e soon as you're ready for us we can get started is that that's Fe not just not I okay yeah it's feedback thank
you all right so we can this is just a nice starter slide we can start on the next one all right so uh over the last few years we've been taking into account um surveys from from our staff surveys from our students and surveys from our
community to see what we needed to do to make a really strong culture at Fable middle school and from that we kind of have started building from the ground up and I'd like to compare what we've done to building a
house click um and so when you're building a house and this is coming from someone who has zero construction experience but I know you need a very strong foundation and we have in ours uh we
have click next our foundation is restorative practices um and what restorative practices is and we've really taken the time um probably to the annoyance of some but I I'm one of those people that
move slow to go fast um we're really taking the time to figure out what restorative practices are because I think it's very easy to um uh misinterpret and then totally blow it up if you're not doing it correctly so we've we've gone very slow with our
staff starting simply just by defining it what is it what does it mean um and restorative practices in general um both builds community and so we're doing that by shifting from teachers caring about students to building a caring
environment and I said to my staff at the beginning of the year there is not a single person in here who doesn't care about students but care only goes one way I can care about you but what we're doing is we're intentionally creating a caring community and when that happens I care about you you care about me and we
care about each other and that's what the the very proactive side of restorative practices are um the other side of restorative practices that we hear more often about is its role in repairing harm when it does occur um and Mr Moler is really great about that and
he's going to talk about it later and that's through restorative chats learning from mistakes making amends and repairing those relationship so that students when they do make a mistake can come back into the classroom um and and once again be part of the classroom and
so that's at the very Foundation of what we started doing and from that we built our PBIS framework click next slide click I'm like the 1980s
click so just to share a moment uh um with you what PBIS or positive behavioral intervention and supports uh this is we believe it's making a very meaningful impact on the culture at PBIS is a it's a proactive it's a
proactive schoolwide framework that promotes positive behavior enhances student engagement uh and it emphasizes support a supportive learning environment so we believe that by setting a very clear um clear
expectations for our students and reinforcing reinforcing those positive behaviors that were Crea in a school culture where our students feel valued where they feel supported and where they're motivated to succeed so at at faille Middle School
like our elementaries we use the sore model so every morning uh uh part of our our announcements our students uh or staff will often read our pledge which is we are safe we are on task we are accountable and we are respectful so
that we can support the learning of others encourage one another and give our best effort that's that's a little bit of what our sore uh model is and so these are the core expectations that we have of our students um and this is
the approach that we take every day so we have staff members that are activ re enforcing these behaviors uh recognizing students uh for making Positive Choices throughout uh throughout their day and and there's incentives and there's
acknowledgement and there's structured interventions as as Dr Fox was talking about we believe that by implementing PBIS Sor that we have we have created a culture at FAL Middle School where our
students are are to really Thrive and we have a CP stud that we'll talk much more about that click he's next not click yet Nott add Dr fo Mr are saying a few
things here one again that foundational piece of building positive relationship that's our really big focus at middle school is want to make sure that everybody feels included and part of our system and our culture within the building um some practive things that we do that haven't been mentioned is we really focus on character building lessons so throughout the school year
receive character building lessons um teaching our kids what what is respect what is safety what is accountability um really hitting these topics home that they have an understanding of what they are and how they can demonstrate them within our building um we utilize consequences that focus on student
growth uh we really look at things like restorative conversations restoring repairing relationships within the building uh we utilize things like accountability projects that again have students analyzing and looking at their behavior and how they can grow from it and learn from it created something called our Falcon forward program um
which we've had a lot of success with to talk about some of those data pieces that we've seen a lot of success at middle school is 93% of our students who were placed in our Falcons forward program did not have to repeat it so they've only had to go through it once and then they they show that they learn from those lessons and through the
incorporation of our PBIS and restorative practices we've reduced our behaviors by 40% this year so we've been seeing a lot of growth with our PB and restor practice programs so then ultimately a house isn't complete without the bricks and mortar
and that is our staff and our students and we brought our students here to talk about their experience this is Bella salt and salon gabani and they are part of our PB sore team they're exemplary students at farell middle school and we are just very excited to have them share their
experience my experience at the school has been really good last year it was a bit rough but with PB PBIS more involved I've seen major differences
from last year compared to this year like as a student I'm seeing classmates that aren't as disrupted disruptive and if they are they have consequence for it and they
aren't as disruptive as the last time and it's just been a whole it's just been a different experience when I compare classroom to
classroom thinking of what it was like and my education is a lot better because of it um personally uh I believe that the school has changed a lot for the better better ever since last year because last
year to I couldn't learn a lot like I learned a lot less this year because there were a lot of destructions people friends try like put basically put gasoline on that
already Raging Fire and make more destruction encourage the people something to do it but this year First time seen people like actually their friends are are helping them telling
them not dis encouraging them to do things better I believe all right so if you have any questions for us or for our FMS experts we are ready to take them board member Dr roell
just have an observation you three adults realize that your two students did their presentation without any notes and here you are you're all reading thanks thank you very much I did have a chance to uh visit the middle
school last week and you can see the culture just bubbling in that school of positive behavior the board Dr Moore uh yes when did you start the program this program was it this year last year um Mr arm I asked him to kind of be
the one to head it up and we've the the idea kind of bubbled my first year there and it was it was kind of a dream um and there had been been some attempts to start PBS a few years before um and we had to really start by ensuring people
that we would make the same mistakes that were made before and build off of the good things that happened before so we had to do a lot of groundwork there and um getting folks on board first so it took probably about a year and then last year we started Mr arm Brewster
started meeting with folks um started a PBIS team um and then this year was the first year that we've been officially part of PBIS cohort okay and you said what was a 40% reduction in behaviors MH
yeah yeah um I do want to note that since I've been at fairbell Middle School we've always had really great kids but now they have the structure expectations and consistency to do what they need to do to show us that they're really great
kids I I would ask had a little I'm not supposed I have notes because they say otherwise I go off track real fast but that's okay um I I would just share that we had a sore assembly last um last month and we talked um we spoke to our
kids that of the six 636 kids that we have that are in and out of our our building throughout the day that 464 have absolutely zero referrals and another 131 students have just one so we have
93.55% of our students that have never been to the student services so again the vast majority of our students are doing a fantastic job every single day there's one thing I would just like for you to clarify because you you kind
of glossed over it and I think it was uh Nate when you were talking about the Falcons forward program and the recidivism rate that you see come through that program can you just speak a little bit about that absolutely so
our Falcon program is a it's a daily program it's within a day U when we see a student struggling we assign them our Falcon Ford program and within that day they have uh allocated time to make sure they're staying up on their their missing work for the day get caught up but then we add in that again that proactive piece of um you know building
that character building lessons um things like the accountability projects conversations with admin um Ripple effects which is this great technology that we use that um teach students again about things like respect and and accountability and these really important and topics um and through that
process again just to repeat that number 93% of our students that have gone through that program this year have not had to repeat it they've gone through it one time and they've shown growth and learned from those behaviors and and Falcon's board is in Lee of suspensions we want to keep the students
in our building and one of the the the phrases that they often use in PBIS is if a student doesn't know how to read you know we we don't punish them for that we teach them how to read they don't we teach them so if it's a behavior then we're teaching
them um that that citizenship Miss buo thank you Mr chair is is the concept of the PBIS to avoid suspensions entirely or a tool that
you're able to use and do you use it PBIS is a framework that kind of um guides our Behavior system the idea is to teach the behaviors ahead of time um not to expect that students just know
how to behave and we're very transparent and then we use universal language throughout the school so that Solomon doesn't have to go to his math class with one set of rules and then go to a science class with a whole other set of rules that consist so he know there's predictability there for him and then
for us as a a teaching staff as well so that's the framework um that that we're building our Behavior system on but um for when students step outside of our expectations um you know we do have a whole toolbox we like to start you know
progressively like first we like to retach the behavior have those restorative chats but um you know sometimes it has to continue to progress I want to thank you for the work you've done it's it's commendable and it's it's really drives it home when you bring a couple of students here and
so thank you thank you to both the students for presenting and I was also impressed no notes and that's can be intimidating to come before the boards you did a good job and thank you for your leadership to
Jesse Nate and Stacy on this program I want to hear how it's what will be in the future I I would encourage you to if you really want to see these These Fine students in action come to our PBS meeting they lead it it is their meeting
um it's phenomenal it's really it's it's very impressive so I'm proud of both and the other students that we have on our tell us when it is I I would like to thank you for coming in presenting and students thank you you can tell you're engaged students
and you you have a passion for learning I can sense that already that's why you're there the school to to learn and your behaviors and and your leadership reflect that also I'm assuming U administrators that now that we PBIS is
grass rooted in our elementaries that this will continue to grow as we prog roll over so might make your job a little easier or because those expectations are started in in our elementary schools and then progressing up so I think that that's a really good
thing and exactly uh selling it right now and how you did it sell the staff sell the students this is how we act much like our Playbook Etc is where we need to go so yeah so thank you for that very very much so we appreciate
it thank you [Applause] you our second presentation is school supplies for all Mr Zach puit and Miss Julie
Hall thank you thanks for having us tonight um we our colleague Katie Rodell the elementary curriculum coordinator also should be up here but she's out of town so we'll fill in for her and just Express immense gratitude for the work that she has played in helping to launch
this pilot program askco if you want to do next slide um for a number of years there's been a number of Community Partners that have worked together to make sure that um kids had school supplies at the start of school um one of the things that as folks here know the demographics of our district have
changed quite a bit and today over 80% of our elementary school students qualify for federal free introduced lunch and so as that number is increased um the stress that that's that the the demand for school supplies is placed on community groups um has really um stretched them pretty significantly to
the point where not all the students were able to consistently get the school supplies um that they needed to to start the school year and this then places extra stress on classroom teachers to have the tools that they need to be successful um so um this year we partnered with um the Community Action
Center the fwell area Chamber of Commerce and Supply our children to launch the school supplies for all effort um it was a pilot to eliminate the school supply lists for all children from prek up through 8th grade um to really make sure that everyone was able to start on a Level Playing Field at the
