Good evening and welcome. Before I call this meeting to order, I just wish to give some information here. This past week, we lost another member of our Falcon family. Custodian Craig
Johnson, who was a a high school custodian for 26 years, tragically passed away last Friday. To many of us, he was not just a colleague, he was a friend. He was a helper to all.
So, at this time, I would ask you to remove your hats for a moment of silence for Craig and his family. Thank you. So, as at this time, I'll call to order the business meeting here on May 19th, 2025 for the Fair Farewell Public
Schools School Board. Uh, director Clerk Steves, do we have a quorum present? Yes, Mr. Chair, there is. Thank you. Would everyone remove your hats and stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Before I ask for a motion for approval of the agenda, board members, for your information, which I'm sure you already
know, but for everyone's information, and welcome to those of you in in uh person here and those watching online, but the agenda has been changed, particularly item uh 10 10B B, language and cultural classes
has been switched from a a uh action item to a discussion item tonight. So just just for your information. So with that, I is there a motion for approval of the agenda? So move. Thank you, Director Wolf. Do we
have a second? Second. Thank you, Director Kudson. Discussion. Discussion. Discussion. All in favor of that motion signify by saying I. I. opposed. Motion passes. Agenda item number three, recognition, awards, and presentations.
First, we have uh student board representative uh recognition. So, Miss Jillian Huberty, if you would stand and kind of come up here. I'll be on in a second. So, board members, get ready because we
will all come up for a photo op when I'm finished with this. So everyone can hear me. Tonight we'd like to recognize and thank our student school board representatives Jillian Huberty and ECLE for their service to the Fairville
public schools. First, we offer our sincere appreci appreciation to Jillian Huberty, who is graduating this spring after serving as a student board representative for the past three
years. Jillian has been engaged, thoughtful, and consistent voice on our board, always bringing student perspectives forward with clarity, compassion, and a deep sense of responsibility. Her leadership has made
a lasting impression and we are incredibly grateful for the time, care, and insight she has contributed to this board and our school community. Jillian, thank you for your
outstanding service. We wish you all the best in your next chapter. On behalf of public school board, we like to present you with this plaque for your [Applause]
service. Also, Jillian has received a certificate from the Minnesota School Board's Association for a Service Award. [Applause] Also, the school board gives you a certificate as well of appreciation for
all you've done for this. [Applause] I take a Go ahead. We'd also like to thank ECLI who stepped into the student board representative
role earlier this year. While EC has only recently joined the board, we've appreciated his willingness to serve and the perspective he brings to our table as well. We look forward to working with EC in the year ahead as he continues in this important role and helps evaluates helps
evolate student voice in our district. Thank you both Jillian and Eie for your service and commitment to Fable students. [Applause]
So now Jillian I believe you have something you would like to say as well. Yeah. So, um, as this is my final meeting as the student representative on the Fairbow Public School Board, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all
for the opportunity to serve in this role. It's been an incredible experience and one that has taught me more than I could have ever imagined. Being part of this board wasn't just an extracurricular for me. It was a responsibility that I took seriously and I'm proud of the work that I have done
and that we have done together. I've had the privilege of representing student voices, bringing attention to their needs, and learning how thoughtful policy, leadership, and advocacy can shape a district. I especially want to thank all of the teachers and staff who pushed me
to critically think, speak confidently, and show up with purpose. I wouldn't be who I am today without the people who challenged me in the classroom and beyond. We have some amazing teachers here in the Farbo public school district and I want to shout them all out and we
should really be so grateful for all of them. To the board, I want to thank you for treating my voice as an equal at the table. The sense of respect and inclusion is something I will carry with me into college and into my future career. Looking ahead, I hope this district
continues to uplift student perspectives, make space for equity, and lead with both compassion and boldness. There's so much potential here. Our students are resilient, thoughtful, and ready to lead, just like I was given the chance to. I want to remind you all as I
leave that your job here is to support the students. And I want you to always remember to listen to those student voices. That's who's going to tell you what's going on in this school. Thank you again for trusting me and supporting me and letting me grow through this experience. Thank you, Jillian. So,
continuing on with our agenda with flexibility here, I'm going to uh put on hold item 3B, the Jefferson Elementary presentation, and we're going to move to item four, items of information. So, Miss Huberty, we're back to you of student board represents. You have
anything else to add? What's happening at the high school or within our district? So, um we just had farewell prom on May 10th. Um and our theme this year was a night in Paris. That went super well. We had a 17t uh cardboard
Eiffel Tower if you weren't there. Um that was buil built out of cardboard and hot glue. Um I ruined a lot of clothes doing that, but it was amazing. So, um that was awesome. You can go look at pictures in the videos of Graham March.
Um we h just had our last um the last concerts for music, so orchestra, band, and then tonight is the choir concert. Um and then it's the senior's last day this Friday and then the rest of the school ends next week.
Great. Thank you, Jillian. Uh items of information. Uh schoolboard members, any school members like to share anything. Director Moore. Yes. Thank you. Um I guess I just want to make some
comments on a few things here. Um when we vote on a curriculum or a proposal, I would like to see the research showing both sides of the argument. um because it's not up to those in the administration to decide but it's up to
the school board. So I would like to see both sides of the issue, both sides of the research and if you know if we don't have both sides of the research we on the board we can't make an informed decision and if we can't make an informed decision we may be very likely
you know negatively impacting our students our student academic performance. So um I think it's It's it's also not a good practice to base a proposal or a program on only a few studies. Um, you know, and maybe this
could be where achievement, you know, is is so low. I don't know. But I think we have to look you can't look at just a few studies and say this this works or this works. I think we have to really delve into some of these things as a school board and that's our responsibility.
Um secondly, I'd also like to say a little bit about data based research. Um you know, when I hear that about databased research, um we as a school board really need to know that the number of the surveys or the tests or the questionnaires
uh that were given. Plus, and this is most important, more important is the reliability and the validity statistics for each of these surveys, test or questionnaires. Because as we if these stats are not at an acceptable level, um
the validity of the responses or the answers that were given are in question. And one of the things that's been coming up lately is I've been hearing from more than one source from a number of sources that students are not always putting down their true answers. And this goes
back to the reliability. And if the reliability is in question, so is the validity. Um and the result is really junk science. Uh I'm not saying database research is junk science but it is if the reliability and validity statistics
are in question and as a school board we are responsible for that. The buck stops with us. Um so if this happens our decisions I will reiter re reiterate our decisions could very well negatively impact student achievement.
So when we get a new program or anything, we need to see both sides of the story of the research and it has to be more than two or three uh studies. I'd really prefer a metaanalysis or something like that because this is our our responsibility
is our students and like I said the buck staff's with us and we have to make sure that the research is valid and that we are making good decisions based on good research. Thank you. I wanted to say any
other board members director Budro Mr. Chairman, I joined a couple of you. Um, of course, our superintendent at the awards presentation for our seniors.
Sorry. Thank you. The awards presentation for our seniors was, I think, last week. Was it last week? A couple hours or longer because there were so many awards, scholarships uh given to our seniors and I think We
can be very proud of the number of seniors that applied for grants or applied for for awards and scholarships and received them. And we have makes you very proud of our senior class because
um there was such a group up there. I I don't think I've ever seen that large of a group. So, thank you for those who have contributed to those scholarships, organizations, individuals, and uh we appreciate them.
Thank you, the board members. Director Wolf. Mr. Chair, just following up on Director Budwell's comments. Uh yeah, just a huge thank you to all of the contributors to those scholarships. I believe at one point it was said over $223,000 were given out that night. Principal Olsen shaking his head in
agreement. So, um, that doesn't happen overnight. That doesn't happen by chance. And so, just a huge thank you to all of those people and to all of you that are wondering what our seniors going to are going to do. There's a tremendous tremendous amount of talent out there. And so, I'm just super
excited to see where their journeys take them and what the next chapters are like. So, thank you. Welcome. Anyone else? No. Okay. I have a few items as usual. So on May 2nd, Friday, May 2nd, uh as
part of the district and a the school board, I did a farm visit with our third graders went out to the Kubal Farm in Morristown and uh north of Morristown and uh what a great experience for our kids seeing what farm life is about and
uh calves and cows and milk and uh the smell and all this. So uh great farm, great excellent uh thing and our kids were absolutely awesome, well behaved, well well questioned well. It was a joy
to to see. Uh on Monday, May 5th, after our work session, I scadaddled to the uh Ferbo High School uh Michael J. Hansen Auditorium where I attended the Furbo High School orchestra concert. Wow, what a group of talented
kids. and Mr. Sloan, our director, is second to none. Just an outstanding performance. Uh, and again, congratulations those seniors who are graduating. They stressed how much they will miss uh, Furbo High School and
particularly the orchestra program. Um, also attended the, as uh, director Budro said, I attended the uh, uh, Farewell uh, the Fable Senior High School awards banquet. On behalf of the school board, I presented the
schoolboard leadership scholarship. Uh, as far the school fair uh schoolboard leadership scholarship is a $1,500 scholarship from contributions from individual board members. It's not district paid. It's all private money given by schoolboard members who
donated. And I'm happy to announce once again that uh receiving the $1,500 scholarship for uh an indivi for our award was Olivia Corbal who demonstrates outstanding uh leadership and
accomplishments. The uh also on May 8th and last Thursday on behalf of the district I attended the uh chamber chamber of commerce business awards lunchon. Um it's great to see our uh partners in town along with the district interacting and congratulations once
again to Donna Hughes uh Ace Hardware for the business award of the year. It was very good. And also that same evening attended the Fable Middle School band concert at Central Park. Another eyeopening awesome experience for our kids. great
attendance, not just from parents and grandparents, but also from community members coming down to listen to some really good music put on by our our students at the middle school. So, thank you to all who had did that. And then uh I believe the last Friday or whenever it
was, I attended the uh Little Scholars uh daycare grand opening on Wilson Avenue there and Mr. Wolf and Mr. Robishaw were also there uh part of that. And thank you, Miss Steves, for all your work and getting that going. It was quite an accomplishment and a great
thing for our community. So, it's about all I have without all the other meetings, etc. So, we go from there. So, with that, uh, I'll turn it over Mr. Benty. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, once again to echo, thank you to the Farbo community, including local businesses, families, and organizations. They
provided 173 scholarships totaling $222,850 for the class of 2025 uh during the high school seniors award night. Uh students were recognized for their achievements and we congratulate all the recipients and thank our generous donors for their incredible support. Uh we
celebrated teacher and staff appreciation week by honoring this was last week by honoring the the incredible people who make a difference every day inside and outside of the classroom. Their dedication, passion, and care are what make our Falcon family so special. And you heard Jillian speak to that as
well. Uh last week, Roosevelt wrapped up their Big Falcon, Little Falcon peer group. Uh through mentoring, presenting, and leading school events, our fifth grade leaders grew in confidence, ambition, and purpose, and we couldn't be prouder of the lasting impact that they've made.
Also around 50 Lincoln Elementary students biked almost two miles from the far country club uh to their school in celebration of National Bike to School Day. Uh they were joined by supportive parents, staff, two bike patrol officers, and two squad cars ensuring a
safe and fun ride. It was a lively morning promoting healthy habits, safe biking, and the joy of movement. Mrs. Pearson and Mr. Sefco took a group of students in their English language learners class on a field trip to explore downtown Farbo. Uh
the experience directly supported their uh current unit where I live by helping students become more familiar with places in their community. Stops included Fairway, McDonald's, the police station, fire station, library, post
office, Books on Central, and more. Um, and as uh our chair talked about, our middle school has hosted a series of wonderful spring concerts over the past two weeks, including the band's performance in Central Park and the orchestra concert. The final event of
the season, the choir concert is will take place this Thursday at 7 p.m. in the middle school auditorium. Um, and our area learning center continued their tradition of egg drop day where students combined math and art skills to design crafts that could
hopefully drop an egg from a set height without cracking. They went out to the uh fairgrounds and they dropped it from the top of the grandstand. So, that's the height they dropped it from. Uh, Arabella and Maddie had the winning design and broke the school record with
more than 10 successful drops. Uh we thank the Rice County Fairgrounds for letting us use their grandstand. And last but not least, upcoming Fairboat Police Department is hosting the 2025 safe summer kickoff on May 29th at North
Alexander Park from 5 to 8:00 p.m. Free food, free bikes, free swag. Mr. Chair, that con concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Vanty. So, Mr. J. Okay. So now we will go back to agenda item
3B, Jefferson Elementary presentation. So uh Mr. Jurns and staff visitors come on up. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. All right, good evening. Um, thank you for the opportunity to present some of
the great things that are going on at Jefferson this year. Um, decided to take a little bit different approach. We've talked a lot about PBIS when we've been up here and celebrating students and staff. We're going to talk about some of the professional development and the learning that the adults have going on in our building right now or that we've
really focused on this year. So, um, I brought some people with to help me, uh, present. I'm going to let them introduce themselves and their roles and then we'll get started. Hi, good evening. My name is Amanda Seager and I'm the instructional coach at Jefferson and then I am also one of
our local letters facilitators, which is the training that Farbo has chosen to do for the read act. Uh, Joe Pinka, second grade teacher. Good evening everyone. My name is Gabe Hackett. I'm the director of the PLC center with First Educational Resources.
All right. So, first I'm going to let uh Amanda kind of give an overview of what we learned about in letters this year and why. All right. So, this letters training that we're doing is a 2-year training. So, we've just wrapped up our first
year. um some of the highlights that we've covered in unit one that was really laying the foundation for understanding how the reading brain works. So we went through that. There's some models that are um tied to that.
There's something called the simple view of reading that kind of helps teachers understand um in a more simple way how reading works and the different pieces of it and how they combine together. Um there's another model called Scarboro Scarborough's reading rope. Um and that
is a little bit more elaborate but also shows teachers a visual of how the reading brain works um and all the different skills that are woven into reading. So that unit one was a very foundational unit. Unit two started with
uh phonological awareness. So phological is the sounds. Um reading starts with sounds. So it does lots of times we think it starts with letters but it actually starts with an awareness of sounds in the language. So that cover that unit covered a lot about sounds um
instruction for those sounds assessment for all populations um including our e learners uh and we also talked about Aries phases of development and how the different stages of development can help us guide our instruction. Um after that
we moved into unit three which is the next kind of stage in reading and that's early phonics or beginning phonics. So we talked about that different types of practice that kids need. Um and Nick is going to be talking a little bit more about practice and how much is needed
for kids. And then after that we talked about some practices that will really help strengthen phonics. One of those is orthographic mapping um and using decodable texts. So those are those things start developing the connection between the sounds and the letters. And
then unit four is the last one that we wrapped up this year and that was more advanced phonics instruction. So in that one we talked about different syllable types and that's things like vowel, consonant, consonant, vowel. Um we talked about morphology,
fluency and working with data. So that kind of strengthened um the next stage of learning in in phonics development. And so one of the things that really stood out to me and I'm in these trainings with our teachers is and I
don't I have a math background. I don't have much of a reading background, but one thing that really stood out to me is uh that that connected to my math uh background is is students need reps or practice in order to become secure in a skill. What I didn't realize is that for
our more proficient readers, um they only need what is that 25 to 40 reps. But for students who have reading difficulties, they need hundreds of reps. And so um as we dug in, as we looked more at our instruction that goes
on um for reading, um Amanda and I working together said we really need to look at all phases of our instruction. So, our tier one reading instruction, the students the or the instruction our students get from their classroom teachers, um we've revamped and we've
looked at what are the kids doing in their small group reading instruction and making sure that it aligns to what we're working on in our re in our letters training, our science and reading training and getting kids the specific reps that they need that targeted practice in small group reading
rotations. Um and um as a as a part of this letters, this really came about in about midFebruary. And so we started making those changes the last two months of school so that teachers could start implementing these pieces now so they have more of those foundational skills
moving into next year. Um we also have a 30 minute uh block of time every day called win time where we um have different uh reading groups for those targeted skills. And I'm going to let Amanda speak a little bit to um something kind of cool we did with our fourth and fifth graders based on what
we learned in letters. Yes. So after uh after winter testing, we looked at I know I say we, it was myself and the fourth and fifth grade wind team. So that's fourth and fifth grade teachers, EL teachers. Nick is on
that team, reading interventionists. So, we looked at the data from that winter testing and we noticed that there were there was a chunk of kids who were not meeting some of their goals in reading and specifically it was their CBM goal.
So, we decided to dig a little bit deeper using what teachers have been learning in this letters um training and we did a decoding inventory and found out that kids are missing some phonics skills. So, with reading, they're not
going to be successful in and fluent if they're not able to read the words. So, we backed up their instruction. Um, we made some really intentional instructional decisions based on that data. And then what happened was we targeted, we noticed kids needed work in
long vowels. So, silent e, words with silent e, and words with vowel teams. So, I know it's kind of hard to see that graph up there, but the first three columns that you see there are showing the growth in um silent e and kids started at about a
46% accuracy rate. So, they could read about 46% of those silent ewords correctly. And then after 20 days of instruction, they had moved up to 92 or 93. And then after 35 days of
instruction, they moved up to about 95% accuracy. So targeting those skills really got us some quick wins for those kids and helped develop those skills. And then same thing, the second three columns there are for vowel teams. So
that one, the the beginning proficiency was even lower and then by the end we were up to about 95% proficient. And the other great thing is that all every single kid in there grew. So within about five weeks of instruction, we saw all kids growing.
