good evening everyone at this time I'll call to order the business meeting for the Fable Public Schools School Board here on April 21st 2025 uh we welcome those of you who are present here at the district office and those of you who are watching online uh
at this time uh Miss Steves will you determine if the board has a quorum present yes Mr chair there is good would everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and I'll just add it was wonderful to hear young voices reciting the pledge that was absolutely
awesome so agenda item number two board members is the approval of the agenda i do have a uh couple changes here in the agenda if you would go to uh the consent agenda item number six uh I'm going to
pull uh 6B employment and 6C additional assignments other as individual um agenda items to be addressed after approval of the consent agenda so we'll still remain them as 6B and 6 C but
we'll put them uh after uh approving the consent agenda and put them before number seven to deal with those individually for discussion on those that's been requested and then later on with policies I have a couple I'll pull but that's not it there so I
would ask for a motion for approval of the agenda with uh chair flexibility we have a motion for that please thank you Director Budro do I have a second second thank you Director Kudson uh any uh
discussion discussion discussion all in favor of that motion signify by saying I i opposed motion passes agenda item number three is recognition awards and presentations so our presentation here this evening is from Lincoln Elementary
School uh the smart room student success coach or PBIS and community involvement so Principal Amy Balma if you would come up and bring the demonstrators here as well so welcome
students all right well thank you for having us i brought quite the crew tonight for you um we are here and before we're even going to begin into our presentation we're going to take a minute to go through and just introduce ourselves jason you want to go first
miss Bowman do you want to take the microphone and just go with each of them my name and I'm in fifth grade my name is Caleb and I'm in first grade my name is Margaret and I'm in
kindergarten my name is Montre and I'm in second grade my name is Mason and I'm in fifth grade hi I'm Calic Case i'm the success coach at Lincoln nice my name is Camden and I'm in third grade hi I'm Abby Sco i
teach fourth grade at Lincoln hi my name is Henry and I'm in first grade so and I am Amy Bowman the principal at Lincoln Elementary so we are here today because we want to talk to you a little bit about a
program that we implemented this year called our smart room um so as you can see SMART stands for stimulating maturity through accelerated readiness training so what does that mean we know in education that movement matters um that it strengthens our focus ability and it really supports our learning so
what the smart room actually is or the smart program is it's a strategic approach that to support that cognitive and that physical development of students um it is a system of purposeful movements and skill practice that really bs those foundational readiness skills
and prepares our students for uh for learning and um basically what how we kind of tell that in into student terms is that it's a program that helps get their brains and their bodies ready to learn so as I said it start it stands
for stimulating maturity through accelerated readiness training and so when we look at each part of SMART and what it stands for that S for stimulating that really talks about our brains learn through repetition um so that as our brains are growing through time we need to continue many many many
times seeing hearing touching um to have those meaningful experiences then we talk about maturity um and we talk about that's the neurological and the developmental maturity of our students so the goal for that is to support that full development of sensory systems uh
the acceleration talks about how we want our brain messages to travel more efficiently and more quickly and by utilizing smart uh our smart program that really creates more more neutral pathways which increases the speed of transmission for our students learning
the readiness is talking about um that really focuses on how that strong foundational skills equals that a brain that's ready for learning so our students are able to come in and they're ready for learning those academic tasks that we ask for them to do and um then
the training smart trains the brain and the body so we talk about through purposeful movement that students develop the skills that are needed to be successful learners now I have my buddy here Mason who's going to talk about the next
slide signs a student may not be ready to learn reverse letters or skipped words struggles with phonics poor listening comprehension trouble writing cutting or coloring difficult following the direction constant movement or falls out
of chair these behaviors lose that the body brain system needs more support thank you buddy so what does it look like for our students so you if you were to come into Lincoln Elementary you would see um smart happening in three
basic um areas of our school in the classroom around the school and then in what we have as a smart room so essentially it's all over Lincoln um Mrs seco is going to talk in a second about what this looks like in the classroom and then we'll talk about in the hallways or transition times and then
we'll talk to you a little bit about our our uh smart room as well hello um so I teach fourth grade and after going to the training for SMART last summer with Principal Bulma and Miss Casease um I was able to write a grant and got some money from the
Fairbow Chamber of Commerce from their career to cradle program and they were able to give me some money to get supplies to be able to do some of the SMART activities in my classroom and I've been able to share some of those materials with um my grade level as well like third fourth and fifth grade um one
of the things that we will do in the classroom it's I call it spin spots but it's based off of helicopter spins so each student has their name on a Velcro spot around the room and they go to that when we do spin spots they go to that spot they sp um we count it down as a
class and they spin for 15 seconds and the point is to get a little bit dizzy and then they pause for 15 seconds and then the point of that is to become undizzy and the point of that is it helps their balance and their concentration um by working the fluid in their eardrums so um I have found it to
be very helpful to do before like reading lessons and stuff and it gets a little bit of movement out um another activity that we are able to do in the classroom is very simple they're sitting at their desks and it's called near and far and so you'll do a focus on your thumb and then tell them something around the room so it practices their
vision um getting them ready to be able to their brains ready to be able to do whatever activity we're about to do um another activity that we have it's based off of one that's in the big room but it's just a strip of tape on the floor coming in and out of our classroom so
the kids when they're going to go out to the bathroom for example they'll do the balance beam activity coming in and out of the room to get that extra practice of that um and that also kind of goes with another one that we do where um coming in and out of the room I change it so the kids stay interested in it um
but I'll put um Velcro spots that they'll like jump to for example for like math facts and that kind of stuff um as they come in and out of the room or different places in the classroom so so those are some of the things that we're able to do this year um on the screen now you can see
what we would call visual trackers and the purpose of these is to strengthen the eye muscles um in connection to reading we want students to be able to track um letters and then follow in distinct smooth movements and so we do that with these trackers students start
on a dot they follow lines and you can see um we have on task and soore so we're trying to integrate our PBIS ideas as well getting kids seeing those words more often and and keeping that focus strong um and it's great because you can do this with anything you can do your
spelling words your vocabulary words and you can even just do um lines to for students who might not be able to read yet um so again this is for hand eye coordination and then strengthening the eye muscles um and then if you go on um
we're starting with the core four so when we went to the training they told us some of the practices some of the movements to really focus on and the pencil roll is one you'll see the students do this so on the mats um this movement is supposed to be something that's really fast so students might get
dizzy but it the purpose of it is to give students full body input from head to toe and then it helps them practice their spatial awareness and then helps them develop um skills to direct their body into the right spot so you'd think like what what purpose might this have
for the classroom it's strengthening their skills to be able to have body control when in the classroom the teacher's expecting them to sit in their desk or come over here it just helps them to strengthen that control so that's the pencil roll and kids seem to really like that
one there's another version of it called the egg roll where the hands are at the side but pencil roll is is a fun one for them and you can do that outside um in at the playground um and then the next one you'll see is called the alligator crawl this one the purpose the main idea
is we want students to be crossing the midline and there's so much research that shares that doing that is so good for the brain and the students ability to learn so you can see Jon now he's using his feet and his hands to pull and push and a lot of kids in the beginning
when we taught this it was so funny because they want to push with the backs of their legs and and these they're really great at it now look at Margaret go way to go and they have um goodness yeah seen that and then you can see this is also multi-purpose so
underneath it we have um the slap track we'll let Montes you want to do the alligator crawl still before we move on yeah way to go so um with the slap track or the creep track um there's cards you can see under that and we try and make sure the cards are multi-purpose for
different levels so students coming in in kindergarten can name colors or shapes or numbers but then higher level students might be working on prefixes or suffixes vocabulary multiplication so as they go um they're seeing um what they're going to be practicing and they
slap see it say it slap it so you can see Jion he's slapping it and and on the creep track you crawl kind of like a baby but it's again to it's for hand eye coordination but then we're also integrating the academic skills helps with
balance bilateral coordination can you say it really loud Margaret which one are you picking i see Mason using the songs we taught too nice job Mason nice job
all right and then the balance beam um so the purpose of this is of course to help students working on their balance and believe it or not doing this slowly in the way that we taught them was really challenging so when you do this you have to go heel toe and and with the little ones we tell them to have their heel kiss their toe so we go heel toe
kiss and then they they go but if you do a balance bean quickly with larger steps you'll find that it's much easier so having them slow down it really makes them focus on body control and staying balanced um back at Lincoln in our smart room we have another balance beam that's
a little bit higher off the ground and so it's fun to see the kids they're pretty brave with this one of course but then when you're up six or eight inches they'll be a little bit more careful and you can see them really focusing yes it works on their core muscles yeah
different kids when they're walking like they'll have to do that so there's different and again integrating academic things on the sides you can add all right all right and then the last thing you'll see on the screen
learning ladders we didn't bring this and we also have our rebounders um so the purpose of this is again exposure so the more students are seeing things the more automatic especially with reading and vocab um words can become so um at Lincoln we have site words in um
different um lists of multiples too for students to work on and they work up the ladder so they start at the bottom so for example if I was doing the blue one on the left there I'd say seven jump three and then I'd jump nine and I jump all the way up to the top and then I'd repeat going back down and then when I
finish that I could go on to the next station and so in the beginning of the year all the students were taught the routine and the cycle and so now when they go into the smart room it's pretty smooth they know their jobs and before I open it for your questions and comments I wanted to make one last
little um comment about last summer we were able to use some grant money to um as Miss Stefo was talking about we me and about four or five other teachers got to go to this three-day training and the first day um it was all about the brain and how the brain works and
developmentally and so and so forth and then the second two days were really cool because we learned all about these different activities that we could implement and we did them so like so that way we felt comfortable and confident when we were um and uh when we had rolled it out to our students um one
of the biggest areas that that got brought up to us was that in order for this to be something that was really meaningful and purposeful um teachers staff are supposed to put in 25 to 30 minutes a day we know that you can't just add 35 30 minutes to the end of the
school day and ask parents to come pick them up right so we know that we wanted to be creative and so we brainstormed different ways that um we could utilize some of these activities during the day and one of the one of the ways that we did that was we had talked with our FIAD teachers and they um they had committed
