out next November so that's a decision we'll have to make in the near future and I want you to think about that you know if we went back to the public and said we cut it in half we're asking you four and a half or five um how does that resonate uh with the public come next November so the vibe was good it was very positive it felt like Gary's doing his job which is trying to line up the right pieces to the puzzle and the Ain thing I forget I remember the whole Spiel but the achin thing helps us if they're going out or hurts us or in Gary's mind it helps us okay as part of the chess match of getting Republican and Democratic representatives and Senators right on different committees in power position they both get self Mo of it got it right does g this is kind of does Gary have perspective on the differences for the like if we're doing this election in November I mean it's that's a pretty different election because it's not a year of a general election correct I mean does he like is that good or bad I mean demographics of who will vote who will it's 90 n 95% of the time it's good it's good okay that's what I would think yeah and why it makes a lot of sense to try to get it now right not only is it all the stuff is here and the the scale of all the people being here and contractors but um most importantly in Cook County next November there are no other elections yeah so it's the people that pay attention and Care correct not lost in the noise of all the other stuff right and that's that's why um Quin you may or may not I'm trying to remember you may not have been on the board yet I showed a document put together by IC there are four dates in in the calendar year when we can go out for a referend yeah I I wasn't on the board but I saw that saw that document yeah in November a year out you know that's kind of the last one there was one in August there was one in like April um there's four of them and a lot of districts go out for referend referendums in April or August so it's completely separate from referendum is there any way we could like maybe get some people together and be like what do you think of this and get a Vibe of like a Vibe of like yeah you know half and half that's better or like you guys lost your damn mind you know you just asked us for you know or there's both and you know I don't know I'd like to have a better handle on that yeah so one of the things in the works is Todd rap who you've met um does strategic survey work uh to get that pulse uh and he was going back to get he was doing a deep dive into the voting results and then one of our next conversations is should we go and do some kind of a survey so we can get a dipstick on what the public say yes to they do focus groups I feel like the thing where we say yeah come on and only 10 people show up I feel like we should like feed like 30 people and say okay what do you think don't hold back well that's an option they'll they'll do a statistically reliable survey um but we can do focus scoups and things like that as well I mean I don't nothing that's cost prohibitive or anything but right right for sure I mean it's it's not yeah it's for sure and we don't we have to make that we have like six months before we have to make that decision so between now and then is that's part of what we need to do is kind of understand if there's a a realistic path forward but you know being at the meeting today it was super encouraging that about the way that they were receptive and understood the issue um but that's only half the battle right that's half the battle but I mean I think a proposal to go back to the voters just to Reas the question again is perhaps not the best strategy but if you know I just think if we're going to have a viable path forward coming back with a hey we got the I RB to cut that P that number in half we're saving 3 million bucks on our other Bond sale because we had a good Bond rating you know with principal interest payments you know maybe we get some of the the sales tax exemption stuff worked out with the legislature it's kind of like a puzzle that we can come back and it's a different type of ask then it's like we're not asking you to Bear all this we've reduced the cost significantly so instead of it being $8 per month it's now four or $3 per month is the tax impact and I think that's a compelling thing personally and it was just as a kind of to get this conversation out of the gates it was really encouraging the way that the folks there were um sort of heard the issue and what we've kind of done already with a a successful referendum that the community is already kind of like got a fair amount of skin in the game that was they were like okay yeah that's like good to know right and um you know there's a process that we have to go through in order to kind of like formally seek that money but they were you know sort of inviting us into that for sure so let me ask this sorry to keep belaboring this especially if there's a 6:30 event people are trying to get to and I'm a guy holding it up but like I think about my own nine-to-five job and different pockets of money I can go for my odds of getting them because I've been burnt in the past where I put like tons of man hours into a certain Grant and then just falls apart so like this effort isn't necessarily like something that's going to cost a lot cuz know we talk about the cost of like hiring a consultant well then he had the pitch that right there was a trail that was basically going to if we get that that's basically kind of a wash and that's the minimum so what's the man hours do you think on your end and maybe other administrative folks and