start of the school year um we have been incredibly grateful to the of community businesses service clubs Faith communities and um community members who collectively donated over $65,000 to help support the launch of this pilot um
in addition families um who children don't qualify for free or reduced lunch were asked to um also contribute $35 as a fee um for for their children and collectively that helped us to be able to launch um this effort and so just wanted to share a little bit of
information some of the um data that we collected from the pilot um and answer any questions but one of the pieces that we wanted to make sure sort of this winter was to take a look at um make sure we were hearing back from both our parents and our teachers about sort of
how the pilot went um so we uh had surveys for for both of those populations and had really nice response rates for both so um almost 118 different parents responded um as you can see it was a really nice um cross-section of demographics um of our
parent population and a huge thank you to our faces who helped with um completing the surveys in Spanish and Som with with um our elementary and middle school parents Nas If you want to go to the next slide um so these are just a couple of the results from parents um school supplies are normally
expensive for families 94% um agreed with that you can just keep going NCO um I appreciated not having to purchase school supplies this year for my child again over 90% um said that we also pulled out on the right um what the
demographics look like specifically for our Spanish and Somali speaking families who are part of that larger um piece but just wanted to pull that out as well um I believe school supplies for all makes it easier for fairwell students and families um 97% of parents agreed with
that um and then I believe that um should school supplies for all continue next year um again 4% said no but um 96% um said yes or that was kind of the what the snapshot of what we received from parents um these are we won't dive into
all these but these are some of the themes that emerg from the comments that parents shared about the pilot and sort of their experience with it um the one thing I would share because I think it's um is just a quote that one of the parents provided um in the comment section and she said um as a mother of
three this was a huge stress off my mind school supplies were just about a whole other car payment in the middle of the month I was able to actually focus on getting my kids ready for school and not just Supply wise so um again um feel really good about both the response rate from the parents and and the themes that
emerg from that so next we're going to talk about teacher feedback um we had 75 teachers respond to our survey and as you can see good representation from all of our buildings that were participating in this project as well so our first question is I believe school supplies for all makes it more
Equitable for students or children attending fairow public schools and we had a 9% that agreed or strongly agreed so pretty fantastic results there this question asks about the quantity of supp supplies that were um given to classroom teachers in this project 54%
that it was better than past supplies when kids brought them in 23% said they were worse and about 23% said they were about the same so again we had more say that it was better than they had come in within the past so the next question is about the
quality of supplies um 24% that said they were better 62% said about the same and then 14% said they were worse so on the better side we had a little bit higher um but most of it was approximately the same as what they came in when asked should we continue this um
overwhelmingly almost 70% said yes um so some themes that we pulled out from our teachers um the staff reported spending less of their own dollars to help supp school supplies that other families were not able to support um so that was alleviated for some of our
staff um all kids have the same supplies so there's no arguing over who has what supplies when you're talking about elementary building specifically Community supplies and then having materials provided allowed students to focus on learning and not so much the suppli pie at
all um so suggestions for moving forward um not on here but there has been a committee developed um to move forward with this project to um I guess taking some of these suggestions and make it better because in the pilot year you're going to learn a lot so some of these
things are things that this team is talking about so one of the things that came up is replenishing supplies during the school year when we bought we bought kind of for the beginning of the year but there has been a need for example in kindergarten needing an extra set of crayons halfway through a year so some of those things that we live and we learn to do better in the future um
another thing is deliveries um some of the deliveries came a little bit late we had some of our vendors who actually never delivered our product so some of us were out gallivanting around um trying to figure out where to get supplies I kind of hit up the north side of the city some of the people hit up down here just so we could make sure that our students had the supplies that
they needed um specific lists for each grade level this year there are more clumped in grade bands but we are working with teachers to get more specific lists that are um pertinent to the grade level of students and then stocking supplies having them um in a location maybe in the building or in the
general warehouse for students that transfer inur making sure that our kids have supplies because they don't always come with supplies from a former um District as well and if they do they may not match the supply list that have so them of the feedback that we are working through to make this better for future
years and again a huge thank you to all of our sponsors out there who made this project possible to support our students questions board members a huge thank you to Zach Julie and all the others who were involved in this and reaching out to our community
you can see our we ask and our community provides it really does so it uh I know from a ex-teacher standpoint how much money you spent on pencils pens paper not to say hats mittens you know sometimes as well either but just that
burden and everybody's relieved that they have their support supp I think is a great step so coming into the school so yes Dr to Roso Logistics how do the supplies who purchased them and how do they get to the schools and then how do they get into
the classrooms so some of them went to specifically from vendors that were delivered um some of them a good amount of them we ended up going to stores to actually purchase um we found and it that was because some of the vendors were like oh we're delayed or they just weren't showing up of stock and we found
out about that in August so kind of late in the game so we ended up going to several stores Walmarts um targets all around the state to get the supplies needed and what we found is that um the sale prices through some of those big vendors was actually a lot better to do it in stores so we have talked about in
the future doing purchases that way um not necessarily going to the stores physically but ordering through the stores because those sale prices they said they would honor for us in those Mass shipment things one of the things we learned is we had a lot of the things shipped right to the warehouse and they came in like all the scissors together
well so then we would have to go through and sort them and by we it was K Katie Zach um and I and I would say Katie I think did the most of that sorting them getting them on pallets delivered to schools then we' use things like gyms to sort them out teachers to pick them up what we we'd like to do for the future is have them on a pallet per grade level
delivered right to the site so some of those tws as we do better when you say school supplies for all you're talking only the public school students correct all of our fa public school students I think one of the hopes too is that um some of the supplies can be
reused every year and as folks who are parents know you often end up with a lot of scissors coming home by the time your kids are at the end of elementary school but some of these can be reused every year so that's also kind of one of the hopes is that there's some sustainability piece as well from
this Mr CH Miss Buro I feel I need to ask how much time has this taken your whoever you and Katie or whoever is doing the the purchasing the traveling
the organizing and um is this the plan to have you continue to do that yourselves or is it something we could look at maybe maybe we could have
a well I'm I'm not sure but maybe a pair up or some other paas be more engaged I think we learned a lot this year that's a great question um I think we learned a lot on how to streamline it within the district um I think kind of moving forward it will be it'll fall on the
community ed part to be able to help with um sort of the the coordination piece of that to be able to help sort of focus in in that area um moving forward and I think um I will also say we've had tremendous community volunteers too who
have really stepped forward and many who are excited to help step forward in the future um through the chamber through the Community Action Center through many of the organizations that financially contributed also had human capacity um that they'd like to step forward kind of moving forwards the supplier children
group has been a tremendous community resource for a long time um now that we kind of have the first year I think under our belts I think it we have a better sense of how to to do that moving forward that sounds good it sounds like we have a lot of Partners and maybe people who are very interested in
helping very good thank you Dr R show one more question if I may Dr chair do you have any idea of how much um it costs to facilitate this supplies for all how many how much in
donations did you receive um over $65,000 from Community Partners um in donations and I will say that is one of the things one of the impus for doing this work was a recognition of um looking at how much families were being
to contribute to supplies um and it was exponentially more than that so part of that is also there is some by thinking together as a as a collective we are able to bring some of those costs down for families which was one of the stress certainly um things are expensive these
days and so if it can help to relieve some of the financial burden on families that's one of the thank you and just for reference I don't know that if it helps for sure not but I have two Elementary age children myself in another District that does not program with two Elementary age students I paid
$300 in was it excuse me per student or for both $150 thank you anything else board members excellent thank you for presenting and keeping us updated thank you for your work agenda item number four uh 4A is
student board representative Miss Jullian huberty hi um Issa also wanted me to share that he is absent tonight because his mom is sick and so he is at home with her so that is why he's not here um
so if you remember back like a few months ago I shared our photo voice project I'm going to explain it again to anyone who doesn't know what that is and then share an update on that so our photo voice project that District youth Council was doing was we had a survey
that asked different students what brings you um it asked three different questions um one of them was like what brings you Joy in the community um what brings you hope in the community um and then it was like somewhere that you enjoy being and so students then submitted pictures of things in the community that you know brought them Joy
brought them hope because I think a lot of the times the community thinks that students don't really love it here there's a negative connotation when that's not true at all it students love it here it's a it's a great place to be and so we wanted to share through photos through a student lens what brings
students hope um and so students um from the high school submitted different photos um and those are being compiled together onto a like retractable like board thing um that will be hung up or placed around
different parts of the community um at different times so that people in the community can see kind of what's brings students help um we will first like share it with the board but it's a really cool project of just focusing on you know positivity and hopefulness on
what students see and what they like um so that is currently being like produced right now and it's still like at the manufacturer and then as soon as that's completed we'll share it here and then we'll start putting it around different places in the community like the library different restaurants um different
places just so everyone can see these boards and what students found brought them hope and what they enjoyed um on a last two weeks ago we had eighth graders come to the high school um for and talk about registration um and with that we
had Issa lead a discussion about like youth voice um and a really um awesome thing was we had um like over 20 kids sign up saying that they would be interested in joining District youth Council next year which is super awesome um that'd be like a 100% increase from
what we're at right now um and getting nine um ninth grade involved to is really awesome um um next Tuesday is Youth Day at the capital um in Issa and then a few other kids will be joining him um at
youth day at the capital which is a super fun event um and then we have our spring data Summit on May 7th um and I've talked about that before um but for those of you who don't know our spring data Summit um is a meeting twice a year with Fabo weem Northfield and TCU where
we get together um and we go over different types of data so in the past conversations have been about um social media and bullying um it's there's been a multiple different categories um we've talked about socioeconomic statuses um and like
free and reduced lunch and benefits like that at schools and so it's really great to get along um with other schools who have very different makeup compared to FAO they are a lot different and how they are made up compared to F so it's really interesting to talk with them and see
like things that they do at their school um and that will be May 7th yeah that's all I have for a report does anyone have any questions thank you yeah excellent Jillian thank you so much uh 4B school board members items of
information anyone Dr Moore uh yes um I'm actually missed the very first meeting of the facilities committee and uh had laryngitis and not feeling well so but