to spending the first five minutes and the last five minutes to doing some of this in their in during their gym time so that was one area that we could take off 10 minutes from the teachers to have to do that another way was um starting the school year we really worked hard on working with the staff during
professional development to say this is super like this is an easy way for you when you're lining your kids up at to go to to FYI here are some things that you can do and so forth so it's not just they need to go to the smart room for 25 minutes but there's a lot of times where
they're able to just do it during the day right during transition times from breakfast to coming down and starting morning meeting there's all kinds of activities so it's really been an all hands-on deck approach and we it's just something that has been very helpful this year um going forward I know with
so we do teacher le recess and so another area that I think we can improve on and that we can continue to implement is really looking at like monkey bars and hopscotch and jump rope those are different activities that also would be included in this that with teacher
support and teacher guidance that's just another time that they can get this um these activities in so that was kind of a lot um all in all the smart activities and the smart program that we have implemented at Lincoln have been super helpful and super great for our students
um we've seen them grow stronger physically they've been able to focus a lot better and they're just really ready and they're able to um to accomplish those academic tasks because as we say with our students we know that this program the goal of it is to have a
ready brain and a ready body so are there any questions thank you board members any questions here director Moore um yes thank you um yes I had the
pleasure of uh visiting Lincoln and I put it on my shoutout page uh that was I think a couple months ago and I think it's so important for the movement for learning and you're right about the brain research i had a statistics professor that was he was probably one
of the best professors I've ever had in college and uh he was really into the brain research so yes the movement is very important for the for the brain development and things like that so congratulations all the students did an excellent job i want to thank you i
think we should give them a round of applause thank you the teachers well any of the board members director Rob just have a comment um you said you had a grant from the chamber they were um I
had done a donor's shoes and somebody from the chamber of commerce had saw seen my donor shoes and so then they were able to give me some of that money for the cradle to cradle to career program career program are you familiar with um fair enrichment education
program yes okay you can apply for there as well great okay thank you just want to make sure you're aware of it absolutely but thank you for that i appreciate it any other comments board members i just think it's a really cool program and um
shout out to you guys for thinking innovatively i think you know there's all of these strategies can be very easily implemented at home to continue that learning at home and you know like when you're jumping or uh pencil rolling I don't pencil roll
too often but um I think you know that that brain activity is just like a repetition thing yes I'm wearing a skirt today so we won't be doing that but yeah thank you for all the innovative programs and it was a pleasure to work with you through the cradles career
program as well so with that I apologize if I missed it but are most grade levels and classrooms using some portion of this or is it mostly in the lower grades um it's both um I think that the smart
room the actual room that we have designated for it that would be more of our special ed staff and our younger grades but then a lot of the older grades do it more in their classroom but the option is open for everybody right we have times that we have signed up
that are reserved for our class great excellent director any of the students feel comfortable answering this question um how do you like the program maybe the heartbreaker should answer that how do you like this do you enjoy this
does it help you anybody else want to respond any student what's your favorite activity to do mart pencil roll how about you can we go down in an order really quick jason you start yourself tell us your
favorite one miss B if you send the microphone thank you the balance band the alligator craw the pencil roll
the pencil roll i like all of it i like all of it too i like all of it too that's quite an endorsement i did not tell them to say that
any further questions or comments board members seeing none well thank you for coming in um I've learned a thing or two thank you as well I think uh sometimes when the board doesn't respond all that well maybe to seconds and motions maybe we might leave these here and do the pencil
roll and the balance beam so uh get get us stimulated as well leave the mask there okay great thank you very much let's give him a round of applause again can I help wow excellent let's move on to agenda item
number four items of information start student board representative uh Miss Jillian Huberty hi yeah so I just have a quick report for tonight so some updates on what um our district youth council has been doing so the photov voice campaign that I talked to you a few
times about um the posters are finally complete for that so they'll be put up around different parts in our community so um it's five different posters with um prompts that say like what brings you hope in the community and it's been answered by different students who have
submitted pictures and statements um of things that bring them hope in the community um what bring them joy things like that so it's a compiled um it's like a long tall roll out poster um and there's five different ones of that so those are all done we just got them like
last Wednesday they just finally came in um our spring data summit is May 7th so that's the one that we do twice a year where we'll meet with TCU women Northfield and we go over different sets of data each um fall and spring so
that's super exciting and it's a great chance to learn what different schools are doing um TCU and WHEM have very different makeups than we do compared to Northfield and Fairborn are a lot more similar so it's interesting um to see how they function they're a lot smaller too than Fairborn and Northfield are so
it's really interesting to get to talk to different students and then district youth council for prom is putting on the be safe be sober campaign so we're having a table during lunches and before school with pledge cards for students to sign that they'll be safe and be sober
on prom and around prom um and then having conversations with high schoolers about not getting into the car with people who are under the influence not just drinking but under any influence um is super great so students sign a card they make a pledge that they will be
safe and be sober on prom great great thank you Miss Huberty uh 4B uh schoolboard members items of information anyone mr chair I just have a comment i want to thank the board members for their
support for Fata um your generous donation we will be awarding a um scholarship this year for $1,500 to a student graduating from Fairbo Senior High School it's called a
leadership scholarship want to thank you very much for your generous donation to that scholarship we will have a more formal presentation about FAPSA and um FE um after our award ceremony which is May
7th I believe thank you um and we will have we can talk about who the recipient is for the award and also how many dollars in the awards we've given to how many students so
Right i would encourage all board members and everyone in the community to come to the awards night at the high school it it is uh it's second to none with our showcasing our students so six o'clock yep six o'clock to whenever it's done
with right it takes a while yes and no storms this year mr that's right any other board members uh items of information director Moore yes um yes uh and this is
I have been concerned about a few things and I think some of the people in the community have too um you know we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Executive Order 14190 that's in conjunction with this act in fact it complements that act and
from what I understand by February 28th 2025 the Minnesota school districts have to have eliminated DEI from their programs and if not um the school districts could lose federal money uh and from the audit from what I was
looking at uh in June 30th we have federal monies coming uh Department of Agriculture Department of Treasury Department of Education Department of Health and Human Services Corporation for National
Community Service and that comes to about 9.2 million um I know the US Attorney General Pam Bondi has set her sights on Maine and California and from my understanding Minnesota is next um
you know we have to look at this seriously uh with the federal cuts looming I I don't think we can't wait for the courts to decide this and as a reminder to the school board too we are responsible for the
budget and for budgetary aspects um So with this in mind I'm proposing at our schoolboard retreat next week instead of working on the mission and vision that we focus on how you know how we're going to remove DEI from the parable public
school programs otherwise we'll lose the money um I think this is a pressing issue and I I think that we can't put it off we have to address this because that's a lot of money to lose so thank you
any other board member seeing none we'll move on to items of information uh Superintendent Benty thank you Mr chair um so I have a couple pages here of uh items of information from the chair that I sit in
congratulations to the talented cast musicians and directors who brought Spongebob the musical to life uh we had 53 students and seven directors involved it was a vibrant collaborative production and a true showcase of the talent that we have here at Fairbo
public schools miss Thompson's second grade class hosted an informationational writing publishing party the students researched details about an animals appearance diet habitat and fascinating facts after three weeks of researching writing and preparing the
students did an amazing job presenting their work to their families right uh our Farbo Area Learning Center graphic design students put their creativity to work for a cause they care about the students recently visited Ruth's House to proudly deliver their
donation uh after two years of training the Jefferson Elementary PBIS team has officially graduated from PBIS cohort number 19 throughout the program they've developed positive behavior practices engaged students and the community and celebrated achievements building on the
great work already happening at Jefferson we're proud of their progress and their dedication to PBIS uh Farbo Rotary Strive Program recently awarded scholarships to 15 Farbo area seniors in recognition of their growth their hard work and their
dedication strive stands for students taking a renewed interest in the value of education and it supports students through mentorship and goal setting congratulations to these outstanding students and the Fairbro Rotary for supporting their
success um in case you have not heard Canon River Canon River STEM school is closing their doors at the end of this school year all right we want to let the families know that we have room for their students and would love to welcome them to Farwell public schools all right so far we've had 50 STEM families uh
reach out to us and enroll their students with us for the fall and we have been reaching out to them as well um also our English Spanish dual immersion program continues to be a huge success uh we currently have a waiting list for next school next school year
for that program and then upcoming uh we already have 150 incoming kindergarten students registered for this fall um we're our goal is 200 that is the number that we are looking to set our budget off of so
for families who haven't registered yet we're hosting a prek and kindergarten registration event on May 7th at Roosevelt from 7:30 a.m to 6:00 p.m families will have the chance to meet the principal take a guided tour and get
help with the registration process and the last piece I have is remember it is not too late to register for Farbo Summer Steam please visit our website to learn more and to register mr chair that concludes my report thank you Superintendent Benty move on to agenda
item number five which is public comment we do not have anyone for public comment this evening uh agenda item number six is the consent agenda and as the approval for the agenda here so the consent agenda will consist of the
minutes from the March 17 2025 meeting the authorization of payments transfers and investment account and retirements so is there a motion for approval of the consent agenda so moved second thank you Director Steed and
Director Woodro with the second there's no discussion so all in favor of that motion signify by saying I opposed motion passes next we'll move then to 6B uh employment so do we have a motion for
approval of the agenda item 6B employment thank you Director Robo and a second by Director Steves uh and discussion i believe Director Moore you you wanted to ask some questions here yes uh thank you
and I did get some of them answered but I I noticed on there that we had 14 staff it was well I went through it fast to be hired for steam and one thing I I would like to say too please note I'm not stating any against these programs i
think when I looked at steam I think it's a good thing we need uh and steam is science technology engineering arts and math and I think we do need to support our students in that um but I noticed there was 10 steam steam facilitators two program managers and
only two teachers um also I was looking down the line too uh also for the Falcon dance there's seven program facilitators and two leads i guess my question is how how long have we had the steam program in Farble Public Schools
the steam program has been around I know at least since the summer of 2014 because it was one of the pieces that was approved by the uh the 2013 levy by the community um and there used