Teresa I don't know but like you know is there a cost Associated there with this effort or absolutely yeah absolutely there's a like today there was a whole day being on the road and then there's going to be filling out the application and all that so absolutely there's a cost and you know I think that's the question should we be should we be as a school district trying to Champion a better environment for our students I kind of think that's what I get paid to do well but okay but hold on here so like not to go back to this but our voters determined that we did that in one regard and we didn't do that that that the other two weren't as essential or whatever their thinking was and we don't know they thinking right you know I mean maybe it was just ah you know that's but like I don't know I I don't know I guess not to muddy the waters or be in the stick in the mud but I I I've had concerns throughout this process and I continue to not like oh no you know this is wrong but just like little concern minor concerns but anyway all right well for us our constituents are the voters right for Chris as the superintendent it's that's not like what he drives is not necessarily driven by the voters right right so his perspective is potentially a little different a better environment for the students that's what yeah and and we're not going to do it unless it's the will of the board so uh there's that right like you're my you're my boss and I think what is the vibe out there is a really relevant question I mean we have a we have a really bright connected student here we could ask what's the vibe in you know if you're asking students that are in track softball families you know this was a big Downer um and that's a big group of students and a big group of families and I listen I hear them all day you know right but the voters told us something else two months ago so it depends again on how you interpret that though voters told us not this right voters when we put so the half half new uh proposal they might I mean we'll find out they might be like we shut that down and we're shutting it down again or they might be like oh this is more palatable let's go for it I mean it's I understand it was really very close on question to right so I think it's 2% 170 votes yeah so I mean you feel like that's like okay we went back and we tried to make it more palatable is not again I mean that just seems but some of the Consultants that we talked to said if we weren't in a presidential election we would have had a different turnout that would have likely skewed it I'm not necessarily buying that argument I don't know I think that would thing could go 5050 I 50 they have data on it it's they they make that recommendation because the data says that they're more successful when it's not during a presidential election referendums correct correct so you know if we would have waited till next year maybe we would have gotten all three questions answered but the timing what didn't wasn't right because of the way everything kind of came together to wait you know well I you know I guess I I guess I'm skeptical of that because I've heard from different people who are I know aren't how do I put this politely who are progressive voters who voted no on two and three or three so that's why I'm a little skeptical about this oh if it's not a presidential election year plus the fact that we don't live in central Minnesota or an overwhelmingly red District to begin with so I don't know well I it's it's I think fair to say that that General like statistic um is perhaps a little different here and that was part of the reason why we did it because they were like well you guys have a reasonable chance if you were somewhere else it would have been a like this is a bad idea um so anyway but you know that's that's kind of the update I think we you we we'll kind of keep I'll put being a Negative Nancy how about that okay thank you all right um would argue that your voice is important for us to hear for sure negative or positive um okay so we have 6.4 are some Schoolboard reports and these from board members um me and Reena um have reports in here and we we uh moved them out of the consent agenda and into the report section for this just to give the opportunity unfortunately Reena isn't with us tonight to speak about her experience but we were just going to give a quick quick recap about the conference that we went to last week uh in Minneapolis the msba uh conference um so I'll just kind of talk briefly about my experience and um so it was a great conference um definitely worth worth the while again to go down there um they always do a really good job of uh pulling in a engaging keynote speaker so um both Reena and I really enjoyed that it was um a guy from rural Louisiana who is a music teacher and he's won a lot of awards most notably the Grammys gives out a music educator award that he won um and he kind of talked about his experience you know in his journey to winning that award um and he is a saxophonist he walked into the auditorium playing the saxophone and he was like holding it the whole time and giving a Spiel but he you know you had a real uplifting message and just kind of a good reminder that like um you know we need to continue to you know find our purpose and continue to support Educators and make sure that um we let them know excuse me because it's a hard job dude's from Minnesota no he's from Louisiana oh you said that okay yeah um and then he played a very rousing rendition of I Will Always Love You on the saxophone to his talk it was kind of amazing like the Whitney Houston yeah it was like it was pretty