um Mr um Kane Smith gave me a really good detailed summary and I just want to just briefly go over that um the HVAC upgrades at Jefferson and McKinley will begin immediately I think from right
after school uh ends this spring or this summer there's going and they discuss more HVAC upgrades uh one of the things he said that um we will have a HVAC system that functions they're pushing for this
correctly and is providing the best indoor air quality for our students and I think that's very important the air quality is uh you know when I first came on this board I was thinking well we got the academics and achievement but I think one of the things we have to do is for the safety of our students too um
and then uh just briefly I think one of the things they're looking at is uh the fixing the greenhouse roof at the middle school and ref finishing the pool deck and pool locker room uh floors at the high schools so we may have to dip into
the uh ltfm funds a little bit but I think so far so good so so if you need any more information I've got a whole sheet on here so and thanks to Kane for giving me such a detailed um summary good anything else from any
other board members I just like to say on from my end uh winter is a great time here for our staff and kids I do believe on February 10th a week ago yesterday I attended the uh 6 through 12 orchestra concert at the high
school and was amazed what it's so nice to bring the sixth and seventh graders in and actually played a couple pieces with the entire High School orchestra it was absolutely phenomenal so thank you to both Orchestra teachers at at the middle school and the high school was
great and then I've attended also attended many uh Middle School and High School extracurricular activities be it basketball wrestling um whatever swimming whatever so it's nice to see our kids out and about and uh doing their best for
fairbow high school so thank you there uh seen more none other of Mr benty thank you Mr chair um so start off for for NHL Minnesota player Nate praiser and former pwhl player and
Olympian Natalie darwitz visited Roosevelt Elementary a couple weeks ago to teach our students about the importance of exercise and healthy eating uh the wild gave our students some hockey gear that our students can use in their fied classes and put on a nice little presentation for them uh
they did some goal shooting and Nordy was there as well um unfortunately Nordy went down after taking a slap shot from Natalie um so I had to step in and there may be video about this I don't know if there is or not but I did successfully
stop a slap shot very very strong Slap Shot from probably the greatest NHL player to ever put on skates so if you want to see it I'm sure we could dig it up somewhere did you use a stick yeah yeah yeah big stick yeah
yeah to celebrate I uh I love to read month our early childhood classes have been having guests come in and read to them I got to visit Miss Erica's and Miss Jeanie's classes earlier this month and I know that Mrs budro got to read as well as Mr puit um and I will be going
to Lin Inn on Thursday of this week to uh do some more mystery reader uh for them there our kindergarten classes had a blast celebrating 100 days of school each one of our elementary schools celebrated in their own unique way and they all did just a wonderful job
celebrating 100 days into their learning uh Miss Haley Fogelson and Mr Scott ryer took 25 sixth seventh and eighth graders to mano to compete in the math Mania competition last week uh we're proud that the students who participate in this competition one team
even took fourth place um and it's just one of the steps that we're taking uh towards our goal of of improving middle level math so uh now we take a little commercial break so last time I asked about readers uh uh volunteers for our reading
Partners we're now looking for only nine more volunteers to join our reading partners team and commit and commit to one hour per week of tutoring an elementary student uh ties directly to our district goal around read well by third grade uh visit reading
partners.org volunteer to sign up today only nine spots left um our fairow high school students and staff hosted an event to showcase our course offerings and programs to our eighth grade students and get them ready for high school this coming fall they
introduced our incoming freshmen who are current eighth graders to the registration options available to them gave them a tour of the building and hosted engaging breakout sessions in both the Welcome Center and the media center uh we can't wait to welcome our future class of
2029 uh that sounds very futuristic so uh we hosted an open house at uh the Welcome Center our ALC it was a great way to show our families The increased resources that are available to them uh through our AC ALC
programming Our Community Education team has decided to start hosting movie nights twice a month in the Middle School theater it's free and open to the public we even provide popcorn and let attendees vote on what they want to see the next month and then some upcoming things to
keep in mind we're going to be having a Q&A information session about our English Spanish dual immersion program on March 17th uh from 3:30 to 4:30 at Roosevelt Elementary School all right so once again if you're interested in their
English Spanish dual immersion program it's March 17th at 3:30 at Roosevelt Elementary um our Emerald dance team took third place at sections and then was able to compete at the state tournament this past weekend um and then fabell music
department is hosting its third annual mattress fundraiser this sat or excuse me on Saturday the 22nd from 10: a.m. to 5:00 p.m. so if you're in need of a new mattress it's a great price and it uh benefits our music students Mr chair
that concludes my report thank you Mr VY agenda item number five public comment Miss Kenny we have no no one signed up for public comment thank you agenda item number six our consent agenda the consent agenda consists of the minutes from the January 27th
uh business meeting the January 30th 2025 Retreat and the February 3rd 2025 um work session uh also employment additional assignments other authorization of payments transfers and
investment account and retirement is there a motion for approval of the consent agenda so moved thank you Dr robish show do we have a second second thank you Miss bud no discussion all in favor of the motion signify by saying I I I
opposed motion passes we'll move on to agenda item number seven district advisory committee no report uh District policy committee 8A Dr Moore um a report on the policy committee
minutes uh yes um excuse me I'm just getting over leitis so uh yeah we actually I think the meeting went uh fairly quickly we did look at uh one policy the whole policy which is a review of policies and we will be
getting to that one I believe later um it was ISD 656 policy it was not an msba policy it was uh policy 537 positive school expectations policy um we will be looking to resend that because of the
fact that I don't think we need it because much of it what was in that policy is in the student handbook so I think we'll let that's going to be addressed later and then the remaining six policies were simply looked at the revisions and when it's we can have a
review of policy we can have a new policy when we have a review and a new we look at the whole policy and for revisions we simply look at the um whatever part was revised sometimes it's just a matter of one line or one word or uh sometimes it can be a couple of
paragraphs but uh many times to it's just uh updating the statute so and that was six policy is there so thank you so 8B uh first reading of revisions to policies I'll just read them off for transparency and public awareness so the
first reading is policy 418 drug-free workplace drug-free School uh policy 515 protection and privacy of pupil records policy 519 interviews of students by outside agencies policy 522 Title 9 sex
non-discrimination policy policy 614 school district testing plan and procedure and policy 721 uniform Grant guidance policy regarding federal revenue sources uh any questions on the first
reading of those six policies board members hearing none we'll move on to agenda item 8 C approval approved second reading of revisions to policies I assuming Mr benty Dr Moore we can do these all in one one swoop instead of
individualize them we're we're good with that uh all of these Mr chair were pushed forward by policy committee to be approved by the board okay thank you so approval of the second reading of revisions to policies and they are as
follows policy 7 706 acceptance of gifts policy 715 po issuance debt compliance policy policy 904 distribution of materials on school property by non-school persons policy
710 extracurricular Transportation policy 712 video surveillance other than on buses policy 801 equal access to school facilities policy 805 waste reduction and recycling
policy 807 health and safety policy and policy 902 use of school facilities and equipment is there a motion to approve second reading of revisions to policies as those policies that I've just
read thank you Miss budo and do we have a second second thank you m Dr Moore any discussion discussion discussion hearing none all in favor of that motion signify by saying I I opposed motion
passes 8D recision of policy 537 which is positive school expectations policy we have a motion for to have recision recision sorry of policy 537 positive school expectations
policy is there a motion thank you Miss budro second thank you Miss kutson and discussion Mr benty do you wish to expand on this one at all or uh as Dr Moore said this was a policy that was created um quite a few years ago here at
the district um it is not an msba policy it was a policy that we created um a lot of the pieces as you just heard from the Middle School presentation this evening are not part of that because we've moved past this policy in many ways um along with the fact that our student handbooks
were actually in this policy which made our student handbooks policy rather than practice um which created a really a a dual a a dual policy piece that they weren't aligned with each other um So after talking with our attorneys they
advise that we remove policy 537 and just continue to approve our student handbooks um and with everything especially that we have in there and our handbooks are now based at all grade levels on the msba student handbook
templates good any discussion the discussion discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion sign ify by saying I I I opposed motion
passes uh agenda item 9A finance committee report uh I will issue that report here of the meeting from February 10th a week ago yesterday um not approved minutes but um sent out to me thank you Brett for doing
that by the way uh what we reviewed was the uh contracts agreements bids and grants for review of The fairbow High School tennis court agreement many of these we're going to be dealing with later on in our agenda here uh funding requests for additional security Personnel at feral High School um and
financial performance we discussed uh December student counts uh overall we're down about 65 students as compared to what we had budgeted for um in our December comparative uh
financial report um Miss racler noted that comparing the HVAC electricity January of 2025 uh is high compared to January 2024 uh alternately electricity in 2025
is low compared to 2024 so we don't know if that's because of rebates or something coming back uh with that so we're checking into that uh in regards to our self Insurance We are continuing to see high number of medical claims currently we have about
300,000 uh in expense over Revenue Vue and that we're expecting and like the health committee met just a couple times already this month and we're expecting about a 12 to 15% increase in premiums uh going forward into fiscal year
26 our December investment report um M racler stated that cash and Investments are down in January compared to last month um but we had an almost $2.2 million Bond payment in January for our maintenance bonds we received last February
in our December analytics uh Miss racer noted that we are right on track with where we thought we'd be at this point and there is nothing out of the ordinary with our expenses and revenues coming in our financial strategies we had a fiscal year 26 budget uh discussion uh which we
will have presentation later on uh in the board meeting here and then um we also talked about uh our finance committee members uh encouraging everyone to come to those meetings and then also we went over update on the
bank uh RFP which we also be dealing with later on in this meeting so that's currently what we have uh a report from the finance committee meeting on February 10th Miss buo do you have anything you'd like to add or thank you very
good uh 9B facilities uh committee um Mr benty and miss racler and yeah actually uh Dr Moore covered everything around the facilities committee uh during her uh board member time so uh I was just looking through the notes here and there
was uh nothing else to add beyond what she said excellent and then our Community Education advisory Council met and um Mr puit you're going to give us an overview of that yeah just a quick update of uh this
quarters committee meeting um Mr venty joined the committee to provide a update from the district and answer questions from Community Partners which was great to have um two things just to highlight from the report um our adult basic education program continues to see record numbers um as you'll recall last
year we had a record number of um students and contact hours um this year already we're um up nearly 600 hours from this time last year so over 21,000 hours um it's especially significant because the rest of our region oana albertly Austin are down almost 9,000
hours and so for our progam be growing I think speaks to the great work that's happening at the FEC and um the great programming that's available there um to the community um and then La second all just wanted to draw people's attention to the sort of the end of the report um
we again got received the kindergarten Readiness analysis results for kids who attended fairwell Public Schools preschool um and what we found again for about I believe the fifth year in a row is that students attending fairwell Public Schools preschool
um are significantly more likely to be ready for kindergarten um than students who have other Early Childhood experiences and what's really exciting about this is that holds true when we disaggregate based on the students home language or special education status or socioeconomic status and so the results