to be money that came from the general fund through that levy to support the steam program in the summer and and you said it's not out of general funding but we do have I think the last count was eight funds so it's funded by funds from community ed then correct so funding
questions i'm going to have Miss Racer and Mr puit come up to explain how the funding for the steam program works okay so um well no I'll let you go first um so
Summer Steam serves um over 300 kids each year for seven weeks um all day Monday through Thursday so there are a lot of staff um there are a lot of teachers as well those are listed in the extended contract portion of the of your materials um but there also are a lot of
kids for a lot of hours and it does take staff to do that and so it's paid for by a combination of um targeted services funding as well as we're really fortunate as a district to receive a 21st century community learning center grant it's a competitive grant um that
was um u funds us at about $625,000 a year to be able to support both our summer and our afterchool programming both summerran and our community school programming um so as a result of that um previously this the general fund did fund summer steam it was part of the
levy as superintendent Benty said um we gave back that $150,000 as part of the budget cuts last year and so um the general fund at this point does not fund summer steam um it's funded through through those sources um as well as um community resources as well
okay so is it so it's coming out of taxpayer money though all of it yes yes whether or not the Minnesota state it's mostly Minnesota state then or is it the um the 21st century community learning center grants are funded um through MDE but it's federal money that's goes
through federal money federal money um and then 21st century or sorry targeted services funding is state money it's a combination of those two I should also say we are fortunate to receive funding from the United Way as well so local support as well I think it's important to understand too that targeted services
is part of the general ed formula as Well okay so some of those dollars are coming straight from uh just like we have uh gened dollars for any of our students uh the targeted services portion is uh it's the the revenue there
is based on that gened as well okay and so what uh what grades then for first through eth through eth okay i I guess um and from on the service I you know it seems the steam is a very good
program i I guess my my problem it is taxpayer money and we we do need to be as a public servants and you know the taxpayers voted us in we need to show accountability and I'm I'm just concerned that you know our science
scores have gone down the last four years our math scores are below 20% um I think there needs to be some taxpayer accountability there so I am going to vote for this but I think we we need to
start seeing some improvement some major improvement because we are accountable to the taxpayers and this is taxpayer money and that's my I guess Thank you for explaining
so I just have a little bit of um not really opinion but just personal experience with the steam program um so my two older kids have um participated in the steam program my oldest um has particularly benefited from it um he was
in first grade when um in 2020 when COVID hit and honestly it is what helped us get through co um it is what helped him learn how to read it's what helped his mental health keep going um and and get
to the next next level so um I'm a very strong supporter of the the summer steam program um and I'll wholeheartedly support this um I I was going to but I needed to ask some questions and you know you have anecdotal ev evidence and
that is good uh I just wish we could see some numbers and the public needs to see some numbers too because we've got quite a few people you know uh as I said it's 14 at least 14 staff only two teachers though so but I guess my point is that
we need to ste start seeing some numbers come up especially with science that science achievement uh has gone down the last four years and math it's less than 20% so as schoolboard members we need to demand accountability too for the
taxpayers so thank you for what your input though and I I am going to vote for it but I think we need to ste see uh some more of a success rate in the coming years and so thank you Director Roishelle i just
have a question you're a very soft voice oh could you speak to a little bit i did push this like here yeah I'll sound like I'm yelling maybe no no if I sound like I'm yelling I'm not great okay thank you thank you very much
any further discussion on uh 6B employment director Budro maybe it would be helpful for um a little review of how the steam program aligns with our current goals ready for kindergarten
read well by third grade school i'm sure it ties together so doing that I'm assuming but I would like to hear
someone maybe the I don't know if it's you Zach but hear from you yeah we can um we could for sure bring others in but I think one of the huge benefits of it um just to be sure folks have sort of the accurate information is we are really lucky to have our teachers who
are willing to to spend their time in the summer working on it so um there are more than two teachers if you look on the extended contract there's quite a few teachers who are willing to spend at least their morning if not their whole day working with steam on sort of core academic subjects reading math science and then there is a component that's um
included as well around enrichment and exposure to career pathways and other opportunities as well so I um this is just my opinion i think it fits really closely with what the district's goals and priorities are um in addition to being a great resource for both um students and for families um
in our community and it I think it's something that I know I'm proud of and I think the district as a whole should be really proud of too thank you Mr chair and how many students did you say you're anticipating this year yeah there should be over 300 again this year that's
pretty incredible okay thank you any further discussion on 6B employment hearing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying I i opposed motion passes next we'll move on to
6D um authorization of I'm sorry yes that's it's 6C right Director Moore uh no that I have my questions were answered you want We didn't We pulled uh
B oh we pulled Okay we could do C and D without discussion okay or did we pull B and C jamie B and C C okay b and C okay thank you i have I have two different things marked here no I'm fine take a motion for approval of
uh 6C additional assignments other please so moved second thank you Director Steves and a second by Director Budro and discussion so my understanding director Moore is you have the questions you had
have been answered already on 6C is there any other discussion here discussion discussion hearing none all in favor of that motion signify by saying I i opposed motion passes we'll move on to agenda item
number seven the district advisory committee there is no report agenda item number eight policy committee there is no report from the policy committee well uh thank you Mr rice Slayer and Mr puit for coming up there sorry and then 8A second reading of
policies so first we will take a motion uh for the following policies approval policy 503 is student attendance policy 507.5 school resource officers uh policy 615 testing accommodations
modifications uh and exemptions for IEPs section 504 plans and leap students those three we will do in one motion so motion for approval of those three policies please so move thank you Director Robo do I
have a second second thank you Director Kudson any discussion discussion discussion hearing none all in favor of that motion signify by saying I i opposed motion passes
next we'll take a mo uh entertain a motion for policy uh 613 which is 8A3 uh policy 613 graduation requirements motion for approval of policy 613 also move approval for that policy
and is there a second second thank you Director Kudson and discussion and director Moore I will turn that to you since you asked for that one to be pulled thank you i'll try to speak loudly here um yeah the first I'm going
to speak about is policy 613 and um pol also I was going to speak about policy 598 when the time comes now these two policies were discussed at the policy committee meeting however the points that I'm bringing out I think
need to be addressed at the school board meeting um and I think this policy there was just re revisions were made and I was fine with the revisions so but um I think most public observers are more interested in the schoolboard meeting than a policy meeting even though it's
uh on online uh and this was had to do with the graduation and requirements the fact that in 2026 27 the school year Farbo public schools will be offering an ethnic studies course per Minnesota and Wals
agenda and uh one of the I I read some of this and it said um ethnic this is in the ethnic studies 12B.025 025 of the revisor Minnesota ethnic studies analyzes the way in which race
and racism have been and continue to be powerful social cultural and political forces um I I think this is uh people that adhere to this there's they believe that systemic uh race that systemic
racism is in our country and not all people agree with that um and I am I'm basically I taught sociology and we have three basic sociological theories it's functionalism symbolic interan and
conflict and this basically is a conflict theory and it's Marxist and communist and the goal is to overthrow the government and I'm having a very big problem with an ethnic studies because
of this and not all people believe this and if we are truly equitable and uh you know to all viewpoints I I think this is discrimination and um because in fact I
got the Minnesota Human Rights Act right here uh Director Moore can I ask a question please are your excuse me we are discussing policy 613 so are your comments on your on the policy that's written here or are you
you're addressing something that's not in this policy because we should be have our Thank you for letting me finish we should just be addressing the policy 613 because that's what was approved um in the motion and what's in policy 613 because I've read this three or four
times and I do not I have not seen unless I missed it uh some of the items that you're talking about so I would appreciate if we'd focus on yes our comments only on what's in the graduation requirements for policy 613
mr chair I have a problem with the ethnic studies and my previous statements gave background as to why I am so I think it does apply it is true is ethnic studies addressed in the policy right here yes it says ethnic
studies but um Thank you yes but I'm sorry i should have said that uh I believe according to the Minnesota Human Rights Act that this is discrimination against the beliefs of some Christian beliefs and the Somali students beliefs and this is a violation of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 therefore I will be because of this I will be voting against this policy thank you just for the discussion of policy 613 sorry Mr v director Director Steves um
in ethnics I'm just reading i'm going to read the paragraph verbatim an ethnic study course may fulfill a social studies language arts arts math or science credit if the course meets the applicable I can't read today state and
academic standards an ethnic studies course may fulfill an elective credit if the course meets applicable local standards or other requirements uh Mr benty
um is an ethnic studies course a requirement or a benchmark an ethnic studies is course is a requirement by the state okay and just for and um I'm looking for Julie is it a
requirement that is it a standalone course or is it a requirement that there are standards to be embedded in other courses okay that we'll have to check on what whether it's a can be a standal has to be a standalone course or whether it can be standards that are embedded in other
courses to receive that credit but what they mean there is it may fall into other required areas so that it might count towards a language arts or towards a social social studies or elective credit if that student needs
one of those to graduate and just for clarification's sake a requirement set by the state is required and a benchmark is not necessarily required but could be a benchmark to measure the required
standards so the state sets standards that need to be reached and sometimes they'll set courses with standards that need to be taught benchmarks fall under the standards as a way to teach those okay uh the MCA test that is given especially in reading and math do touch
on the benchmarks as well as the standards okay thank you further discussion board members policy 63 mr chair do you do more people do understand that it's the what I what
we're talking about is the ethnic studies and I have a problem with what is being taught there uh I think Mr uh Chad Wolf said one time I think it was last at the last meeting we want to make sure we are when we vote we want to make sure that we understand what we're
voting for and I cannot in good conscience vote for this because of the background that I gave thank you thank you Director Moore last call for discussion hearing none all in favor of approving policy 630 we have a roll call
please i'll acknowledge that uh Miss Steves will you do a roll call please linda Budro no candace Kudson yes linda Moore no jerry Roasha yes cassie Steves I john Bellingham hi passes for two
thank you passes for two uh we'll move on now to uh 85 new policy 598 information security is there a motion for approval of new policy 598 information security
thank you Director Roashau we have a second pencil roll here i'll second thank you Director Mudro discussion uh Director Moore I believe you wanted me to pull this yes thank
you okay um please look under guiding principles that's um V 5-2 page two and I'm going to quote it says data users are granted data access
privileges commemenurate with their role and work responsibilities that is all schools or other facilities are responsible for the district data they access create modify and or delete now I've got a concern a major concern about
