Tom Guston David Marty Ashley Goodman thank you uh we've got an open forum and we've uh got uh Jessica and Brielle uh to uh uh give us a presentation uh to start thank you good evening I'm BR Carlson I'm Jessica fasi we're both social studies teachers at the high school um so we're here
tonight um to give a little information about our next upcoming international trip that we're hoping to get support on um I know there's a lot of new members of the board so just a little bit of background about our International club that we have um here at Grand Rapids High School um we've been traveling internationally with students since 2012 um at this point we've taken hundreds and hundreds of students and
um parents and other community members um we've been all around the world which has been really exciting all sorts of countries this summer we're headed to Thailand um and next summer Scotland and Ireland um we are really proud of these opportunities we think this is a really unique opportunity here that we offer our local students um we also offer a number of fundraising opportunities for students to help subsidize the cost of
the trip we typically like to to plan our trips two years in advance to give families the opportunity to budget and plan for those expenses Jaden was on her trip last year to Italy so she's she can she can talk about that but anyways um the other thing that we want the board to be aware of as well is that in memory of our um colleague Eric northr that passed away we established a travel scholarship um in his memorial so we
are intending now to annually it's been endowed which is very exciting to annually award um um ISD 318 International club or Big Fork traveler on um International trips to award a scholarship annually so really exciting so that's a little bit of background about our program um we're proposing a trip to Japan in 2027 and wanted just to provide um a have a little opportunity to Pro
provide some background information on our proposed trip she's going to make me do this part because we don't know how to do these pronunciations um so we um part of the reason we're coming and giving you some information in advance is we did work with some board members in the past year to develop uh a kind of a new like trip policy um and we wanted to have some guideline around how these International trips were occurring um and then here we go and propose dates in the spring so we have two alternate dates here um one of
them is for uh roughly around Easter of 2027 and the other one would be in early June um this summer for Thailand we are traveling in June so June 8th or 9th y somewhere where we leave um and then the Scotland Ireland trip we decided to travel in July so for 2026 um so there's a couple of reasons for that so I wanted just to include some of the like locations and activities and that you can see kind of a difference in the estimated prices for
those two dates we did uh design this trip so there's probably six or seven itineraries through the tour company um and we took the things that we liked um other recommendations from other tour company or tour leaders like us from other schools that have done this trip and then also just like kind of budget as much as we could be budget friendly in designing the trip so this is actually a custom trip that we created with ef um to try to get kind of at our at or below the budget we were we were going for so you can see just a
variety of things um it'll probably be in reverse order than I have you guys got a copy of did you guys do this back okay um so maybe a little bit reverse order than what you see here but we'll spend time several days in Tokyo um Kyoto Osaka and Hiroshima um and what we were really trying to do is find um a mix of sightseeing but also Hands-On things like we found that um that's you know kids like to see things but they also like to do things and we found even in Italy that was really fun to have some Hands-On things so a combination of guided
tours and and um you know seeing castles and but also like making sushi and doing a karaoke night and those types of things so it's kind of a combination of both we also looked at the length um when you're going this far and you're spending this much we wanted to make sure that it wasn't it wasn't too short um and obviously we're trying to be mindful of it also not being too long um so you're trying to find that kind of Goldilocks in between of making sure that you've got um enough time that it feels like you're getting value for what you're spending because we know that this is an
investment for families but also um uh not too long that the cost also gets out of hand so um on page two we just have some information about EF Tours which is who we travel with and um we have I mean this is who we've been traveling with for uh quite a few years now and also we've traveled with explor we went with ef on this we've just liked our experiences with them and when you look at that estimated price you uh things that are included in that include the airfare the lodging most of the meals we get um our own personal tour
director so when we fill a bus which we always do um we get our own tour director and a private tour we're not grouped with any other groups um and that also includes uh in-country Transportation um which in Japan will include bullet trains um and also entrance fees to any of the places that we go so for Japan the bus size is 42 um which allows us to have 36 Travelers which is includes any students and parents that sign up and that will give us
uh six chapon um which for us are 318 employees um so just a little bit of background about more of the the spring request versus Summer because we have traditionally done every trip except I think one that we did early on back in 2013 I believe that was that one was in the fall yes yes and then one trip postco um was rescheduled for over Easter break we took advantage of Easter break
we're really mindful obviously about taking students out of school um we know that's incredibly important for students to be in school however a couple you know really important pieces went into this decision um this is an expensive trip this will probably be one of the most expensive places that we uh foresee in our future traveling to and so we we have agonized over this and gone back and forth about making um this
as affordable as we can for this destination we've had a ton of students and community members request actually that we visit Japan and so we started investigating and thought this would be a great destination traveling in the spring does save about $2 to $300 um to do that we if we go would would certainly take advantage of an Easter break and or a spring break if that's something that will be built into the calendar of course we don't know
that yet um we're also really want to we've been playing around with dates to try to capture different student groups so when we go in in the beginning of June one of the um difficulties that some families have to make is state tournaments that their students or you know their children of State baseball State Golf State Track um sometimes prevents students from joining our trips because of that so our Scotland and Ireland trip for 2026 we're trying in July to see you know
if we can capture a different group of students that maybe wouldn't go um and we also thought let's try a spring trip this is in between the winter and spring uh Sports Seasons as well too so we we were wanting to take advantage um of that the other thing just kind of an important piece Japanese tourism has really taken off lately and uh it's been increasingly busy so