consistently year-over-year I think speak to the strength of the um Early Childhood Program that Olivia sage and the amazing team in early childhood have have been able to build um one of the other things that I think is also really important from the district perspect perspective is we've done some analysis
and have found that um over the last two years 83% of the students who attend our barable Public Schools preschool matriculate onto our kindergarten so um not only are students doing well but they're staying with us um uh into that transition into kindergarten so really
excited about that as well thank you Z agenda item number 10 10A the superintendent midyear review I have that um on Monday February 3rd 2025 the Fable
School Board met in a closed session to discuss superintendent bent's midyear review on the three goals the board approved earlier this school year Mr Ben Mr benty presented a report about his progress made toward those goals to the board the board reviewed the report and
provided feedback to Mr benty the board believes Mr benty is making satisfactory progress toward those goals 10B gifts and donations resolution 25-23 uh resolution 25-23 is the donation is from Music Mart
FBO Music Mart Music Mart FBO donated one three for cello $100 and eight foam shoulder rests $40 to Middle School orchestra for students so could I have a
motion for approval of resolution 25-23 thank you Dr Robo thank you miss budo any discussion uh yes thank you uh I think anything we the community can do to help our music program and music students I
think that's uh we just thank them very much and uh thank you further discussion for the discussion this is a resolution so it is a roll call uh Miss buo please
Candace Linda mo i Cassie johnell I Linda I have five motion passes five Z thank you agenda item 10
C consider designating Reliance Bank for the purchase and sale of Investments for deposit of State aids for deposit of federal taxes withheld local taxes and other local revenues deposit of money received from the school lunch program sales deposit of fees and other District
money received at middle at the middle school and high school for payments of accounts and contracts payable for interbank transfers and for payroll processing so could before we begin the discussion could we have a motion for approval of of designating Reliance Bank
for the items that I just read thank you Miss bu thank you Dr rishel for this for the second and I believe we have Miss racler here to um any further discussion or what you would like to present so yep so
uh in your board packet you do have the the summary data that 's financial advisers put together regarding uh the RFP that we went out for banking services if you will recall the reason that we went out for RFP is because our local bank um CCF has closed their local
branch office and so um we needed to uh look for a bank that's in our community um to be able to carry out the the transactions as um mentioned in the in the um action item so uh the reason that
we chose to use an outside source is that how that's how it was done last time we went out for an RFP which worked out very well it uh because we are talking about something local so it it takes away that um you know familiarity
relationship whatever you want to call it so that we have a non-biased um opinion coming forward and a recommendation coming forward um what the report uh is is providing you is the executive summary um The Matrix who uh
was you know who the players were and then how the um final recommendation came forward so we were first alerted to this um in November and so we quickly jumped on it knowing that CCF Bank was
closing its local branch here in farble on uh February 3rd so we did have to act rather quickly so um we uh reached out to Ellers and they um you know came up with a list of items that um for
consideration pieces that would be important to us and we worked with them on telling them what is important uh from our perspective as far as what's necessary for a a local bank and what we're looking for so um on December 9th
Ellers uh distributed an RFP to four potential banking institutions here in uh Faro and on the 12th of December then um there was a question and answer opportunity for those Banks who would be interested in providing us an RFP uh to
ask whatever questions um that that were um that they were curious about um the rfps were due then on January 17th and those Who provided an RFP were State Bank of Faro Reliance Bank Premier Bank
and Community Resource Bank which is actually merging uh first United so um so that's uh talked about a little bit later so um there were six agreed upon categories for the rating and um as
you'll note in the executive summary the ultimate uh recommendation from ERS is Reliance Bank so um the six some of the criteria that um that we wanted to ensure we were getting provided is a
community and school involvement um so that you know that we knew that they they had some philan um philanthropical and I can't say the word right um efforts um new or additional products that that we could uh use for
efficiencies Technologies and then also knowing their fee structures so um the the task that we ask ERS to do are listed on page three there draft The Proposal develop the scoring and criteria coordinate the distribution of
the ROP evaluate those proposals coming back in select who would be the finalist and then ultimately make the final recommendation for us so again uh the list of responding Banks is is shown on page
four um on page five the these are our um top uh categories of what's important to us to have in a new banking institution um so we wanted uh to know what the monthly costs and service and
interest rates and those kinds of things are the involvement of the banking institution within the the school as well as our community um what services they offer what their ratings are and their diversification and then we did want to know if they had worked with
other public sector uh businesses the next few pages then show the um evaluations and the the scoring of the four banks that um did choose to provide an RFP and it was really interesting um One bank provided a
three-page document One bank provided a 72 page document so there was quite a difference in in how they chose to respond to the RFP um again uh starting on page six then just kind of gives a brief summary
of each bank and then how they score depending on the on the um category so the net Financial benefit um do they offer a sweep account and if they do um do we have to have a minimum balance and if we do what is that and and where
does the idle money sit and how much can it earn and those different kinds of criteria were were examined the community engagement are you know is the bank involved in the community how is it involved what does it do um comprehensive Services um you'll see
some uh different types of platforms that different banks use and what we were used to versus what um you know what that bank bank had to offer their financial stability their strengths where they um you know where they're
sitting as far as a capitalization level you know are they are they solid basically is what we were looking for and then um did they have any experience in the public sector so those uh so Ellers then took a look at those rfps
and individually gave them scoring they had the rubric system gave them scoring and and uh then determine what that total Point awarded was and ultimately the the um bank with the most points turned out to be Reliance for a variety
of reasons um I'm not going to go through each Banks scoring um but if you do have questions I'm happy to answer it um so the the way that it All Shook out was based on the scoring and what the
way of each category was was able to provide us a a um a clear indicator of who would best serve fairbow Public Schools we're used to certain
um certain uh uh different um add-ons if you will so we use positive pay as an example so that's to ensure that no one can take a check of ours and cash it for a different amount than what was actually written for or uh
different person couldn't be able to cash that check that sort of thing so we we have different mechanisms already in place and so we wanted to ensure that they had those U value benefits already uh in their system we use a sweep account so um money coming and money
going out one of the really high um of importance to us was the collateralization because we are school district and so we have to have 110% of our funds collateralized by the bank and that's a that that's that's a
big deal um and uh so we insisted that it had to be $5 million now we normally don't have $5 million in our banking account at the local level however we do once in a while and so if we do go up to that 5 million we need to ensure that
they can collateralize that amount at 110% so it's pieces like that that we really put a a stronger um point value towards it had it had more weight if you will so after looking at all of that um
criteria and and basically going through the through the different rfps and and through those pieces um Ellers did come to the finalization that uh the recommendation is Reliance Bank
um I you have the scoring um information there and you have a brief summ of each Bank um my recommendation is that we follow 's recommendation and go forward with with Reliance
Bank thank you Mr racer we do have a motion in a second for approval of designating Reliance Bank so discussion Mr chairman Miss bud I do have a question because the scoring that ERS completed um essentially eliminated a
couple of banks that we currently is included in our investment report yes um one of those Banks is merging uh what would be the status would that change the status of our
investment report at all no so we will remain correct so we'll continue to have those Investments with whichever Banks we have right now and yes even the one that's merging we will continue to have you know some Investments there um that's something that was purposefully
done years ago and so will continue with that what we're looking at is more who is going to be able to run the heavy lifting daytoday type of activity that we that we need in a local bank thank you yes further
discussion discussion last call okay we have a motion and a second for approval of designating Reliance Bank for the purchase and sale of Investments Etc as I read all in favor of that motion signify by saying I I I opposed motion
passes Mr racer if you want to stay right there because you're on [Laughter] next 10 D cons uh consider approval of the fville high school 2024 to 2044 tennis court agreement so could I
have a motion for approval of the faille high school 2024 through 2044 tennis court agreement thank you m budro I'll second that and discussion
so uh and I Barbie if you want to explain this yeah so this is um so this actual uh agreement isn't uh due until 2029 uh so I asked why why is this being presented to us and the the response
that I received from our activities director is that there's a person at the city that's going to be retiring and they they're trying to get all these um you know leases renewed and and the agreements kind of buttoned up before that person
is gone so uh there is nothing different in this agreement than what was approved of in uh 2009 at that time and that was also a 20-year um Cooperative agreement with um for the tennis court facilities
so there's there is no difference in the language except the dates discussion discussion 2044 seems like a long time out but in reality it'll come quicker than we think but possibly the same
board would be thank you Dr okay pulling it back to Center here um any further discussion all in favor of the motion signified by saying I I I opposed motion passes thank you
miss racler you 10e consider approval of funding request for additional security Personnel at fairbell High School uh Mr Joel olssen will present so could I have a motion for approval of funding requests for additional security Personnel at fairbell High School
thank you Dr Roo do we have a second thank you Miss kuten and before begin discussion Mr olssen I'll let you take it from there thank you uh yeah my request is to uh add a uh security SL uh student
connector person at the high school that has a uh a regular uh presence in the hallways uh throughout the day uh right now we have uh teachers that we assign duties to and every hour we we have different teachers that are patrolling
the hallways uh checking bathrooms uh talking to kids getting them where they need to go and that's inconsistent uh you know with each new teacher uh being there each day uh so the request is to have a a person that would be a
consistent person hour to hour uh not only you know talking to kids getting them where they need to go checking bathrooms uh but also checking security of the building making sure doors aren't prop open uh going out into the parking lot and checking on kids that might be
out in their cars and and so uh that person would work directly with our Sr SRO and the administrative team to uh to be that consistent person uh within the building um to uh to make sure our place is secure and kids are where they're supposed to
be thank you uh discussion I have a couple questions Miss buo before you begin board member just want to inform you that this uh request was approved unanimously by the finance committee last week so go ahead
miss budo my first question is about if this is ongoing and I'm not sure if that was stated I mean would this be you know something we could try first or will it just be ongoing and I don't
know if you know the answer to that Jo the intent is to we could we could started this year yet to to you know make it an intervention for this year and if it goes well and we get the right person there to to continue that on us for next year so perhaps Mr chairman so
perhaps we could evaluate the effectiveness and we move on for the next the next year school year the other question I had is and I asked board members I asked Mr Olson a
lot of questions and he responded quite thoroughly to my questions one of them was I asked about whether or not we were utilizing a wand which we're talking about vaping in the bathrooms
right now and that wand can detect uh a either a vape dispenser who has it on them because often these things happen um the disruption happens but by the time anyone is there can't don't know
who who wasti so um what I received for a response was that we don't have it in our handbook to be able to utilize that and I'm wondering um what the board feels about
that if that's something I certainly think consequences are very important and finding out maybe who is bringing in the device is this is one way to to do that and I looking at some