this and I know I've asked um Mr benty some questions on that at the policy committee but I do read these sometimes three times and uh the more I read sometimes uh the more problems I have uh I do have a major concern is that we now
have a medical clinic at the Farbo High School and as we all know uh students I think as young as 15 and now even I've even heard 12 years can receive treatment at a medical facility without parental knowledge or consent um in fact
I will give you a p this is an anecdotal true story in fact a few years ago a medical facility would not allow my daughter to access my granddaughter's files without my granddaughter's permission and I think she was 14 or 15
at the time um and this this really is I believe this is a concerted effort to take away parental rights and I think it needs to be stopped and I'm very concerned about that i know my daughter was very upset she said "I'm paying the
bills why shouldn't I you know um and that's my anecdotal but another concern is who's getting these data points um I know Waltz has there's rumblings as he connected to China and I believe that it's interesting that Governor Nuome of
California noted that after a trip to China which uses a social credit score system he announced the ne next phase that they would use more than 1 billion data points and then so we've got Healthinders through Infinity Campus is
that correct Mr is it the data that Infinite Campus is our student management system system and okay I guess my problem is that we have student academic data but we also now have the health data which
is physical and mental and through the healthfinders and before I even you know consider this I want to know some very specific questions um specifically who has access
i want I'd like to know who all has access to this their job titles i don't want to know their names where the data is going to and it's very specific be specific when will the data be in aggre uh uh where uh will the data be in
aggregate form and if it is to whom or to what entity is it sent to and if there is individual data sent I'd like to be specific as to where that goes um I think we need to be very careful about
this because they told uh talked about a social credit score and I don't know if people know about that but they can use that data to to discover or to um figure out I guess uh from a student or where parents when they're answering these
questionnaires or whatever uh to present you know to um to discover I guess her social credit score and uh uh that is very concerning to me i'm not going to get into that but I think I'd really like to know more about this before
um before I I go any further with this and so and I think as a board we should be very uh we should be very concerned about this too especially when parents when parental rights are being taken away and I I have that with my daughter
and now we're getting into the medical um facilities so I think we have to be very careful here thank you for the discussion on new new policy 598 information security i'm just going to ask a follow-up
question to Miss Moore um are you suggesting that we table this and bring it back to policy for more um thoughtful consideration what's your Well I think we should have this discussion because it is very it it does involve parental
involvement and I think we shouldn't you and I are the only ones on the policy committee i think it should be a discussion where you know with the board the elected board because we represent the people so that's why I'm bringing it out here i'm not sure it should go back
to the policy committee i think we should kind of hash it out here and find out more because we are elected officials and this is also taxpayer money mr chairman director Budro thank you um
I believe we do have a need for security policy we have had some situations where this I'm glad that we have something that's coming forward my question is this is adapted Is there any
particular thought behind um policy been tested or I mean do we have any information how we acquired this data so m Mr chair I can answer that if you
would like me to yes I would superintendent Benty um so uh we look out to other districts that have policies when there is not an MSBA policy in place for something that we feel there's a need for um so in this
case our director of technology um and education looked at MSBA they did not have a policy around this so he looked around the state to find out who has a policy around this minnotonka said they do um it was vetted by their attorneys
um so we take that as that it was it has been run through an attorneys uh the board did not ask me to run this one through our attorneys so that it wasn't we do have a second one that was asked to be run through our attorneys there was also something that was brought up about healthfinders having access
healthfinders does not have access to our student management system so we use infinite campus they do not have access to that that is part of the memorandum of understanding that we have signed with them um so it I don't know if that calms any fears or not this is based around the idea that people with certain
titles and with certain job duties are the ones that have certain accesses within our student management system to see the different tabs that are in there so if you are a parah you see these tabs if you are a principal you're going to see more tabs if you are a director you
might see more tabs all right it allows you to have access to more information dependent on what your job title and what your need is um so I I can tell you when I moved into the superintendent role from high school principal role I lost access to a lot of the information
in Infinite Campus because it was not deemed necessary for my new job um so I can't go in and see all the things on students that I used to be able to see as a high school principal uh that's really what this is saying in in uh um the area that has been brought up as
concern so thank you Mr chairman um thank you Mr binty for clarifying that i again feel we need a policy there's been a situation in the past and um this policy I think is good to have in writing and I am somewhat relieved
knowing that healthinders or our medical contractors are not able to access this and I am supportive Mr chair yes I believe that we do need a policy like this yes I'm I guess one of
the big things I'm concerned about is page two which is that is all schools or other facilities that can bring in a lot of things and uh you know for instance we have that medical facility at the high school does
that include that um what do I guess define other facilities maybe you're so anyone else that would sign a memorandum of understanding with us to access our um whether it be our physical space or our students they would have to have
that memorandum of understanding that would go through us that would then say what is information that we release or allow them to have access to and vice versa so that would come in that form not in the form of what this policy says so when Healthinders comes to us and
they say this is what we would like to do for you there's a memorandum of understanding that comes with that on data releases they go back and forth so just let me clarify sorry about this but um let's say a student goes into the
health facility that's 15 years old and they don't want their parents to at the at the high school um so I guess I'm concerned that this also has health data attached to it am I not so where does that where does that
come in so I guess I'm a little confused here i If the student is dealing with us then we're working on it through our management and our record system if they're if they're going in to see a professional like Healthfinders or a
doctor or something that is going to be on their side with their records and right now those records are kept separate from each other so right now we don't have access to theirs they don't have access to ours so So this is not anything to do with health physical or
mental health this this one right the the the the topic that you brought up the first time which was um if I can read it here uh says it was number five section two data users are granted data
access privileges uh commensurate with their role and work responsibilities and are responsible for their actions while using these privileges that is all schools or other facilities are responsible for the district data they they access create modify and or delete
So if we were to have anou with an outside organization that allowed them to have access to our records not necessarily our health records it could be attendance records it could be uh potential grading pieces yes all right so if we have an outside organization
working with our students on tutoring or on uh helping them to get their grades up it would make sense for that organization to have access to our records in grades what this says is that that is that is data protected
information and they have to treat it the same way that we treat it which means that I should not be sitting down with Jillian to talk about Jerry's attendance and grades i talk about Jillian's attendance and Jillian's grades with Jillian and that's where it
stops so that's the understanding that falls within that section that one so it's basically the academics is this the you because now we're getting to the health health fields you know does this include the physical and mental health
categories so at this point right now right now no one has access to those records besides Farbo public schools but can they with this with this uh policy because that's what I'm concerned about is the health that would have to be anou that would be
approved by the by the district to give them access to that so we would have to do this right now it's just probably the data like attendance things like that that's grades yes telephone numbers email addresses for them to reach out to parents if they
need to exactly what it says here data users are granted the access uh with their role and work responsibilities right and so as long as it doesn't have if the the health aspects comes in we would have to approve of that that would have to be
anou that would come back to the district okay thank you last call for discussion on new policy 598 which has passed the uh policy committee and this is the second reading
of the board any further discussion seeing none uh Miss Steves will you do a roll call on this one please yep uh Linda Budro hi candace Kudson hi linda Morris hi jerry Roshaw hi cassie Steves I John Bellingham hi 6
thank you moving on to agenda item nine other committees finance committee i do have the finance committee report so I'll give it to you here um finance committee met on April 14th a week ago
today and discussion was we discussed the uh fisc year 26 nurse building lease agreement uh there was discussion in that lease if uh the lease covers all our costs it's pretty close to being a
wash there uh was mentioned also that a few years four or five years ago the lease amount was decreased for Nurse Strand School due to declining enrollment there uh the finance committee did not act upon the lease as
we're getting more information and it's pushed back to probably next month for discussion uh and that our financial performance as you can see on board book here etc our March student counts we are up seven students from last month uh we
have an increase of four students at the Farbo online academy overall we're down 37 students as compared to what was budgeted for this year our March uh comparative financial report the HVAC is quite a bit higher
than at this time last March uh electric is is quite a bit less and this is than last year but it's due to rebates uh when they when they came um our self- insurance revenues are not keeping pace with expenditures at this point and
we'll be seeing a 15% increase we'll be acting on that in a couple agenda items later here uh and insurance uh next year for our self- insurance uh policy members our March investment report uh Reliance Bank has been uh has been
funded with a small amount of money as we're moving away from CCF uh our investments are doing well at this time and uh our March analytics we're looking virtually right on par we're at what we expected to be
with the exemption of construction and the OPED trust which is a good thing um we have seen more con uh Miss Raceler stated that we have seen more expenses in construction than we uh than we were
expecting our financial strategies and this will be a uh agenda item as well down the road here our three-year projection in fiscal year 26 we're projecting we're projecting a $873,246 budget deficit
um also in our financial strategies principal uh Miss Ashley Benhart talked about the enhancements approved for fiscal year 26 to possibly include two FTE of a cultural language class there's been some questions about that and it's an agenda or one of our last agenda
items here tonight and then our fiscal year 26 student projection has been increased as to what we originally budgeted for uh we budgeted for a 2% we're budgeting for a 2% increase in the general formula and Miss Raceler will
provide us with more detailed information information regarding the three-year budget projections I said in a couple agenda items down the road here uh also with our finance committee members update and discussion uh we had one uh um finance committee member uh
that resigned due to a move out of district and we are looking uh Mr mr benty and Miss Raceler are looking for uh someone who would like to join the um finance committee and so if you're interested uh contact Mr benty or Miss
Raceler and it's uh there 7:30 a.m on the second or third Monday of the month I think so there so yeah that fulfills that and Mr chair any questions yeah I director Moore yes thank you um I think
it's on page three this a little short it's on board book page okay our financial uh comparative financial report and I I see that where our revenues were up
which is good um I see the expenditures for medical claims uh and additional charges that was up $40,000 can you is there a reason for that what is the reason for that that it's up 40,000 miss Racer would you like
to come up from March of last year march 24 to March 25 and specifically I'm sorry and specifically you're looking at which which piece um the expenditures for medical claims and uh I think it was