going during the springtime would hopefully allow us to take advantage of slightly less crowded things and hopefully we can also see the cherry blossoms that are in bloom at that time and take advantage of that so that's a little bit behind why the spring versus Summer this is not something we intend to do every year because missing school is equally as hard for us and so this is this was unique for this particular
trip and like I said you know this typically we we go in the summer so this is not our intent by any means to make this a um Regular request at all so that's a little bit behind that questions or anything we can answer yeah yeah I have a few you'd mentioned that this is a little more expensive than historically what what is your Arrangement typically historic so the last couple trips probably about
4500 to 5,000 so you can see the price difference for sure there and and how has this been funded thus far yep so um like I stated before we we typically introduce these trips two years ahead of time um so families can budget so it's it's 100% Bud um funded by fames individual families um but we also provide a number of fundraising opportunities that students can take
advantage of we just want ran one recently where um one student netted $700 on a fundraiser $500 $600 so students can also take opportunity of fundraisers if they want we find that most of our students get jobs and um help pay for um the trip costs I'll try to keep it final here you said uh 36 Travelers is what you were shooting for is that what have you
seen historically and what kind of range I guess variance I'm curious yeah I mean we so we actually um so we limit ourselves to one bus we found that uh we've done even more than one bus before and we've been able to fill multiple buses we just find traveling it's a better experience to limit it so we anticipate um all our trips usually are full so we anticipate having all 36 travelers all all spots full for that so so if you have more sign up
is it it's a first come first first come first yeah we we did uh two buses back in 2016 to Spain France and Italy wonderful trip it's a lot to organize um and you can imagine lots of moving Parts on the ground um and so we just decided for the students and in The Travelers experience um that it was best to to limit it to one bus and we we tend to fill fairly quickly um our
Italy trip filled within a matter of hours a few years back when people went to sign up so um and it's part of the reason we're offering it so it hasn't always been yearly but it's part of why we're offering yearly is that um we do limit it so then we you know in your high school career you would have several opportunities to go on a different trip depending on what interests you which is why we're doing the yearly trips Dave you have your hand up yeah um uh thanks
for the presentation this is uh exciting and a great opportunity I think for our kids one thing I was wondering if you could talk through is what's the cost to the district for these trips you know I I think I heard you say that staff go um what is and obviously if you're going during the school year that's going to incur a cost for subs and whatnot do you I I don't have the the packet in front of me of what was sent out um but can you talk a little bit about what that cost to the district would be yeah sure I mean I think that would be the biggest issue is the
sub cost um we usually take so if we took six chaperon then they would be District employees um and in the past we've used we've been able to utilize staff development funds for that and so I think it's just a matter of us working with the district to see you know if you're making a commitment to be a chaperon on this um we would also want to see how this would benefit your teaching so we have an application process um that when teachers um or other staff members are interested to kind of look at how it will this
impact your teaching what does this mean for the classroom is there a way that this would um contribute to uh learning in your classroom and if so I think staff development would be a place for that uh potentially to help cover with those sub costs um otherwise there's no other cost to the district okay thank you other questions comments notes is is this insured for these families in any way or how
there any concern about that I guess so um this is a EF I mean you feel free to do any you know um research on it but incredibly reputable to our company it's the largest one um yes they they have a ton of insurance I mean they're an educational to our company and um they've been doing this for decades um and have millions of students have traveled with them the other piece is uh individual families can choose
additional travel insurance if they want that's a totally optional thing but yeah this is definitely we travel only with a reputable insured travel company I mean we definitely want to provide safe experiences for our students other notes or comments anybody this is not up for Action tonight uh this will come before the board uh at a later date uh before uh we send our
students off um but thank you for the for a very uh Illuminating presentation for a lot of details uh and thank you for the planning and work you've done on this uh it's an exciting tradition that uh you're carrying thank you we appreciate your time thank you uh with that in place I think uh Darren Cherney buildings and grounds and board members you have uh
a uh report from from Darren in your packet yep well good evening uh welcome new board members uh before I get started on this I kind of want to let you know something I have going on this week um I'm a member of this organization called masmus and it's facility directors around the state of Minnesota and uh we get together once a month and talk about different things and have different learning opportunities and last year in February I went down to the capital and I met with a bunch of legislators and I'm doing it again this week Thursday and
I'm going to be talking about ltfm funding as well as what Cara gave me for masbo um for funding for school districts and some of the things that have come up with the unemployment and everything else that you gave me so if there's anything that you guys uh want me to bring up while I'm meeting with these individuals shoot me an email let me know and and I'll bring it up so so this is the uh facility indicator report it's put together by Olivia
and myself it's Maintenance and Facilities and that also includes the custodians every year it goes from uh February to February uh the connection to the uh um mission statement we provide a clean and sanitary and well-maintained buildings every day we monitor the air the water both by being I'm having a hard time seeing that by being in the buildings and also and also remotely I have
a laptop at home or I'm able to see what the buildings have going on with the boilers water I can adjust lights things like that you know we keep the parking lots clear of snow and ice for safety we check the buildings over breaks on the weekends to ensure that the buildings are safe and comfortable for the students and staff and Community we have our own mission statement and that's together through diligent cleaning and maintenance we're protecting the health and well-being of the district number of students we have 941,618 buildings from cleaning
maintaining mowing plowing our department impacts everyone we also maintain all the fields and roofs parking lots we're one of the few District or departments that impacts everyone when a students on site they're impacted through the cleanliness of our classrooms bathrooms kitchens and corridors the maintenance and custodial team ensures that the air is filtered and heated the water safe to drink by testing for lead and testing the rpcs they make sure that the lights are working gvis are working proper as well