guidance as to whether or not we could add that to our handbook that we will utilize all tool tools at ourense one being a wand a metal detecting wand I I don't
know the title of it ex yeah yeah would detect metal yes yes is that correct yes we we the wand we have a wand and uh it does uh detect metal so so we when we do a search of a student we search the
backpack uh we search the person but the search of the person is having them open up their pockets lifting up their pant leg uh taking their shoes off um but that's the extent of the search we don't pat them down we don't do strip searches anything like that so if there's nothing
found on the person when they empty out those Pockets or the backpack uh there's not much we can do and so uh wands would be able to you know if you scan the person if they if they put it on their person that would be a potential uh area that
you could see that they might have placed that Vape cartridge or whatever thank you so is there an opportunity for this board this to our handb and maybe I need to ask superintendent
that's something doable the wanding is very much a gray area when it comes to Vapes or searching for something other than a weapon um we we looked into
this last school year um and what we were able to find out was that we were able to find some school policies that were from New York State um that talked about schools that had wanding policies but they were all focused on searching
for weapons they were not focused on searching for uh anything other than weapons uh when we contacted our attorneys they said it is very much a gray area it is something that you can do but it could also be considered an invasion of privacy um and you would
have to be conscious of the fact that it does pick up metal so it's going to pick up underwire braws it's going to pick up any other metal that the student might have on their person um so it it's while
they didn't say we can't they said it it is very much a gray area that has not been tested in the in Legally in the areas searching for anything other than weapons Mr chairman I would ask are other schools utilizing this in our in
our big n do you know that not that I know of okay um I guess this discuss at this point but um this problem is not new it's been around sounds like last year you stating you had this
discussion and I think it is an invasion of privacy for our bathrooms to be used by people who are vaping and not available for other students for use and I also think it's a safety issue for all of our
students um I think it's un that maybe there isn't enough consequences being meted out for those violating those policies we have a
alcohol drug and tobacc free environment here but yet we don't and so um I also think it's unfair that students who are participating in athletics have a much more severe
consequence than some of these people that are not involved there so what I'm I guess what I'm saying is I feel that we should use every tool available and try to remedy these
violations and this um abuse to the rest of our students and I am going to be supportive of this request but I still would like to know if if it's effective before it's
renewed or continued in the fall it's just my position thank you Miss bual other discussion Miss gson um so we have Bak detectors in some of the bathrooms Y and how effective are they they're
inconsistent uh the the uh will sound an alarm to our phones that if it could be a vape uh any other kind of Mist uh perfume so uh they're they don't they're
not strictly uh designed to to smell a vape or tobacco uh smoke or anything like that so essentially we get the notification and um generally it's uh Joe or Allison will go to that bathroom
and by the time you get there students are gone um so so they're inconsistent and and frankly they uh they do go off regularly um and so you just don't you don't get to those things because of the things you're doing in the day so um so
they're not consistent um but uh we you know we use them as we can when they're working right um not all the bathrooms have them um but uh yeah it's it's not a great great system and who responds to
them uh the one of the three of us and the Sr gets it on I think believe gets it on his phone too so the SRO does as well okay and so because I spend a fair amount of time at the high school um I see a lot of students going into the
bathrooms and and we have the passes that they have to fill out um and I'm not sure how those work as far as you know some of our students are in the bathroom you know between classes during class and um
and and um I was there the other day after school and I noticed like about 15 boys go into the bathroom after school so so it's kind of like before school after school throughout the day it's a nightmare it is yep it is crazy it is a
nightmare um the the uh reasons for what they go in there for um I yeah they're not they're not necessarily good reasons not to use it and I go on the announcements in the
morning and say stay out of the bathrooms you know go in there for what you're supposed to go in there for um we've we've done and Joe Allison have been better at this than I have but they'll they'll start camping out in the hallways you know during the hour and around the bathrooms and so you know
you're taking you're taking administrators that are now babysitting bathrooms and taking away from the other duties that they have and so uh it's the the need and and you can talk
to our our chem Health folks kids are addicted and if that's what they're going in there to do um it's because of an potentially because of an addiction and so you know talked about some of the processes that Miss budro had asked me about you know what are some of the things that we do um anytime we we get
those kids we bring them into the office we do the search uh we bring them to the nurse to get evaluated on their vitals um um and then depending on the situation there we contact parents every time and then uh they get a chem referral to health finders and there's
groups that Health finders runs um they do onetoone things uh we have two promise fellows that we uh were able to uh add this year that work in our ISS room so kids in some cases there might be a group of kids and Joe has said I
just bring them right to the ISS room and then they start uh there's a program that the that the health that the uh promise fellows do with them um during the hour that they have them and so so there's things that we're doing um and the the intervention team uh you know
consists of counselors social workers the healthfinders folks um admin counselors and they're and they're constantly re-evaluating what's working and not working and for some kids it does work um but we have we have that
group of kids that this just is not not working for them um and you know we talk about suspension and uh my My Philosophy is that you know the Middle School talked about PBIS and we're going to we're going to be a pilot for that next year
because I believe that you know consistency from elementary through the high school if it works in one place let's do it in the next place so so we're going to be in that cohort next year um but there's got to be a reason why kids one don't want to go to class and and that's we have to work internally about um you know is is it
the is it the content is it the the teaching the way we do the teaching kids not feeling connected um and then when you suspend kids they're missing out on that teaching and then when they miss out they feel get behind they get frustrated and then they continue to skip because they feel like they're not
going to catch up so we got to intervene somehow that way so to suspend um you know they're going to come back and we got to have something for them and and we've got a lot of resources for these kids um and it just
takes time to to have this work and you know this is one one way potentially that we have getting the right person that can connect with kids that um they see every hour and that person knows it's those same kids every hour that we
can intervene on a greater level um when we have teachers doing it you know they don't they don't pass off the report of who we saw in the hallway this hour you know it's like the next person just turns the radio in and then the next person comes up so it's it's a
consistency piece um I don't know if it'll work um it's it's we're trying to if we had the answer or if other schools had the answer we we'd have it fixed so um and it's not just a fairbell problem but I got to worry about fairbell like I'm not going to compare myself to other school districts this is what we got to
worry about so um so I'm just yeah I'm asking if if we can see if this is something that will work um other districts do have similar people people um similar um I talked to the Mano East principal yesterday they have four people that are their hallway uh people
in addition to the SRO Elbert Lee has two um oana has two so so they do have people that that are doing this work um and they're trained in working with students and it's not just a a hammer it's not just a police officer it's
someone that's you know trained with um how to work with kids and talk to kids and build relationships with kids and so um so yeah so I'm just I'm hoping that you know this is one thing that maybe is another tool that we can put in our
toolbx Dr Moore uh yes just I correct me if I'm wrong but I I'm assuming that this is taking more and more of administrative time most definitely um as it goes on time goes yeah we have we have rolling desks uh standing desks that we roll out into the hallways and we'll go stand out in the hallways and
uh it's a deterrent um for some of those bathrooms rooms or some of those areas but the and the layout of the building you know is is Big you know even for a for a school our size it's pretty big so to get to those places uh with three people um or
with adding our SRO or four people um it's just hard to manage that that building with with that limited number but then like you said uh administrative time with um you know doing teacher observations getting into classrooms doing doing those things that that we
really get into this work for um to be with the kids and and and um helping our instruction get better and and things like that it gets taken away by the time spent doing these things and uh more and more of our time is being spent um
policing Mr chair one of the questions I asked Mr olon was about how many suspensions were imposed and there was only one suspension and Mr ol
that there are some State guidelines maybe you could share that yeah so non-exclusionary discipline so uh State Statute you know has has stated that you need to do everything you can to not suspend kids and so when I talk
about these interventions whether it's the ISS uh working with chem healthfinders uh those kinds of things um those are all interventions to not suspend kids and so uh when we when we do meet with a student
um when there's a suspicion of of vaping uh we we bring them to the office we do the search we refer to the nurse for for uh to do vitals if if none of that comes back where a student is whether they might have a fever or
something that the nurse says no they check out okay um we we send them back to class we call the parents but we send them back to class um the without finding something on them that's the that's the tough part um to
uh un suspicion uh it's just you could have been there at the wrong place at the wrong time and so it's that's that's the way we've taken that that directive from the state about non-exclusionary discipline do as much as you can before
you have to suspend a kid so Mr olon if the third offense that justify suspension at that time if it if this if the same situation happened with the with third time there was nothing found on the student they
checked out with their vitals uh we wouldn't suspend so I'm I'm feeling like we're really going in a circle here we can't we don't ever want to use we're not going to
suspend what is the deterrent I mean we really don't have a good deterrent for this Behavior to stop it and I guess I'm just a little bit frustrated that we can't
use a Little Bit Stronger discipline um especially when uh athletes have a very heavy discipline so I'm I'm going to just end my questions about I'm frustrated
and one thing that I think triggers students out in the hall is the phones and so um I know that there's different deterant and um I looked into the Yonder pouches and I think that that might be a good idea for next year to um Implement
them so that students do not have their phones and have to go to the bathrooms to because in the classroom they're not supposed to be able to access that correct correct and so often times they go to the bathrooms to do that and then also they um communicate with each other
to meet in the bathroom at the same time correct I would like to see more of the SRO and um staff members standing outside and I think the boys bathroom is the biggest problem but I go into the
girls bathroom and I you know oh the music's on class is going to start get going and you know 10 girls will walk out you know if teachers could walk in as well and even just wash their hands it could deter kids from all the crazy
stuff they do in there or if it is crazy stuff Mr chair go ahead m p are you saying that this is coordinated through their cell phones a lot of this activity and if
so I guess I just want to ask Mr Olen is our cell phone policy being upheld it work in the classrooms I think for the most part um it's also uh not perfect I think there's consistency among staff that some apply it stronger
than others uh it's when we meet as a staff uh we talk about that you know how's it going and and make sure we're all on the same page um kids can use them in the hallways during about passing time and
at lunch um this was a a shift from last year where we had a cell phone policy in spirit um this year we you know if if a teacher tells us to come and get a phone we come and get the phone and we have a
cell phone Locker in our office and you know we take anywhere from six to 10 12 phones a day um so the next step in that would be to uh they don't get to have them out in the hallways uh don't get to have them
out at lunch um that would be uh another step and probably uh more policing that would take place for that um right now there's uh you know at lunch we have two or three people that are supervising lunch
um but this was a kind of a step towards having no phones in the building during the day uh we don't the kids don't use lockers so it's it's tough to say put it in your locker um it's on their backpack or on their person so um so yeah I think it's that's a step