additional charges and so it was 100 is it the last it's that one right there 150,361 and it went up to it went up about 40,000 190,000 can I was there what is the reason for that
uh well um the expenditures are showing what our um what our different fees are what our um costs are for for the uh claims that have been coming in for health and those
different pieces so we know that we're behind we know that our um claims are exceeding what our revenue is coming in and so that's why we will be looking at a 15% um health insurance increase and then there was administrative fees
none last year now there was 35,000 well why is that that I would have to um unless Nicole knows off the top of her head i would have to look at that and could you get back to me then yes oh absolutely yes absolutely i'm not
100% sure uh why we didn't show any uh last March and uh why we're seeing that 36,000 so I will get back to you on that okay thank you and then the just one other thing next to the last page uh they're not numbered here so um with the
expense revenue summary mhm it's not that one it's I think the next one i think that's one yeah the we we look like we're quite a bit in the in the red 76,000 or excuse me
million three million as I go across the board here so I I just could you explain that then sure so what this report does is it shows um uh the data that we have in a summary format for each fund so the way that you read this report is up on
top we have the expenditures listed for each fund so first it's general fund food service etc then down below it's the revenues so um again listed by each fund so um the the budget that was
adopted in June of 2024 is what you're seeing in the first column for the 25 adopted annual budget then we're showing activity that happened just in the month of March the next column shows what we've uh either um expended or received
in uh through uh July through March and then incumbrances those dollars that are earmarked to be spent or to be received in but have not yet been finalized and then we have our remaining balance for each fund
thank you yep any other questions on financial thank you Miss Reler very good we'll move on to agenda item number 1010A is gifts and donations resolution uh
25-28 uh it's quite a lengthy list so bear with me so resolution 2528 is as follows we have donations we're to we want to approve acceptance of the following gifts donations mrg Tool and Die donated metal tubing
flat stock pipe estimated value of $500 to help the welding class prepare for a welding competition in April tristar Weldingfabrication donated metal tubing flat stock angle iron estimated value of
$500 to help the welding class prepare for a welding competition in April the following donations were given to the nest fable Elks donated toiletries school supplies clothing and other supplies estimated value of
$4,000 carol Levi and Julie Brown donated clothing items and shoes the following donations were given to Deca burkarts Meyer shoes donated $20 women of the Moose chapter number
1476 donated $200 mike's Mike's Garage LLC donated $250 zomroa Sports and Spine Weber Physical Therapy donated $200 metcon Companies Incorporated
donated $200 harry Brown's Family Automotive donated $150 andreas Agency LLC Farmers Insurance donated $100 lan's Marine donated
$500 the following donations were given in memory of Ed Doobabic for Little Falcons oliver and Diane Larson donated $25 bruce and Darene Sandborn donated $50 mark and Mary Ziegler donated
$50 the Bernard family care of Cable Connection and Supply Company donated $1,000 s and Joanne Sophia donated $200 dr richard and Phyllis Bergie donated
$50 john and Shannon Bergs donated $40 matthew and Kelly Eershhat donated $100 marhoffer Family Trust Cheryl Marhoffer Nicholas Meerhoffer Tom and
Pat Doobabic donated $100 arlene Fzen donated $100 and Michael Brown and Christine Schaefer Brown donated $200 so could I have a motion for approval of accepting gifts on donations
resolution 25-28 thank you Director Budro do we have a second thank you Director Robasho uh discussion just a sincere thank you to all those that contributed our our community
is so valuable to Fable Public Schools and what they donate all the way from metal supplies to help our kids to to the nest deca and then just a a real shout out for the memory of Ed Doobavic doing so much for our little falcons
program as well you're such a great person for all our uh activities here in Fable as well so thank you thank you thank you to all those who donated so any further discussion any further discussion this is a resolution so Director Steves if
you would do a roll call please linda Budro hi candace Kudson hi linda Moore I jerry Robashot Cassie Stevens I don Bellingham I passes 6 thank you we'll move on to agenda item uh 10B consider
approval of 25 2025 2026 health insurance rates and our human resources director Miss Nicole Yokum if you'd like to come up come up please and do that so could I have a motion for uh approval of the
2025-26 health insurance rates please thank you Director Budro do we have a second second thank you Director Kudson and discussion and I'll turn it over to you Miss Yokum good evening okay so what you have in front
of you on your memo is a very um basic summary of where we are this year for our self-funded insurance plan our self-funded insurance plan um includes all of our employees that are not
teachers so there's approximately 300 or so employees that are a part of this um plan for our employees so um you can see on there kind of the history it shows you that last year we
only went up 5% and this year the insurance committee is recommending a 15% increase and that really is due to the fact that this past year we've been really watching our utilization of our premiums um and we're seeing an
overspend in the amount of money we're bringing in versus the amount of money going out uh so for for instance we're we're bringing if we would break even we would be bringing in 100% of the total claims that are that the district is
paying out and this year up through March 10th we were using 117% of the premiums so that means we were having to dip into our insurance um fund balance if you will to pay for these premiums so our insurance
committee really took a hard look at this data and decided that we needed to um make an adjustment and have our premiums increase by 15% this year to cover our anticipated overspend for um
now and also our future costs because because we really don't anticipate our cost to decrease because that usually doesn't happen in the insurance world um so this year we did because we owe we were at 117% of our premiums versus 100%
we had to dip into our fund balance by about 137 $140,000 which was the first year we've had to do that um fortunately we've been doing really really good at setting our rates and so we've we've been fortunate enough to build up a really good balance
in our um fund it's right around it's been kind of hovering over about $900,000 so we had a we have a little bit of a safety net there to be able to dip into it like we had to this year but we don't want to do that again we don't want to continue doing that because that's not fiscally responsible for us
so our recommendation as a committee is to make an adjustment in the amount of 15% to our premiums up there you'll see we have two different plans that we offer our employees one is called our 1500 Viva plan and the premiums for the
single person would be $134 a month the premium for a family plan would be $3,267 a month and then our other plan is our $3,500 HSA plan with a single
premium that is $1,97 per month and then our family plan will cost $2,744 per month for our employees you have any questions about
how we came about this or anything that you're thinking wondering jackie Budro well I guess it begs a question if this is the best solution for our 300
employees um and I'm just wondering if had that discussion or if you are aware of premium rates elsewhere sure good question so we did go out for proposals um from other insurance
companies and and we we we we by law have to do that every so many years um but we do that also to be sure just just of what your question is to make sure that we're offering the best plans that we can um this particular plan these
plans that we landed on are the same ones that we've had for many years however we did decide to adjust the deductible on our Viva plan so our deductibles we increased them a bit because without that increase our actual
premium increases were set to be closer to 18 to 20% of an increase versus a 15% so so we did we did both we shopped the market and we also looked at our current plans to decide how we could adjust them
to find some savings internally as well so so so if I may um Miss Budro uh Mr wolf and I are are on the insurance committee and we've I've learned a lot with this but the bar the teacher
bargaining group is not part of our self-funded insurance the all the teachers are on their own program it's called the public employee insurance program PEEP they call it so our self-insurance is all other employees in the district so administrative um
custodial uh administrative assistants etc every everyone else that chooses to be on that so teachers are not part of that which is they probably that's I believe 300 strong there so the other couple hundred is is what we're dealing with here so like that so I just wanted
to point that out okay so um what are the deductibles what have they increased to i'm just curious is that the 1500 is that what that means with the VIA plan it used to mean that but it does not now with the new plans the actual single
deductible is $2,100 a year and the family is $4,200 per year for the HSA plan it is uh it is $3,500 for a single person and $7,000
for a family i have a question thank you i have a question on the HSA so I know as a teacher um this the school district would put in 3500 like into a health savings account
and and so it actually would be kind of a wash that if you used all your health savings then you would not be taking any money out of your pocket is that the same for um employees that are not teachers um the the same concept is
there but not all employees get the same dollar amount put into their plans okay if you have a couple weeks to study insurance Miss Jo can be glad it's it's complicated it's uh a lot of factors that go in so great explanation Nicole
thank you very much any further discussion on approval of the 2025 2026 health insurance rates discussion discussion hearing none all in favor of that motion signify by saying I i opposed motion passes thank
you Miss Yoken very much 10 C consider approving name change for Roosevelt uh could I have uh a motion for approving the name change uh for Roosevelt please thank you Director Budro have a
second i'll second that motion and just before as we get into discussion I'll have uh Miss Raceler if you would like to present whatever we uh the name that the is being recommended for Roosevelt
thank you uh so uh because Roosevelt is basically changing its purpose from an elementary school to now it will be a pre kindergarten early childhood special education and kindergarten uh setting um the department of education needs us to
change our purpose for the site and at this time we then have the ability to change the name of the site if we so choose so this would be the opportunity to do that and this would be effective July 1st 2025
the name being proposed is Roosevelt Early Learning Center thank you uh questions or discussion not director Robisho mr chair thank you um I guess I disagree i don't see the
need to change the name unless you want to go Roosevelt Elementary early childhood center still an elementary school still serving elementary students so I will not vote in favor of this change
further discussion director Moore yes thank you um I do agree with uh Dr robasha with his assessment and I feel that we don't need to do that but I like your idea so I won't be voting for this
any further discussion mr chair Director Steves go ahead um so I would assume that the ALC will have a similar name change so in a year from now we will look at the name change for
the ALC when they move okay Dr budro I just wondered if there was a discussion about this and you know when it happened and what was the pros and cons
so this was discussed at our district leadership council um the discussion was brought up around uh what the name should be roosevelt Early Learning Center was the name that was that that was thrown out um and that everyone in
that group agreed to so um okay further discussion be the last call for discussion director Steves I'm going to do a roll call we'll do a roll call on this one too if you would please ready
to go ahead miss Director Steves linda Budro hi candace Kudson hi linda Moore no jerry Roisha no cassie Steves I John Bellingham hi passes 542 42 thank
you next uh agenda item 10D our is a report our three-year budget projections and M braeler you're at the podium so I'll just turn it over to you thank you um the report that you have in front of
you is um basically just a a highle view of what our uh projected budget looks like with uh some assumptions some uh information there to help you understand how uh the numbers
were derived so the first column that you're seeing is the adopted uh 2025 so that's the budget that we're currently working under for fiscal year 25 and again please note that this is just the general fund so I'm just specifically talking about the general fund so um
what was approved in June of 2024 is what you're seeing here for um the adopted 25 so we approved a deficit of $273,400 when we ended fiscal year
24 our unassigned fund balance was actually at 14.3% um you may remember that our minimum fund balance and that's in policy that is 9.5% and it's a percentage of the expenditures
uh that we have in the general fund less uh long-term facilities maintenance and a few other um areas so what this is telling us is that we have we are over our minimum fund balance by about
4.8% and so that um that is a good thing um that we have been you know the the district did a great job in fiscal year 24 making some budget cuts into 25 and those different kinds of things so with that overage we have an