And I think the important thing to note here with this wind time piece is these are fourth and fifth graders. And often times we think fourth and fifth graders, they are working on those fluency skills, being able to read at a particular rate and those compre comprehension skills, being able to
understand and comprehend what they're reading. The problem is that we're that was a big learning point for me in letters and our teachers. If the kids can't pull the words off the page, they can't read fluent fluently and then they can't understand. And so that was this group of students right here. They would
they needed to work in their decoding skills to be able to progress on their literacy journey in order to be able to come fluent and then comprehend. But that that's been a missing piece for us. without this training we wouldn't have known to dig deeper to do that decoding inventory and target those
skills. Um and then I also added in uh EL reading intervention and special education and again uh this comes back to those repetitions that I mentioned earlier. We found also that in some of these meetings that our students that are um receiving additional supports
from EL or reading interventions or special education that the reps that they were getting weren't always targeted to the skills that they needed. So they might be working on fluency over here, but then they might be working on decoding over here and then comprehension over here. And that's a
problem because they need to work on it's a specific order that they learn in and we need to target those skills. So, um, Amanda and I have been inspecting all parts of our reading instruction, um, as we wrap up this school year. All right, we're going to shift
gears a little bit now to, um, some some professional professional learning community highlights from this year. Um, so Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, we all sent teams to a PLC training, and that's why Gab's here. He's going to
speak at the end, but Gabe led an advanced PLC leadership um uh workshop for us. Um and there was every single elementary had the principal, the instructional coach, and then at least three teachers attend. And um we had a training in October, February, and then
again in April. And we really focused on some key um collaboration strategies built around DeForest's four driving questions of PLC's. Um and so that's why Mr. Pinka is here as well. Um, but one of the big shifts that we decided to
make, and this really came from our teachers, and and Joe's going to speak in a little bit to this, but we need to shift from a taskbased PLC agenda to really following these four driving questions. And so,
um, Joe and the rest of the teachers on our team said, "We need to we need to make this shift and we really want to meet weekly to really dig into our assessments." So, um, Amanda and I worked together to create, um, uh, a PLC agenda for them to follow. So, we really
took these four driving questions and then we put them into an agenda for them and and we created an example of what that might look like for math. Um, and then when we get to questions three and four, what are the specific things we're going to do when the kids aren't responding to our instruction? And what
are we going to do for the kids that learned? And I'm going to let Joe speak a little bit to his experience with that with his second grade team. All right. Uh Joe Pinka, I've been here for 27 years. Um PLC's have typically been a top- down approach. Uh it's felt
like busy work and uh we say we use data. I don't know if we really have too well. Um so I want to give credit to Gabe and his uh his workshop was really uh eye opening. And in the February one, I just asked out loud, why are we PLCing
once a month? Um, typically when we would PLC, we'd be talking about a test that we maybe gave three or four weeks ago and it's not real time. Um, so we decided uh as teachers that we wanted to try to pilot that this year and then
hopefully move forward where our entire school next year is PLCing um every week. Um, so far we have met uh my grade grade grade level at least has met uh weekly um on our phonics, our bridge to read phonics and our math. And I can
already tell that it's making uh our team better um and it's helping um drive our instruction better. What we're doing is we're doing test question analysis after we give a test. we can look at the questions and
um first of all see which questions don't even are not even meeting a standard that we need to teach in second grade. Uh we can also look at uh the vocabulary. Um the curriculum might have vocabulary that's different than what
we're teaching. And so what we what we've been doing is meeting weekly uh to change our instruction. I'm really excited uh to see where this goes next year and hopefully find the time where um all grade levels uh will participate
in this. Um so just an example um we looked at our chapter 10 math assessment where 30% of our students were only proficient. So what we did is we took our chapter 11 math uh assessment. We looked at the questions. We reordered
them into the order of the chapter. uh we looked at the vocabulary that that it was using and um did some differentiation and as you can see um we were a lot more successful uh with our chapter 11. So um I'm a big proponent of this. This is a teacherdriven thing um
that is being supported um by our administration and uh I'm excited to see where it takes us. All right. And then um at our last uh we actually ended up hosting this PLC event here because we had such a a strong group of farbo people training.
And so Gabe um Gabe Joel mentioned Gabe did a really nice job leading the training and and so um and then he he had some we had a really powerful event uh activity that we did at the end of our last training in April. And and Gabe said something um really significant for
me. And so I after the training I said Gabe would you be willing to come and just give the board an overview of our training and then kind of share your experience there at the end with our farbo team. Thanks Mr. Jurns and good evening again everyone. Uh Mr. Jurns was nice enough
and kind enough to ask me to be here tonight and I appreciate the time. Uh as Joe put it he described the training very well and Mr. as well as far as the work that we've done. And I think a lot of times when we say PLC, it can be looked at as another
acronym in education. We've got a thousand of them, right? And so, uh, when we really think about professional learning communities, I think a lot of times we leave out the L. We leave out the learning part. And, uh, what's really obvious to me from all the elementaryaries is that the teachers are
very, uh, anxious and hungry to to learn. And uh it was obvious through all three of the sessions, Joe mentioned something that's really important that it's very much teacherdriven and I see their uh their need to see student
success and they'll they're such a passionate and dedicated group that uh they made my job very easy. And uh part of the reason that I'm here is I get to travel throughout the entire country working with PLC's in in um everything
from uh school districts with a 100,000 kids to uh school districts with three three schools alto together. So, I get to work through the the gamut of different school districts. And and one of the things and that sticks out to me uh is just the passion and dedication
that that all of the teachers at the elementary level here at Farbull have for their students. And I would even uh expand on that to say during our last session, Mr. Jurn says it was powerful. uh we invited the middle school principal and the high school principal and the director of of teaching and
learning and everybody showed up and so we got to have just these great collaborative conversations and it reminds us as Joe is saying that together we can go so much further and it's really easy to say I can do this on my own and I can get this done quickly but truly the school year is a grind and
it is a marathon and so we need those collaborative connections to help us and we're already seeing that through this teacher-led initiative and the support of the administration that we are having that student success that we want to see. And um and what I
finished with when I was working with the team, I think what Mr. Jurns is referring to is as I looked out at all the teachers and we were wrapping up our time, I just wanted them to know that having a a seventh grader and a fourth grader at home, I would put my kids in every single one of the classrooms of
the teachers that I got to work with here in Fairbull. And I and I very much meant that statement because you can just feel the dedication and the care. It's very easy to go to a workshop and kind of breeze through or check your email, but the the amount of engagement
and the way that they approach professional learning and professional development. Uh it it's evident that it's a it's a great crew to work with and I'm very fortunate that I had the opportunity to work with the elementary schools here in Fairbolt. All right, that concludes our
presentation. Thank you, board members. Any comments or questions you may have, Miss Director Steves. So, I have been volunteering for the last six or seven months um as a Rotary reader. Um I have
anecdotally noticed, um the difference that the the PLC's have made. Um these kids started here and are ending the school year here. Um I know you're not talking about PBIS today, but I have to say and highlight um these kids are
kind. These kids are well behaved. They raise their hands. They walk in the hallways. Um learning is incredibly incredibly important, but these soft skills um as a parent of three who my kids don't always aren't always kind and
always walking down the hallways. Um, I I think that's something um that's super important. I'm glad that this program is working well. I'm super grateful that it's teacher led. I think if you have buyin from multiple levels, I think it
can just collaboratively go and go further. Um, but hats off to you guys. If if I could, those of you in the in the audience, if you're having a conversation, if you would lightly whisper. I know I'm I'm hearing getting some feedback up here a little bit and then for the people around you as well.
It' be greatly appreciated if you just not have a conversation or just very very light please. So Mr. Chair, thank you. Can um whoever wants to answer it around wind time, can you tell me on one of the slides you
talked about fourth grade wind time are had a 100% of the students grew? Are we seeing that? And I don't know, I apologize. Is wind time in first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade? Are we seeing results like that in all grades or is fourth grade
just an outlier or the overachieving grade, if you will? And I don't mean to diminish anybody else, but I mean, is is this a real outlier or is this kind of through all the grades? Well, throughout our win time model, we consistently see student growth. Um, the reason we decided to pull this piece in is because
it it's no secret that some of our bigger picture data does not look good. And that's why I came back and pointed out that these are fourth and fifth graders. And when we look at their fastbridge data, when we look at their
MCA reading data, that's a comprehension test and that measures their comprehension. The problem is is that if they can't pull the words off the page, they can't comprehend.
And so what I'm getting at is by going through this science of reading training, we are now learning the skills we need to learn as educators to target the specific skills so that our kids can pull the words off the page and then they can understand what they're
reading. And the problem we have is this is fourth and fifth grade. So then the comprehension data in the MCAs reflect that. What's going to happen? My prediction in the next two to three years is as we have implemented this
throughout all elementaryaries and preschool is even incorporating it, those gaps will begin to get filled and then that bigger that MCA data should start to reflect that over time. But that was the purpose of this was to show that we really need to target those
skills at all levels. Thank you. I appreciate it. And then just secondly, um, and forgive me here, I'm probably the dumbest, uh, educator on this board as I'm not an educator, but Mr. Pinka, I I really appreciate your comments about meeting
weekly for PLC. Um, I live in a different world than education in the business sector and we look at things on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, you name it, basis. And the sooner you can find a pain point or a gap or a problem,
you're more likely to not cause a bigger problem, right? You can address it. And so I absolutely kudos to all of you that are involved. I don't know who that is. Um but a big thank you. And you just simply identify a problem sooner. And so
um hopefully more people will take you up on it. and and uh if Jefferson truly takes it schoolwide next year, I think uh we can sit here in a year from now and be blown away by what we find out. Thank you. What else? Director Moore. Yes. Um thank
you for presenting. Um I was so glad to hear that you talked about a little bit about the brain development and also the implementation. And I really am excited about this phonics instruction and also and I took project I don't know if you know about project re but I took some
workshops at project re and you have to you're right you have to start it's a systematic approach and you have to build it. If there's one piece missing it's not going to work. So you have to do it like this. It's incremental systematic and incremental. Uh so I'm
very excited about phonics instruction and that we are getting back to the systematic building up approach because uh from what I've seen it's it's been working with with children. So hopefully
this will keep going. Thank you. So from from my chair I want to thank you for your presentation but also I appreciate Victoria Mr. Pinka said is that you're meeting your PLC's in real time. You're not talking about data collections a month ago. It's week by
week or something you did that week. And that that is very crucial. And I also really appreciate the format and structure of what a PLC because uh I don't want to go back 15 20 years when I was in the classroom whatever but the structure was not was not there. So this
provides the structures exactly how a PLC should be run and how we most importantly how kids benefit from from that particular meeting. So thank you. Thank you for your work and your presentation so very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to public
comment. We have a relatively high number of people who wish to uh have public comment tonight. So, I'm going to take the two uh the rest nine of them are on one topic and two of them are in a different topic. So, I'm going to take the first one here of uh Mr. Mike Cross,
if you'd come up and your topic is renewal of the Minnesota State High School League. Evening, Mr. Cross. All right. Hello. As you said, my name is Mike Cross. I'm a resident of Fairboat. I still have kids in the program. Well, we're here again talking
about the high school league tonight. I want you to think about this seriously. Keep your political view out of it. Your political view, my political view means nothing. What's going to happen? It is case law that a transgender kid can go in the
bathroom today. If you do not pass this tonight, transgender kid can go in the bathroom tomorrow. going to change nothing except try to destroy our kids, which has happened in the past. Thank God the majority of you vote this way. But I'm just telling you right now, if you're
not going to vote for the kids and you're going to vote for your politics or you're going to vote for your personal stuff, resign immediately. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cross. Next, uh Janet Molen, and her topic is budget issues.
I have taken the numbers from the budget committee uh meeting, your most recent budget committee meeting and your um your budget your revised budget.
Um you it looks to me like you have a $5 million budget shortfall. And I think it's actually worse than that if you actually were using the actual enrollment numbers which is 81
students less than the average that this document is using. So and since revenue is directly tied to the number of students you have you are artificially inflating your estimate revenue estimate
of revenue. So I would like you to take a look at whether you're using because you've had declining enrollment for 15 plus years. It's unrealistic to assume it's going to go some other direction. So your revenue numbers are are
unrealistic in my opinion. Um, the only way to really fix that, so there's probably 7 million in in shortfall because you plan on spending 836 and a revenue of 78,396. So you've got a shortfall
already of 5 million using that lower higher number. So it's probably really more like 7 million shortfall if you were adjusting for that. The only way to really fix that is to reduce payroll.
You told me that it was around 86% of your budget and you have 300 non-eing staff per your last meeting with the HR woman and um and you plan on adding more. If you
if you look at what you're adding here, you went from 22 18 coordinators to 22 coordinators in not much more than a year. And now you're elevating a person. You want to elevate on the consent
agenda. Number six, you want to elevate a person to another coordinator position. At the same time, he's asking for a leave, five-year leave of absence. That just doesn't sound fiscally
responsible in the least. Um, anyhow, that's I don't know how you're going to make up that shortfall. I suppose that's why you didn't answer my question at the tax meeting that you're planning on
coming to us for additional money on off year. I'm assuming to make that short. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss Molen. Next, we have uh nine people who wish to address the topic of the
language and cultural classes. So, what I have done is I have folded all these in half. I've shuffled them multiple times here. And I'm going to ask Director Steves because as of board policy there's a 15minute limit three
five minute speakers per topic. I'm ask Miss Steves to pull five of these slips out and we will go in order in which you pull them. Thank you. This one I missed. Yeah. Okay. Is that
the first one? Okay. Thank you. Our first speaker is Yousef Ali. The topic is culture class. Yes. So once again what we will do is uh because we have interpreters here we will have a three threem minute time but
when uh the person is speaking once you stop and the interpreter begins we will stop the the clock for the for the version there and then we'll begin. So you'll get your full three minutes both ways. So welcome
Could you pull your microphone closer? Is that one working or Yes. My name is Ysef Ali and I'm a par parent in the Ferbal public school district. I have children that go to middle school and also high school. And I am asking
the school board to support the creation of our Somali language and culture class. And I just want to emphasize three four things. I'm asking the school board to approve the culture class for the teaching our
kids uh pre prek um students and also kindergarten students so they learn the language. The other reason I'm here today is because parents um and also their children, Somali parents and also their children don't understand each other and
they struggle to understand the um the language of Somali language so that they don't lose their language. If this has not if this has not approved approved tonight, our we we fear that our kids might lose their language in
the future time and I really respect you to um respect our request. um to pass this tonight. Thank you for your time. Thank you.
Our next speaker is Sadia Ahmed on the culture and language classes. Good evening. Welcome. Good afternoon. Good. Good evening. Um, hello to everyone. Thank you for inviting us here and
accepting us here. I am not good at public speaking but I'll try my best today. Thank you once again. I live in public um parable and here in this town for last 20 years.
this uh Somali language and a culture and I just hear it but I wish I could hear 15 years ago because my children understand language Somali language but they cannot reply to me they cannot talk to me.
This would be a big opportunity for our families if you could accept uh the language and the culture class because of it will help a lot of the for the families. [Music]
um I'll just add it like anytime there's a board voting uh we participate and u we would like the people that we vote for please stand with us today and vote for us for this it's very crucial to us
It's very important for the lang for our language and our children, our family. Please vote for us. Our language is distinguishing. It's it's disappearing as we speak. And our children do not speak. They don't understand. You will find a household
family who does not understand one another. and it's very very difficult and please vote for us. It's not only for the families to um to understand one another. If we have children, students who understand their
language, it will help whole community. It will be a full person instead of a person who's missing a piece part of their culture and their language. We try our best at home to teach our language but as they are going uh as you know this generation what
controls is social media and also they're going to school at the same time. So we have a very few time with them. So we can't teach them. Please help us to encourage them to learn or give them opportunity to learn their language. This is a great opportunity for us.
Please allow us or vote for it so that our children can learn and thank you very much. Thank you once again. Thank you. Next we have Roger Steinamp on the language for the
elementary students. Good evening. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Well, like I say, my name is Roger Stein Camp and I have an appreciation for endorsement of teaching both Spanish and Somali and any language at a elementary
level. And two points and this might be a little different angle is that first teach it to kids when they're less than 10 years old. developmental psychology uh indicates that that's a time when you're in brain development and in child development where languages are easily
taken up and I can use my personal example is that I grew up in a high school where we had French offered and I had the choice between French and agriculture. Well, I studied agriculture. I took agriculture and later on in college
there was a time that they dropped foreign language requirements and I didn't take a foreign language but later on my first exposure to another language is in Japan and this old farm boy got off the plane and I said holy cow that's
a big world out here and other people are speaking these languages and to hitchhike around I had to learn a little bit of uh katakana and enough uh I I would say Japanese English to get by. And then for fast forward when I I
came back and went to the university and got my degree in egg and I really wanted to go overseas and guess what the Lutherans are hiring an egg guy to go to Sagal but it was franophhone and I didn't know French and so they very graciously sent me for about a year to
learn French and at that age your brain doesn't work as well. it it's really hard to get fluent. Little kids uh can you know just pick it up like a sponge and I had that experience and I have friends who are
dual language and sometimes speak four or five languages and they learned it when they were a kid. Okay. The second point is that when you learn a foreign language you also learn culture. there are things we can't express in English
that uh other people can and it's a function of geography and culture and so by learning another language you also broaden your horizon and I and I saw uh superintendent Bente's presentation
online and I think if I uh saw it right it's open to all all kids it's not just it shouldn't be just for uh the Latino or Somali community. It should be for all the kids because your kids can all
the kids can pick up a language at that age and it'll broaden their horizon. It broadens our cultural understanding and there are concepts I picked up in other languages. I mean, I'm fairly fluent in French now, and there are concepts in
French as a Latin language, and I've been in uh uh countries where Arabic uh and Slavic languages and bantto languages are are there. So, thank you. We wrap up. Anyway, the two points are
at that age it's easy for a kid to pick up the language and secondly it broadens the un cultural understanding between ethnic communities. Thank you Mrs. Thank you.