towards towards uh getting it better yeah I'd like to pull the discussion back to to uh your proposal on adding uh for Vaping student treny and uh POS maybe possible other drug use or some
use within the bathrooms um first of all Mr R want to thank you for bringing this forward I think was addressed um I know staff some staff and community members were are concerned and brought this forward and you you've come up with a solution I will support it 100% And I
think I've told you privately that if you wanted more I I'd being supportive more um for transparency's sake so some of us know the building a little bit better having coach there whatever it's a huge building you have bathrooms on opposite ends of the academic Wings you
have bathrooms on the main level by the north gym you have bathrooms and locker rooms on the south end by nomand it's a huge area to detect and things and so um and this whole addiction piece I agree
with uh I've been to a lot of activities and I can't can't count how many times I've asked people to put out their cigarettes or not Vape on school property or public property I've been talked to not so nice I've been cursed at I've been uh that I was if I was the
police or whatever but I just I'm a citizen I it says no no use on here so your cause here of trying to address this problem uh it's going to work we need to we need to address the problem somewhere somehow and uh the kids are addicted they need
help and I think you're we're doing the right thing of that point I would I like to see you know the court system has the same thing the same people come through keep coming through keep coming through what do you do at some point I know that's a frustrating point do we suspend
but that's not helping them academically it's really not helping them with their addiction problems so thank you for addressing that I know the question is why from people are said why aren't things being done they are being done and those students have data privacy as well for a discipline we're not going to
say yeah here's the name of this student and this is what we did that's we can't do that and we're not going to do that so thank you for your efforts and getting this and uh again as our handbook says we're we're chemical alcohol tobacco free we're trying to do
our best but we have adults from the community when they come in I mean basketball game last night vaping in the men's bathroom uh it's adults as well so we'll work with our kids we'll do try and help them
with with this stuff and uh recognize to the public and to our students and staff that yes we are there's an attempt to do something here to to assist people to make our environment better so that that's my stance there um thank you
there so any other discussion board members we do Jillian would you like to chime in yeah um I just think talking about this from a high school standpoint I do want to bring up the one thing with phones me need up kids are going to find a way to meet up no matter what because you guys
found a way to meet up in school before there were phones like there's ways to find it so I I don't think I think the phone policy is really working I don't think that is a major cause of that um second of all vaping is an addiction um
and addictions can't be solved by just saying no don't do that you're in trouble that it doesn't fix the problem um it's going to take a holistic approach to do this and I think that um Mr Olson's idea of adding one person and honestly I think we should add more um
you said albertly had four or man East I considering how big the school is it takes a minute to walk down the hallway to get from the men's bathroom to the women's bathroom um that would help build relationships and that takes on part of that holistic approach and then if there are the same students then we
go through the process that is already set of you know um being having a referral for chemical health whatever meeting with um Health Partners but I think that this is a really important step and honestly I think that there should be more than one person because the school is so big but at the end of the day vaping is an addiction and
addictions again need a holistic approach to stop um and we don't want kids out of school because if they're out of school all they're they're not going to stop vaping they're just going to be outside of school vaping um so now they're not learning at all um so I think it's really important that we take these positive holistic approaches to it
um and I think this is a really great way to start and even seeing if it goes adding more people in next year um that's all I wanted to say thank you any further discussion we do have a motion and a second for approval of the funding request for additional security
Personnel anyone else okay we're ready to vote all in favor of the motion signified by saying I I opposed motion passes thank you Mr sson very much looking at the agenda uh school
calendars uh and budget initial uh reductions in enhancement I think at this point the chair will issue a 7even minute recess uh for stretch here and we'll come back um at let's do 7:15 we will start again at
7:15 we are in recess e e e e e e e e
e e back to order we now we are now on agenda item 10f consider approval of the 2025 2026 school calendar uh Mr benty you will you're going to present but could I have
a motion for approval of the 2020 2026 School Calendar please thank you Miss Bud do we have a second second thank you Miss Canon and Mr benty I'll turn it over to you thank you Mr chair um so the memorandum that you have there on the 2526 school
calendar uh just some highlights there that there was a staff that or excuse me a survey that was sent out to staff 182 responses uh that were received back you can see the calendar committee members that are there um we had two meetings uh
where we went through the survey uh and made some changes based off of uh what the survey said and then also what we have seen uh this past year and the year before that are some of the changes we want to make uh this calendar includes
165 student contact days for elementary 166 days for secondary and 185 contract days total um you'll see by looking at the calendar itself that we are continuing forward with our Falcon days
uh which are roughly one per month those have come in immensely useful in the sense of or in the way of the state requiring us to do uh regular professional development around the re act um and we were actually able to get
out in front of that and this calendar has allowed us to do that um with almost I would say almost no changes uh needed other districts were caught off guard by that legis legislation and had to uh some some of them right before the school year began had to redo their
entire calendar or had to subtract up to eight days of student learning to get in the professional development that was required by the state um so what you can see there is uh for the 2526 school year we are looking to start
after Labor Day um and I will entertain any questions at this point board members Dr Moore uh yes uh I was looking at you said 165 contract days for
elementary secondary 166 what was it last year um I believe it was the same last year was it the same last year um I I I'm just going to say that in the last year I've gotten a number of complaints from parents about the schedules and
about the number of days off uh so I guess um I'm a little concerned about that I I know I looked at November for each year uh I think three out of the four weeks uh there's less than five days in December there's two out of the
four weeks February two out of the it's it's two uh two weeks that are full and two weeks not and in March we only have one full week uh I understand that the holidays come in there but I guess I as a member of you know I do represent the
public uh they are a bit concerned about that especially you know the parents it it interferes with some of the schedules and uh so I've had a few complaints about that so I I wish we could have um I think I did express my concerns to the
calendar committee but um just looking at some of these I'm not sure that this is the best uh we can we can do so that's that's my so those concerns were taken into account and those Falcon days
were moved to to mostly I believe Fridays which allows then parents to if they want to have a 3-day weekend or have that time with their with their children um so those pieces that was one of su those concessions were made yes so
okay further discussion last call for discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion to approve the 2025 2026 School C calendar signify by saying I I opposed nay motion passes for
one 10 G consider approval of the 2026 2027 school calendar could I have a motion to approve the 2026 2027 school calendar thank you Miss Bud second thank you Dr robish show uh discussion Mr
benty do you want to yep so same process applied uh we did the two of these together we haven't done a two-year uh calendar in a while that's one of was one of um our goals as a as a uh District Administrative team was to try to have a two-year calendar um so like I
said same process applied same number of days that you see there at the bottom um in the 2627 school year we will be starting before Labor Day um and the the breaks match up uh almost the exact same
way once again concessions were made to put our FAL days um attached to weekends so that uh families would have that ability to get out of town if they chose to um and looking one of the changes is that we're looking for June of
2027 uh to break tradition a little bit and have uh graduation on a Friday evening instead of a Sunday afternoon so um we're hoping to get more uh more of our staff to participate if
it's if it's budded up against the school year rather than be gone for a few days and then need to come back so discussion board members Mr chair I just want to comment I pleased to see twoyear calendars that
really facilities planning for parents for staff and for students um it's good to see that sometime I would like to see an alternative calendar that addressing some of Dr Moore's concerns about the number of
times that's there's a gap in student learning uh we all know that time on task is the critical variable for student achievement be nice to see a year round calendar some just a comment 4515 doesn't have to
be 45 it could be anything that extends the SCH excellent further discussion last call for discussion hearing none all in favor of approval of the 2026
2027 school calendar signify by saying I I opposed nay motion passes 41 10h a report uh special education child count you see that's on for Mr derer I
do not see him well there you are hello Mr derer sorry I didn't see you on the screen can you hear us okay Mr derer can you hear us now Mr derer yes I can hear you can you guys hear me yes very
well okay you're a little bit ahead of your uh live video stream so I was not as prepared um this this evening I'm here to talk about the special education child count um each December Minnesota
Department of Education requires us to submit the number of special education students we have enrolled who are residents of our school district and they use that calculation to um figure out our our federal special education
funds as well as some of our um special education compensatory Aid um I use the number to track and kind of give a snapshot of where we're at in the district and what direction we're we're moving towards um overall this is a five-year
uh review of or actually a six-year review of of the child the December 1 child count um you can see the last three years we've remained almost um stagnant um three years ago I came and expressed my concern that our numbers um
were Rising um um pretty significantly um espe esally after covid and it seems that the numbers have have leveled off to be roughly about 845 843 students this this year so that that's a good piece of
news um this is a different way to look at this chart the blue line is actually the students who are residents of um Faro Public Schools the green chart is the ones who actually come to our to our schools um a number of the
students um are are open enrolled into Northfield and we pay tuition for the students there um some are at at sevc some are at Medford um and some are at oana as well as some other areas but overall um we we work with around 663
students um in our programs every single day um this is a breakout of where our disabilities lie um um where our child count Lies by disability um it's it's pretty reflective of what's been happening for for several years we have
a high high our highest population is significant learning disabilities um followed by speech language impairment um and then a virtual tie for ASD and developmental delay and um EBD and ohd um near um at lower levels um
that's that's remained pretty consistent for the past several years this is this is the chart I want to spend a few minutes talking about um this is a reflection of what settings our students are in um the federal
government has in the idea legislation has has settings laid out by certain time um constraints so a setting one student is in the general education classroom a majority of the school day um out in a special education program
maybe 20% of the day or less um the blue section the setting two students are anywhere from 20% to 60% outside of the general education classroom and the purple area is students who are outside of the general education classroom a
majority of their of their day um uh and and those are the ones um that I'm I'm most concerned about um this year um as I mentioned about three year when we expanded our programming um we were looking at a at a pretty significant
gain in students who had our most significant needs students with developmental cognitive cognitive delays um students with autism spectrum disorder non-verbal students um students with some pretty significant um disabilities
um as you can see the purple line um about five years ago we had 49 students in in our setting three programs um this year we have 76 students in our setting three programs and while I did anticipate that we were going to have a larger job in in students that require
that level of service um by expanding our program several years ago I'm finding that um once again um we're having trouble um meeting the need of all those students because of because of um case load limits um set at the state
and the at the state level um this is a different way of looking at that same same chart so um as you may know we're reorganization reorganizing our elementary schools to have one prek
building and two elementary schools as part of that I looked at where this where we projected the students from Roosevelt would go um based on the based on the border information that I had at the time um so that I can see where our