opportunity perhaps what you're seeing in the projected 2026 is uh including um the budget cuts that were already approved so we had
brought to the board a recommendation of $650,000 in cuts but then we also had some uh items that were added back on and we talked about that in uh February and so that got us to a deficit of about
255,000 one of the enhancements that will be talked about later a proposal of enhancement is uh two full-time equivalent for cultural and language classes and so that is a proposed
addition that's included in this projection we also have an increase in student count as uh Superintendent Benty talked about we do have more students now coming in from STEM and so the updated student count at this time is
about 3,37 and in fact it's actually higher than that today but when I put this together that was the count that we had and so I went with the latest information that I had at the time so that increases our revenue a little
bit because our um fund balance is looking really good it it has been proposed that we take some of that savings some of those dollars and set them aside in an assigned fund balance
for curriculum so what is uh included in the projection for 2026 is moving $750,000 from our current unassigned undesated fund balance and putting that
into an assigned fund balance and that way then that can be used for future years um however we see fit for curriculum we know that we have not uh it it was a budget cut years ago from my understanding and we have not always
been um updating our curriculum to the latest standards and what we need to do so this is a way for us to be able to put some dollars aside and start working on really strengthening our curriculum and getting on a cycle of improving that
curriculum so that we can hit the goals that we've set for for our district so that is um included in this projection so when you look at where we were to
start with for um a deficit about 255,000 we add on two FTE we add on 750,000 but then we have revenue to offset that we get to a projected
deficit of approximately 873,000 so in the projected 2026 column we're seeing that deficit Even with that deficit we would still be above our minimum fund balance of what
we feel is appropriate for our districts to to have in savings if you will because that's what the fund balance is i then projected out uh fiscal years 27 and 28 and the longer you do a
projection the fuzzier it gets i don't have a crystal ball unfortunately so um so you have to take some assumptions into consideration so um we are still showing a bit of a decrease in our student enrollment even with the increase of the
of uh some of the uh enrollments that we've had of recent um our trend is still showing that we'll be decreasing not as much but still some unless we can continue to grow those uh those enrollments uh back up
so taking that into consideration I did a 2% for the gened uh formula the general education formula so that's the amount per pupil that we get i did a flat 2% because it is very much unknown what this legislative session is going
to look like let alone what future ones will look like the other large piece for us at our in our district is the compensatory piece so right now our uh compensatory has gone down considerably from where from where it is this year
our compensatory went down considerably now depending on whose legislative um proposals you're looking at we could gain you know a a few more $100,000 or we could lose we're looking at a $900,000 swing when we're looking
at our compensatory so it's it's hard to predict where we're going to end up so Superintendent Benty and I agreed on something in the middle and so that's what we are showing for 2026 and then I
just carried that through 2027 and 2028 now that may increase it may decrease but we're we're using the data that we have uh today to to um forecast that out the amounts that you're seeing then
projected 2027 you're seeing 1.5 million overspend that is with the assumption we do nothing we don't react so in fiscal year 26 we have you know we've we've spent some of our dollars on setting
aside for curriculum and for you know different uh different initiatives that we have those that have already been uh talked about in previous board meetings etc if we do nothing then we would be looking at a $ 1.5 million deficit spend
in 2027 again if we do nothing that becomes a $2 million uh deficit spend in 2028 so of course we're going to be reacting to these things as they're happening and if we see that you know our fund balance is
decreasing continually we of course are going to react and we are going to make changes and we are going to ensure that we never fall below that minimum fund balance but this is what the projection looks like as of today
thank you Miss Raceler so do we have any questions or discussion mr chairman Director Budro um Miss Reler what is the am for the first in the notes the two FTE cultural and language classes what
is the cost of that it's assumed about 170,000 about 85,000 per FTE and that includes salary and benefits 175,000 170 and then it looks as though we're relying on our unassigned fund balance
to make us um even and What happens if our state does not respond and remove some of these um politicized
DEI and we are caught without funding i mean I'm concerned about that and I don't know if individual districts have the opportunity to just divest themselves of DEI or if this is a state
full state issue um I'm just concerned about spending down our fund balance i know we're doing well there but we weren't a few years back um we were just at the minimum bare minimum percentage we should have
um I I thank you for providing these there's a lot of um unanswered questions that we have no control about and that is the compensatory is it going to be cut as
proposed by some one plan will we get anything in gened formula we have a $6 billion deficit in the next bianium projected um I I guess I'm just a little concerned with adding any
money in our curriculum right now that's just my thinking and we have to wait and see how many new students we get right because that that is really going to be a telltale sign for us yes but thank you for presenting this
Director Moore yes um thank you Mr chair i do agree with um Miss Bedro um because it's uh with the federal you know I don't know at first I looked at it was six million now it's 9 million I I don't think we should I think we should be
very cautious in what we are doing I don't know if we should add any more on and I agree with you on that your assessment on that director Robisho thank you Mr chair um I'm taking an opposite view i'm very
pleased to see that the leadership has decided to finally add some money to curriculum we don't start looking at our curriculum we're going to have to do all kinds of things five years from now so it's pleased to see
that looking at that and saying we need to take a comprehensive look at our curriculum and that's our foundation of education um and if we're not offering students a comprehensive curriculum why are our doors open so I'm pleased to see
that and uh respect the fact that um it should be more than that given the years that we've not done anything with curriculum but I'm pleased to see that we're finally taking a proactive move toward curriculum in this district
thank you Dr rosha so I just have a couple things to add i I first of all the fund balance I don't believe in my tenure on the board I don't believe it's dipped ever below 10% maybe 9.89 or but not even close to 9.5
never has in my seven years now on the board and go up to 14 I know MSBA and our audit people like to see it in 1920 or whatever but that that'll never happen um I I view when I talk to people
in the community taxpayers saying and they appreciate us only increasing the taxes by 68 of a percent this year not the 9% or 11% or double digits as the city and the county did there but when
we get to this point and in in a curriculum review uh I I do know and have experienced that we had a curriculum review cycle of every seven years of every subject and they alternated years and we in we looked at different curriculums and then we
invested etc as Dr rosho said it's a constant uh focus here uh we want we we hear all the time we want our score our kids scores to go up and my understanding a lot of this money is to go to middle school math
which is in need of a overhaul of a curriculum big time so this investment and and also I view um what the taxpayers are saying is so you're taking my taxes here and you get that money and
you're putting into your savings account rather than investing in our students and you keep beefing up your you're padding your savings account and I I know understand we need it and it's
a it's a rainy day fund right here But in some of our curriculum areas it's a flash flood it's a thunderstorm people we need to re we need to redo them immensely so it's nice to say other districts would go "Wow 14.3% of
assigned fund balance." You are so fortunate are we if our programs are lacking if we're not investing in our kids I'm not saying go down to 9.5% but I do believe we do do need to take
part of this and then we've always done a great job in my careers in education of adjusting our budgets when we see we're going to have less students and and a deficit spending like we see in 26 and 27 that we've adjusted for that we cut
$3 million last year we adjusted that's why we're sitting here right now that's the reason for it because our leadership and and directors had the vision of saying we deal with this now rather than a $6 million cut in one
district and 1.8 to the south so I'm in favor of uh we need to continue to look at what's best for our kids and invest in our kids and there and it what it's going to take that that that's what's going to be the discussion
on my part so with that any other questions for Go ahead Mr benty so I'll just throw my two cents in here thank you my previous social studies teaching uh math side of this school finance so we are currently at a little a little
over 14% and I do believe that is too high for the reasons that that have been listed here um money to our funds to our curriculum department and designated for curriculum were cut many many years ago that was some of the very first
reductions that were made I believe um I was just talking today I've been in the district for over 12 years now and we've reduced every single year except for one so um we are going to continue like Miss Racer said to make adjustments year by
year based off of enrollment based off of revenue so that we have the rolling planes of our budget versus the peaks and valleys so that is what we have agreed upon but we needed to get to this point hence the $3 million reduction that you talked about for last year to
get us to this point with that being said you know 14.3 I think is too high all right 9.5 I think is cutting it close because 9.5 would give us how many weeks of payroll before we would be out
of money six 35 days 35 days okay um so that'd be about seven weeks so I was close you're pretty yeah social studies math right there um so wi with those things in in in stride i also like to
look at it and say but we also need to have a little bit of a cushion during the school year as well so my preference would would be for us to be somewhere around that 11 to 11.2% 2% ongoing that
gives us a little bit of that extra money during the school year if all of a sudden we need to increase something or if we have a catastrophe if we lose one of our boilers I know that wouldn't cover that but it would at least take a big chunk out of it um with Director
Budro I understand exactly what you're saying because those are the things that keep me up at night as well what I'm seeing right now is that the federal government is going after the states they're not going after individual districts they're not excluding individual districts out of the states
now that may change tomorrow but right now they seem to be tackling this on a state by state so it doesn't matter at this juncture what decisions we make we're held under what our state is saying uh now like I said that may change in the future but that's what I'm
seeing right now the focus is on Maine but it is absolutely correct that the words Minnesota or the names of Minnesota and California came out of uh the federal government last week as the next places to look at so I I am I am also comfortable with this i think it's
we desperately need the money uh in curriculum to get us back on a cycle um and and to spend down some of that fund balance because I don't feel comfortable taking the public's money and sitting on it um I believe it needs to go to the
purpose that it is there for and that is for student learning and for the curriculum for them understanding also that curriculum purchases are one-time costs so that is not a a rolling $750,000 that is a one-time 750,000 that
will be spread over a few years not all spent in one year did you hear me Miss Moore not all or uh or Miss Hall not all spent in one year um she's our director of teaching and learning and loves curriculum so so
that's just kind of my two cents there Mr chair thank you further questions or discussion on the re three-year budget redu three-year budget projections report director Rob just comment i I too
appreciate the fact that you're looking at the future you know that uh often times we are put in a position uh oh we've got to make some budget cuts we at least now have a picture and absolutely there are no guarantees but at least we
have some idea that we are going to have some financial struggles in the next three years and I appreciate you bringing that forward to us the other thing about curriculum and I know it's not all one year you're going to spend 750 but it's about time we start
spending some money on curriculum great thank you Mr tracer board members how we doing anybody need a break or anything a pencil roll five minute i have a couple want five minutes let's go five minute recess so we'll reconvene
at 7:25 rec we're in recess all right I'll call I'll call the meeting back to order come out of recess here our next agenda item of the evening is the uh discussion item of language
and cultural classes so uh student success quarter Miss Katie Schultz and principal Miss Ashley Benhard if you would come up please and go over the present and present on the cultural class and language classes please