[Applause] Next is Norma Vasquez once again on the benefits of learning new language. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. Hi, my name is Norma Vasquez. I'm a mother of a um one kid in the m in the
elementary school, another one in um middle school, and I have a senior in high school. So, and one of my kids is in special education. uh trying to teach them both languages as unbelievable and uh when I came here I didn't speak uh
English as well right now I'm trying I'm learning I want to do the same with my kids and now like they start catching more English than Spanish that I would like to and like it's okay and it's good for for them to learn and trying to
communicate but at the same time they need more um Uh, we need a optimism. More optimism. Okay, now all we want to speak is Spanish. Um, These kids in schools need to have more um esteem, self-esteem, a higher
self-esteem and the right instructional leadership from from schools to do so. [Music] We see that in our community. We have a various amount of cultures that exists here uh specifically at Fairbone. And we see how those cultural groups connect and make themselves into like pods and
subgroups within our schools. Not only would that mean that my students and children are benefiting from this, but all students are going to be able to connect with one one another by doing so. That way our students are able to learn about cultures um the way in which we did as well as immigrants coming to
this country. This will also help within our families to communicate within within one another uh between parents and students and have that capacity building for our district leadership as well and our schools to build that capacity. amongst our leadership uh so that our academics also
progress as well. This also gives us opportunity in general to give this opportunity to our kids in our schools so that we grow our community uh not just within ourselves but as a holistic and in a holistic view. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you
very much. [Applause] Our next speaker is Alejandra Juarez. I hope I pronounced that correct. Language and culture class. My apologies if I mispronounced
the name. Thank you. when I start middle school. Yes. Latinos. forch. Latina. Access. information. Foreign
Institution Falcons. Could you could you finish please? Surely. [Music] Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Alejandra Huarees and I am the mother of two students here in Farbo. I stand
before you to address you respectfully. I've always said that the work of an educational institution deserves our full recognition because it is classrooms where the seed of knowledge is sewn and germinated. That academic education that will be the passport to our children's future. Education is an act of love. Therefore, it is an act of
courage. And it is that courage that has me standing before you today. The courage that we must give to ensure that my children and your children have the opportunity to have language and culture class in their school. Without a doubt, an ambitious project that not only requires the capital investment, but also the commitment of teachers,
parents, and students. I want to tell you that the parents already have the commitment and therefore so do our children. But I ask you, does the same commitment exist in you? A country's border shouldn't determine a language. Rather, they should be defined as an opportunity for growth, for future
growth. For our Latino children born in the country, it is important to talk with their parents about what could be wrong, what's happening to them, or what they're feeling. But often that communication doesn't happen because the parents don't speak English and the children don't speak Spanish. It also happens that our children prefer to stop speaking Spanish because they are
mocked. However, when they realize the value of their educ for a better future, they won't feel ashamed. And maybe they think it's not their problem and maybe it isn't. But then what is that service, commitment, empathy, sensitivity, the values that a teacher must have from the
moment they step into the classroom? Showing that passion for their profession will all will allow for our children to go out in the world and put into practice what you have taught them. Because I tell you that that that you have in your hands the power to change the world because you transmit knowledge.
Today I want you to uh I want you to tell you that the Spanish language maintains a strong presence in the language of identity and communication within the Latino community. But it also faces challenges in terms of access to information and services in its native language. And it faces restrictions on better communication with its
surroundings. Access to bilingual education can be a crucial factor for students academic success and social integration, but not only for Latinos, but also for the Anglo-Saxon community because learning Spanish will open doors to better jobs and will help young people adapt to oral written expression, communicate fluently. The that the
influence that English has had on Spanish spoken by Latinos in the United States can reflect the interaction between both cultures. It's not about who is more or less. It's about being one community, a community that united will position the school as one of the best, increase its institutional value,
and be recognized for having bilingual students, breaking any stigma, and recogn recognizing that language and culture classes will be a privilege for every student. Today, the presence of the Spanish language is very strong. It is present in science, culture, art, politics, film, and music. I firmly believe that the futures of this country
is tied to Latino community, its contributions, and its opportunities. Throughout history, the Latino community and other u minorities have suffered waves of exclusion due to the language. And although this has been fought through important civil rights struggles, we are headed towards progression. I want to tell you that
life is about moving forward, never going backward. Because doing so means that the methods you have implemented have failed. So today, standing before you, I appeal to your good judgment to make this program a reality in the schools for our district. I appeal to you to put aside any cultural issues today. We are just us. We are a falcon
community. We know no race, c color. The Falcon community adds and contributes so that its students will excel when they leave their classroom. They will be students who take pride in the values of this great institution. And when they ask you, "What school did you come from?" And they will probably say, "The
Falcon community that teaches with courage and paves ways for a better future for its young people." And remember, if you speak to someone in a language they understand, the words will go to their head. If you speak to them in their own language, the words will go to their heart. Thank you. Thank
you again. Also, thank you to the four people who were not selected to speak on this topic in the public comment. And also wish to add as I stated before when we for the agenda. There will not be a decision tonight. There will not be a vote tonight. We are having a discussion
amongst the board on this class and uh we will act on this very soon. There will be announcement at the end of the meeting as to when we will act on that. With the consent agenda, we'll move item on to agenda item number six, the consent agenda. Consent agenda consists
of the minutes from the April 21st, 2025, April 28th, 2025, and May 5th, 2025 meetings. It also has employment, additional assignments, other authorization of payments, transfers, and investment account and retirements.
Is there a motion for approval of the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Thank you, Director Steve. Second by Director Wolf. All in favor of that motion. Signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion passes. Agenda item number seven, the district advisory committee. There's
no report. Agenda item number eight, the policy committee. The policy committees and reports. Uh, directors Moore and Steves, I'll turn this over to you. Go ahead.
Um, yes, Cassie. Both Cassie and I were there and at the policy committee and I think it was I'm really having a difficult time. We're getting a lot of feedback so we could really have a quiet in our audience. I'd really appreciate that. So, thank you. Go ahead, director. Okay.
Thank you. Um, I think it went fairly smoothly. um and except when we got to policy 515, I had some reservations about that and we'll be talking about policy 515 later. Uh, also there was a
policy we decided to table policy 599. That was a social media policy and I I had actually had two attorneys look at that myself or asked two attorneys to look at it and they were very concerned about the violation of first amendment
rights. And I think Mr. Venty, you had the our attorneys look at that and I think they had those same concerns. So, the attorneys are going to look at that and see if they can change the language. And uh Cassie, did I if I missed something or I think you
summarized that um fairly correct was tabled. Sorry. Yep. Um so we had um a review of policies um revision of policies um and we will Mr. Bunty, do you want to about how
far along in the process are we? Um so we've got um policies that are reviewed on an annual basis and a triannual basis and we're about a third of the way. Did I Yeah. So we are on track now to review every policy every three years. So that
is the review process. Um that is not but that does not include in the revision process of revised policies that we get due to state statutes changing changing which then come out from MSBA. Um and we yet to hear how many that will be this coming summer. Uh
which we will look at in probably early August um because usually they need to be passed before the school year begins. Thank you. We'll move on to agenda item 8B, the first reading of
policies. Uh first reading of policies are policy 701.1 the bud budget modification policy 703 annual audit policy 705 investments policy 714 fund
balances policy 730 payroll periods policy 515 protection and privacy of pupil records and policy 7004 development and maintenance of an inventory of fixed assets and a fixed asset asset accounting system. So to be
sent on to for second reading. Is there discussion amongst of any of those particular policies? Mr. Chair, are we director Budro? Are we voting on these policies tonight or just going to second reading? We have not traditionally approved uh first
readings. We could have a motion for approval to send these policies to the to the second reading next month. We could do that. Um I'm fine with that. But I just wanted to remark on 5:15 when it is appropriate. Okay. Thank you,
Director Budro. So, any further thing? Director Moore, would you like uh for the Well, I'm fine with all of these except for the uh policy 550 and I can talk about it next time too if it's appropriate for the second reading. I just got it out to all
the people. So, well, I I'll leave it up to you. Okay. So, let's do this board. Let's take and have a motion for approval of all those policies that I read with the except motion for sending those policies to the second reading to the school
board with the exception of number six policy 515. Okay. I have a motion for that. Mr. Chair, yes. Sorry, I'm probably confused. Don't they automatically go to a second reading? Um, we have a first reading. It's here for us to review and
historically second reading is it's in front of us to take action on. Yeah, very good point because I've been debating on how to handle this. I don't think you need to do anything but that's your call. Okay. So, let let's not do that. Okay. So, let's just take and have a discussion then. What I'm hearing is
policy 515 to be sent on to for the second reading. So, let's open that up and uh have a discussion on. Thank you, Mr. Wolf, for that clarification. I was confused on how to to do that. So go ahead, Director Budro. I'm fine with that. I with that having a discussion.
Um I look through the minutes of the policy committee and I I want to thank um our superintendent for consulting the our legal counsel on that. My amendment was um upon parental request that we
would not uh deliberately withhold information to a parent regarding their minded child's request to have a different name or pronoun etc. Um the legal council gave uh advice and
I accept the advice which uh was referenced from the guardianship and protective proceedings of Minnesota statutes and it just they just stated that um upon request by the minor if the
responsible authority determines that withholding the data would be in the best interest of the minor. In other words, um it's a decision made by our responsible authority. Okay, I'm
accepting that because I understand it's in Minnesota statutes, but I do have a question. Um I'm still concerned about the new Minnesota English language arts standards that are supposed to be uh in effect this fall for our third graders.
And the requirement is that graders would use non-binary pronouns in their writing. Um, and a non-binary pronoun is a non-binary person is they identify as
neither a man or a woman. So, this is a concern of mine. So, I want to ask Superintendent Benty how this statute will is currently followed with our district 656 students. If concerned
parent asks in about information on their minor child, 8-year-old, third grader, whatever. How will you determine if withholding that information is truly in the best interest of the minor?
So, the statute that you're referring to is 13.02 and it's I think it's subdivision 8 of that. Um and it states the responsible authority shall withhold and shall means must uh withhold data from parents or guardians or individuals acting as parents or guardians in the
absence of parents or guardians upon request by the minor if the responsible authority determines that withholding the data would be in the best interest of the minor. It goes on to talk about um the two main areas are emotional and physical harm. So in the cases I can
tell you that I was involved with as a high school principal. The way that that worked was I can't think of a time that there wasn't a social worker involved from the county um or a police officer involved
in which we would say, "Okay, this is now turned over to the county or turned over to the police department. This is not something that that a school district would uh be withholding at this point because it would be turned over. I think if it was to be only a school
district decision, it would be a decision that would not be made in a vacuum. It would be a decision that would be made with if there was a county social worker, if there was a police officer involved, definitely counselors, um other administrators to say, what
does everyone think? What is there is there a con a legitimate concern here that if we contact the parent, there would be emotional or physical harm that is done. Um so that is that is the route that we would take. We have not seen
these issues pop up at our elementary schools. Uh the stat the standards piece that you're referring to is a benchmark. It is not part of the standard. But I will say that the MCA tests do test on benchmarks. Um so benchmarks do not have
to be taught. Standards have to be taught. Um, but if they uh they could be missing out on the piece that that may show up on a new MCA test uh that that will be coming. I hope that answered your question.
I don't know if it did answer it, but I don't want to prolong the discussion. I just want to know if a parent asked you about their child may be confused by some of these required benchmarks. Um, are you able to share especially a
third grader. Under the under the statute, we are able to share as long as we don't have any convincing evidence or thought that that by sharing with that parent that there would be physical or emotional harm that would be retributed
back onto the student. And Mr. Chair, I thank the superintendent for that statement because I think that is the approach we should take. Very good. So, thank you for allowing me to have this conversation. Welcome. So, before and
director Moore, you're going to be next, but I have one thing. Okay. One thing first here, but Mr. Benty, with policy 515, I know at our previous business meeting, we had a motion and a second to send it back to the committee to uh
refer to legal to our attorney. I would like you, and we did get a response back. would you share with us the board and the public here uh exactly the return attorney's response uh for with that was
this particular policy please. Yeah. Uh so Mr. Chair on Tuesday, April 29th, we received a response back or I should say I received response back from the school district attorneys uh referencing a uh amendment that was brought forth for
policy 515. Uh, the response goes, and I quote, "Currenc policy 515 is consistent with state law. I, being the attorney, am concerned about including a blanket exception for certain categories of data when that exception is not consistent
with state law. Anytime that the school district determines that information shall be withheld in the best interest of the minor, whatever the nature of information, the school, the school district shall withhold the information." Minnesota state uh Minnesota statute 13.02 subdivision 8
states that the responsible authority shall withhold data from parents or guardians or individuals acting as parents or guardians in the absence of parents or guardians upon request by the minor if the responsible authority determines that withholding the data would be in the best interest of the
minor. To comply with this requirement, policy 515 section 8B 1A through D includes the steps that must be taken by the minor and the school district to meet the standard. As you know, it is the unusual
circumstance when a school district would make the determination to withhold data from parents. For health records, there is a very high standard under policy 5158B1E to withhold such records. Under current policy language, this information can only be withheld if
disclosure of it to the parent may lead to physical or emotional harm to the minor. In in my practice, referring to the attorney, I have never seen this standard met. The language is consistent with Minnesota statute 144.292 292
Subdivision 7, which allows withholding of health records from a patient, which includes parents if a provider reasonably determines that the information is detrimental to the physical or mental health of the patient or is likely to cause the patient to
inflict self harm to or to harm another. The provider may withhold the information from the patient and may supply the information to an appropriate third party or to another provider. the other provider or third party may release the information to the patient.
And that ends the email. Thank you, Mr. Grant. So, with that, uh, Director Moore, I think I'll turn it over to you. You said you had some thoughts and concerns. You've also passed out a document to board members here. Yes. That's should be Jamie should have one, too. Do you
have one? Um, yes. I I guess I am concerned about the statement emotional harm and I've got it all written here and I'm just going to emotional harm. You know, it's very subjective and it could be interpreted in many ways. Uh one way is
if a child wishes to transgender and the parents disagree and that that could happen under this general term of emotional a child can go to an administrator and state that uh he or she wishes to transgender and that his
or parents his or her parents don't agree. Uh and th the the child would say thus causing him anxiety or trauma. And so due to this scenario and the present policy 515, the school administration, it could
under this pos policy withhold the subject child's records from the parents, thus denying parents their rights over their child. Now, Colorado is already moving in this direction and you can check out the following links. uh many of the par and the first link
the parents uh were very unhappy about this and this is what's happening in Colorado and we we're probably going to following in those footsteps. So I guess my problem is emotional harm is open to uh interpretation and this amendment
would ensure the protection of fair public school parents rights and that's my first concern. So I have two other ones. Well, since we're discussing this, but there be no amendment tonight since there's not a motion to approve. So, you'll do that? Yes. Next month, but I wanted to
get this out. I totally understand. So, I guess if other board members are any questions for director Moore on that piece. If not, I'll let her go on with she has two other concerns as well. Okay. Um, thank you. Uh, and I have on
your sheets, I do have the um the page numbers there for if you want to look at the policy. The policy is quite long. Um, I'm also a bit concerned about uh 6.B16, which is prior consent for
disclosure not required. Uh number 16 it says uh that the and of course this is disclos uh prior consent of the parent is not needed to appropriate health authorities to the extent necessary to
administer immunization programs. So I I guess my problem was that is I'd like to clarify. So in other words, if a parent is the parent will not be
um will not be uh it said prior consent is not necessary. So the parent may not be notified. So can the health authorities come in and administer vaccinations or immunizations against the parents wishes? And one of
the things that I think that I'm concerned about is um you know most parents know more about their child's health than than personnel in our schools and or the public health agencies. Um also vaccinations and they
have been and I can show you the research may be detrimental to some children. Um so if we don't have if the parent isn't isn't notified or given consent we could really uh in and the health authorities come in
and give you know vaccinations to children and some of these children are harmed uh this could present a problem for the districts. I just want some clarification on this. Should I go on with the Yes, please go
ahead with the next one. Okay. Um, and that's on page 18. Another concern I've got is 6B21. It's a second paragraph A. It says, "Any data collected shall be protected in a manner that will not prevent the personal identification of
students and their parents by other than the authorized representatives of the secretary?" Uh, my question is what if parents don't want their child's data given to the secretary? because it sounds like it will be in the aggregate except maybe I'm reading this wrong uh
in a matter that will not permit the personal defense but other than the authority representatives of the secretary so I'm thinking the secretary can get this personal data and what if the parents don't want that I guess what I'm concerned about with all of this
with all of the above issues is there is a parental rights theme here and parental responsibility uh And also, you know, with the election of the present federal administration, more cases related to injury to children from vaccinations or whatever along with
violation of parental rights may lead to more exposures and therefore more law lawsuits. And even if the courts rule in favor of the school districts, more parents and eventually more students may be filing lawsuits against schools, uh,
public health agencies, and possibly those in the administration in the future. I'm not sure how protected we are. I hope that school boards have uh I think we have insurance. But I guess my big concern is the attack on I do say
attack on parental rights and this is happening in Colorado. Uh I gave a link where um there was a uh app a parents it was wait a minute and parents uh it was on Newsweek Supreme Court rules case that could change vaccine injury
lawsuits and I think this one said that if you have to uh they denied the par parents uh the parents did not win the case but they said they had to um I think present the case uh 36 months
into after the vaccination. So, we're getting into some really um problem areas, I think, where we could be, you know, uh there could be lawsuits and I know they're happening in Colorado and um so that's my concerns.
Thank you. Any uh further discussion any of those policies? Can I just ask uh Miss Moore what she would suggest? Uh, Superintendent, Superintendent Benty, um, where would you like clarification
on your questions from the attorney or I just would like uh I I have these concerns and I'm not sure if it should be the attorney or not because I think it's happening in Colorado now and the parents they filled the courtroom and and uh I think it will be coming here as
well and so I'm concerned about how it's going to impact Fairb public schools, especially if we have lawsuits. Um, so these are my concerns. I guess I'm not I don't know if we can even answer that right now. But uh I think we have
to think about this because policy 515 it's it's quite subjective in some of its terms especially like I said with emotional um emotional uh harm and I can see the physical aspect of it if somebody's if a
parent is abusing their children sexually abusing or abusing their children in some way know the record should be kept and I think the spirit of the law is was that and now We're moving into an area that we we just don't know about and I think we have to think about
these things carefully and I you know in the meantime while we we have another month to think about it let's just think about what can happen and uh you know what are the ramifications so thank you for your time so just for clarity
sake you don't want us to move forward with consulting Well, no, that would be fine. That would be fine. It's just that uh even if we consult an attorney uh I think the there's some uh fluctuation
here or um I I don't know flexibility in some of the laws now and I know with the current administration at the national level uh things may change and so we may not know exactly what's going to happen even the attorneys and so I think it would be
a good idea to have a attorney look at this, but yet it may not, you know, uh, with our current administration at the federal level, I think things may be coming down, um, in the next year or two
that we may have to face some lawsuits if we're not careful. And so, I'm just worried about the language in this. So, thank you. So, Mr. Chair, if I may, um, if federal law changes, then state
law will change to match it and MSBA will then get involved. There will be, you know, a date in which that law takes effect. Um, and then we will be required by federal law, state law, and our membership with MSBA
to have those new policies that support those on the books by that date. Um it's no different than when we had uh family medical leave act items go through and it was it has to be ready by January 1st of this date. Um so those would be in
place for that. If it is easier, I can I can arrange with our attorneys to have someone at the business meeting in June to answer questions. I will tell you this, they're not they're they're going to support the policy that is in front
of you, but they can probably explain it a lot better than I can since I am not an attorney. Um, so I can offer that out to the board if you would like to have somebody from our attorney group come down that you would have questions for uh that evening. How do we come up with that
decision? Is that consensus here? I I guess I have concerns are the wrong word, but we talk about using our taxpayers dollars wisely. We've already consulted an attorney multiple times on this very same policy. Um, it's been sent back and
forth between policy. Um, I'm generally not a wait and see type of gal. Um, however, I want to wait and see what the federal and state levels um, legislation says. Um,
but this policy with your assurance from our attorneys, from MSBA, from any other person that you've consulted would keep us in compliance to today's laws and legislation. With today's laws on the books, this policy
followed in front of us keeps us in compliance. If it were to change tomorrow, there would have to be a date in which you would have to be in compliance by and we would make sure that there would be obviously new state andor um policy that we would follow by that date.