impressive so that was great um and then break song I mean that was he was playing that part on the saxophone it was like you didn't need to so um that was cool but um yeah Reena and I attended that we both attended the msba director District 11 um meeting which msba has a Bo of made up of board members from 13 different regions in the state um and we were in the region 11 so we went to that meeting there was an election for our um region how big is region this region it's pretty big geographically it's quite large um it's like the it's like the us8 district or something it's pretty darn B you where's the person from um the our representative is from Rock Ridge and so there was an ction I I was particularly interested to go to this because there was an election this year was up he served like three or four year terms or something so it was up for election he was uh reelected um to serve um one of the kind of never mind one of the interesting things that was mentioned was that msba you know does a similar thing to what like the um like political parties do in terms of like getting resolutions and like having like a convention and stuff and having them passed up in order to get onto mba's legislative platform and so they take eight delegates from each district to then come to a conference and like bring resolutions and they vote on them and then the ones that kind of make it to the level end up going on mba's legislative platform and that's what they're work going to then work on you know in their capacity at the state and lobbying the the legislature so there's an opportunity to do that this summer they'll elect be for a couple of years they'll elect eight people um so that's coming down the pike um but the one interesting thing that he mentioned was he said I don't think that there's a single School District in uh region 11 that is not in the red financially and that isn't Mak and that isn't making cuts um and it was we decided not to correct the record in front of everybody but it was interesting just to hear that feedback of sort of our peer and for regional districts that you know people are they're hurting financially and so we should feel good that we're kind of navigating that so circling back that issue about the the the Jessie Ventura thing you know where the where the cabin don't out of pay that wouldn't help that issue like those issues are it's more of a moral issue that they pay their fair share and cut our thing it's not bringing as you said to help that problem no it just it lowers the burden on the residents um so anyways that was good um and then I attended three different like Workshops the way that this is structured they have a million different to choose from that a lot of them happen concurrently you can only go to you know three kind of maximum over the time because there's three separate sessions um so I went to one on uh just kind of an overview about the some change in um labor laws at the last session I put a few highlights in the report here and that was interesting um I went to one about the implementation of the title 9 final rule which was supposed to be rolling out but um a judge in Kentucky or something just stopped that from happening so we're rolling back to the 2020 Title 9 rules um so for those of you that are involved in in that um if you haven't heard that yet that's the deal we're going back to the 2020 Title 9 rules and if there's any sort of like District policy that we need to update to align with that that's something we should be looking at um and then really interestingly I went to a student Le discussion about cell phones at North Branch and so they had three students there that led the discussion there was a couple board members and their their principal and they were talking about how they went from a like free-for-all like no cell phone policy people could just have their phones whenever they want whatever no no restrictions to uh policy um and how they navigate ated that um and it was really interesting to hear the student voice you know in terms of how they going into when there was no restrictions everybody felt like yeah of course this is fine this is not a problem our phones are not a distraction for us that was sort of them looking back and then sort of now current day now that they have some restrictions in place which is basically you can't have your phones out in class you can have them passing time and at lunch um they've have were all like yeah this has actually been really helpful it's behavioral issues and stuff but they had a kind of an interesting approach in terms of how they implemented it because they um they did a lot of focus groups with staff and students and stuff in the community before deciding on what they were going to do and they basically learned that staff didn't want to have to deal with like policing this all the time and it being a big big distraction so they came up with like an internal like chat function where the teachers on their computer can send like a private chat that goes to their like Behavior team and that says like soone so and so has a phone out in my room so the teacher seees the phone they just type it into the chat they don't stop teaching the behavior team comes into the room and like takes the student to the hall takes their phone and sends them back in and like the teacher doesn't stop team that swoops in they swoop in yeah so they swoop in so you got to have a behavior team to swoop it um but so it was like zero tolerance for it wasn't like warnings or whatever so it wasn't distracting the class so it's kind of interesting and they've got a won't go into all the details but