case loads would be to know if I needed to U Move any staff around so um the current year on the on the left side of the chart um Ros has four setting one setting two teachers and they have case load averages of about
12.75 um Jefferson has four FTE a case load average of 11.5 and Lincoln has four FTE a case load average of 13 um next year I project those case loads to go up a little bit um we're going to reduce an FTE or repurpose an FTE at
Roosevelt and keep Jefferson and Lincoln the same and are setting one and two programs but their case loads will will go up by one to three student students in those programs so I think that we have enough room to absorb our setting one and setting two students and I'm not not concerned about them um what I am
concerned about is our setting three students um currently Roosevelt has two classrooms with seven students in each classroom Jefferson has two classrooms with six students in each classroom and Lincoln has two classrooms with eight students in each classroom the problem
we're having is that um one of those students is in fifth grade the rest the rest are third grader below so our programs our our setting three programs are mostly filled with younger students who aren't transitioning to the middle school as fast as fast as I'd like to
make room for all the Early Childhood students coming in um next year um we project that we're going to have 20 total students at Jefferson 23 at Lincoln and 14 at Roosevelt those would be the students coming into kindergarten
from our Early Childhood Program um this creates a space problem because what we're finding is that when you have more than eight students in a classroom um the classroom gets fairly chaotic um because of all the needs in the classroom so our
our preference is to have case have those classrooms um with about with about three to four adults and about seven to eight students in them um much more than that um we we tend to get into more more aggression more more students who are who are not able to regulate um
but in order to keep keep case loads at that level I'm finding that I need to add an FTE teacher at Jefferson Elementary and an FTE teacher at Lincoln Elementary um just to keep them the case loads where they're at now in our setting three
programs um that that that that makes me nervous because again our overall numbers aren't increasing but the numbers of students with significant needs are and so we're having to respond to that in the best
way that we can um as far as other programs um we also have a setting three um program for students with behavioral skills um currently those two classrooms are at Lincoln Elementary um and we're looking to keep those two classrooms at Lincoln
Elementary and then repurpose one of the FTE at Roosevelt for the kindergarteners who are coming in with significant behavior um concerns um but we can do that with the current Staffing that we have now and and don't need to add any
FTE for that um this is again another way to look at it with Roosevelt with all the different setting classrooms Al together I'm looking at three FTE of teachers in the setting one program and two programs um one FTE in a behavioral
skills classroom and then two FTE to absorb the 14 students that we're getting from Early Childhood who need a setting three functional skills program and then at the other buildings um similar at at Lincoln I have three
teachers who teach um sld EBD um ASD at a setting one level and an EBD ABS teacher at the setting one and two level I have two um EBD setting three classrooms and I would be looking to add one more um DCd classroom for to have
three FTE there and then the profile at Jefferson is similar except there is no setting three behavioral program at Jefferson um so later on um you'll see in our in our budget enhancements um I have several positions listed there that
I feel that we need to absorb the students that we're getting from early childhood and I do want to note that these are not students that um that we would have this problem regardless of of reorganization because of the nature of
the students that that we're seeing come to farbo so this is not a problem or this is not an issue that I wouldn't have to come to the board and ask for staff it just so happens to be at a time when when we're also reorganizing but I'm looking at adding two FTE of
teachers to do functional skills rooms at Lincoln and one at Jefferson um one are seven parap professionals to staff those classrooms and one dape teacher because of the increase in students Mo many of the students um um require fied
outside of their general education fed class and an Adaptive fied class um so so I'd certainly be willing to take any questions about that about any of this questions board members thank you
Mr Daner by the way thank you so much Mr Dana looks like you've answered it well presented well we have no questions so okay thank you thank you item 10 I uh initial budget reductions and
enhancement a report and Mr benty I will turn it over to you yes thank you Mr chair um we do have everyone that will be coming up and sitting uh to help answer questions that the board will have and to also be uh helping out with
the presentation as well so they do have their name tags in case you have a moment and don't remember their names or if I have a moment and don't remember their names Trouble Is My Moment goes longer
and longer and longer uh so as as they're getting settled in one of the things that I do just want to discuss here at the beginning uh Barbie and uh Nicole will be doing the majority of the presenting here uh because we're talking about
finances and and HR pieces um but th this team has really come together the they're uh they make up the majority of our district Leadership Council which we meet every other uh week to discuss uh what what are the needs of the district and what do we what are the changes that
we need to make moving forward uh just to kind of give you an update on where we are um so if you have looked at any of the budget shortfalls that are happening across the state when it comes
to school districts what you'll see is that there are some really uh there are some districts that are in some dire Financial situations right now um and this comes two years after uh the historic funding by our state so I think
that shows the one uh the the impact of mandates uh if I can just say that but also unfunded mandates I should say but also the the understanding of where we were School Finance uh wise on the
revenue side going into two years ago considering that we had historic funding and the majority of districts in the state are still either there or are potentially worse off than they were two years ago um just looking across our
conference we are uh one of the we are the lowest District that has a deficit by right now besides one um and that there's one District that actually had an increase in enrollment um they had some school closures and had some sizable increases in their enrollment so
they don't need to reduce this year but most of the districts are ranging from um I think it was like 1.3 million up to $6 million in budget reductions that they're facing right now so for us sitting here saying that you know we're
looking at roughly 600 and we're saying 600 because that's what the statute is telling us right now but understanding that if the governor's proposal goes through on the compensatory Aid we would actually be sitting plus 280 279 something like that um so we're
kind of playing right in this area right now that we want to be financially and fiscally responsible and make our reductions that we need to make but we also have the opportunity now to try out some enhancements as well um you're going to see a few of those here tonight
we will also depending on how things go in the legislature and and the feeling that we're getting we're we're planning on if things go positively for us we're planning on bringing more enhancements this spring um as we can justify them
financially um so tonight is is a discussion piece or it's a report I guess I should say um but with the understanding that that you will vote on this on I believe it's March Mar 3rd Mr chair thank you um but the understanding
that we uh if things continue to look favorable for us we're we're going to look at continuing some enhancement pieces into April and maybe even May uh for this upcoming school year so with that I will turn it over to uh Miss
wrestler and Miss Yokum okay so good evening um like Mr benty mentioned uh Barbie and I will be going through this presentation that you have in your board packet however at the end we're all here together to be able to provide additional input um on to you
regarding any questions that you have or any additional information that you need from us so going through the presentation um this first slide just gives you a general uh overview on where we landed when we went through our
entire budget adjustment and enhancement process so as a team we came together and we were a able to come up with reductions in the amount of 79420 and then we also talked through enhancements that were proposing in the
amount of 537,500 for a net proposed adjustment of 26,800 so we'll go into a little bit more depth in that in a few slides here so um right at first we'd like to just go through the timeline with you the
timeline is rather short and aggressive um however I think we're all comfortable with it and we feel we feel okay with it um so today is the 18th of course we're here presenting this to you for the first time to um review then we're going
to ask you to have a special meeting on March 3rd which is very soon um it is when you have your next work session scheduled so we're going to ask you to consider adding a special meeting to that board meeting um either right before or right after however you see
fit right after that meeting then um the finance team and the HR team will work together those those next few days to operationalize the adjustments so basically what that means is um my team will work on figuring out the who is
behind all the adjustments and Barbie's team will work on putting a costing to the names so that we can ensure that we're comfortable with our um dollar Target still at that point then later that week once we have everyone
identified our admin team will be U meeting with the affected staff so that they're all aware that their position is going to be affected by the um proposed uh adjustments and enhancements later on that month we have a board meeting which is um early in
March because we have spring break so that is on March 17th and that would be the day that we would be bringing to you the action to act on the proposed non-renewals of all the affected staff members okay the next slide that uh talks about
the enrollment and where we're looking um for our enrollment figures and these are um this is information um past history data that you've seen before and then uh projecting out to 2028 so as we know we are in a decline
mode right now so um we finished fiscal year 24 with 3,60 um a average daily membership um students if you will uh what was budgeted for fiscal year 25 or currently is
3,29 uh what I'm projecting for next year is a is 3,000 students and so using the survival cohort method where you you know simply take you know what what the trend is showing us and moving that forward um you can then see the the
projections for FY 27 and FY 28 and so again we're taking current data that we have today and projecting that forward so that we can make sound decisions on um what we would be getting for Revenue
because enrollment drives most of the revenue that we have the next slide then uh talks about uh what our enrollment history and our projection uh projections going forward
what those budget cuts were and what we're projecting those to be so you can see um there was some heavy lifting done in um uh last well what's what we're currently living with so um the current budget showed a a budget cut
of 2.9 Million almost three million what we're projecting then for next year when we take the budget cuts that we came up with the 794 and then adding in those enhancements we're at a net of 26,800
taking the enrollment information and uh doing some uh you know just guesstimates and proposals of what we're going to see for an increase on the gened formula and those different pieces what that's looking like um as well as increase in
our expenses um we're looking at a 77 you know 777 th000 deficit going into FY 27 and then 28 and 29 would also show deficits please keep in mind we're working with data that we have today so
we you know are shining up our crystal ball and and hoping that our predictions are are spot on but that is the picture that we're looking at right now okay so this next slide gives you a general overview on what our list
includes so you'll see on there the position listed out and the um expenses listed out for a total of 7942 um but moving on is a little bit more detail so the first item on that list includes a funding shift and we
have an an instructional coach that Julie has gone through her title budget and and found um an opportunity to reallocate that position from the general fund into our title funds it is an allowable expense and so we're able
to shift that in realiz a real savings of 85,000 to the general fund by doing that the next item is within our elementary instructional support um with that we have a 2.3 FTE from our
elementary specialist so that includes our stem andem teachers art music and fied across the three Elementary buildings additionally there's a 1.0 Elementary interventionist reduction a 1.0 media pair professional reduction
and a 1.0 nurse from our elementary reduction that gives us a total Savings of 36,500 from our elementary area our secondary instruction um we also analyzed that and we were able to find an efficiency of a 1.5 FTE at our
high school which gives us a total Savings of $27,500 next is our administrative support area um with our reorganization we are able to have a reduction in a 1.0 Elementary Dean and also a 1.0 Elementary clerical
support person for a total of 191,00 and I believe this is our last one here this is an operational expense that we're able to find a savings in and this is with our um McKinley be building being in a transition this year where able to find savings within our
utilities of about $30,000 for the next school year so now um now this is where we have our enhancements listed um again this is these were items that we all brought we all came up with
as a team in the total amount of $537,475 addition and this was um something that we all felt strongly about adding after we looked at our enrollment in our sections from Jefferson and in Lincoln after we had the reorganization numbers from the Transportation Department to see which