So with follow-up question and I don't know how I'm gonna ask this um are it'll come back for review for second reading in June does that mean that between now and June
we are out of compliance or we still are in compliance? No, we're still in compliance. Yes, sorry. We are still in compliance. I don't know this one was Mrs. Kenny. Do you remember if this one was a
revision or was this one for a review? Because it has thisision. It has been it has bounced back and forth by the re Yeah, the revision start off started off as uh a small sentence suggested by the attorney and it is it
has bounced back and forth uh for quite a while uh through policy committee. I believe I want to say since January. Yes. So my recommendation board members is to forward this to uh the June
meeting for the second reading and we already have the attorney's uh review here and some board member comments and then if there are amendments to be made etc to to move on from there. We've that that's my recommendation. If I see nodding of heads here Mr. Mr. Chair.
Yes. I just if I could, I would like to interject. I I do agree with with Miss Steves or Director Steves in that, you know, it cost us money with the uh attorneys. Right now, it sounds like we are in compliance. But having said that,
it doesn't prevent lawsuits from coming against us. Oh, because I know this is happening in Colorado now, and it probably will be happening in Minnesota, too. So, I just want to put that point out there because then probably a lawsuit will change the uh the scenario
or whatever it is. So, but I'm fine with with June. Thank you. Okay. So, let's move on. We'll uh for 8B, we'll recommend that the re first reading of policies is complete and we'll move on to second reading at the June meeting here.
Um, looking at the time and what uh other agenda items we have, the chair will now issue a 10-minute recess. Thank you. I'll call the meeting back to order. We're are now on agenda item number nine, other committees. Finance
committee. I'll give uh board members and the general public here the review of the finance committee minutes from last Monday, May 12th. Uh business items. Um we approved the previous meeting minutes which was changed
uh was corrected with correct information there. Uh we also approved the fis the finance committee approved the fiscal year 26 ICE arena contract. We'll be dealing with that here in a few moments. Um we also discussed the
approval of the revised uh fiscal year 25 budget. This is a revision of the adopted budget that was originally approved back in June of 2024 for fiscal year 25. Uh the revision is necessary to
ensure that our budget correctly aligns with what our actual expenses are predicted to be. The general funds adopted budget showed 273,000 in expense over revenue compared to the revised budget showing
664,000 expense over revenue. In the adopted budget, benefits were underbudgeted by 1.16 million. title capital equipment and long-term LTFM and other expenditure budgets were
increased by 375,000 302,000 and 70,000 re respectfully total expenditure budgets in the general fund increased by 1.9 million while revenue budgets were increased by 1.5 million a difference of
391,000. Uh committee members uh posed questions of how was the 1.1 million in benefits missed and how was the 702,000 in special ed revenue missed. Uh as to benefits, this is an oversight as to the
increased cost of health insurance. Uh and as for special ed revenue, uh Mr. Mr. Der stated that as of last year in fiscal year 24, federal funding was used for tuition billing while the expense line was added in fiscal year 25 to the budget to account for this. The revenue
budget line was not updated. The food service fund showed 38,000 in revenue over expenses, but our fund balance is too high and must be spent down. Uh, Miss Raceler stated that the new equipment has been purchased for almost all kitchens, including a remodel of
McKinley in order to house AL still ALC students beginning in fiscal year 27. Revised food service um, sorry, revised food service budget for fiscal year 25 now shows 145,000 in expense over revenue.
Community education didn't change much with an overall increase of 44,000 and expense over revenue compared to the adopted budget. In construction, projects are being completed sooner than predicted. So, we've had more expenses being shown in fiscal year 25 than was
originally budgeted for. With our self- insurance fund, uh we've also uh seen more claims. So, our revised budget for fiscal year 25 is now 3 73,000 expense over revenue as compared to the adopted which shows
revenue over expenses in the amount of 117,000. So Miss RA Miss Raceler said that she was not concerned because our unassigned fund balance remains at a healthy level and there's no really no real issues or concerns with any of the other funds. So there's a motion to
approve that revised budget and seconded and that motion carried. our financial performance, our April student counts. Uh Mr. Dutert spoke to a new site to to report students through Alina's creation of a partial hospitalization program. Uh
Farewell School provides a teacher to district 1 for 90 minutes per day in order to provide students uh with mental health uh education. Uh most of these are students are already students of Federal Public Schools. This is really a shift in student counts from one site to
the uh PHP site. Uh overall we're down 71 students as compared to what we had budgeted or or roughly 710,000 and that is due to a miscalculation over calculation should I say in our kindergarten numbers about I
think about a third of that was we estimated for 225 and we're about 199 or 200 kindergarten students. Our April comparative financial report, we see a clear difference in the HVAC as April of 20 2024 shows no
expense and April of 25 shows 70,000. This is due to a timing issue of when we received the bill. [Music] Uh we are entering paying these utility bills might not necessarily correlate with the month they are for. Water is on
par with last year and we continue to see rebates in electricity and show and showed a negative expense for April of 2025. We saw some snow in March and so a negative expense for April of 2025 or I'm sorry, we saw some snow in March and so we have an expense in April, but
overall we're well under budget for snow removal. Our self-funded insurance shows a revenue over expenses for the month of April and year to date we're moving in the right direction. our April investment report. We're continuing to leave a small balance at CCF Bank because we have some
outstanding checks to cover any uh unforeseen AC withdrawals or deposit, but most of these should have been switched over to Reliance at this point. Um, our main checking account at Reliance has an automatic sweep of any dollar amount over 750,000.
Also, our CD, our CD with Reliance Matures, we'll move that into savings as well as we no longer renew that particular CD. And then lastly, our April analytics. We updated the yearly analytical report to show the revised budget that was approved earlier in the
meeting. Uh this report now has us aligned where we are sitting as compared to years past. It also shows deficit spending 5.3 million in fiscal year 25. 4.3 million of that, however, comes from our construction fund. Revenue from the
sale of bonds for the construction project was already recorded in fiscal year 24 and is now sitting in the ' 06 fund balance. So, thank you for Brett Martenddale for the minutes and the report there. There was a lot of
discussion at that particular finance committee meeting. I know we will have uh more detailed on the final revised budget uh in agenda item 10F. So that is my report. 9B is the community community
education advisory council. Uh director Steves, do you have anything from the community education advisory council? Um so unfortunately due to a work conflict I was unable to attend but I will be able to provide an update um due to the fabulous notes taken by um community
education director Zack Puit. Um so community highlights were shared um by multiple partners um including some new housing, some new child care and other local um free family events. um discussion about um the $1.3 million
plus in grants um specifically for early line learning and activity spaces. Um significant discussion uh regarding basic needs um as a key to student success and updates um included were the
summer program, the school supplies for all initiative and budget planning. Uh Mr. for it. Did I miss anything? Okay, that is all. Great. Thank you. 9D, the facilities, uh I'm sorry, 9D,
District Wellness Committee. Director Kudson, thank you. Um so the wellness committee met on Wednesday, May 7th for the final meeting of the year. And um and so some of the things
that we covered were some of the updates and the shout outs were that um We've created a story board, a farbo wellness efforts. And so it it um this story board show some of the key wellness efforts of the past year.
Um, a couple of our um, nurses came in and they were awarded um, a micro grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics. And only 15 districts in the nation have done
this. And so they're working like with parents and medical providers about allergies and um creating um signage so that people can be aware of concerns
with allergies. Um then um Mr. Moler talked about active schools training and so that they have different programs going on with his school and
Miss Bennard too um was talking about some of the active things that they're doing not at this meeting but um that our schools are part participating in doing other um things to get our
students active. Um and then finally the summer meal program will be coming will be starting on June 13th. It's available to any child under 18. um and that they'll be able to receive
six free meals on Fridays that would include three breakfast and three lunches. Um this is provided I believe by the community action cent's food shelf. Um and so um weekdays there would
be meals available and then um more meals available for students to take home and I think that's about it. Great. Thank you.
9D facilities committee meeting, uh, directors Moore and Wolf. Okay. Turn it over to you. I like to talk. Okay. Um, as far as the HVAC updates, that's ongoing. And also I
think uh there we talked about two and I Chad you asked a question on this about the issues in the classroom with the temperature and the hback. And uh I I guess would urge that any teachers who have a problem with with the temperature
weather would please contact Kain. And I think he said he sent emails out to teachers because I know you were asking that question and he said he sent out emails out to the teachers. If you have a problem, be sure to contact him. So, if any teacher has a problem with with the temperature or anything like that,
please send Kane an email and he'll take care of it right away. Um I I guess they've started McKinley and Jefferson and they're they're in the hallways right now so they don't interrupt the classroom, but um I think they talked about too they were going to
do the summer project update HVAC on Lincoln and McKinley and McKinley will be closed June 9th. So um and then let's see, we had quite a bit here. Um the sale of the Roosevelt property.
Okay. Originally, now if I hope I get this right, Chad, originally it was stateowned. Then it was set aside for MSAD, Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf. Uh, and they didn't need it, so it was gifted to the public schools. So, in
essence, the money, any money would go back to the state and we'd do the work. Um, we needed, unfortunately, we need legislative action to uh rectify that situation. And so maybe we can bring this up to Senator Jazinski or
something. Uh but yeah, that was that was a surprise to me. Um as far as LTFM budget, he and I he said we're going to stay light on the projects. Uh they have this uh going to do the in the summer the sleeper pads uh for Fable
Middle School roof. I guess uh some of that's rotting and there's water leakage and he had to explain to me what a sleeper pad was, but I understand now. Also, uh, the high school pool deck and the locker rooms, including the drinking fountain. I think you brought that up.
And the sidewalks at Roosevelt. And I guess they are heaving, which would cause a safety concern. Uh, so they're looking at grinding them down. And so, and also the parking lot maintenance crack and seal.
Um, tennis courts too on that. And it would be 50% city. You're smiling. Am I doing am I saying something wrong? You could. Okay. 50% city, 50% Carville public schools. Uh they talked about
um the Raptor crisis management. They're going to have that. I'm not I think it was this summer, right? Yeah. And to do some training there. Um they talked about to the
um the football field and I'm going to let you take that over because you'll understood because they talked about nine manfield 11 manfield and I watch fitball but I'm not all that up on it. So Chad, I'm giving it over to you. Director Mo, I'm wondering if you used
AI to summarize that meeting or what but it was pretty spot on. I wrote I was writing away, you know, I know shorthand, too, so I did not use a superintendent Benty or or activities director. Uh, Mr. Gunderson,
either of you want to address the the football field that was discussed. So, we're still in the preliminary stages, but we do rent our football field out to Bethlehem Academy. Bethlehem Academy this coming year will be playing nineman football um instead of the traditional
11man. So different lines will need to be painted onto the field. It's also a narrower field, so athletes would stand actually on the playing surface for 11 man. U so we do have some concerns about wear and tear on the field. We are currently working with uh Ed Fzen who is
uh the activities director and interim head of schools up at BA. Uh so Shane and I will be continuing to work with him uh just to either get some of our concerns figured out or figure out a different one or the other.
Oh, also too, uh, the update on Near Strand. I think that's ongoing right now. Is it really not? Correct. It's near Strand. We are in the process of working with Nur Strand, um, at the board's request to uh figure out for the
Farbo Public Schools to get out of the ownership of that site. So with the Thank you Chad for letting me talk. You you did well with the facilities committee. I'm just wondering and Mr. Gunnerson you relate. I believe MSAD's football field is a nineperson
field. Correct? Thank you so much. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that. We'll move on to agenda item uh 10. 10A is gifts and donations resolution uh 25-29. I will read this. It's quite a lengthy list. Thank you to all your all the
people who have don gave have given gifts and donations. So, first donations received from the Fable Booster Club. Uh $4,500 toward the cost of an athletic trainer this year. $12,000 toward the cost of a new golf center at the high
school. $5,200 for the annual software subscription for the scoreboards in Nolan Gym. and $15,000 for the scoreboard at Bruce Smith FieldNelson track, Ted Nelson track. Donations
received for Little Falcons in memory of Ed Duzbik, Abigail Whips, $40. Michael and Pam Crushmar, $50. Edward and Tracy Farnon, $100. Diane Law,
$25. Radius Wealth Advisors Hub and Spoke Holdings LLC, $200. Jill Fagerland, $20. Jim and Don Jandro, $20. Janette and Mark Reavers,
$20. William and Candace Meyer, $20. Pat and Sherry Cullen, $25. Michael and Paula Parutka, $25. Bruce and Carolyn Schaefer, $10. Beth Johnson,
$40. Dale and Linda Petra, $50. Todd and Lorie Markman, $50. Perry and Mary me, $50. Kathleen Gerbig, $50. Steven and Gail Cole,
$100. Todd and Tracy Erenss, $100. Julie Petra, $700. Donations received for DECA Bolt Funeral Home, $100. Inspired Spine Surge Center LLC,
$500. Misha E, $200. Reliance Bank, $100. Shape Jewelry Incorporated, $200. Tristar LLC, $600.
CNS Vending Company Incorporated, $100. Comprehensive Wealth Solutions, $100. State Bank of Fable, $200. Farable Transportation Service,
$150. Donations received for the ALC Community School, 5D Mayo event. Carlander Cattle Company, two $15 voucher for two pounds of hamburger. Jake Hager, ALC principal, two $10 gift
cards from McDonald's. Nicole Overbachi, ALC worker, $10 gift card from Quick Trip. Jackie Jarvis, ALC art teacher, $10 gift card. $10 Target gift
card. Heather Castile, ALC communication/vocational teacher, $10 Caribou gift card. Abbas Ali faces $10 quick trip gift card. An anom an anonymous donor sent a
box of Subway sandwiches for the Fairbull school board and presenters on April 21st. Alina Health donated $5,000 for school supplies for all. Culligan donated eight cases of bottled water for fifth grade field day.
Hosanna Church donated $1,500 for school supplies for all. Is there a motion for approval of resolution 25-29? So move. Thank you, Director Budro. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you,
Director Steves. Any discussion? Just a huge thank you to the generosity of our uh local community. Correct. Any other discussion? Discussion. Miss Steves,
this is an action or roll call, please. A resolution for roll call. Linda Budro. Hi. Candace Kudson. Hi. Linda Moore. I. Cassie Steves. I Chad Wolf. Hi. John Bellingham. I. Passes 60. Thank you.
Agenda item 10B, language and cultural classes. This is a discussion item. So, I'll ask uh Miss Katie Schultz and M. Ashley Benhart to come forward. Any discussion here?
So, Mr. Chair, as they're settling in, I would just say the presentation that is attached on there is the same presentation that was provided uh two weeks ago. Yes. Um so, there's no updates to the presentation. Uh one of uh they are here simply to answer
questions. Um, a couple board members did submit questions that I passed on to them. Um, but so whenever whatever questions you have around this program, uh, we should be able between the two of them and myself be able to answer for
you. Okay. So, I'd like to start off first of all, I would like but you you have given us the all the rationale of why. So many of the questions that I have seen come forward whatever are more
of the nuts and bolts or down on the management ground level which I'm uncomfortable with but all all these are impactful here. So I'm going to ask you just to give us a brief or give us a detailed overview of the program
of three times a week how many kids what's being offered specifically those nuts and bolts issues. If you'd start with that, I think that answers a m a lot of these questions and so as much details as you want to present as as you know or could
at this point they have so go ahead. Is it okay if I stand? Does that make anyone uncomfortable? You told me to sit. Nope. Sit. We're bothers. I'm not asking anything like that. So Oh, good. So the this year
something different for the 2526 school year is a content block that's part of the instructional minutes of the day. We do not have a 30 minute content block this year. We do have one in the minute schedule for next year for grades 1 through 5. So in that 30 minute content block, science, social studies, and
health will be taught. How it is taught is dependent upon the grade level team. An idea would be to have content experts. So if there's four grade level teachers, let's say it's 1 2 3 4, we would have science, science, social studies, and health for our content
areas. The reason that we're emphasizing science is because we test that on the MCAs. So what we teach would depend on the resources that we have. Katie Rutbold provided some examples of those as well as we teach the Minnesota state standards. So that is our tight. How we
teach it is the loose. So that's a little bit of the content block. Where the language and culture or the language and content piece comes in is the Spanish and the Somali side of things. We would hire a SMA a Spanish teacher and a Somali teacher and they would pull a cohort of students during that content
block. So we would have excuse me 24 to 28 students capped. Um so that would minimize the sizes of the four of our classes. So if we chose that model, we would have let's say we have a 100 students. Let's say 20 of them were in
the Spanish speaking class, 20 of them were in the Somali speaking class. That leaves 15 for the rest of us. Um during that time, we would kind of rotate our students through on a 10-day cycle. Um, again, what we teach, we could, let's say I'm teaching science, I would teach
my science block for that two weeks, and then I would take Katie's class, and I would teach her class for two weeks, and then I would continue on and take the rest of the classes so that each of those classes got the same content. I have to prep less, but I'm a master of
my content area. I think that's our goal. I don't get a microphone. I think that I think that's our goal in this is to minimize the amount of prep that each teacher has to do. If we just leave it as a content block, then I have to teach social studies and science and health.