they the kind of the long and short of it was is they put a lot of like effort into um kind of getting making sure they got it close to right at the outset by like engaging a lot of groups and then they did a lot of like thorough communication they did a bunch of videos like they produced a bunch of videos and pushed those out to like students in the community and like whatever to kind of like let them know what was happening and how it's going and it was just it was just nice and it was like positive across the board the students were happy with it the board was happy with it the principal was feeling good about it so it was it was just interesting as we kind of like continue to navigate that as like kind of a model of some successful stuff so um that was that piece um and then the last little thing I would say that and this was just on rea's report she um one of the that she commented to me one of the sessions that she went to was on um uh unlocking career in technical education and this was put on by some folks from the Department of Ed and she just felt like it was pretty inspiring in terms of like the the sort of breadth of options and the like ways that you can go about um that topic and it's not always just your typical like maybe what you think of like wood shop wood shop or whatever there are you know things on more professional tracks and things like that that like our career oriented um ways to get funding and and whatever and kind of start developing um some of that in your school um career type stuff that is yeah not just the trade so um she could talk more detailed on that but it she she felt like that was maybe there's maybe something there um so anyway so that's our school reports um are you always going to give a report or just because of the the conference well you yeah I mean I did because I went to the conference oh we any board you know in the past we would somewhat regularly on and off board members would submit a report and it would go into our consent agenda so we wouldn't necessarily talk about it but you could look through it so if you ever are compelled to report in you're certainly welcome to do that and do it sometime to time more often when you're having specific meetings or maybe the collaborative meeting or an LA you report negotiations it seems like Chris generally brings back the information but um there's quite a few other meetings that we've done I'm not currently on so yep no don't worry all right um so let's move on to our consent oh yes am I allowed to leave you are welcome student report worries representes thanks for thanks for coming yeah always welcome to stay as long as you want well I'll see you guys take care um okay so 7.0 is our concept agenda um and if there's anything that needs to be pulled for further discussion let us know otherwise we just need a motion motion okay all those in favor I I bu oppose right consent to agenda approved uh 8.0 are discussion and action items um 81 8.1 is to accept the December 2024 expenditure revenue report here in our packet and Miss oberg is here hello hello let's see what's what do you got for us I've got the December report which is 50% of the year if you're looking at the far right column um I think we're tracking really well now is the time kind of when we're waiting for State funding to come in so it might not that's why you don't see a direct 50% of funding on the revenue side because there'll be State payments coming in in January um but I don't nothing jumps out at me that um I would um draw your attention to I do notice that also like the food service were you know above um expenses than revenues but I think that's all just kind of catch up and um where we're at in the middle of the year um but I guess just also um as part of this report and work that I've been working on lately is just getting ready for the bond sales and organizing myself to um get those organized in the financial system so then they're presented to you um in a organized manner um so that's something I'm working on and then as well um I think later on in the agenda the IP um I've been working on the impact aid application and that is a part of that application and so that is uh why we need that approved tonight um so that we can submit that application for the federal funding that is based on the tribal lands um and so those are just a few things that I've been working on and um if anyone has any questions for me great thank you so much all right and then just a motion then go for it dude I know you want to motion okay we got a motion from Quinn second okay second from Eric uh any further discussion all those in favor I I those opposed motion carries okay 8.2 is to approve the res resolution to ratify the sale of bonds um so we've got the resolution here in our packet um so it's a resolution relating to 24 m175 th000 General obligation School building bonds series 2025a ratifying the award of sale prescri prescribing the form in details and providing for the payment thereof what we've got here and after the meeting we need some signatures on those documents okay um so I know Chris mentioned a little bit at the outset that we had the sale was successful we got a good uh really great bid um isn't TD Securities Canadian or am I dreaming that I have no idea I'm not sure like they got the green logo because it's all Canada there's all these Tedd BS I believe it's out of New York so okay big could be a connection yeah the low bid 4.51 um so we just need a motion make that motion second okay further discussion we don't we this is a process we haven't gone through a ton even like I've on here a long time so I feel like