and they make sure that the uh playgrounds are inspected monthly and they make sure that the green spaces are mowed and fields are ready for play we have 30 custodians five maintenance people one uh admin assistant myself one of the things is we have a lot of equipment and a lot of it's getting very old we need to find a way to increase our budget for um purchasing new custodial equipment uh plow trucks things of that nature Olivia is
a 37h hour week employee in the summertime she goes down to 35 hours and I would like to see that change to 40 because in the summertime we actually take on additional MERS and Painters things like that that's when all of our projects are going on and that's when we're realistically the busiest and we also have people that start at six o'clock in the morning and we have other staff members that get off at 11 her phone and my phone ring all the time so that's just kind of
my recommendation there uh our Department's been working with IC dsgw trimco and other contractors to complete and plan multiple projects throughout the district and we have a a and I've got it in here it's it's a a software that we use it's called School dude and we did little over 2,000 School dudes last year changing uh Olivia's position again and then I have the is this on here it's not all
right so I gave you all a of like a basically a little list of things that um that we've been doing in all of our buildings you know we sold the uh the administrative building at the Grand Rapids Senior High we replaced a bunch of old rotten and rusted outdoors and Frames we installed two new elevators and we completed the two-year indoor air quality project this summer as well this this uh upcoming year I have have a generator
that's ordered that should be here in a few weeks and the generator is really important because it's the backup energy source for the IAS computer system so we can't have that generator going out and that generator was installed in 1998 so it's time that we get a new one we test it monthly we have a service contract with the company and I put out the electrical work for bids and hopefully we'll be seeing that thing shortly we'll get it installed and we can stop worrying about that one tripping out all the time and then also every year I try to do
a little bit of um building envelope work so I'd like to do some some things there as well over at the middle school we did a lot of rof leaks that's something that we need to start looking at too I mean that that building was built in 2003 that roof is beyond warranty and it's failing in a lot of areas so that's something that we need to start thinking about on what we can do and how we can phase that out because I ran some estimates on it's going to be about five million bucks to put a new roof on that building we did a bunch of Tuck
pointing we did some mental paneling there and then uh as far as next year goes we are working on uh a new drop off and pickup Lane for the Middle School uh Big Fork we put some new aluminum Elementary doors on the north and south side of the building then we reeal coded that parking lot this this year next year I I'm or this coming summer I'm hoping to do some tuck pointing and some facade work up there as well this building here
we uh as you can not hear we did some sound attenuation work that that turned out really really well some of us were skeptical on how well it would uh turn out but if you had been to a meeting last year or anytime in the spring you can definitely tell that it made a significant difference and I didn't get to see Cara sticker head inside this own anation because she said her ears were rigging and that would have taken care of it um proposed for here
as you can see if you walk around in the corridors we're painting and patched all the holes I do have some estimate numbers for carpet whether or not we go go through with it or not that hasn't been decided yet but it would be nice just to finish this building off and and just have it look complete uh Cohasset we did a bunch of routine maintenance seal coating things like that right now I'm working with dsgw on putting together a proposal for the things that we weren't able to do when we built the building so we just have a little list of things and if you
walk around you can kind of see where we took a a can a can of lever off of a old entryway and the Metal's still sticking out of the bricks they patched it with brick it doesn't look very good if you're ever in that uh lunchroom cafeteria area uh during the daytime you'll see that that wi or that sun coming through that South glass you'll see those kids sitting there eating like that because the sun is so blinding so one of the things that we talked about doing is putting a a blind up that can go up and down so on those
brighter sunny days when that Sun's reflecting off the snow those kids are able to sit in there comfortably at my building all we really did was some uh seal coating and then at East and West please don't make me move another school that is all we've been doing since 2020 and uh so we we moved the K through two over to uh West and then three through five is over at East now it seems like every summer we've had the
pensy trucks here we've been begging for pallets from all of our local businesses and uh yeah buying boxes and pallets and tape and everything else we're all pretty pretty much done with that so if there's any way we can uh avoid that this year that would be greatly appreciated I have uh the next page is the health and safety all these highlighted bullet point things are things that we work with IA on all these things are documented in three- ring binders in my office so if anybody
ever wants to look at anything whether it's um asbest um samples or you know any basically everything has to be checked every so often whether it's monthly or annually or quarterly and all those reports are in my office and three- ring binders so if anybody ever wants to come by and see any you can definitely just pop in and I'll give you whatever you want on the next page I talk about the school dude thing again and as you
can see our school dudes have been going in pre-2000 our school dudes were around 2800 I believe they've been going down with the addition or with the the new schools as well as um we got rid of Forest Lake we got rid of Murphy we got rid of the old admin building so obviously those numbers are starting to creep down now I provided you with a list of um the custodians what buildings they're at the hours
they work and pretty much you know anything that you about our custodian group and and that's where they're all at so that's all I have for you this evening thank you uh any questions for uh Darren anybody do uh do we have any information on how much subcontract work
ends up getting done for the district that's beyond what our staff can handle let's say and we end up bringing in an outside source to help out I have all that all that information at at my office okay is there something specific no just was kind of curious how you know what how much we're able to do inhouse versus meaning outside resources for I guess I feel that we do as much in house as we can but there's obviously things that are outside our capability especially