But if we if we use the model like Ashley is recommending, then she literally teaches science, the same science four different times. And so the prep is much less for each of the teachers. All right. So in regards to the Spanish
and the Somali cloning of things, they would still be teaching the Minnesota state standards in science, health, and social studies. Now, their curriculum may be a little bit different because they have that language comp language piece as well, and they're teaching in Somali or Spanish, but in regards to what they're teaching, they are still
tasked with teaching the state standards. That's their number one job along with teaching that language piece. So, we do have curriculums available for that to help aid in that process, but the standards would be the driving force behind that. they would have that same cohort of students the entire time
throughout the entire year. Um although the content block is for grades 1 through five, the Spanish and Somali class would be for grades 1 through four due to time. So with having halfhour blocks, we only have time for grades 1 through 4 because they will have to travel between the buildings. So they
would do grades 1 through four, kind of like a windtime model at Lincoln, have their lunch, their prep, travel to Jefferson, and do the same thing grades one through four. Does that make sense? Okay. Now, in regards to the
opting in component of things, um I have a letter drafted that we would send to families in the beginning of the year during meet the teacher. Talk about the content block. If they're excited and want their child to opt in to the Spanish route or to Somali class, they can sign that letter, opt in. If we don't get a letter, they will
automatically be put into the normal content block that all students would receive. Mr. Chairman, just I want to follow up with one thing since I asked it and then I'll get get to you, Director Woodrow. So what you're saying from what I picked
up here is that you're teaching in the content block, you're teaching the Minnesota standards, state standards in science, social studies, and health, but and with those students, but in their
particular language in Somali, in Spanish or English. Correct? Yes. And if you are a native English speaker, you can choose to opt into that class as well. Okay, good. And I think it's important too to emphasize that we are
teaching language as well. And so the regular classroom might not be learning the colors in Spanish or Somali or English, but we're going to teach them color names. We're going to teach them animal name like we also are teaching language as well. So there's an added component in the the culture and
language class as well. Thank you, Director Budro. Mr. Chairman, I the content block. Can you explain that? Is that for the cohort? Is that Yep. So the content I don't that is Yep. So at the district level or as
an administrator, we try to provide guidelines for for classroom teachers in regards to what how do we fit in everything we need to fit in during the day. So for example, we have about a 60 to 75 minute math block that it's kind of this framework of time where they're able to teach their math lesson. This is
the amount of time that research shows should fit your curriculum, your mini lesson, whatever components of math there are. We do that for the literacy, for the math, for content, specials, lunch. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but who is they? Is this the the Is
this the language classes? Is it the teachers? I mean, I want to hear how this impacts the teachers as well that are teaching their regular day. Sure. So there are 400 instructional minutes in a day. So with those 400 minutes, we as
administrators or we as a district try to determine what how do we best fit our curriculum and the amount of minutes into the minutes that we have. So I do have an example I can provide you that kind of splits up how it makes the most sense to divide out the day. Right now
content does not exist within the day. We try to integrate content into literacy or into math and our our results are showing that's not working as well as it could. So, we're trying to provide a new structure that would allow explicit science, social studies, and health instruction, which would be that content block. Those minutes came from
lunch and recess. Right now, teachers are doing teacher le recess, which is about 15 to 20 minutes. We also have about 10 to 15 minutes of Falcon time. So, we are using lunch and recess more efficiently, combining the two. It's still some part of teacher le recess,
but pairs are transitioning their classes out after lunch and then teachers meet them outside to finish teacher le recess. So, we're having to get those minutes from somewhere to put them somewhere else. In the past, I think it's it has been um kind of up to
the teacher how much science and social studies and health that they kind of squeeze into their day. And as a former teacher, reading and math came first. And so then I was always tempted to say, "Oh, we don't have time for science today." This allows an intentional chunk
of time every day that's built into their schedules to actually say, "You know what? We're going to prioritize science and social studies and health at the elementary level." Mr. Chair, I'm sorry I have a lot of questions, but um so then when they're doing you're doing
your content block with your language and culture programs, Are the teachers in the classrooms is you know how does that work when they come back to the classrooms and
they how do we work this piece so that the teachers in the classrooms are not doubling on their um on their coursework or that there's not a disruption there. I mean I'm I just want to know how it
dubtales together from the classroom the teachers working in the and now they're they're losing a bunch of students every day. I want to know how that works. So, it's very much like the wind time model. So, you pull the whole grade
level together and you figure out what they need. So, if it's the Somali language class, you go to that class. If it's the Spanish language class, you go to that class. And then the rest of our students are divied up between science, social studies, and health. So within that 30 minutes, you learn the content. You go back to your classroom and then
you continue on with your day in whatever other area you're focused on. No ma no matter which class you're in, you're still getting the standards. You're still getting science. You're still getting social studies. So it it's just delivered in a different language. Okay. Um I'm just I mean I just want to
know about it sounds like we're doing this at the noon time and the disruption would be maybe lessened. Not as much distraction from I'm hearing from teachers in the classroom concerned about one more
release time, one more thing. We're going to have distractions. Kids are coming and going and it's hard to keep kids on focus on the topic. That is what I'm hearing. And I just want to know how we work with
them. They really we need to really work with them. they they need to be part of this. Everyone needs to be part of this because the success is based on the cooperative effort of all of us. And I think sometimes that's missed. It feels
kind of rushed to me because we haven't known about it for very long. And that's where I'm at. And I think it may feel that way to some other people too. Even though you have known about it a long time and have been working on it, that
is that is where I'm I'm at right now. That's what the information I want to hear. How do we make it work with everybody? So, the content block change was introduced to staff during our April Falcon Day. So, that's when Jefferson and Lincoln introduced that this is a
change in your instructional minutes for next year. Um, in regards to the how you do it, that's up for whatever your grade level feels is best for your grade level. If you want to teach your students science, social studies, and health the entire you to your group of students, that's totally fine. If you
want to become a cont content expert like I explained with the four of us, you can do that as well. So in regards to we are doing the content block so that we ensure that we're meeting state statute and that we're teaching the standards. So that piece is new and that's intentional for a reason. The language and culture component is the
addition piece and would actually alleviate some of the stress from teachers because they would have smaller class sizes. They wouldn't have any sort of prep. They wouldn't have to grade those students. the language and culture teachers would be the ones in charge of measuring those state standards per the report card and things like that. So if
anything this would alleviate some teacher stress allow for more planning time less student class less students in their class and things like that. I do hear the transition concern though. I as a teacher, yes, transitioning, more transitioning that does take minutes.
But what I what I have learned in the classroom is students almost always rise to the occasion and when we have high expectations of them, they meet those expectations. So really working I Ashley is masterful at coaching teachers and and how do we make these transitions the
best that they possibly can be? And I think we I have faith in our teachers and our kids that we can do it. Mr. Chair, one more question. Go ahead. Um, so Principal Ashley, are you going to be teaching this yourself? I mean, I
would love to. Oh, I didn't It sounded like you said I would teach. So, I'm I just wondered if that was one of your roles. It is not my current role. I absolutely love to get in there and do the teaching. I do speak Spanish, so I would love to get in there. I will be coaching the teachers. um that is
definitely part of my role is to be in there and to help facilitate this. I'm very much not wanting to do it to people. I want to do it with them. So that's why there's some some loops on the structure of how we want the content block to work because every team is different and we want to make sure that we're maximizing their abilities and
meeting their capacity and things like that. So it's very much a team effort. It's not a me doing it to them. Just just wanted clarity because I know the role of principal is very demanding and uh just had to ask. I do like my boots
on the ground. Yes, director Ste. Um, so do you have more to your presentation that you wanted to share with us? I don't Okay. So, like all of our programs, I think it's important that we think critically
and ensure that our resources are being used um effectively. Um, I've heard from lots of members of our community, constituents and staff, others, um, who largely support adding this program,
this optional program. Um, but they've raised some questions, considerations. So, I think some of this has been answered and I'm going to follow it up with my own followup question. So, I'm going to take a while. Um, so one of the questions raised,
would we be having this level of discussion if the proposed program was focused on a different language or culture? Um, I think that that question is really compelling um given the number of folks that showed up to um our schoolboard meeting. Um, what are the
long-term goals of this program? How do they align with our district's broader um objectives? kindergarten readiness, reading for proficiency, demonstrating middle grade math, and high school graduation. I feel like you've answered components of that. I again have some
follow-up nitty-gritty questions. Um, how will this program affect the capacity of our teachers and staffs? Um, again, you've started to, I think, maybe just like a diagram of what a teacher's day looks like.
Um, especially considering our early grade educators are working hard to cover the core subjects. Maybe just like a more detailed description of how a teacher's workday works. Um, what's the
opt-in process for the language classes? My follow-up question for that would be, I'm not saying that I'm not interested as a parent, but if I was a parent that was not interested in language classes, would it just be
assumed that my kiddos would be automatically enrolled in the what are we calling it? Content block. Correct. Okay. Um, how are transitions managed during the day?
um what steps will we take if the program does not produce the results that we want to see? Um I think we as a district are um we have great ideas. Um but but sometimes we don't get rid of things that that aren't maybe working.
So we're trying them long enough to pres produce something. Um but also the definition of insanity is keeping doing the same thing. Um, so importantly, um, and this is important to me as a schoolboard member, but also a parent,
how are we addressing class sizes, um, especially at one of our elementary schools where the current pro projections in fourth and fifth grade are exceeding 30 students in May. Um, knowing full well that there will be additions throughout the year. Um, I
guess at the end of the day, um, many components of this program, my questions have been answered, barring a couple. Um, I think I can support an optional program. Um, I just really hope that we as a board, we as a district can give
equal attention to addressing the class class size concerns um that, you know, me as a parent, many of our staff are are feeling. Um, that was one thing that I was thoroughly looking forward to with your reorganization is the equalization
of class sizes. Um, that was a really long time. Sorry. Um, could you just walk us through just like a a teachers a teacher's day what it would look like? So, can I speak to the class sizes piece
because that seemed to be a a big piece that you had questions about there. So I want first I want to be clear that if the board chooses to pass this this is an addition in addition to classroom teachers not in place of classroom teachers. So by passing this it will not
increase or decrease the class size. Right. Um so when we when we reorganized back in January, we had a wonderful view of what our district was going to look like class sizewise based off of the numbers that we had. We had our averages in place and we showed the board those
averages. Um, three weeks later we got word that uh, Canon Canon River STEM School was looking to close. About a month after that, we got word they were closing. All right. In the last two months, we've had students enroll with
us, which have changed those numbers, especially at our middle school and our elementarymentaries. All right. Lincoln was our most populated elementary on purpose um just geographically by number of students. So that has been the school
that has taken the biggest hit when it comes to class averages. So a couple things and and I apologize this is a little bit of a long- winded answer, but I want to make sure you understand why we decide why and when we decide to make decisions around adding sections for
around class averages. So the first thing is we don't just decide like oh that class looks big let's let's let's put another teacher in there. We actually have targets and we have evaluate numbers for every single one of our classes. So as we look through the
elementary school our target for kindergarten is 20 students. If our averages hit 24 then we evaluate about adding another section. All right. Uh first grade and second grade are both our targets are 22. Our evaluate numbers
are 24. Uh third and fourth grade our our targets are 24. Our evaluate numbers are 26 and 28. And at fifth grade our target is 26 and our evaluate is 30. I would say those numbers are on the
low side compared with other big nine schools. But that is what we settled on. When we go to uh sixth grade, sixth through uh 12th grade, our target is 26 with our evaluate being 32. Okay. With
that being said, uh we just added a second, excuse me, we just added, yes, a second and a third grade teacher to Lincoln that was posted last week. All right, that brings our
average down to 22 and 23 for those respective grade levels. That average is at 23 and 25 at Jefferson right now. Okay. And this is as of uh let me look at three days ago. So as of Friday
afternoon, okay. Um, currently at fourth and fifth grade at Jefferson, our averages are 23 and 24. At Lincoln for fourth grade and fifth grade, our averages are 29 and 30.
So, we have now just hit that average number that causes us to evaluate. So, we will be evaluating those numbers. Um, I've been working very closely with Barbie Raceler, our director of finance and operations. Um, we've been talking
about this a lot. We are still getting students that are coming to us from uh the STEM school and its closure. Um, I truly believe, although I will not guarantee at this moment, but I truly believe it is not a matter of if we add
another fourth andor fifth grade section, it's a matter of when we do it. And we just need a little bit more data. um excuse me, a little bit more data on enrollment coming into especially Lincoln uh for us to decide that. So, so
that is on the horizon. Um but that is how we make those decisions. Does that help everyone? That that's a I'm comfortable with that answer. Sorry, it's very long-winded answer. I want I want people to understand there
is a process to us deciding because when we decide, yep, let's add another section at fourth grade. What we're honestly deciding is let's take at least another $85,000 out of our general fund. That's our That's what we're saying.
Mr. Chairman, my question Let's Let's finish with Cassie. So, are you done? Um, could you just walk us through what what a teacher's day would look like for the new content blocks?
I can try. Okay. Do you want an example of what it looks like on the dayto-day or just the number of minutes for each thing? Um, I mean, I'm I think I can follow along with either. Um, I guess I have visuals, too. I can send to Jamie
to send out that might be a little bit more helpful. Um, just because I can talk at you, but sometimes when you don't see it, it's like I'm talking and you know that's me anyway. So, we can also share the presentation from last time as well because Ashley did add some things into those slides that give you
more detail about a teacher's day, transition times, all of that standards. So, for first, second, and third grade, let's pick a second grade class. 45 minutes of their day would be phonics instruction. So we have our new bridgeto read curriculum that is 45 minutes is
needed to teach it with fidelity our language arts block or our reading writing um anything language arts related we have 10 minutes for a readaloud we have 10 minutes for a mini lesson we have 15 minutes for a writing lesson um our core
like what really moves the needle is our small group instruction so having small reading groups with students that's 50 to 60 minutes and then our win time which is what I need in litery is 30 minutes. From there, there's lunch and recess and that combined is 40 minutes.
So about 20 minutes to eat, 20 minutes to play. And again, that falcon time, that transition time is rolled into that as well. We have a 70 minute math block, 25 minutes for other. So other can be transitions or bathroom or anything that
happens in life or during the day. 30 minutes for the content block. Um we do have a morning meeting every morning just to start the day off right which we incorporate our second step social emotional curriculum that's 20 minutes and then every day there's 55 minutes of the specialist class so art music PE or
STEM. So, just to reiterate and hit it home, if I wanted my stu or if if I didn't want my student to partake in the language class, and I'm not I don't want people to put words in my mouth that I don't want that. Um, I would still be
following the content block. My student would still be receiving science instruction in the new content block. They would receive science, social studies, and health during the content block, but in English.
Okay. Everything except for language. If I do happen to want to opt my student in, they would be receiving science, social studies, health, and language instruction during 30 minutes every day. Yes. Okay. And and I would just argue
that a lot of our students will also be receiving language in the English portion as well. So that that's I don't I don't want to leave that part out. So everyone is learning the language of science, the language of social studies, and the language of health. Um some will
do it in English, some will do it in Spanish, some will do it in Somali. Yep. Very vocabulary heavy. Yes. Can I speak to your vision? Can I What's our vision for the future? Um I Ashley and I both received emails um from the
ASL community saying you know we have um the deaf and heart of hearing in our community because of the the Minnesota State Academy for the deaf and they said what an opportunity for us to grow in the future to add ASL to this too um as we have many many students and families
who are impacted and and could benefit from learning that as well. And I thought that was really powerful um coming from that community as well. So, just thought I'd throw that out there. Wonderful. All right. Well, I appreciate you coming back. I appreciate um this
being turned from a decision to a discussion. I think it's really healthy for us to get our questions answered or somewhat answered. Um new and and different is hard for even adults. So, thank you.
So, Director Bud, do you have a followup you'd like to Well, I don't want to dominate the questions like I just did. I just I just wanted to know why now. Why the urgency? We have a quite a complex
changes to make. Moving kids to new schools, bringing in new staff, trying to fit everybody in. We'll have to eliminate probably that room where you could roll around on the on the
carpet. And uh where are we going to put the reading partners? That's another room at Lincoln. Um I I don't know how this all fits. I'm sure you figured that out, but I think there's just a lot of changes.