I want to ask questions but I don't even know what the right like what is the question I'm supposed to be asking not if they're from Canada that's not the right that might be it that might be it I don't know in the document it does say TV security parentheses USA so I bet there's Canada yeah well it just feels like it's like the bank up there that a couple others the Govern the governance question would be process right and so we we went through the bond rating first right we get rated at a you know something and then ultimately it goes out to bid to the market and we have Consultants that help us do that that push it out there in all their ways and what you see right there at the beginning is all of the um responders and who was lowest and so from a due process standpoint you can see that it went out to a bunch of different folks a bunch of different companies bid on it um and and the favor will bit a 4.05 is better than the worst one at 4.26 right so um ultimately then our Consultants say all right you're good now just ratify it and way it goes and uh now we start paying back Deb service and investing in all those mechanics right so that basically just means this company is gonna you know they're buying the bonds we're getting that Lum Sun of 24, 175 ,000 and then the taxpayers are going to pay back for the principal and interest over the period of time and that's the interest rate on that principle of 24 million bucks so we end up having to pay the projected amount when we went through all the like costing and trying to figure this out and how much it's going to cost the the taxpayers we thought it was going to cost about $39 million total in principal and interest payments and that's kind of how we projected this out with this interest rate that we got it's going to end up being about $36 million of total payback principal interest so the taxpayers are getting a bit of a break because we got this great interest rate which is in large part due to us having a good Bond rating correct um so it's a more secure investment for these people they're feeling better about making this investment they're going to get their money back because we're proven to pay our bills if a district did this 10 years ago was the rate still 4% or was it a lot lower it fluctuates with the regular market right so 10 years ago what were our rates lot lower lot so then yes it would have been interesting that was just trivia it had nothing to do for any kind of it's a different Market but it's still the General market it's still a mortgage y so yep and then this is just like the last step kind of to make it all so so for the board yeah yep any other questions all those in favor I I those opposed resolution is adopted all right 8.3 is to approve the uh IP for 2025 so IP because sorry I had to leave the meeting last night because I was driving but um they didn't make any they approved it but they didn't make any modification so they basically just said passed it at the board level okay revisit it so they didn't have Quorum either oh that's right they didn't have Quorum so is that legally kosher then or well we ultimately approve it as a board so yeah I thought it had to legally be approved by a parent committee or the tribe or somebody oh we can't hold it up it's got to go in so we're we're we're approving it and sending it in right and I mean we can you can certainly make the motion that you're approving it pending um you know additional modifications or whatever or as Maria said you could just change it again next month it's a living breathing document right right so uh I do want to make I don't know if this document came from your files or what but there we might want to just take out some of the fiscal year things because they're quite old in there fiscal year 23 imp typos yeah yeah just some of that kind of stuff we could even take them out yeah for the fiscal year impacting the application or something where we're just more generalizing those right Quinn for your sake this is an annual thing okay so the L which meets monthly um they approve it the board approves it it goes into that annual application in January and end of January right year then that drives some Revenue we get from the federal government based on Trel lands that I mean basically it's the air the lands that aren't taxed so then we're getting the federal dollars from the federal government essentially and if we were in a district say with a big Air Force Base or something it would be the same Revenue stream it's it's replacing tax and the way we generate it because there's different ways to calculate it and so like if we had a big Air Base it might be based on um employees who work on the base and their children who are but we it um our application typically falls under the line of students living on tribal lands so any student living on tribal lands right so like a census right so we approve it now we might approve it later if there's modifications made by the par commit and then the kind of the other piece to it is on an annual basis um the L the band basically gets to report back and say if we're in concurrence with this like did we do what we said we were going to do and they have the opportunity to say no or yes and that's more tied IND yeah that's State money I don't think there's a necessarily I think and but isn't it for the IP though I think they can they can write something that says the thing isn't in concurrence but it's not like the state where there's a piece of paper that's got to be signed right where the you know the LC has to say you are in concurrence with you know eia funding yeah it's two different is it