when it comes to you know maybe building like uh that um gazebo for the Indian ad even we hired a contractor to trench in the power we laid our own conduit but there's there's things that it just makes more sense to have somebody else coming and do painting everyone thinks they can paint realistically but if you look at what nl's doing here he's pretty dang good at it oh I was just curious and faster
a related question Darren um uh I note that uh for work in Cass you're working with dsgw yes uh why dsgw dsgw has pretty much all of our blueprints we do from time to time work with wi Seth but dsgw designed her middle school we worked with them on this project and a vast majority of our projects we work with them they have all of our information I've tried to stand standardize everything as much as
possible paint colors flooring things like that the the best locks um you know the automatic door or handicap closures on doors I've I've specked out certain things so that way we have consistency across the district dsgw has all that information so it's really easy to work with them because they've been in our building so much they know our buildings they know our specs they know what we like and it's it's it's been nothing but positive with working with them but
like the middle school project we're working with wiseth wiseth also did our um pole barn when we built that but the projects that we did this last year whether it be this one or the high school that was IC and dgw and cmta and the same same people we typically use okay thank you any other questions or comments or notes for for Darren Dave you have anything no thank
you okay I good example about this carpet that you're seeing here is the same carpet that we have at our EAS Elementary West Elementary so the high school when we redid the office at the high school when we redid the office at um Big Fork it's the same carpet it's the same Johnson uh rubber base I use the 2 by two ceiling tiles so if something like we have pallet of the stuff at our office if
a kid damages one or whatever we're not mixing and matching you know some people try to give me a hard time about institutionalizing everything because I like Cadet gray and gloss Mir for doors that wasn't a color that I picked out that was a color that Rod picked out but it makes things so much easier if there's a mark on the wall we have five gallons of it in our shop and we can go paint it I know Cara doesn't like it but excellent thank you any other notes
thank you you mat uh any other comments questions for Darren thank you very much excellent report great detail uh we're going to take a uh short two-minute break uh and then we will uh come back for our board meeting uh Workshop is [Music] ajour
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uh we have uh chair Mark Schroeder uh is uh uh absent with notice we also have um uh board member Melissa bar is absent and we have Dave Cohen joining us from a lot warmer spot than we're all in today uh Dave is uh coming from Dave
help me with it it's here peterborg um in the the US Virgin Islands in St Thomas perfect thank you and um let's uh let's just go around for uh documentation again uh who we have here at the board meeting and start Dave with you Dave Cowen Jaden heyis owner scene Tom guson David Marty Ashley Goodman
M Ross good thank you uh then uh we'll call the meeting to order and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we'll
uh need an approval uh of the agenda and all of our votes today have to be uh um voice votes uh do I have a motion to accept the agenda uh move by Ashley in a second second second by Tom uh Voice vote Dave hi
Ashley good hi yes yes uh the uh agenda is uh approved as presented with the uh uh one change uh uh We've added Carol cop uh from the earlier agenda with that in place uh Carol uh our next piece is uh the English language arts update Carol
can you uh speak to that please well okay good evening thank you for let for having me here tonight I don't have a slideshow uh Mr Cowen there's information Julie has for you for when you come back if you want to take a look at it um so in front of you board members and student Representatives um you have a packet with that front cover of wit and wisdom which is our new K8 English language arts curriculum and as I mentioned the last time I was here their motto is every student is capable of greatness and if I have anything to say about it that'll be one of our
motos here um in our district just because I believe in that if you're taking a look at the front and I have material that goes kind of along with it for some of these we have 71 K8 classrooms teaching Wht and wisdom five schools we are currently doing some collaborations with other districts there are no other districts in our area that are using Whitten wisdom yet a lot of the local districts have chosen not to get their new curriculum until they've gotten through
the reading training and so we are kind of by ourselves up here without other districts to talk to so we've created Partnerships down south so we've recently talked to the administrators at St James we've talked to South St Paul and we have a pretty good relationship too with Rochester and so sharing resources talking about what they're doing Etc um the field trip the speaker that we have this week is also going to those districts as well so the next one on my list is student
work and that is in your packet the next two pages I just want you to see um I don't know when the last time was you were around a sixth grader um but um this these next two pages are from a sixth grader in November the very first page is a graphic organizer which this curriculum teaches students how to organize their thinking and then the very next page um is the introductory paragraph from a sixth grader and if you'll note and I'm in English teacher
um you'll note that uh the proper citations are there along with page numbers which is very exciting um as an English teacher and they're focusing on the Great Depression so it's all about what makes but a Survivor and talking about what happens in life the next thing that's in my packet is no literacy nights so you may have seen some things out on social media some flyers as you came in we have literacy nights next week and so for those of you watching at home we want you to come out on Tuesday we'll be in Big Fork for our literacy night
Wednesday will'll be at Cohasset and then Thursday for all the gra Grand Rapids area schools will be at West Elementary so for East West and the middle school and it is going to be a chance to see some of the materials see some of the curriculum see some student work some teachers will be there um and be able to ask questions as well in the QR code uh on the flyer is Al also takes you to a spot to answer questions if you're watching at home and you're on the District Facebook page there have been
some of those with the QR code the next thing in your packet is what we call our guided observations for leaders and I'm really proud of this even though I didn't come up with it I kind of came late to the game to this but what we have is we have our leaders going through training on how to observe wit and wisdom in the classroom and so this is what we're doing is this guided observation for leaders and we're doing it tomorrow at the middle school so all of the administrators all the K8 admin
rators come together at a school we talk about what we're going to see that day and we go out and do observations in the Whitten and wisdom classroom for 20 minutes and then we come back and we debrief what did we see what was going well what are some of our next steps um and we're finding positives everywhere the other thing that we're doing that we did in Big Fork uh for our last one in January is we're having coaching conversations with teachers teachers are coming in to face eight administrators with God knows what kind of questions they're going to be asked and they