perfect mr bellingham is it okay if we stand up rather than sit down okay neither one of us sits down very well so we're gonna we're not going to do pencil roll are you or anything i am tempted i I have been smartt trained i believe
in smart it's good stuff so have done the alligator crawl many many times with kids today we are here to talk about um an idea that has been um evolving over the past few months i know a couple people have referred to it as the cultural and language class we're going
to flip that our focus is on language and culture but our focus really is on teaching reteing language when kids can learn it best so um if we can turn to the next slide i don't know who's in control
here okay you've got the clicker we are going to start out teaching both Spanish and Somali at the elementary levels we're going to go quickly through the the current data that we see in Farbo um this is a
snapshot from from one day back in February when I um looked into the demographics that we had in our system if we look at federal ethnicity 37% of our students are Hispanic 21% are black 37% white 5% are two or more races but
then when we look at home language 24% of our students speak Spanish 17% 17% speak Somali 57% speak English so it begs the question why
teach language when there is so much else to teach i hear this question a lot so we're going to do something with you here i'm going to turn the microphone over to Principal Ben Hart and she's going to take it away i know you're shaking in your boots right now because I made you shake maracas last time i'm
not going to do that i just need a volunteer this time go ahead do I have to appoint someone you sure can you want to volunteer i scared everybody i know I did director
Steves is gonna go director Steves can you please read the passage on the board out loud um social studies passage uh we
aar are community dad we adamos in our community some people choose alikades and globy noardes these people make leays lays help keep everyone safe and fair you can
stop that was really good good job excellent so if we were to continue this entire passage you'll notice that there's a mixture of English and Spanish in there this passage represents what our students that are coming in with lower vocabularies in English see when they're reading a passage at their grade
level about 80% of it is understood or the vocabulary is in their brain or kind of those site words is what we call during our letters training 80% of them are in English the rest are in their native language or in their foundational language so as we kind of struggle
through that Director Steves you were able to decode pretty well and read the words but did you understand what you were reading nope and that is what a lot of our learners are struggling to do during our literacy time of the day currently um at the elementary level we
have we're conducting letters training we just finished year one today woot that's a big celebration um we will conduct year 2 next year but we also are implementing our bridgeto read phonics curriculum and get grades K through three what our data is showing at the elementary level is that students either
get the phonics or they don't they may be able to read the words but they can't spell them because there's no vocabulary um there's no um context or vocabulary to attach the word that they're decoding to so this word audar means to help but
if students don't know that or don't have that background knowledge they're just decoding the word and they're not they're not truly comprehending what's going on here so what our data is telling us is that our students are not truly reading reaching their potential if they're coming in with a vocabulary
deficit and this vocabulary def deficit isn't just multilingual learners we have students who come to us um we there's lots of research that shows students in poverty come to school with significantly fewer words than other kids and so we're seeing this deficit
across all demographics not just our multilingual learners so I dug into the research there is so much research out there on bilingualism and the benefits of being fully bilingual so let's talk about how
our multilingual learners benefit from learning continuing to learn or relearning their first or dominant language right now what we practice in schools is subtractive
bilingualism i experience my family my ancestors experienced this when they immigrated to America they spoke Danish they were not allowed to speak Danish by their parents or at their schools and so
within one generation that language is lost okay yes we learned English english is now our dominant language but that language loss is significant i cannot go visit with an with relatives in Denmark i can't communicate with them if we look
at what the research says most of the time when students are mixed bilingual if you look at that first point mixed bilingual children fully closed the math gap by fifth grade just teaching them their first language
while also teaching them English closed that gap um supporting native language and English acquisition and development is an important aspect of overcoming achievement difficulties a lot of our multilingual learners experience some of those achievement difficulties if we
teach both languages additive bilingualism actually increases results in both language um not only are they becoming bilingual but it changes their brains they're more able to problem solve multitask and the mental
flexibility is there to to approach tasks that are more difficult um if we look at the last point those who participated in two-way bilingual programs were performing at academic
langu or greater than those who were not participating in those programs i also there's other pieces of research that I found really really interesting this first point was very clear to me i have a group of parents
here i'm so proud of them we've been meeting with a group of Somali folks and a group of Spanish-sp speakaking folks for the last few months one of the comments that we hear a lot I'm going to get to that here in a minute is that parents and children as they lose that
first language no longer have a common language they no longer have that strong language connection with each other i'm going to get to a quote about that here in just a second middle school math scores are higher for students who are fully bilingual also
high school GPA are higher one comment I get a lot but we want them to learn English teaching them their first language while we teach them English does not slow anything down they actually learn quicker after that from
our great group of parents we have some quotes my child doesn't understand me when I talk to them my English isn't good and their Somali isn't good how do I even begin to help my child when we don't have that common language how do I
help them navigate the United States how do I help them navigate school how do I help them navigate anything as our languages get further and further apart i have never felt like it was okay to value my language and my culture i thought because we were in the United States English should be the only thing
that matters this is what my great-grandfather told his children you're in the United States we speak English now and all of that language and culture was lost i'm afraid I'm losing my children they don't understand their own culture okay but now let's talk about
monolingual English kids do they benefit from this as well students monolingual English speakers who participated in elementary foreign language instruction outperformed both ELEL and monolingual
students on every assessment it changes the way your brain works it makes your brain work better um time that was spent teaching language that that quote from the beginning what why would we do this we
have so many things to learn actually learning another language does not take away or have any negative effect on skills and skill development they still actually gain those skills as well um
this last one is interesting the United States suffers from a foreign language deficit and there is an urgent need to build both motivation and interest in other languages along with sustainable skills in other languages in the US and there's more every piece of
research that I have found says the positive definitely outweighs the negative um the last quote at every grade level foreign language students significantly outperformed their non-foreign language counterparts parts on language achievement tests just by
learning another language here's some feedback from some monilingual English-speaking families i took Spanish in high school and barely remember anything anybody relate to that quote i think we all can we took two years in high school and we can maybe say "Hi how are you?" I wish I would have learned it
earlier i hear that all the time the other quote that I keep hearing is "We keep cutting foreign languages in this district we now currently only offer one foreign language at the high school Spanish." I took this group of parents
we had a group of about 15 of us they're not all here um to St paul to take a look at what they do for their language and culture program um students involved in the language and culture program kindergarten through 12th grade scored
at the advanced low or higher on the bilingual seals test of bilingualism it's a test that we offer every year at the high school we just got done doing it students take this test they can earn high school and college credit at the same time by taking this test if they
follow this class all the way through by the time they get done with high school they are at the advanced level in the language they took um this is roughly the same as if they were in our full immersion program okay so we're learning language all the
way through kindergarten or first grade through 12th grade um by the time they get done with elementary school they have done the equivalent of Spanish one at the high school by the time they get through middle school they've done the
equivalent of Spanish two they enter high school at the Spanish three or even AP levels just by going through this program um one of the things that we saw in our Somali visit to St paul is that
the class was learning part of their culture the Somali national anthem and one of our parents I think she is not here right now she said "I got emotional when I heard them singing our song in our language just by hearing that national anthem being sung by their
children." Some of the parents even said "I didn't even know all the words i've forgotten them but they were able to to learn that as the children in that program." So I'm going to turn it over to Principal Benhart because she has been very instrumental in talking about what will this look
like all right so logistically um where this would fit is 30 minutes a day there is a content block carved out for elementary teachers so during that 30 minutes um content is taught between health um science and social studies so during this time um the Somali
instructor and the Spanish instructor would take a cohort of students um we would probably cap it close to 28 if there was that much interest and the remainder of the students would stick with their monolingual peers in a classroom so we have let's say four classroom teachers um let's say 20 of
them 20 of the students in the grade level went to the Somali course 20 went to the Spanish course the remainder of the students would stick with the classroom teachers those teachers could choose to do a multitude of activities to teach the science the social studies and the health um but this program is
very much optin it's offered grades one through four so if there are two FTE the Somali instructor would go between Jefferson and Lincoln and the Spanish instructor would do the same again it would be during that content block which would be carved out for teachers and they would be learning the science
social studies in health through a curriculum in Spanish and in Somali monolingual students can also opt into the program it's parent choice it's open to anybody um and then again if they don't choose to be in that course they will just receive their content per
normal in their classroom with the classroom teachers so that's kind of what it would look like from a general overview again 30 minutes of instruction daily um Spanish Somali or English and then the summary would be health science and social studies meeting those Minnesota state standards
so as we think about okay why where are we going um one of the things we've talked about with Mr benty a little bit is what if our vision is bilingualism for all everyone goes through Fairbu Public Schools and becomes bilingual um adding languages every year every other
year german I know when we cut German at the high school that was a big blow to this community as they have a very strong German heritage we could add that back in i know many families feel that Mandarin Chinese is very desirable we could add that in i know some districts
are are focusing in on French and Japanese that could be added in in future use years as well really the options are limitless but how cool would that be if our kiddos get all the way first grade through 12th grade and they are fully bilingual at the advanced
level in the language that they choose that's what we have for you what questions do you have for us i know we went through that quickly you could add Norwegian to that i my great-grandmother was Norwegian and I
speak zero of it so yes what members Mr chair I I know I've talked to you about this before but I just got this this afternoon and there was a lot to take in and I feel right now that I'm really unprepared for discussion at this point because I'd
really like to go through it and have some questions and like like I said this I just got this this afternoon and I know it's And I would appreciate if we could get it sooner because I I don't feel prepared for discussion right now and I don't know what to do about that
but presentation was on board book on Wednesday correct was it on Wednesday Jamie it might not have been there till when I went on Wednesday it wasn't there i think it was Thursday okay yeah so well if what questions or