We really haven't evaluated, haven't been able to evaluate yet our current immersion program. Um, it just seems like a lot happening at once and not everybody's happy with that. Change is hard no matter what we
do. That reorg was hard and you know getting people to come along with that and hopefully now support that. We really need to be cheerleaders for our staff and that means all our staff and
some of them aren't feeling the cheer right now. So there's my Thank you. I appreciate that question. Um this really came from a lot of conversations with families. Um it actually started with the immersion program. Our immersion program has been
very successful. Um our kindergarten first grade scores are are at the top of the district. like our students are doing really well with it. And our parents were like, um, but only 24 kids can do that. Like I want my child in that, but we didn't win the lottery. We didn't get in. My child is learning
their language. How do I get into how do I get this as well? We also thought about adding Somali immersion in because we want to be equitable across all of the the communities in our community. Um, and there just isn't curriculum for that
nowhere in the United States. And so we were like, how how can we incorporate more language learning for all the families that want this for their families, English-speaking families as well. And so that's how the conversation started is just families asking us, how
do I get in? How do I get this language in front of my children who are learning their or losing their language? Um, and so talking with other districts, how do you do it? What should we do? Um, and really finding St. Paul had a really strong model for that. Ashley and I have
talked about how are we going to evaluate? We have lots of things that we still have to consider. How will we evaluate? I appreciated your comment about how will we know if this is working. How are we going to test to make sure kids are learning the language that we're putting in front of them? We have ideas we've thrown around, but
we're going to have to do some research to find out what's out there. How do other districts evaluate the learning in this class as well? um we want to make sure by the time they get to middle school that they have that Spanish or Somali one equivalency so they can keep on moving as they move through the grade
levels. So we still have some more work to do um and some more thinking to do about that. But that's where it originated mainly coming from our families. Mr. Chair, I haven't been asked once about expanding our programs in that area. So you'll have to
understand if you're hearing that you should I feel kind of to be honest I feel kind of um I guess disappointed that you've been working on this a long time
and and maybe not deliberately or intentionally but I think it's if you want to have something successful you need to bring the board on board. Bring the board on board. So I just want to be clear that they have been working on this under my direction. So uh they
weren't trying there wasn't any secretive pieces around this. This has been something that we've been working on since I want to say Januaryes. Um and I I I will state again I did inform the board in February at the close session
around my uh evaluation that and I named it that we would be working on these pieces that we would look to bring to the board as enhancements. Um it was not brought in the first round of enhancements because we did not have an understanding of our full budget pieces
with the legislature being late and with the STEM school closing and then a month later we had a much better budget view. So that's why it was brought at at a later date. So um concerns for the for it not making its way to the board. Please direct those at me um because
that would fall under my my purview. Thank you. Let's move on other directors here. Uh, director Moore, do you have anything? Um, yes, I do. I've got more comments, I guess. But, uh, we had asked for to look at the
curriculum and what we received was the sample. It wasn't the curriculum. I think we need to look at the curriculum. And, um, Mr. Venty, I too I just want to mention that uh I I guess I I agree with um director
Bedro that we should have been informed a little bit more. One sentence isn't going to do it. You're you should have I believe we should have been informed sooner and I think we should get the curriculum. What we got was a couple of samples. it wasn't the curriculum and we
had asked specifically I know a couple of us to see the curriculum. Um some of the things too um what I'm concerned about uh the students in the this was from Mr. Benty's letter
the students in emerging immersion uh cla uh class uh they they pass the assessment such as MCI or ACT. this isn't true for this class. So, that concerns me. And I think
that was I've got that in there. Yeah, it said [Music] um students in immersion could pass academic assessments like the MCA or the ACT in their immersion language. Um this is not true for this
for this class. And um so just to clarify the language that our immersion kids are learn they're learning to be fully biiterate. So when I say that the MCA that they can pass an MCA the MCA is
100% academic language are kiddos that would be in this language and content class. They wouldn't be fully literate like our immers our immersion kiddos are in that language all day every day. Their fluency is greater. our kiddos
will be able to pass language assessments, they will be able to pass the MCA in English, but if they were to take that MCA in Spanish, that would be a lot more difficult for them because they're only getting 30 minutes a day. So, that's that clarification. They will
pass the MCA in English likely, just not in that second language that they're learning. So, why don't we just stick with the immersion classes? I guess that's my because that we can't teach as many kids in that model because we would
we would literally have to add teacher after teacher because every student I mean every immersion class can only have 22 kids for with this class we can have one teacher who could potentially teach
150 kids in a day. So, we're only adding one teacher, but the number of kids that get that language instruction would be exponentially increased. So, we get more bang for our buck. Kids leave elementary and middle school and high school with a
functional use of the language. They could go to Mexico, they could go to Somalia, they could use that language. Could they go to college in that language? That would be much more difficult. our immersion kids likely could go to college in that language because they are fully literate and
they've been to school all those years in that language. Does that distinction help? Um yeah, my my question I think it goes back to Miss Ms. Bedro there are uh do we know how do we know that this is is working? I mean you you've given
me a few of those but it's just uh I think we need some more research on that. Um, and I've actually got some research here that, and it only took me a few minutes because I think we need research
on both sides. And this was from um, they did actually foreign language learning and it was a view a review actually and they did a systematic uh, reviews plus a metaanalysis which is
really great. A metaanalysis is all of the studies on a topic. they come up with the statistic. So that's what we really need. We you know individual studies as I said in my presentation at the beginning we need we can't base things on just a couple of studies. You
have to really do some research and with this research they said we we noted that many of the that they found mixed findings as far as uh achievement levels and this was uh they they looked at meta uh they did a a systematic review and
meta analysis. I got it here if you'd like to see it. And one of the factors, too, was how it's taught. So, you know, there's so many variables here and we don't really know for sure if it's going to work. And so, in fact, the authors
here said there's needs to be more research. So, that's one of the things. And then um I'm going to get some elephants in the room here, but um one of the things that and I got a
lots of feedback from people and I have to say opposite to you. Um there was only one person that really wanted this class that was for it except for today and now
there's two. And so I've got two and here's some of the things that they're concerned about. And I and I as a board member I answer to the public. So it's my job to uh talk about what the public
has expressed to me. Um, one of the things they said, um, and one of the things too with the samples, they talked about culture. That area that's was blank. I'd like to see what the culture is. And I think the problem that a lot of people are having is with
the language cultural aspect because you cannot separate language and culture and religion out and that is a problem for some people. And I'd like to say it's the elephant in the room.
Um I I also think too that this may be favoritism and goes against uh the policy 102 which is equal education opportunity and possibly policy 104. Um the t some people have been
saying to me as voters and taxpayers they've stated this many cultures such as French, Swedish and ASL have been around a lot longer and they haven't received you know this this kind of treatment. It's uh we are teach uh you
know treating or we're teaching for instance uh German. I think we we didn't even we eliminated that. French Swedish culture groups as you know this is a different we've they've never been given
those opportunities. And another thing too um I guess what they said is is uh English is our primary language according to a new executive order. And
um I I guess I'm just having some problems with people are afraid that our US constitution, our culture is going to be watered down. Uh the American culture, the US constitutional culture, and that's what they're
concerned about. Um, and it's not really fair fair dealing with people of German background, French background, the ASL as I received a nice letter from somebody in the ASL community and they weren't for this.
Um, I'm trying to think some other things. I don't know if there's a uh if people now you said it would be an optin, but is is there segregation going to be a factor here? because that that's that's against the law. Um I'm trying to
think I want to make sure I get every somebody said too um uh and I got a lot of responses. My great-grandmother taught herself English and forbid the children to talk Swedish because they took their citizenship seriously. She said becoming a US
citizen requires allegiance to our constitution and the values it is based on and English is our national language. They are afraid that we are going to lose our culture, the American culture, the um the constitutional culture. And
um I guess lastly, I'm going to talk about two. We really don't know if this program works. And we in our 2024 revised budget, and that's why I wanted to look at the revised budget before the general
fund. We're uh in the red 666,000. all the funds together. Uh we're is a 5.2 million. Now, am I confused on that? But that's what it looks like with a re with a revised budget. Uh I don't think we
should be starting anything. I don't think we've thought enough of this. I thought about this enough. Uh we were surprised as to when this came uh was presented to us. In fact, we were originally supposed to vote on it the same night. And I think that was wrong.
And thank you um chairman uh Bellingham for moving it back a bit because I I don't think we're thinking I I I don't I don't think we've thought of enough about this. I don't think we've taken the people uh a lot of people like I said are not for this. I only got two
people that were really for it and I've got a whole stack here and these are the concerns they're having and I said I'm going to put some elephant in the rooms and I think we have to think about that. Another thing, the last point, 5.2 million, and we don't even know if the
program works. Um, I don't think we should add any more things to burdens on our teachers or on our taxpayers. And so, I've spoken for the taxpayers. Thank you for listening. Director Kenson, do you have anything? Yes. Um so um one
thing so my understanding is that we've added an extra kindergarten immersion class and and so if people want to learn more language I mean couldn't we add a third and a fourth section
if we were to do that we'd actually have to cut the kindergarten teachers we currently have that would be the reality because the student I and Mr. Benty, correct me if I'm wrong, but we were able to add that second section because we had a kindergarten teacher that moved to a different grade level. So, that
allowed us to hire a new kindergarten teacher. So, we we really aren't interested in cutting people to add to the immersion program. Okay. And then, um I'd like to know like what a teacher's schedule would be like, like
what, you know, how would that be that they would be half day at Lincoln and half Roosevelt. And so like they would start off with a class at 8:15 or I have
an example. One second. Okay. Sorry. [Music] We've done so many iterations of this that there's a lot of tabs on that spreadsheet. Okay, so for the language and culture class, let's say we have
teacher A. So let's say it's a Spanish teacher. They would have class from 8:30 to 9. 9 to 9:30. So, let's say 8:30 to 9:00 is first grade. 9 to 9:30 would be second grade. 9:30 to 10 would be third grade, and 10 to 10:30 would be fourth grade. They would then have travel time
between 10:30 and 11:00 to get to Jefferson. They would have lunch from 11 to 11:30, which is in their contract, as well as 11:30 to 12:25 would be their prep time, also in their contract. Then from 12:30 to 1 they would meet with first grade at Jefferson, 1 to 1:30
second grade at Jefferson, 1:30 to 2, third grade at Jefferson, and then 2 to 2:30 fourth grade at Jefferson, which would allow them about a 25m minute window to support other duties as assigned. Okay. So, so the Spanish teacher, the Somali
teacher would be in a room and the students would shuffle in and out. Okay. Okay. And then how many other school districts are [Music] using, right? Um I know St. Paul and
Minneapolis are. Um both of them are. Um St. Paul has been really generous in helping us think through what that could look like for us since we're not St. Paul, we're Farbo and we're trying to make it our own uh program. Um but they've seen great success with their
students in that program. Okay. Because like immersion programs, there's over a hundred schools. Yes. Yes. That are doing immersion programs. So, we just have St. Paul and and Minneapolis. No other that I know of. Um those are the two that I've been talking
to. There might be others in the state that I'm just not aware of. Um and we could get that information from MDE. And how long have they been doing it? Quite a while. Um they have had their Mung and Spanish programs for years. The Somali program is new. I think they're in year
three of their Somali program. Um, but the the Mung um the Spanish, they have another language that they've done this with as well. Um, they're doing language and culture and immersion. They do both as well. Chinese, I believe. Chinese is another one. Yeah. Okay.
And I guess I um also am concerned about like re you know students moving to different schools and everybody settling in and then to add this on top of it that I would like to think that we would wait at least another year is my
thoughts on that. Uh Director Wolf, you sure you don't want to sit down? We're getting I've been sitting all day. You're lucky I'm not pacing. I'm a pacer. Thank you, Chair Bellingham, and thank you to all the directors. Um really good conversation thoughts. Thank
you to Superintendent Benty for um answering the question that Miss Steve's had uh regarding the 5.2 million uh budget that you talk about or the deficit. I think Miss Raceler will likely talk about that in a little bit. Um hopefully before midnight, so we'll
get there. But um just to just to make sure I'm on the right track here, I mean our district is nearly one-third Caucasian, oneird Somali, oneird Latino. I mean within a margin, right? I mean
Okay. Thank you. So, uh Director Moore asks or mentions an elephant in the room. I I'll just ask an elephant in the room. Will religion be taught in this class? No. Um, I actually had a parent that stopped me out in the hallway and she said, "I would like to
talk to the school board because she said, "Religion, my religion and my culture, they're not the same." She said, "My culture invites you into my home and asks you to come in and have a meal with me. My culture tells you about
my food. My culture tells you about the clothing and why I choose this clothing. My culture, like she went on and on and on about her culture and how that's separate from religion." I firmly do believe in separation of church and state and any curriculum that I bring in will not have religion in it. Um I am a
woman of faith. I will say that out loud, but I I do not believe that my faith needs to be your faith and so I I do think that that is something that does not need to be included in our Thank you. And I'm glad we're on camera and and it's taped so that the community can see that because I do believe that is a fear of some. And so thank you for
that. uh you know the the question or the comment and I please I don't mean to be disrespectful to anybody if you have a different opinion than I do or come at it a different way but um you know the question or the comment was why not now. Um I'll tell you what, I'm in my 11th
year on the school board. I've got one more year left, a 12th year and then I'm probably waving the white flag. Um just time for somebody else. But our district has changed a lot. And I think uh there was a young lady that spoke up here.
Um I I I really do applaud Superintendent Benty and your team to have the courage to do something different. And I'll challenge our school board. None of us sit up here and like the MCA test scores. And yet, how often are we willing to do something
different? Why not? Now, I spoke to Miss uh Director Steves the other day um who's heavily heavily heavily responsible for our fable cares organization here in our community, which led to little scholars starting up. And my conversation to her
was why not now? Man, I wish we would have done that three years ago and not wait two years. So, I would challenge why not now? Um, I'm willing to guess, and I could be vastly wrong on this, but I think our biggest problem with this is
that we have a limit to this. Um, I saw the amount of people sitting in here. You're telling me every one of these people don't want their child in that class, and yet we're going to have a lottery for it? I mean, that's going to be a problem if this passes and goes through of how
do you deal with all the people that want to opt in and we don't simply have the the resources to do that. [Music] Um, here is a a program that is fully backed and sponsored by our
administration. I'm willing to support you to the nth degree on this because it's we're doing something different. Our demographics have changed. Our students have changed. I'll I'll use an analogy as a basketball coach. I love to press and pressing means I want to run the snot out of these kids and press 84
feet from baseline to baseline. But you know what? My team changes every single year. And if I expect to be competitive, activities director Gunderson's back there as he coaches. If I expect to be competitive every single year playing the same style, I can't do
it in high school unless I can only recruit kids into my team. And I don't have that option. So, I have to adjust to what I have on the court or on the field. And these are our students and these are our families. And so, I I would strongly strongly suggest we look at doing something different. Uh,
Director Steve's asked a question. I've just got it written down here and I would just challenge you on this and and maybe St. Paul will give you some feedback, but truly what does success look like after one or two years? How do we know we're making, you know, improvements and going in the right
direction? I'm a big believer that if it's not working, as I think as you uh Director Steves or somebody else said, uh we need to pivot or we need to be nimble and cut bait and move on to something else, right? Um we will find out, but we'll never know unless we try
it. Um and I will leave it with this as as we live in a society with AI and all this stuff. I think director Moore, you mentioned change is hard or somebody mentioned change is hard. Uh maybe it was director Budro, maybe director Kenudson. I'll challenge you this. The
saying out there right now is change will never be as slow as it is today. You may believe it. I'll challenge you with it. So Chairman uh Bellingham, thank you, Director Wolf. I'll wrap up the questions here if I
may. So first of all, um gosh, I hate to go back as a former teacher, but I have to here. So the content block, we go back At one point self-contained elementary teacher, I taught nine or 10 things a
day. You had your two reading groups. You had uh a math maybe two math groups. I did I taught health. I taught social studies. I taught science. Yes. All in a I'd been 20 minutes to a half hour. That was it. I taught social studies with Yes. Minnesota history sixth grade. Blah
blah blah. Uh also at some point had to do FIAD every other day in my early teaching career. being a five minor that helped a lot, etc. da da da right thank goodness I never had to teach music or art so that was good but um I'm excited to see those three concepts being taught
because my fear is we're losing out a generation or of too late especially in the well in all three areas health science and social studies maybe people would know about our constitution if we taught social studies at a young age maybe people
would know about these but uh our adventure es into space or how uh oil is changed to gasoline, grease, diesel fuel, etc. if we taught science, but all we're focused on is reading and math in elementary because get those test scores
up. I did a lot of reading less uh teaching reading and language arts in science, social studies, and health in my elementary career. A well-rounded education, not just focused on those two things. So what I'm hearing, my question is going to be after my little rant
there was from my understanding is those that content block will be taught to all students in those 30 minutes three times a week. Five days a week. Five days. Okay. Five days a week. Okay. Um in either Spanish, Somali or
English. And kids can opt in to any one of those classes. But we're focusing on Minnesota state content standards even if we didn't have a language program is my opinion that's what should happen anyway in a in our day of our 400
minutes of instructional time with those. So my question is once again to affirm that it's the standards we're after. We're not teaching religion. We're not teaching anything where you know I would like to know uh have kids tell me what crops are grown in Egypt,
what crops are grown in Czechoslovakia, in Ukraine, in Cuba, in Jamaica. Okay, that's that's the global society we're at, right? And and how all this works. So again, just confirm to me
that yes, this is content area. This is standards and we'll go from there. Right. Correct. That's correct. Thank you very much. Okay. So, with that, uh, Chairman Bellingham, can I say one more thing? Oh, certainly. Um, I just publicly want to thank the families. Um,
I still have three of them sitting back here. They've waited all of this time. Um, they have shown up. They have advocated passionately for their children. They want what's best for their kids. And so, I applaud them for being here. and I thank them for the
help that they've given us even even if this doesn't pass. I have been blessed by being with them in this planning. I hope those of you who have questions, I have their names, I have their contact information. I hope you will sit with
them and talk with them because it's lifechanging to see and talk with people outside of who you are and what your experiences have been. So, please please um I will connect you with them if you're interested in that. Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Just remind me you forgot one
thing. Yeah. One thing, Superintendent Benty, real quick, and I know it's um not possible to be exact or precise on this, but if this is successful, should we implement this? Do you believe that this would actually draw families to our community or to our school district?
Well, our immersion program is already drawing families. We from outside the district. From outside of our district. Yes. So we are we are already drawing families uh at at quite a few actually from outside of our district that want to come in for our immersion program. So um I I think that's a a very real
possibility. Okay. Thank you. So after this discussion I have an announcement. Thank you very much here. Uh at this point then uh for notification to board members, I'm calling a special meeting for this topic only on Monday, June 2nd, 2025 at 4:30 p.m. It's right ahead of
our work session on on June. So it's a special meeting and we will be voting. It will be an action item on the language and cultural classes. So Mr. Chair, once again that special meeting is Monday, June 2nd, 4:30 p.m. June 2nd
a Monday. Pardon me. Pardon me. Is June 2nd a Monday? I thought it was the graduation day. That's June 1st in my calendar. Okay. It's June 2nd. June 2nd is a Monday, correct? Yes, June 1st is a Mr. Chair. Thank you for that
clarification. Mistaken. Okay. Will we be able to see the curriculum by that time? We'll do our best to get it to you. Yeah, we we supplied what was given to us. That was samples. Yes. But we need the curriculum and we've asked for that. And what I'm saying is we supplied
what was given to us. Um so we're we'll ask for more. I can't guarantee that they will give us more. So Mr. Chair, can I ask one question? Uh it's a special meeting. That means there is not public comment. That is correct. Okay.
Just so that um all special. So that's out there. That's correct. Okay. Very good. Okay. Moving on. Thank you all very much. Uh agenda item 10 C. uh adding logos for our teams, a discussion uh activities director, Mr. Shane
Gunderson. Thank you for your patience in waiting on the 11th hour here, Mr. Gunderson. So, absolutely. So, I guess what I'm asking um is for us to be able to create a database of
images of our mascot, Freddy Falcon, um Falcon Head, um to be able to use for our extracurriculars, clubs, um etc. So, Mr. Gunderson, give us a little background on why you think that uh do
we have logos that aren't really school related? I know that over his time over time here a lot of different logos have been pre presented. Correct. I mean Mr. Wolf and I have this on and yes um yeah so I just a little bit of the history I
know um about 15 to 20 years ago um you settled with or worked with Joins to get that specific logo. Um, and I've had a number of coaches either ask or not ask and create their own logo. Um, and so
what I'm trying to do is kind of just create a database that we can all use that um has a little bit more um options, a few more options than that specific because we don't, you know, the
elementary school we have Freddy Falcon um but we don't really have a physical description or physical image of him that we can use either on t-shirts or um you know warm-ups or that kind stuff. So, next question I will ask is cost the
almighty dollar here, right? So, um in working with um plaid gorilla design, it would be um to do kind of all of it was about $5,000 that would come out of either my budget or the high school budget. Okay.