have a conversation about what happened in the classroom or what is going to happen in the classroom and for my the first time I think in my teaching career and I'm at 30 this year uh we are really talking about teaching and what's going on in the classroom and how we can all be better not just teachers not just administrators not just students but how we can all be better and on the back of that in your packet you'll see what some teachers have said about our observations um and so of course they were apprehensive a little bit scared but it wasn't bad at all and I
think we just have to normalize doing that in March um Mr gross helped me make some connections to I ask and so in March we have an administrator from floodwood an administrator from Deer River an administrator from I ask and I just heard today an administrator either from Minneapolis or Akin we're not sure which one so anyway coming in to observe classrooms at East so again we're doing some really great things and people need to see that so that's what we have
coming up there the next thing on your list um is on Thursday so um I'm a Shameless promoter for the district and so Thursday morning I'll be on kxe promoting our program and promoting our literacy night just for people to be able to do that um so I think it's 7:20 or I'm not sure which time she gave me two times I'm not sure exactly which one um the next thing on your list is one-on-one check-ins so today was my first one and and I met face to face with all of the Wht and wisdom teachers
at West um just a quick check-in how are things going how can I support you what's happening and most of them have said since this my position started they feel a lot better um with that support so things are looking up um the next one on the list and you have a flyer for this in your packet um are the field trips that connect to wit and wisdom and I'm so proud well both of them but on Thursday through the and I grant um
we have James Spencer from the nesp uh tribe who is featured in the fifth grade curriculum as the Storyteller and the kids really loved it he's coming to the ri on Thursday um and he's also going to be at some of those other schools I mentioned earlier but you can see his biography here um and I'm really excited all fifth graders in our district are are going to that so Cohasset Big Fork and East all fifth grade um students are going to be there so if you are available to come that would be
great the another field trip that is happening this week um is a virtual field trip to falling water I don't know if we have any Frank Lloyd Wright uh fans in here uh but falling water is uh one of his homes I don't know enough I know enough about it to be dangerous in Pennsylvania and they do virtual field trips and so we have four of our fourth grade classes Wednesday and Thursday taking Virtual Field Trips there and so that's another thing that I've been able to provide as find those experiences for these teachers to be able to help them
do that because they don't have time in their day the next thing that I want you to be be aware of in your packet is I gave you a first page of a pacing guide revision so for the non-teachers on the board a pacing guide basically is what are you teaching and when are you teaching it and so this was kind of new this year for our language arts teachers we didn't have one like this in the past and so teachers were given one um and we dealt
we we dealt with some of the pain and whatnot that head with that last week I had ka8 teachers in this room who sat and worked through with the new potential Board calendar um and created new pacing guides for every grade K8 um and there were multiple people on each one with input from the teachers and we took their input into consideration so this is not a complete one if you want to look at a complete one just let me know I just wanted you to see kind of the layout and what that meant so if anyone comes you talking about it you at least have that knowledge
planning is underway for next year already on Wednesday of this week I will be bringing to strategy team um some training dates for next year we've already kind of mapped that out so I will be bringing that to the strategy team for approval on Wednesday we're looking at um having that solidified before we get to summer so teachers can know what trainings are they going to have what support will they have during the school year and what does that look like another it's not really a field trip because this one is coming uh to
the middle school so um last year I had the opportunity to go to the Minnesota Council of teachers for English in duth and we had a presenter there um who was a poet and our English teachers our eighth grade English teachers wrote an endowment Grant to bring him up and so he's a poet in Residence and he will spend the entire last week of February at the middle school um just reading the first line of his bio um he's a poet and teaching artist based in Minneapolis he's formed at the United Nations
contributed to a Grammy winning album been a member of two national poetry slam championship teams and visited countless schools conferences and festivals so he'll be staying with them and working with them all week at the middle school at the end of February I'm really excited about that for them and thankful to our Endowment for the money um and then the final one um is a video and then I have a picture that I want to talk about that's in your packet but a video um so a few weeks ago uh Mr Grow
said hey would it be great if we had a video of all the great things that are happening in the district and he's learned that you can't really say those things to me because then I put it on my to-do list and then I keep working on it and to try to get it done and so um I found several Avenues most of which uh were going to cost us lots of money and he said never mind we can't do it and so I had already been down the road so far that I couldn't turn back and so um with the help of the tech Hub and that collaboration we have a video in progress and they're going to start
doing some videotaping tomorrow of our um leader or guided observations tomorrow uh they're coming to our literacy night so we can get some of that out there they're going to do some footage from classrooms interview some teachers Mr gross they want to interview you too I just didn't tell you that um and so and we're looking at about a f minute video um we just need the great things that are there are great things happening there are really amazing things going on and we need the community and the board to be able to see what we're doing um on the front page at the very
bottom it says if you want to schedule a classroom visit so board members if you would like to get out into the class into a school let me know and I will take you there um to be able to do that and then my very the very last page of your packet has a very happy classroom from Big Fork and I know it's dark um but these are kindergarteners who were putting together their knowledge Journal about what they know and what they can do and they wanted their picture to be sent to me so it is up in my office um just they're really excited about
everything that they've learned so with that do you have any questions questions or comments for Carol bab do you have any no none for me thank you Carol y i I do have a few here Carol okay thank you by the way um yeah so you mentioned um the administrators right on your guided observations whatever for leaders was there eight is that what I