concurrence or compliance maybe I think it's concurrence yeah I don't know you could I think concurrence is the that's the fall yeah so um this is annual process we rehauled the IP back when I was on the parent committee three years ago we don't take public comment and a board me no so somebody's not muted yeah all right so let's just roll on and we'll come back to this if we need to great um okay so do we have a motion I'll make a motion okay any further discussion all those in favor I I I those opposed motion carries okay 8.4 is to approve the read act mou which is here in the packet and this is with the ccea yeah so when the read Act was passed by the legislature it was mandated in statute that the uh Education Minnesota and msba craft a model mou and then it was in law that we had to come up with one and that rarely rarely happens when they say you must so we had to um by law and so we I and Teresa sat down with a negotiations team at ccea we did did get revenue for implementation of Reda training the cost of this will exceed the revenue we get and we made that very clear with ccea you're dipping in further than um the revenue being given for this um but as anyone who's been at the negotiations table knows that's the way kind of roles so uh what our teachers did voice really gratefulness for uh is the fact that they have a fair amount of choice in how they do this so the the in-person synchronous training it's not iners sorry it's virtual but it's it's synchronous um all of those days are happening during contracted PD days so they're not getting any ex any extra compensation for that that's on duty days but all the asynchronous work which I think if I remember right it's around 60-ish hours in total they have some choice they can do it on a contract day and get a sub they could do it on a day like Tuesday when they were supposed supposed to be working and working from home um or they can do it outside the contract day and submit for compensation and the amount of compensation was placed right in theou right now 34 yeah 345 for each module and there are modules what if everybody does that option is that like a most yeah yeah so is this significant chunk if everybody would say yeah pay me another you know well when I did the napkin math on this last year I was figuring it's going to cost us about $80,000 and and the revenue we get was like 28 or I can't remember I don't remember it was it's a lot more than what they gave us general fund dollars professional development yeah so anyway we got the there ccea overwhelmingly already approved it as the whole Rank and file had the vote on it great I'm really becoming a fiscal conservative guy I don't know when this happened but holy man I don't know what's going on with me well apparently we're the only District in our area that's not the red so maybe we need people all right so we just need a motion for this second okay further discussion all those in favor I I those oppos motion carries um 8.5 is to accept uh our donations for January 2025 are in the packet here are we sending out thank you is that yeah and any of the donations that are coming to the Washington DC Group the kids are getting CS together sending thank yous out oh awesome ke white was always really good at making sure thank you with so try to in her honor make sure I ask be sending out thank yous for sure right well we just need uh we just need a motion to accept these so equipment has to be I'm just curious about Process Equipment has to be approved or is it just listed just because just to be dot your eyes and whatnot equipment that is donated we yeah we do that for public record oh okay we don't get in the business of determining how much value it is for like a Pat just everything we just put up yeah makes sense sure there are probably some statutary thing that says over this x amount you have to and just don't even mess with it gotcha I think I'm oh I just GNA say it also gives those people something to grab if they want receip oh yeah yeah oh I'll make a motion U further discussion uh with thanks yes thank no y y it's a nice list we got a lot of donations this month so thank you so much very generous for sure okay all those in favor I I I those opposed motion carries all right 9.0 our Personnel items uh 9.1 is our um slate for this month of new hires resignations leaves of absence the check and connect position is a uh tied to revenue we get from NLC so it's Revenue neutral for us to have this position actually paid for kind of out of two buckets because we also got that attendance Grant so um new Revenue new expense and what is that is that like a the F connect portion of it is that like a teacher role what what is that it's a parir of role here uh they could be in some District so ultimately it's a very systematic evidence-based program where they go get trained on how to do it and they systematically check in with an assigned case load of families kids families you usually T try to TI to treny and other issues have we had a check and connect counselor before not a formal no okay no we've tried and hired and they left and now we're trying again okay is this something we're hoping is a continual roll this is yeah yeah as long as the funding stays there and it's at at par rate y the entire part okay do we have a motion motion oh a second sorry I'm on my phone I need a policy apparently enacted from msba and a whole like behavioral team to swoop in on that's right I need to be swooped all right any further discussion all those in favor I iOS motion carries I'll make the motion to adjourn all right Jour 601 59 minutes good job people time to get to the 6:30