whatever you have do please do email Mr venty and myself and we'll forward that to uh to get your questions answered for for possible discussion so yeah Mr chairman director Budro I would like to know a little more about the cultural
part and what that entails in the proposal um that's a great question we have not fully worked that out yet um we St hall has graciously agreed to share curriculum with us because we are not in
competition with them um so when we went to visit some of the cultural pieces that they talk about is um so when they're learning the names of animals in Somali they focus in on East African animals because that's part of what they
would have seen had they lived in that in that community still so it's it's cultural pieces that are are important to the community that they are serving foods um clothing those kinds of
things mr chairman is there a key component that ties into our board goals with with the proposal i mean maybe there's many components i guess I would just like to know how it fits i mean
achievement is everything right now and let me know what you think about that almost all of the research out there says that fully bilingual kids out achieve everyone um that is it it changes something in the
brain it makes the brain flexible it makes it more able to problem solve to um think critically it just makes that brain flexible more so than just being monolingual um yes and I and I do agree with that i think uh in the earlier
start with bilingual the better i guess my concern is with the culture and with you know instead of learning the language but with the cultural aspect because many times you cannot distinguish between culture and faith-based tenants and I think this
we're getting into could get into some sticky categories especially with um the Minnesota Human Rights Act because it talks about you can't you know uh discriminate between race uh religion which is
faith-based and I think if we did that we might have to add an aspect of maybe uh our constitution is based on the federalist papers and federalist papers are based on Judeo-Christian value so we'd have to add that element in there
too to be equitable so I'm having I don't have a problem with the bilingual but just off the top of my head here um I am worried concerned about with the culture there's always faith-based
tenants and you can do that with with um studying our constitu well the constitution doesn't mention God but it is based on federalist papers federalist papers are based on Judeo-Christian values so you can't separate culture out
between faith-based tenants and I think this could be discrimination if we're not very careful we have to be very careful in this and that's why I wanted a little more time to think about this and um I'd like because you said you're
not fully that hasn't fully worked out what the culture is i'd like to know exactly what the culture and I'd like to see the curriculum before I do anything because in order to be fair to all groups in our school um we need to because if we add this
we're going to need to add another component too um I believe strongly in separation of church and state and so if we were to bring cultural elements in it faith would not be an element that I would support bringing in regardless of the faith so I think that we as we look at
it the the curriculum will be transparent it'll be uh available to whoever wants to look at it um to go through for sure when will that be done um we we will have to go through this board to approve the addition and then um St paul is willing to share their
curriculum and then um a memorandum um but they require a memorandum of understanding in order to get it so that we're not selling it or using it or giving it to anyone else because we're not in competition so we would approve it before we can see the curriculum and I don't know if that's a good idea i
Yeah that's what they require i have a and I think the public may have a problem with that too so Okay and I can talk to very carefully here yeah I can talk to him about the order of that so let me go back director Budro were you done with your question i think it was answered yes okay i just want to make sure you had a chance to
follow up with it yes so Director Ro thank you um I want to commend you for working on this um you know you're one slide one research that you showed is that we are America's deficit in world
languages and I totally agree with you that uh we need to do that as far as the culture goes um you know if we really want to eliminate all cultures then let's look at our calendar our calendar is focused on Judo Christian times where do we take off
during the winter at Christmas time we should be taking school out on every religious holiday for every student that's in our schools and not just the Christian holidays uh we should be looking at a more comprehensive picture
of what our schools really offer i commend you for this if you take a look at the numbers what we are a majority of students of color in this district coming with all kinds of different I mean there's 58% as opposed to
37% significant percentage difference what you're talking about and as far as the culture goes you can't learn the language without also understanding the culture take a look at the ind indigenous folks you know Lakota people
are struggling always because their students are losing their language which means they're losing their culture and I think you've got to embed both of those now it's not a religious basement it's not a religious context it's a language
context which in fact you cannot separate the culture from it absolutely it's not going to be religiousbased but it is something and you're to be commended for looking at this so that our students if we're going to have a worldclass educational system in this district we've got to look at a
more comprehensive way than just teaching English or just teaching language in an English context we've got to take a look at it from a broader perspective and it says we will you know one of our strategies is we will address
individual student learning in a innovative and challenging way that's what you're doing and I appreciate the fact that you're doing this thank you thank you i can I add one thing am I allowed um one of the data pieces that I didn't put up there is the optimal age
to learn a second language or to learn another language any guesses what that age is three years old nope it's 0 to 12 isn't it maybe that's before it was it's actually seven we plan on teaching starting teaching the
second language at first grade when kids are seven because that is when they can learn it best for whatever reason in the United States we've decided that we're going to start teaching language at 16 by that time your brain is not able to acquire a language you actually have
to learn it and memorize it whereas if we start teaching kids at seven they will acquire the language they can actually speak it without an accent which a lot of our learners like when I speak Spanish I have a lot of years of
Spanish even our faces will say "Katie your accent is really good but it's not it's still there they can still hear it." Whereas if our kiddos start learning early that accent is gone they are like native speakers of that language whatever the language is so I
think thinking about this at the elementary level is just so much smarter than waiting until they're in high school and they can't acquire that language easily i I will also say from my chair here that I appreciate you looking at this because we're thinking outside the box
and it's not the status quo anymore which we said we we need changes in that what really strikes me is um I know the elementary schedule fairly well and we know it's very heavy in math and reading as I pointed out before and health
science and social studies let's be honest rarely gets touched because of time time constraints and as a six former sixth grade teacher who taught Minnesota studies history uh kids came from fifth grade all over the district
and knew that had never taken a social studies class before or knew anything about community or whatever and so I I I really or health uh just eating right etc and our science was mentioned before or science we don't teach science let's
be honest we very few classes actually teach science or have the time because we're focused on math and reading and it is that way so I like that but a couple things we we'll need to work out i would like more detail as well and we'll be talking to Mr mr bentivot and he can
distribute the information but the curriculum if probably we need to we'll probably need if the board approves the program might be a an addendum or whatever saying we need to see the curriculum as well and how that's going to flow and how that going
to do that i I would like that I guess with that and then uh I do like that it's optional you know if you just want to continue your class in your regular classroom fine if not you want to reach outside the box etc it gives maybe elementary kids excitement to have an
elective or have something that different uh there as well and I do like the things the as director Budro pointed out how does this tie in with our board goals of reading well by third grade and ready for you know like that so that's it but thank you for thinking outside the box there and there's been some good
discussion there and I'll be communicating with Mr benty here perfect i will reach out to St paul i'm certain that they will allow the board to see the curriculum before theou is signed yep or or will the curriculum actually be what we get from them be adapted to fit fair absolutely yes um I their
curriculum doesn't have that content focus as much as we are going to have we're going to have that science and social studies and health focus as well so we will have to add pieces in to meet the standards there yeah board member anything else miss Director Kudson so I was thrilled to
hear that we finally got an immersion program and so next year it'll include second grade yes is my understanding i saw the job posting okay so um are we thinking of expanding to add a Somali immersion
program or expanding I mean We have one section of each so I mean I talk to people and there's like a waiting list correct yes okay so um you know I would just like to see every child in an immersion program so you said something
about that by the time they get to high school they would um have completed the equivalent of Spanish one and Spanish 2 correct is that the immersion program or is that this 30 minutes a day it's both really yes so in 30 minutes a student is
going to improve that much and I also agree that you know I mean I talk to students who you know I mean they're in their fourth grade of Spanish and can't talk to anybody who's Spanish speakaking y so um yeah I just think we have to you know
support that language development and you know and I mean there are so many advantages to our brains if we have a couple languages one of the different Go ahead sorry well and and I just um I know little ones who go into an speaking
other languages and go into an English-speaking um daycare at one year old and I mean they mix up their words to begin with and then after a while they know to speak to me in English and mom in Chinese you know that kind of thing so the immersion program has more
of an emphasis on bilingualism and biliteracy so reading writing in both of those languages as well this one correct me if I'm wrong would have both as well however the immersion program does do that literacy focus more so than this program would right
director Steve you have Mr chair I would just say thank you for the presentation and u it's interesting to hear you've been working on this for months and you've been engaging the community um I only heard about it just a week ago so
it is good for board members to know what we're working on it comes kind of as a surprise when you first hear about it and you feel I feel um uninformed sometimes so um when we're working on
things that's going to impact our district and our board is going to need to approve it's really helpful to know what it is so it's just my two cents thank you director Steve do you a couple
things you said um yeah so I would be very interested in reading this or like the research results and how they uh relate to our four district goals i think the the the there's a couple really compelling points um so parent
child communication in a common language is the greatest predictor of positive school outcomes um it really like some of these com comments from families i mean we all want our kids to be successful whether we speak English or
Somali or Spanish or whatever um and that that feels as a as a parent I understand that and um that's why I am
here and I think if this is an avenue or something else is an avenue um to help kids and parents be more connected to education um lifelong learning can continue no
matter if you were born here or immigrated here um but yeah I mean that's like the most compelling thing out of this whole article is is definitely we all want our kids to be successful
i love that you pointed that out that's why I highlighted it because I it's something that I think we as monolingual parents and educators don't often think about that maybe the parent and the child in these situations don't have a language to communicate with each other and how hard is that parenting is hard
already and then you can't communicate in a common language and you're still supposed to parent you're still supposed to help with homework or all of those things that is a huge task when that common language isn't strong any further items of discussion or
questions thank you so much for the presentation very much thank you agenda item number 11 are dates to remember uh April 28th 2025 3 PM right here board retreat uh April 30th 2025
3:30 is the Community Education Advisory Council uh May 5th 2025 5:30 p.m work session may 6 at uh 3:45 p.m is the policy committee may 8th uh 2025 7:45
a.m facilities committee meeting and May 19th 2025 5:30m our business meeting so you know that uh agenda item number 12 is adjournment do I have a motion to adjurnn i'll make the motion thank you Director Kudson is there a
second to that motion thank you Director Steves any discussion discussion discussion all in favor of the motion signify by saying I i bye