heard was there um we've kind of varied depending on the the level of illness this winter we've varied I think we started at Cohasset with maybe n maybe there were eight or nine of us when we were in Big Fork last month I think we were at 4 um we might be back up to eight or so tomorrow at the middle school and and who are the administrators are they teachers that are just taking this role on or no cited nope that's okay so site administrators um
and myself okay so um it would be building administrators the problem is we have a lot of Administrators wearing multiple hats and so it's difficult to be away from the building so sometimes one of them has to stay back if there are two okay um but generally um they try to at least send one okay now I'm understanding that's okay I was thinking separate Administration no no it the building administrators okay um what uh what was the decision on the fifth grade students for the for
our Storyteller the C yeah the decision meaning why them yeah why not open to more ages for lack of better term absolutely because you're bringing it right into the rif so it's not like you're traveling nope so it was it just tied directly in with their curriculum so it was part of their curriculum and so um just keeping it with them and then that way next year the fourth graders would get it and so on to be able to do that okay no that's fine I just was
kind of curious about that um I was really glad to hear about the tech Hub love that I mean I love what when I see our doing things in a professional way lack of better term right doing what you do in life right um really like to hear that um so um and then I guess my question is on these on these uh open open house lit nights um so so these are open to
the public absolutely right um will actual textbooks and and material be there absolutely so so what I'm hearing and what I'm going to say is I hear a lot of people asking about being open about our curriculum and what it is this is a great opportunity for our for our community to come in and see exactly everything and it's and they can ask questions right I mean that's what this is for that's the point
is for it to be um transparent and open we so in my tenure we've I've not ever done you know so this was like we're going to do this we need to do this for the community the plan is that we will have student work available so parents and the community can see student work that we're doing um the materials will be available teacher editions student workbooks Etc to be able to look at uh the books that we're reading we'll have books available we'll also be giving some books away we had some title money to be able to give some books away as
well and also I will have I don't but those of you that remember I gave a short presentation a few months ago on Whitten wisdom I'll be giving that presentation again so that um parents and the community um also will have a chance to see that there is the QR code on there to ask a question ahead of time so that if you want if they want to do that um otherwise we'll be answering questions there okay does that I don't know if that helps no that that's I mean I really like to hear that I've heard a lot of parents ask yeah and rightfully
sold trying to be very transparent and it is sometimes difficult um so we're just trying we know that it may not work for everyone um and if that's the case and you can't come uh to the literacy night reach out because there are ways to be able to communicate about what's going on okay then one final one sorry okay um so you had mentioned on 313 we've got outside administrators inition in addition to the try to do a you to make sure we're consistent with what so so
the purpose my thought was we have no other schools up here using Wht and wisdom and wouldn't it be great if we also had some neighbor partners that were doing it and we could kind of rely on and work on and work with each other that's that was the only thing and we are seeing a great deal of success with it um first year so but that was that was kind of the intent behind that to bring in some other partners possibly okay so they currently do not use this not correct and they're and they're kind of
coming in to see just be coming kind of to observe what we're doing they're on the front end of potentially selecting a curriculum so it's kind of like you can come see what it looks like rather than just listen to the sales person exactly because it does look a lot different you know between a salesperson and what you actually see in the classroom I'm you know the feedback I'm getting is you you know at least with you know within these meetings is it's been positive you know it
sounds like there's a lot more consistencies between the schools we good to hear and and uh so thank you you're welcome Carol if other districts are um in the process of choosing uh their new Ela curriculums and Whitten wisdom happens to be it is uh would our district be um a district that they could come in and ask questions and get help with training with Y absolutely and and um Jen shadine actually today made a connection for us
with someone who wanted to know what we were doing with walkthroughs um and how we did it and sharing some things like that so absolutely um sharing what we've got kind of being an open book and speaking of if wit and wisdom was what they chose Whitten wisdom is the only knowledge building curriculum that has been approved by the state of Minnesota but more than that it was vetted by the University of Minnesota uh for it being knowledge building and knowledge building goes along with the science of readings so it was picked because it goes along with the science of reading
and again it was the only knowledge building curriculum that the state approved our finances to use and if correct me if I'm wrong this is also this is a curriculum that the state is is paying for is that not accurate or is that Mr gr what's the official answer to that they the state is allocated some reimbursement for curriculum yes um if
that curriculum falls on their list this is one of the ones on their list it won't pay for all of it okay is that the right answer that's fair she doesn't know that's okay other questions comments excellent Carol thank you uh the work you've done in wi and wisdom on behalf of incredible and I appreciate uh what you're doing and I'll look forward to seeing you next week uh at
uh uh various workshops thank you thank you thank you uh next on our agenda is Equitable education a principal report uh from the one and only Andy forbo Andy Thank you Mr Marty good evening board members congratulations newly elected board members uh thanks for having me here tonight uh Andy forbort assistant principal Grand High School also our area Learning Center principal um fourth year being affiliated with our
ALC um happy to report some current programming going on um some thoughts or some maybe some misconceptions about the alc and scheduling so we have 25 students a day at the alc uh Monday through Thursday uh five students per classroom five classes and they attend three blocks um so we have up to 125 Plus for the week because on Fridays is when we moved our super senior program and our seniors that are ahead the curve as far as credits um so we squeeze
them in on Fridays um mainly due to the number of Fridays that are off on a school calendar um so students aren't harmed by having to miss a few days here and there um compared to Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Etc uh we do offer night school on Tuesdays if you didn't know that we have anywhere from one to two teachers here on site and we also have one teacher in Bigfork um connect you with those students so they don't have to make the travel all the way down to here a lot of Partners ships um returning board members you've seen this list