kids landed where there were a few pockets of class sizes that were um higher than that than we were comfortable with and so we felt that we needed to bring this forward to add 2.0 in our elementary buildings next the next few are are our
special ed positions that Rob was just referring to so he is asking for two special ed teachers that are Elementary buildings a full-time date Teacher and seven special ed pair professionals you'll see the totals listed on there um
are act are adjusted to reflect the special education reimbursement so that's why the numbers are significantly lower than what you see for a general Ed position the next two items on that list are designated for our feral Middle
School uh our Middle School still has a hefty goal of increasing our math scores and working on our math um our math curriculum at that building level and so these two positions are are meant to support that goal and support that work
to really try and um provide some good support for our students there's a 1.0 academic specialist and then a 1.0 math interventionist and then the last item on on there is a Middle School sixth grade transition program and so this
program is proposed to look um um to to be within our sixth grade program so our all of our incoming sixth graders will participate in this special course if you will to learn how to be a secondary student to learn how to go from being um
an elementary student for several years and transitioning into being a secondary student so we feel like this will be a good program to help our kids transition and be more successful during their six through 12 career with us so that is
again a total of $537,475 a a good package and proposal back to you at the March um special board meeting on the third thank you anything else Mr benty just not at this time board members I'll open it up
for questions or comments I for one I'm very sorry if I jump I for one I'm very excited and happy to see about the Middle School sixth grade transition program we go back quite a few years we actually had
that program I believe it was close to a week uh at least four days it was in which they taught learn the building how to take notes how to become as Nicole said a secondary student going from one teacher maybe two a day to five six
maybe seven different connections so I'm really happy to see see that it makes a difference to make kids more calm at ease you know in building there so and that's happening before school starts that this program no this is going to be a
year awesome yeah every other day so it'll technically be a semester class but we felt that skills needed to be learned throughout the school year nice good you Dr Ro go ahead thank you Dr um
Barbie can you tell me where is the declining enrollment what level is the declining enrollment that we're experiencing and will experience so the majority of it is happening at our secondary um so as an example this year to next year what
we're proposing for um what we're projecting for students the elementary is different by one student so it's the secondary where we're are you the 9 through 12 actually the the uh 7 through 12 okay
so we'll see decline enrollment at the middle of school as well as well as the high school and that's a we've been talking about those smaller class sizes that have been working their way through our district for well it's going to be six years now Now's the Time that they're
hitting our secondary level by the way that was called project right start that's good I was trying to think of it I'm glad you remember that yes thank you that's right me too I'm there I just have one other question go
ahead Dr um there's been some discussion about a simoan cultural program is that part of the enhancement as well if it is I don't see it on here so so that that is one of the pieces that we're still looking at so what uh one of the pieces
that we uh we may be bringing in April we're still working out some of the the the the funding mechanisms around it is a culture and language option in social studies at our elementary level in Spanish and Somali where students would
have the the choice do I take my social studies in English in Spanish or Somali culture and language areas okay so it's not an immersion program it's not an immersion PR program no we already have our Spanish Immersion program yes any further comments Dr mois yes um
I like the idea of um adding elementary teachers uh I think that's a good idea and a special ed uh I guess it just have a question uh the the academic specialist for Middle School um does that does this person work directly with
the students or or with the teachers or just I guess what are the duties of the academic specialist I'll let Dr Fox describe that for you so yeah so um this is based on the reading program I did the reading Intervention Program I did
with the N Academy and we saw some really great success in fact the story I had was student compl the first grade and by the end of the year was able to theel because we had really intensive intervention because we had an academic
specialist so the interventionist will do a lot of the data um the interventionist work with students and we work with teachers to do a whole group whereas the academic specialist will work with so they do want they do work with
the students in yes okay directly um okay thank you um I guess one of the things I'd really like to see as an enhancment is to put some pair of Professionals in with the the early you know kindergarten and through third grade I think we need to really uh many
years ago I was a I was a stay-at-home mom for a few years and so I got to be a room mother every year and that's when they pull the AIDS and uh I could see firsthand just by you know that one teacher she had probably three reading
groups and she' working on one reading group and you know and other students had questions so I think it's really important to consider because you need some feedback here that we need I think we need to start putting pair of
professionals back into RK kindergarten especially because uh I think we've only got a half of what is it5 Pera now for there's three well let's see in the elementary schools there's three uh
kindergarteners kindergartens and they only have what two Paras so I think we need to really look at that because I think it's an important piece uh the Paras in kindergarten that you know some of these little kids can't go to the bathroom themselves you know and so I
think we have to look at that too so I'd like to add that in there so what uh I think next year we're projecting to have 6.5 Paras for 10 kindergarten classes um so when we look it's still you've got 10 kindergarten classes but
she only get yes it is not a one: one ratio but it is not the the full-fledged remove all the kindergarten Paras that we proposed a couple years ago uh we're not we're not looking to remove any more of those one of the things that I challenged this group with was when I
said enhancements I said very clearly I do not want you to bring me what we have always done I don't want to just have you say well this was cut two years ago so let's bring this back unless you can say here's the data that shows why we
have to bring this back um so I really challenge this group to say enhancements if it is something that we cut last year or two years ago or three years ago there better be some strong data points that show why we need to bring that back but enhancements are
truly what is out there what is on the edge of research what is sh showing that it will work in farbo Minnesota for our students not 7 miles up the road not 10 miles down the road what will work for our students in farbo Minnesota um so
that's what I really challenge this group with Dr show um and I don't know who can answer this but is there any possibility that some of those special ed positions can be shifted to Federal funding because there are new
positions so I don't know what the balances of any federal funds idea of money but um some of that can be shifted I know you're looking at reimbursement we don't know what that's going to be but if any of those new positions can be
shifted to special funding fing I think and we don't have robon anymore but I I think that was calculated into those costs the FED no Shifting the whole thing into federal funds oh not the state reimbursement talking about moving them
over to the federal at this point my understanding is that the federal government doesn't pay for all of that they they only pay for a percentage and then the state pays a percentage on top of that that unless it's changed in the last several years Federal funding is
100% supported that position there's no you can't co-mingle the dollars okay so at oh geez sorry so at this time we are using all of our federal dollars that are allocated to us so we're using those fully okay yes
right thank you anything further I have question about the Middle School academic specialist so it's 28,000 is that partially funded federally or with grants or something yes that that
position is showing the net result of what it would cost us out of the general fund okay questions that was uh I want to thank you for coming and staying in a bitter cold night and being one of the last
ones on the agenda I had partially something to do with that sorry um so I'll take take the blame but thank you and thank you for your input and this is a difficult time what to reduce what to add back or what what enhancements We Believe going forward
but um it's a difficult time and and I know you work with the staff Etc to make sure they understand why why we're doing this and what's best for our kids right now best for their education like that so if we have nothing further further I'd like to thank you uh thanks for
coming and presenting and we'll move on to number 10 J reorganization update so Mr chair just as they're leaving I just want to thank them because the work that they have done putting this budget piece together and
the the the I've challenged them to think outside of just their four walls of their building or program that they are overseeing um and they've really stepped up and done that and looked out for the welfare of the district and they've made tough decisions and they've
sacrificed pieces that were in their building because they knew it was what was best for the district as a whole so um and once again I'll reiterate we are we have made very sound and solid financial decisions our last few years
which has put us in the position this year to be able to continue to have enhancements as we adjust our budget so um that that is one of the things that that we are incredibly proud of as well so um yes certainly I know one place for
you're saving money is heat in this building it's okay saves money maybe it's because I'm older but you're too warm BR a blanket oh you're cold U maybe we need to look into the Schoolboard budget see if we get parkas
up here for Schoolboard members or sorry sorry we have to ask yourself um okay just real quick for the reorganization update so we did uh meet with the teachers and their choices uh those that are be that were displaced due to the
reorganization um they all chose what their next position and building was going to be um the nice thing about that is no one was permanently displaced we actually had uh was it four open slots after we were
done choosing so we're still looking to fill four spots so we didn't we didn't have anybody that any teachers that were permanently displaced or or let go due to the reorganization they had a choice in where they were going um and which
which building they were going to be in based off a seniority we followed contractual uh language and an agreement that we had with uh uh the FBO Education Association uh so that happened a couple weeks ago um we are now moving forward with a bus route we are really close we
worked with them again yesterday we have a preliminary one I shouldn't say that we have a pretty solid one drawn out on paper the bus garage is now uh turb Transportation I guess I should say is now going through and just looking at all the little minute details to make
sure we didn't miss anything and and double checking with our system Infinite Campus um and we plan to have that finalized I would say within the next week to 10 days uh notifying parents sometime in March around uh which which
boundary they will fall in for the for the upcoming school year um and I know Nicole is working on peris's assignments that be coming up in the next couple weeks um principles are working on uh space in
their building room assignments uh we gave them I believe a May 1st deadline that they needed to have uh all teachers assigned or choose a room by um and then Kane is working diligently on uh what the pieces around McKinley are going to look like uh because that building will
need more construction pieces mostly in the HVAC but we're we're we're looking at some other other pieces too uh so that it can house larger secondary students see asking you shall receive that I think they it just turned on Kane must be listening at
home um and then uh also looking at um uh what the move is going to look like and I know he just posted for some summer help yesterday um and he's already been collecting boxes so so we're working on a lot of the pieces in
the background that a lot of people don't see but a lot of decisions are being made um about what this how how the nuts and bolts are going to happen uh as we move forward and I don't believe Nicole or Barbie or cabinet I don't believe I left
anything out there so all right uh and that's that's my report Mr chair thank you uh item agenda item number 11 dates to remember February 27th 3:00 p.m. board retreat it's 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. uh
I will be sending out an email reminding you of your homework assignment board members Etc from our last meeting uh March 3rd 2025 5:30 is our work session and there will be a special meeting afterward or either before or afterwards for approval of the budget if we could
do it before then you could then we could SE we could post it at that it will happen at 5:30 we can put a time to it and then we can do the work session after excellent that's what we shall do thank you uh March 4th at 3:45 p.m. policy committee meeting March 10th 7:30
a.m. finance committee meeting and March 17th at 5:30 pm. is our business meeting uh agenda item number 12 adjournment do we have a motion to adjourn I'll make the motion to adjourn anybody want to second that I'll second thank you miss canson any discussion
discussion discussion all in favor signify by saying I I oppos motion passed we are Jour Thank you very