So, I'll open up for questions for Mr. Gunnerson. I have a question. Director Moore, the basic line is how will this affect achievement? I don't think it will. But have you thought about maybe having a fundraiser or something? Because with our budget the way it is, we can't even
like if I had a, you know, in the family budget, if we're in the red, you have to pull back. We can't be nickeled and dying to death either. But have you thought about just instead of asking for $5,000 from the school, we could do maybe a fundraiser? And I I'd be willing
to participate in that because I think we have to at some point with our budget say we've got to stop spending because we're continually uh spending more than we're uh bringing in and that at some point we have to say
stop and I think a family would have to do that. So I really am not for this like this but I would be certainly participating in fundraiser because I think that would be great and so Sorry, that's I I think the idea is is
that by creating this database that we would generate more revenue by selling more t-shirts, more memorabilia, and things like that. So, you're going to So, we're going to be actually selling this. Yes. Selling all these things. It's not because I I guess I read
through it and I didn't understand that. So, because I thought we were Yeah. A couple things just to clear it up. Shane's not here asking for $5,000. He has that portion of it covered. He's saying the cost will be $5,000. That will be taken out of either the budget
that he currently has or his budget that he already has. Yes. So, we're not asking for He's not asking for an addition. Additional money. No, not at all. And you can sell some, right? And maybe we can all get on board and sell some things. Can we do that as a
board? It's like, hey, would you like this? Because I know some alumni here. So, yeah. What I'm asking is for your blessing to create this database as long as we have no additional money and that we can make money by selling this and I
will help. So get a hold of me. Thank you. You have something Chad. You want anyone else? I just obviously work in a communications industry and so I understand the importance of a streamlined communication process. um
logos. Um $5,000 is a bargain for all that um this um flag is going to be providing. Um yeah, I'm excited to see what they come up with. Um if you want my personal
opinion, I think that isn't isn't my Freddy Falcon. Mr. Chairman, director Budro and um Shane, when you come up with images and logos are who makes the decision about
which ones to go with or have you already selected them? No, I think that's the that that'll be the process. What we're looking to be able to do is June and July is create this and then come back for approval from the board.
Um I think what we're looking at is maybe three to five images. um you know the the costume Freddy Falcon that we have very similar to that with the side profile a full body you
know looking right at you and maybe with some claws or whatever you know it's not going to be we're not going to go nuts with this but we want to then have one that we've settled on that then we could use for you know if we want to put a him kicking a soccer ball or swimming or any
of those kind of things. So then it's standard with everybody and it's um you know we have just one and we're not picking from you know a bunch of different ones. So maybe he'd be doing the high kick. Could be doing the high kick. Absolutely.
I think that's creative ideas. I like that. And I'm sure you'll have people that you can consult with as to which ones are the finalists. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Uh, Mr. Gunderson, my
only question to you is whether you settle on three or five. You know, this question is coming. Um, how in the heck are you going to keep people to just three or five when they won't stick to what we have approved today? Well, I think that's the idea that we create
these with that group so that in 15 years from now, they're still the same, right? Keep in mind, our coaches, as you know, change quite often, right? And so when we get a new coach that comes in and says, "Well, I don't like any of these three or five. I'll go out and create my own, like what took place last
year." Right? Um what are we going to do about it? Well, I part of this proposal is to lay out and say so that if I'm gone three to five years that this is in place for the next activities director to say here's what we're using, this is our brand,
this is what we have and settle on that piece. And so then there's no more questions. I can support it as long as we truly do. Right. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Mr. Gunderson, I applaud you for coming to the board and
asking just their opinion and saying and I say go for it. Do do that. Uh uh I like to be uniform and in in every way and not have different logos out there. So yes, please do that. So
I'm pretty sure that when I see a consensus among board members not so we'll go from there. So you might as well stay right there and we'll move on to agenda item 10D. Yep. Uh consider approval of resolution 25-30 the 2025 2026 resolution for
membership. Is there approval of resolution or is there a motion for approval of resolution 25-30 um 2526 resolution for membership in the Minnesota State High School League? Do we have a motion for approval? So move. Thank you, Director Wolf. And do we have
a second? Second. Thank you, Director Steves. And discussion. As you see on board book board members, there we both we have the application and the letter from the I believe was the um
membership letter. Yes. From there. So discussion. We have some questions. Director Moore. Okay. I I noticed now with regarding the MSHSL policy, they're adding to their mission and educational
opportunities grades 9 to 12 and now they're moving into grades seven and eight. Is that correct? From what I can see on the letter here, my understanding kind of it says um oh the league will expand its mission
to provide educational opportunities through fine arts and athletics to all students in grades 9 to 12 as well as some in grades seven and eight. What what are we talking about with grades seven and eight? So the 9 to12 piece was an insurance piece to cover 9th graders
because they currently were not covered under the state high school league and had to be covered under a separate policy district by district. The seventh and eighth would be and correct me if I'm wrong here like my son is a seventh grader who shoots trap. So he is he is part of the high school Minnesota state
high school league trap team as a seventh grader. So he would fall under that opacy there. Is that that's correct. So it' be like trap robotics. um baseball wrestling. Yeah, it also varsity sports. Okay. I mean like my
daughter is a seventh grader. She plays varsity sports. So while as a seventh grader she does fall under the state high school league guidelines. Um I do have qu is it true that the OCR which is office of civil rights or the
office um invest that we're being investigated the Minnesota state high school league along with California intercolastic federation it's the CIF for violating title n and anti-discrimination laws by allowing I'm going to read this by allowing males and
female sports and in female locker rooms and showers what is the status of Minnesota at this point regarding that and I guess what are the ramific ramifications for farable public school? So, as I've stated before, Farbo public
schools is currently in a waiting pattern to see what the uh what the outcome will be between the federal government and the state government. Um, my understanding is that the state of Minnesota launched a preemptive lawsuit against uh the federal government over
uh concerns around uh transgender sports uh due to its violation of uh state statutes and state civil rights pieces. So, we are honestly just waiting to see what the fallout of that is uh which will most likely take place in the courts. Yes. Um so, I guess that's my
question. The next question is, is there going to be lawsuits by parents or students who disagree with this policy? And um or parents of children who have had their child injured or possibly lose scholarships to male athletes. Um that's
kind of a question that's up in the air. Um I I guess to me it's this is not fair to our female athletes and is a form of discrimination due to the fact that uh female athletes are playing in an uneven playing field because no matter I I do
know I've seen research where it says that even if they start taking what is it hormone treatments or whatever males they still have more muscle mass. So, we're we're looking at possibly children being uh hurt uh and I know some of them
they've had brain injuries. um and you know they're uh playing at the risk of injury and I'm I'm concerned about the students health and also the fact that um scholarships may be taken away from
them because of the male athletes in in you know competing in in this same uh female athletes you know with the female sports. So that's my concern. Last call for discussion of resolution
25-30, membership uh for approval of membership in the Minnesota State High School League. Mr. Chairman, Director Budro, the resolution has a misspelling in the school. Maybe we can correct that if it's not
the I don't think we need to put it up, but um I too have concerns with some of the sports issues. We have that's killing it uh in a metro school
and um that that uh team cannot lose but this is this is a decision each athlete makes and I want to make that clear if you're part of this le we're part of it I think we need to
be part of it but it's a decision between the student parents and whether they play the sports They have to be fully aware. That's my remark. Thank you. Could we have a roll call, please? Do we need to It's a resolution, so it is a
roll call anyway. We need to correct that spelling. Is it Is it in public? Yeah. Yeah, we'll correct that. Looks like Yeah, we'll take care of that. Okay. So, Miss Steves, will you do a
roll call on resolution 25-30, please? Dutro. Hi. Candace Kudson. Hi. Linda Moore. No. Cassie Steves. I Chad Wolf. I. John Belling. I. Passes five to one. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item 10E.
Consider approval of the fiscal year 25-26 ice arena contract. Could I have a motion for approval of the 20 fiscal year 25-26 ice arena contract, please? Thank you, Director Mudro. Do we have a
second? Second. Thank you, Director Kenudson. And discussion, I think first of all, just turn it over to Miss Braceler and Mr. Gunderson on this. Um, as as far as discussion goes, the agreement is not anything different than what has been approved in years past.
So, the rates are the same, dates are kind of chang. Correct. and being the board representative for the ice arena uh committee or whatever uh this was presented and it's standard it's the
same as what we've done for many many years there etc discussion discussion last call for discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying I opposed motion passes 10F consider approval of the
fiscal year 24-25 final revised budget. Could I have a motion for approval of the fiscal year 24-25 final revised budget, please? Thank you, Director Budro. Second by Director Wolf and discussion. So, Mr. Raceler, I'll let you turn it over to
you and you can go from there and then we'll have questions. Okie do. Thank you, uh, Chair Bellingham. So, uh, in your, um, board, uh, packet information, you
do have the presentation, um, for the 2425 re, uh, budget revision. Um, again, this is a little bit different from what has happened uh, in past years. I've decided not to do a revision and then a final. We'll just do one revision and that is all that's required by uh,
Gazsby statement. So um the packet then uh was reviewed by the um finance committee and um I'll just kind of briefly go through the information that is within this um document that you have. So uh we do list uh this is called
budget book and so we do give a little bit of uh information regarding uh the district who we are and um you know just different pieces of information. On page two, you'll see our school board, our district administrators. Um, and then on page
three, uh, you're seeing our school administrators. On page four, um, we start to talk about some of the budget revision highlights. And, um, I'm happy to take questions, but I'll try and I'll try and complete a page and then if we can have questions at that time so that
we can answer them while they're being asked or however you would like me to do that. I guess I would like to go if it's okay. I'd like you to go through your presentation. We can ask questions at the end. That way we don't walk. We're good. Okay. Fantastic. All right. So, uh the page four talks about our general
fund and it talks about uh it highlights some of the revisions that we're doing. So, some of the highlights include um updating our titles one through four. Um and this is a a standard practice. Um, we did have updates um for different
revenues that we have from years carrying over. So, you're going to see an increase in our revenues for titles one through four of about $441,000. Federal Special Education also increased in revenues as it was uh not
included in the revi, excuse me, in the adopted budget. And so that amount has been included now that we have a more clear vision of what those federal uh re federal special education revenues will look like. State aid for read act and also
some grants that we've received. Um now that we have received those funds and understand what those funds are, there's an increase of $28,550. And then we have some miscellaneous items, if you will. They might be gifts or donations or what have
you that have occurred since the beginning of the fiscal year and that amounts to almost $170,000. On the flip side then in the expenditures we do have increases there as well. So we do have an increase to our benefits and this is due to some
contract settlements, some uh changes in health insurance, what whatever it might be and that is uh $1.17 million. Um, we talked about the revenues for title one through four. We also have expenditure updates, uh, title one
through four. And you'll see that the increase to the, um, expenditures is $375,000 roughly. So, it's less than what we're increasing the revenues. Um, our capital and LTFM, we kind of touched on that a little bit already. Um, we
just have more um, costs in the projects that we're doing, especially with um, some of our LTFM that is not related to the HVAC projects. So, it's just other LTFM expenditures that we have. And then
we've got uh just a you know a a total for other such as purchase services, salaries, supplies, etc. And that comes to about $70,000. I think this next line is important for all of us to remember. So, the unassigned fund balance has been
repprojected to be $8,285,375 or 13.14% of our um expenditures. Please remember that our minimum fund balance for the unassigned is 9.5%.
What was originally projected when this budget when the adopted budget was approved in June is a fund balance of $6,73,584 or 10.92% of the budgeted expenditures. So we are looking at a much higher fund
balance to end the fiscal year. on page five and I got to keep pace here. Sorry, excuse me. On page five, um this is our food service fund. Uh that's our fund two. And uh some items to note
is um I was blown away when I came to this district and learned that we provide meals and snacks to 14 sites. So our food service program is just knocking it out of the park. Very impressive. Um, I did add an additional
$18,723 in expenses for equipment and supplies. Um, and then we also updated our meals by about 2 and a.5%. The reason for the increase in expenses to food service is that our fund balance is too high. We have too much money in our
food service uh fund balance. The uh state has told us how much we are allowed to have. Um after COVID uh it was upped from three months of reserve to six months of reserve and we exceed
that six months of reserve. And so I've had to fill out paperwork already this year explaining how we plan to spend down that fund balance. And so that's why our expenditures are going to definitely exceed our revenues. it's planned spend
down. Um, just for additional information, there has been talk of lowering that fund balance amount back down to three months, but at this time it seems like they're going to hold us at six months for FY26. So, because many many schools are in the same situation,
they are also um um kind of being more a titch more lenient on what they will allow us to use the money on. For example, we can now buy cafeteria tables using food service dollars. Otherwise, that is not a normal expense that we could use. Even though it's in the
cafeteria, it's for for food service. We can't use food service dollars to purchase those. So, we have updated most of our buildings. We, you know, came asked uh the sites if they wanted, you know, updated lunch tables and most of most of the sites did or at least got,
you know, full. Might not, you know, swap out all of them, but at least uh got additional tables or upgraded tables for our uses. Uh and uh the the um remodel at
McKinley, we will see additional expenses there and I did report that to the Minnesota Department of Education that those are um expenses that we do plan to have. That's not included here because we will not have that work completed within FY25. that won't be until next school year. So, just if
you're if you're wondering what we're doing with that project, community education didn't change a whole lot. There were some modifications to grants both uh up and down for expenses and revenue. So, that changed about 44,000. Building construction, we did
increase the expenses for our HVAC construction progress, and that is an increase of about $575,000. But we also increased our revenue um because we're going to be earning we've already earned more interest than what was originally budgeted at the beginning of the fiscal year. So I'm guesstimating
uh what our interest might look like uh by the end of the fiscal year. Our debt service fund, this is the fund that's used to pay off our uh principles on our bonds. So principal and interest on any outstanding debt that we may have and our expenditures
increased by about 31,000. What's also included in here are any fees that we incur from um the banks or from um financial advisors whatever that might be. Internal service fund. This is our
uh self-insured in uh self-insured health insurance. Um we are aware that we have claims that are far exceeding our revenues. And so we do have a fund balance for this obviously and um but we are uh we are noticing that that fund
balance is depleting. Uh the way that we rectify that is that we did increase insurance premiums for next year. Uh they will be increasing by about 15%. Our irrevocable trust fund that's uh the district share of retiree
insurance payments and that did not change significantly. The next page talks about our enrollment. So this uh this discuss uh shows what our enrollment is doing to date. Um I have shown a 10 years
beginning in fiscal year uh 19. And so you're seeing that we we we know that we're in a steady decline. We have been we've talked about it. Um and so for fiscal year 25 we budgeted on 329 uh ADM at this point in time because of
the uh increase that we've had in enrollment from STEM um as well as our natural grade progression that we you know our cohort survival progression that we have. I'm guesstimating that we'll have about 357 ADM next year.
we will see a decline again according to what we're seeing for numbers uh for fiscal year 27 and 28. Page seven uh takes is is just a reminder of the information that was shared with you in
June of 2024 when talking about the adopted budget for fiscal year 25. So there's nothing different on these pages than what was presented in June of 2024. Uh so it's showing what our unassigned fund balance was at the beginning of the
fiscal year, how much we anticipated for revenues and expenditures, any transfers that may have happened from one um fund balance to another, and then what the projected uh year-end fund balance was. And again, that was 6.7 million or
10.92% of our expenditures. And you can see that at that time we knew that expenditures were going to exceed revenues. Each of the funds that are listed then after that are restricted funds. And you'll note that some of them
actually didn't have an appropriate fund balance code because at the time that this was created, the state had not created those codes for us. So um so some of that information might look a little different if you're trying to compare this page to the um revised
page. So I just wanted to point that out. So in total for fund one we had a beginning fund balance all funds so unassigned restricted non-spendable assigned whatever it might be of $8.97
million. Our revenues were uh projected to be 62299014. Our expenditures then were exceeding our revenues. And then you can see our end end of year projected balance and then the net increase or
decrease. And so what was approved in June of 2024 was to have expenditures exceed revenues $275,400 for fund one only. Page eight then provides still the
adopted budget for fiscal year 24 but all the other funds. So fund two is our food service fund. We were anticipating to have an increase in fund two uh community services fund 4, all the different um all the different uh fund
balances that we have in fund four such as community education, early childhood, school readiness, AB. Um so you will note that not all of those um fund balances were fund balances were approved at a positive
amount. We did anticipate that we would have expenditures exceeding revenues at that time. Our construction fund um we had anticipated that our fund balance would go down as it should. Construction fund will eventually go to zero as it
should. So we got all of our money in fiscal year 24. So we got like 11 million in fiscal year 24 and now for the next few years then we spend that down to zero. So our expenditures will always exceed our revenues in the construction fund. That is how it works.
That's that's by design. Our debt service fund, that's where again we pay off our bonds. So our principal and our interest to our bonds and whatever fees there might be for doing that work. Uh the internal uh service fund or our selfinsured in uh health insurance. Um
at the time of the uh proposed budget, it was pro uh it was projected that we would increase that fund. And we know as we're going through the year, that is not happening. We are not adding to our um to our uh internal service fund or our self-insured health uh
insurance. Our oped or revocable trust, again, that's the retiree uh portion. We had anticipated to have a negative 268,000 expenses exceeding revenues. Yet, our fund balance would still be at
$2 million. So, what was proposed in June of 2024 came out to be a negative three uh,971,17 of expenditures exceeding revenues. So, that was already um
planned. The next few pages then talks about our revised budget. So um what we are seeing now is our new beginning fund balance. So the audit happened. So the fiscal year 24 audit happened. We now know what our
unassigned fund balances and that is 8,949,626 which is 14.19% of our expenditures. Went too far. Is that synchronized? Yep. Oh, good. I can't see that far. Okay. And I drive.