before but there are a few things I did want to highlight on the Partnerships um we just had initial collaborations with North homes last week about providing some Mental Health Services on site at the alc um that was a great collaboration collaborative meeting um it sounds like there's G to be some resources available from North homes so at least one day a week to start with we can offer some Mental Health Services to some of our students that probably received the services in their home District or previous school um and then they can continue those Services here right on site uh
we're also partnering with Scott patro next career Pathways just had a meeting two weeks ago uh to continue looking at opportunities to get our ALC students um career internships on the job training um and get them out in our community while still earning some credit uh despite the weather outside we are currently planning for summer school um so I'll be working with Casey and HR to get some summer school postings out there um we have set our dates June 23rd until August 8th uh Tuesday through Thursday um if you didn't know in order
for our ALC to be operating we do have to offer programming every month of the year um so that's why we go into that early bit of August and excited uh late last week I spoke with our transportation director Greg Olsen um and Kristen wacnik in that department and for the first time in my eight years here um we're looking to offer transportation for summer school which has been a barrier in the past for some students to be able to attend and so we're really excited about that um students will just sign up like they do for the school year as far as
enrolling in transportation requests and uh we'll be able to meet those needs to get more students access to summer school celebrations for the alc obviously ALC is a non-traditional setting um goal is to get the students to get in the door um give them a little bit different experience in an independent study program and ultimately get them to earn their diploma so far to date this school year we've had 29 graduates um 19 which is from the Grand Rapid area schools six from Greenway one from De River two graduates from North Hol kellier
two graduates from nashwa keywon one graduate from Norland reamer and many are sitting very close to being done over the next few weeks as well we do have a waiting list um high demand in the last few years Ford area Learning Center um we service obviously is schools and Beyond as noted by our graduates and current attendees um so we're constantly trying to the student graduates fill that seat the next week or two with a student on the waiting list um to get them into the program this last week we had six ALC
staff members attend their annual um Minnesota alternative education conference in duth um I'm going to be at the alc on Thursday hopefully to connect with them about uh insights and things that we can be Innovative about um based on that experience that was not one of them but many of our staff members were there on that note I'm happy to answer any questions or provide any clarification as needed thank you Andy any uh notes comments thoughts for uh Andy uh much appreciate your
work with ALC uh juggling uh as you do the responsibility high school as well uh noted and appreciated um thank you okay have a great evening thank you everyone thank you the next on our uh uh agenda is the approval of minutes for January 21st regular session I need a motion in a second so moved I'm moved by day second second by Ashley um we'll
take a roll call vote on this yes yes yes yes thanks uh the minutes of January 21st stand approved we have uh minutes of uh February 3D uh workshop and close
session uh I need a motion in a second to approve that so moved moved by Ashley second second by Tom uh we'll have a voice call vote uh Julie yes yes yes yes uh the minutes of February 3rd are approved uh then we have the
January 2025 claims in the amount of 6,127 n947 we need a motion and a second to approve so moved I have a motion from Dave second a second from Tom uh Julie a voice call Vote Yes yes
yes yes the uh uh January 2025 claims are approved as presented uh then we have a resolution to accept donations uh and gifts for October November and December and I will read this notice this is the resolution accepting donations whereas
Minnesota statutes 123b .02 provides quote the board may receive for the benefit of the district requests donations or gifts for any proper purpose and apply the same to the propo the purpose designated in that behalf the board may act as Trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district or for the benefit of pupils thereof including trusts created to provide pupils of the district with Advanced education after completion of
high school and an advancement of education and whereas Minnesota statutes 4 65.0 3 provides that quote any City School County District or town May accept a grant or device of real or personal property and maintain such property for the benefit of its citizens in accordance with the terms
prescribed by the donor nothing therein shall authorize such acceptance or use for religious or every such acceptance shall be by resolution of the governing body adopted by a two3 expressing such terms in full end quote therefore be it resolved that the Grand Rapids area school boards uh of Education gratefully accept the following donations
as shown in the attachments provided to the board for October of 20125 $1 15,16 November of 2025 $4,100 and in December of 2025 28,0 $195 do I have a motion uh to accept donations or moved moved by Ashley second second by
Tom thank you uh Julie we're going to need a roll call vote on this Dave Cohen yes Ashley Goodman yes David Marty yes and Tom gustofson yes the uh donations and Gifts uh are duly accepted uh by the board at this this point we move on to uh retirements uh
Casey good evening Bor tonight we have three retirements in the teaching unit Michelle Carnahan Michelle has served 16 years teacher retirement Laura Marshall teacher retirement Laura has served 26 years and Stephanie Stevens teacher retirement 32 years of service I'm recommending approval with thanks for all their years of service
do I have a motion to accept those resignations retirements I should say so move by Ashley second second uh second by Tom um and note of thanks and appreciation to some really widely experienced people U uh We've appreciated their service over the years Julie we're going to need a Voice vote Ashley Goodman yes David Marty
yes Tom gustofson yes and Dave Cowen yes uh the uh retirements uh are duly approved we have the consent agenda uh and uh do you have a presentation okay uh those matters uh uh on the consent agenda are staff related or considered routine and they not require discussion Adams will be items
will be acted upon together in one motion if discussion is desired on a particular item it will be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately by the board and you have the list of it appears to be um 10 staff changes do I have a motion to accept those 10 so moved uh so move
by Tom second second second by Ashley uh this requires a Voice vote again Ashley Goodman yes David Marty yes Tom gustofson yes and Dave Cowen yes uh those uh resignations and Replacements uh are approved by the board item G is the 2025 pay Equity