Um, so, um, so that was 14.19% of our expenditures. Our revenues then in the unassigned are projected to be 48 million and our expenditures are uh projected to be 48 million with a slight
increase there. So, at the end of the year, what I'm projecting our fund balance for the unassigned will be is 8,995,283. That's for unassigned. I'm going to come back to that after I explain the rest of these. We do have um all of then the
restricted funds like we talked about before. So, we have our student activities and our staff development, everything that has a category. Most of these restricted are not allowed to go into deficit. You will see that we're showing that we're going to go into deficit for a few of these. That's not
allowed. So what happens then at the end of the fiscal year is anything in one of these restricted not allowed to go into deficit is then put into the unassigned. So we do entries so that none of these fund balances that can't be below zero,
we put that into the unassigned affecting that total amount. Then so what you're seeing for a subtotal of restricted is a negative $711,98 and that uh for for the most part those cannot be negative. So we'll
do entries at the audit time to move those into the unassigned. We also have our non-spendable and our assigned funds and here and then our total general fund. So what's happened to date then? We know
that we're starting with $10,887,000 in all of our fund balances in the general fund. So that includes our restricted, our unassigned, everything. Our revenues are
63,820,000. Our expenditures are 64,486,000. However, our projected fund balance and again fund balance is like our savings account that is at 10,221,000 or a new net decrease of
$666,251 and that's in the general fund alone. The next page then just like what we talked about before goes on to the other funds that we have. So, in food service, we've already talked about how we need to spend down the fund balance. What you're seeing here is an updated
revision. Then, uh an updated revision that's redundant, uh an update that talks about our um beginning balance, what we have for revenues, and the increase in expenditures. So now our expenditures are uh slated to uh be
larger than our revenues by about $145,000. In community services, you will see updates as well. Again, there wasn't a a large um increase or decrease or the net effect wasn't very large, but you're seeing then uh community education, early childhood, school
readiness, adult basic ed. So, while the expenses may be greater than what the revenues are, we still have positive fund balances in community ed totaling about 1.1 million when taking all of those into account. The construction is just
updated for the dollar values in both revenues and expenditures. We are trying to spend down that. Uh again, the end goal for a construction fund is to be zero when all of the projects are done. debt service. We are actually increasing
our revenues over our expenditures from what was originally projected. Our internal service fund, uh we know now that we have more claims than the revenue coming in. Um we're uh projected to end the year at about a $600,000
um fund balance. And again, we are taking precautions with that by increasing the premiums for our self-insured. And then our oped irrevocable trust. Um our expenses are going to increase uh to
be more than our revenues by $63,000. However, we still have $2.3 million in that particular fund balance. So when we look at the total of all funds, we started the year with $25
million in fund balance. We're going to be bringing in roughly 78 million. We're going to spend about 83.5 million and we're going to end our fund balances at $19.93
million. While that is a net effect of expenses over revenue of 5.3 million, the vast majority of that is in our construction fund because that is a $4 million decrease which is on purpose and
then also our uh food service fund which we are intentionally spending. Page 11 is just another way to look at our um fund information, uh excuse me, our expenditure and revenue data by
fund. So, um on the top we're talking about our revenues and we've laid them out by different types of sources and then going across the top we just have labeled each fund. So, in the general fund, our local property taxes
will be about $9.7 million. We don't have local property taxes for food service, but we do for community uh education, and that's going to be about $437,000, while our debt service is 1 n
almost 2 million. Other local and county revenues, um that would be uh any anything like a tuition from another school district, any type of miscellaneous revenue, um grants,
interest, those different kinds of things. So, you can see then for each fund as you go across how much we're anticipating to have in revenues in each one of those funds. So, almost $2 million in the general fund, 316,000 in food service, 2.7 million in community
service, 250,000 in the building. uh nothing in uh the debt service fund, 2.9 million in the internal service fund, and 145,000 in the irrevocable trust. Our revenues from state sources, so this
would be our aids that we get from the state and and potentially grants that we get from the state. Again, that's where the vast majority of our dollars come from. uh 48.5 million in general fund, 1685 in food service, 1.7 million in
community ed, and 521,000 in debt service. And then our revenues from federal sources. And this is quite a decrease than what you have seen in years past because we are now done with ESR dollars. So there's no more COVID funding. And you can see those amounts. I don't need to read them to you. So the
total revenues then are listed for you in in total for all of our funds as well as then broken out by each fund. The expenditures then are broken out by program area. So um in the general fund is where
you're going to see the majority of the the data. So our administration uh expenditures are 2.4 million. Our district support services 1.9 million. Our regular instruction as it should be is the highest. That's 25 million
approximately. Vocational education instruction two uh 750,000. Special education instruction 15757 uh million. Community education that will only be in the community service fund and that's about uh 5.8 million.
Our instructional support services, 5.4 million. Pupil support services, 6.8 million in general fund, 3 million in food service, 143 uh almost 144,000 in community services. And then our sites and buildings, that's our um capital and
our LTFM. And that's 6.2 million in the general fund and 4 almost 4.3 million in our construction or building fund construction. Then we have other fixed costs and and uh different pieces and uh that's going
to be very small in the general fund that's only 315,000 but it's large than in our debt service fund where we're paying off our um our bonds. Our internal service fund um is about 3.3 million and then our
irrevocable trust 28,000. So uh you're seeing then the total expenditures for each fund as well as the um all government funds. We are showing that our um expenditures are going to exceed our
revenues and all funds by 5.3 million. And then it does list out by fund how much our expenditures will exceed our revenues. Below that then we are listing our fund balances for each uh fund where we began
the year and where we anticipate to end the year. So we're going to start um the fiscal year 25 million in all funds and at the end of the year we plan to have 20 million in all of our funds in the fund
balances. Page 12 then talks about it. This is just a a visual for you to understand how our monies are received. So in the pie chart you're seeing that the vast majority of our dollars are received from the state. We get about about
48,500,000 or 76% of our revenue comes from the state. Uh 6% or 3.6 million comes from federal. the local property taxes, uh, 9.7 million or 15% and then
other local and county, and that's, uh, not quite $2 million or 3% of our total revenues. Page 13, that shows our expenditures broken out by program type. So, I'll start at
about 12:00 there. Our uh, first one is our pupil support services, and that's 6.8 8 million or 11%. Our sites and buildings, that would be our capital and LTFM, that's 6.2 million or 10%. Uh fiscal and other programs in the
general fund, this will always be quite low and that's only 315,000. It actually calculates out to 0% because it's such a small amount um based on the total. Our administration is 2.4%. Yeah, excuse me, 2.4 4 million or
4% which you may remember from the audit review is quite a bit less than the state average. Our district support services 1.9 million or 3%. Our regular instruction as we want it to be is the the lion share and that's almost 25
million or 39%. Our vocational education instruction is 750,000 or 1% of the total expenditures. Special education is 15 7 million our instructional support
services 5.4 million or 8%. The uh last page just gives a shout out to the finance team. They are a great group of people that work their tails off and I'm just tickled to be part of part of the team with them and um I'm really thankful for Brett and
Kim, Jill, Delila and Brenda. So, I will entertain any questions anyone has. Thank you, Miss Racer, for excellent report. May have some water. Catch your breath for after all that. It's probably not a bad way to So, for questions, I'll start off with
Director Wolf. Uh, thank you for that fun stuff. Oh, you know it. School finance is complex. I remember in my first year on the board, people telling me school comp uh finance is complex. It is complex. And um thank you for going
through this. We had a speaker here tonight um referencing some numbers and I just want to caution and we have to peel back the onion and I think you did that very well. So thank you. Can we quickly NASCO can you go to page four real quick please? Oh just a couple or you're doing it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Um page four right no right there under the other there's a there's a comment there that says unassigned fund balance we projected to be at 8.2. 2, which is roughly, you know, 1.5 million or so more than the 6.7. Correct. Can you just
walk us through, and I apologize, I had to step out real quick, but maybe you mentioned it, but if if we're deficit spending 5 million and change, how do we have our unassigned fund balance go up by 1.5 million? Um, so the main reason
is because of uh last year. So our audit came in better than what we had anticipated. We came in uh about 2 million uh more than what we had the previous year and so the projections that were done in June obviously our
audit was not yet done. So we're starting off at a higher value than what we had originally anticipated. Perfect. Thank you. Then if you go to page 11, just to reiterate, uh over on the left there, the second column from the left, the first one with numbers shows
that we're going to deficit spend 5.29 million. Right. As you move over, as you mentioned, by design, this isn't something that we're unaware of. This is by design, we are spending $4 million out of our construction funding. Yeah.
Our goal is we started with 11 million. Our goal is to get to zero. Correct. I just want the public to know that we had a speaker tonight tell us we're deficit spending what shows 5 million and she she estimated closer to 7 million. Correct. This is by design. This is not
something that came out of left field. Correct. Or anything like that. We have a handle on our finances. Correct. The newspaper went home tonight. This is taped. I hope she picks this up later this evening. This is important for our community to see that we know what we're doing with our finances. Correct. Um the
one area is the uh internal fund which is our selffunded insurance. 372,000 808 is what we're projecting. Health care costs across the country are higher than anybody anticipated this year. Absolutely. Does that continue? We don't know. We have a
reserve for that and I just want that to be on record that that is stated. Um then also can you go to page nine real quick please? at the very o almost the very top where uh the first column once again where it shows numbers second column
from the left if we will but 14.919% this is my 11th year on the board as I've stated a couple times this evening I do not remember at any time in my 11 years on the school board our fund balance ever being that high that is the highest we've ever had
due to budget cuts due to reallocation of resources uh I believe I could be wrong I'm getting older, but historically we've been above 9.5% but not a lot. I mean, maybe between 9.5 and
11.5%. Mr. Bellingham, you're nodding your head. You're in your seventh year on the board, I believe. So, anyway, I just want to point out from a fiscally responsible savings account standpoint, this is the highest that I can remember in 11 years. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman. To that point, go Director Budro. What is the recommended percentage for districts to have? I thought it was about 15%. That's going to vary by um by whom you ask. So um so our board has said
9.5%. At my time when I worked at Allers um we did many rating calls and that's to indicate what your grade is as far as what type of a loan you could get, how how safe you are, and those kinds of things.
Moody's um standards and pores both are fine with whatever your board has determined to be the minimum fund balance. When it goes below that, that's
when they're concerned. So, some districts might have an 8%, some districts might have a 20%. It is all based on what the board is comfortable with, what the auditors recommend, and um what what the philosophy of the
district is as far as what makes the most sense for a minimum fund balance. That's a very vague way to answer your question, but there isn't there isn't an a magic number. Mr. I just remember reading that when I
first came on the board. There was a recommended I believe it was 9 to 15 and I don't know who recommended it but how long will the 9.5% that this board
apparently how long does that fund us if we are 35 days further discussion director Moore yes I just want to ask, okay, um, counting off off of Miss Maduro
there, uh, 8% would be kind of a like no no no, right? We're at 9%. But the higher we go, the the more money we have and we're only at what? And it it it doesn't necessarily I mean, I understand what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. It doesn't necessarily
mean that it's better because what is our philosophy? Is our philosophy to be a bank? is our philosophy to have enough money to spend to ensure that our students have the tools they need, our our staff, etc. So, our our minimum fund
balance is to ensure that we're at a level where if the state fell apart, you know, whatever, and we lost our funding, how long can we last? Can we still make payroll? Can we still, you know, can we take care of our folks that we need to?
Um, if we had a roof issue, can we afford that without, you know, having to sure borrow or whatever it might be? So, what have we been getting? What is it? 9.5 for the last few years. 9.5 is our
board policy. Today, we're at 14.19%. Yeah. Okay. So, we're at 9. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. 9.5 is our minimum. Okay. And and you said that I think it's on page five the serving meals. You had said 14 sites and I'm trying to think
what sites worth what sites are they? Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay. High school. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Middle school. Yep. Jefferson. Mhm. Lincoln. Yep. McKinley. Mhm. Roosevelt. Yep. ALC. Okay. STEM charter. STEM.
Okay. Discovery. Okay. Okay. Surroad. Uh the Riverbend Nature Center. We provide those in the summer. Oh, Nurse Strand. Okay. Uh um Canon Valley Special
Education Co-op. And Little Scholars. Okay. Thank you. You bet. And just as a followup to that, those are some of those are vended meals. So they absolutely they purchase I'm sorry. They're they're called vended meals. So they purchase their own for their own
program. Oh, but our food service is still making them. Yeah, we're making them. Um, also on page 11, and I'm not a CPA. I'm a sociologist. Okay. So, when the public looks at this
on page 11, it we're all looks like in the red except for the debt service fund. Uh, can you explain that a little bit again? Yeah, it it is just simply that our expenditures are exceeding our revenues at this point in time. Is that
a that's not a good thing? That is something that we have to keep our eye on. We have to monitor and we have to then react sooner rather than later. So, I guess I'm thinking we need to live within our means. Correct. And we
haven't been. Uh we h we have built up funds so that we can purposely spend down if we need to such as the construction fund is obviously one of them. Food service is another one of them. Okay. Um the debt as you stated is
already above um but there will be years when it's below because the amount of taxes coming in is not going to cover our principal and um um interest that we have to pay. So that could be a scenario that we have to face. Uh the one to be
most concerned with is the general fund and that's fund one. Yes. Yes. Okay. And so I'm guess I'm concerned about if we have to make budget cuts, we're not living within our means and and I I guess I'm having a problem with that. Another thing too, uh I wanted to ask
something on page was it page 12? But I could you Oh. the federal sources is that that include grants because I know at the last one we had there was like $6 million worth of grants. Yeah, it it
does federal government. Why is it now only 3.6? Because that's only the general fund. So it doesn't include our federal it doesn't include like our food service or it doesn't include our community service. It's just the general fund. Yep. Yep. Uh but other than that
with all the funds it's probably six correct. Okay. 6.6. six, I think. Yeah. And so, um, I guess I have to ask, okay, when we get lots of grants and I'm not saying grants are good or bad, but when when the money runs out and those in the
administration or whatever wish to keep the program, then the cost is then it's and this is what uh I think Scott Geris told me last April, it's convoluted into the present budget. So, we don't as a board I was told, well, you voted for
that. Well, I didn't that I voted for that particular grant. You know, maybe it was done beforehand. So, I I guess I'd like to see I guess as uh and as a board member, I don't know where those programs where they're located in the
budget. Are they even how much are they? Are they effective? Um, and so I'd like to see details of some of these programs like with the grants and things like that because I really don't know what I'm voting for sometimes and unless I know what I'm voting for, I really don't
want to put my stamp of approval on it. So, and with budget cuts too, uh, we're not living within our means. So, I'm having a problem with that. So, and and most generally, thank you for listening. Oh, for sure. And most generally um with a grant you're going to see expenditures
equal revenues. Okay. But then when the grant runs out then it's convoluted then the program or whatever it is. So we keep adding we have like was it last April $7 million worth of grants. Well we keep adding and adding that to me in my simple mind it's
not sustainable. and if we keep doing that. Um, but my thing too is that I don't know what I'm always voting for and I have a problem with that. So, thank you for answering question. Absolutely. Mr. Bill, go ahead, Director Wolf.
So, Director Moore, I I have to respectfully challenge you. Okay. When you say we're not living within our means, I really really struggle with that. And I don't know if you understand what is shown to you. Our fund balance is at
14.19%. It went up $1.5 million. We have three board members that sit on this board that also sit on our finance committee. I believe that they I don't want to put words in their mouth. We are making reductions where needed to get to balanced budget. Do some things come up
every year that we add? Absolutely. That's why we have a healthy fund balance. To say that we're not living with our within our means is absolutely false. You show me where we're not living within our means. If we have to make budget cuts, we have a budget. And
if we have to make budget cuts, I mean, think of the family. You have a budget. You're correct. And we make budget cuts because we've had declining enrollment and also because we've had federal fund dollars that are no longer coming. We make those cuts and we make them responsibly.
I'm not sure where you're saying that we're being irresponsible and not fiscally responsible. Being irresponsible, but you know, but we need to live within our means. And I another thing, as long as we're talking about this, we have a lot of what is when we start when we start we should be
starting cutting cutting some of these administrative positions. Well, let let's focus the the motion. Excuse me. The motion is for approval of the final revised budget, not about reducing administrators. We'll stick to comments
and discuss. It'll stick to discussion regarding the budget that Miss Racer presented. That's fine. That's it. And director Moore, I I challenge you in a respectful way, but our finance committee looks at this stuff. We go through it. We bring back
recommendations to this board to have as balanced budget as we possibly can. 14.19% unassigned fund balance is much much better than our policy and it's continued to increase each year. I don't know how that's not living
within our means. I can't um u Mr. Bellingham will not let me speak. So I disagree with you if it relates director Moore if it relates to the final revised budget. Yes. Thank you. So bottom line, let's let's just address the because it was brought
up the grant issue. Once again, as Mr. Benty has informed us many times, when we have a program that is financed by a grant, when when that money runs out from that grant and that program administration re-evaluates it and
brings it to the board, if they wish to continue it brings it to the board for approval of monies coming out of the general funders, whatever. So once that grant money is done, that program is evaluated and then that information is relayed to the board
saying we'd like to continue this program. Here's how we're going to pay for it. Either general fund out of this. Mr. Benty, is that correct? That is correct, Mr. Chair. So there are no, Mr. Chair, when I've never seen uh with when we get a budget, we don't talk about the
grants that have been, you know, uh from what Mr. Gertis had said, it's convoluted into the budget where we do not see it. and that I have a problem with that. Well, again, once again, when the money runs out from a grant for a program is not just placed into the
general. So, I would say the only grant monies that have run out during the majority of the board members times except for maybe Mr. Wolf and Mr. Bellingham would be the COVID grant dollars. Um, other than that, we haven't
had other any other grants that I can think of that were major grants that impacted the general fund that would have ran out. So, is there any final discussion on the motion for approval of the fiscal year 2425 final revised
budget? Hearing none. All in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Opposed? No. Motion passes 51. Agenda item number 11. I've been asked uh by director Steves as for a point of personal privilege. So I will
uh give you that right now, Miss Steves. Um thank you, Chair Bellingham. So I would like to personally thank all of the retirees for your years of dedication and service. Um your hard work has made a lasting impact on our
community and I we are truly grateful. Um, I'd like to extend a special thank you to my father for his 24 years of custod custodial service. Um, through his example, he taught so many kids and
other adults the value of hard work, determination, and taking pride in what you do. Um, thank you to my father, Cleat, um, and all the other retirees for your dedication. Thank you, Miss Steves. Agenda item number 11, dates to
remember. Uh May 21st, 2025, 3:30 p.m. Community Education Advisory Council. June 1st, it's not on this list, but June 1st, graduation, Bruce Smithfield and Ted Nelson track. I believe that's at 2 o'clock, correct? So, it will either be the decision will be made on
the Friday before whether it is at Bruce Smithfield, right? Or if it is at Fairbell High School, Noble and Gym. Correct. But at 2 o'clock PM. Yes, sir. Either way. Thank you. Uh June 2nd, uh 2025 is a special meeting has now been called at 4:30 p.m. The agenda item will
be the language and cultural classes. At 5:30 p.m. is the work session. June 3rd at 3:45 is policy committee. June 12th is the facilities committee meeting at 7:45 a.m. And June 23rd, uh 5:30 p.m.
our business meeting. With that, uh, entertain a motion for adjournment. Thank you, Mr. W. Doc, Director Wolf, is there a second? Second. I'll give that to Director Kudson. Discussion. Discussion. Discussion. Thank you for all for
the patience and endurance of this long night. All in favor of the motion, signify