report uh Casey uh the board has been presented with some information can you yeah thank you Julie is gonna pull up a PowerPoint here so before approving our pay Equity report for 2025 I'd just like to take a few minutes and explain the law around pay equity in Minnesota kind of the reason for the report although this is required and happens every three years it isn't well understood so I'd like you guys to know a little bit about what you're approving quick background
um the pay Equity report was the law was developed in order to eliminate discrimination against women who are paid less than men for jobs requiring comparable levels of expertise so this does go beyond the familiar you're in the same job you should earn the same or similar pay and it goes into a method where you determine kind of the value or equity
in a position and even if positions are indifferent um are significantly different if they hold a similar value they should be paid similarly so we're required to determine points for all of our positions and we are required to make salary adjustments if it is determined that we are consistently paying women less than men for similar Point positions uh government jurisdictions are required
to select an evaluation system we're currently using the haze system and have been since 2019 it includes four areas knowhow problem solving accountability and working conditions each one of those four areas are evaluated for each position that we have and given a number of points and then those four points are added together kind of some misconceptions of the pay Equity
or what it is not we don't take into account the amount of Education longevity or performance of a specific person in the job it's really what the position requires the pay Equity does not take into account the market information supply and demand how busy or hardworking an individual is whether the job is female male or in a collective bargaining unit job descriptions are not required for
pay equity and positions with the same points or comparable points are not required to have the same salary we just have to be consistent and prove that we're meeting the metrics some jobs will vary based on supply and demand and market and that's okay so we don't have to be 100% we just have to be consistent so for the submission we're reporting the number of points for each job we're reporting the number of individuals in each job including how many
are male how many are female the minimum salary and the maximum monthly salary you should know when you're looking at the reports that we are required to determine salaries based on their calculation so any of our positions that are part-time or less than 12 month all are being annualized to assume that they're working eight hours a day all year so you will not many of the position positions on there are not paid anywhere near what it looks
like they are so um just know that that's how we are calculating those and then because all of our jobs don't have the same health insurance contribution we also have to include the district cost towards a family plan in the maximum salary that data is then uploaded and there's three tests that they run that we need to pass so predicted pay is used in the first test and is is very
commonly misunderstood so there's a definition here for you it is the average pay of the male classes at any given point value and it is used just within our district so when you're seeing a predicted pay on our reports those are based on the district um predicted pay is not necessarily the salary that should be paid it's just based on the number of points and the males what they expect it to be
paid okay our results for this year so the first test is a statistical analysis test we passed this test this test test compares the maximum salary to determine if female classes are paid consistently below male of a similar um points value we would need to score an underpayment ratio of 80 or above and we're at 141 right now you can
see based on the chart that we have more male classes that are under the predicted pay then we do have females which is why our number is over 100 the second test is a salary range test we also pass this test this test compares the average number of years it takes for a female class to reach their maximum salary compared to a male class and again a result of 80 or above
is passing on our analysis it takes about 3.83 years for a male to reach top salary and 3.86 for a female so very very similar there and we got a 9.28 and the last test is the exceptional Service Test we also pass this test this is determining um if males are consistent stly receiving more kind of additional pay or added
pay which they will consider longevity or performance pay as a way to pay them more um we are also very consistent there 95 or yeah 95.24% of our male classes receive longevity and 97.5 56 of our female so we scored 102 on that this is our graph that line in the middle is
that predicted pace so that's where they expect most positions will fall again like you've heard in the last few slides we're really looking for 80% to be around that predicted pay the female classes are yellow the males are blue and then our balanced positions are in green so you can see we have a really good mix of positions that are above and below and right near predicted which is great items to consider when you're using
the report again predicted pay is determined using the maximum salary so when they compare our data they're only looking at that maximum salary so we might have positions that the starting wage is a little bit low it's not going to look at that at all Maximum salaries are determined using a full-time equivalent so many of them look very high and might be alarming to you know that that doesn't mean we're actually paying people that
much we're well within passing range and we've made a lot of improvements since 2019 we've tailored our negotiation strategies to make sure that we're consistent and Equitable in in considering our pay Equity our previous salary range test was about 83% now we're at 99 we the way that we were making improvements in this is standard standardizing the number of years it takes people to reach their maximum
salary so making sure that we have similar steps in our contracts and then our exceptional service pay was at 96 and now at 102 this is being done by making sure we're consistent with offering longevity and then we're in a good spot we can focus on kind of our market and our needs instead of having to make adjustments to meet our requirements and then just a slide that summarizes that graph that you
guys have that shows every position their predicted pay and the difference note that all of those are in monthly so if you see a positive or A negative number that's a monthly number um some of these positions have been on here for a number of studies in a row some are new on this report um but again we are well within compliance and if any adjustments are made consider them you know with a grain of salt this isn't saying you have to pay people that
much um it's not looking at the market it's not looking at the demand it's just looking at the male points versus the female and there are other positions that we're having a hard time fing that don't show up on here so any questions I have a couple here quick Cassie thank you yeah um you said this was every three years your question to do this yes how how many years have you done it
overall has this been you said you've done a number of the district or myself the district let's say I believe it started around 1974 maybe okay so it's been a long time don't quote me on that it's been a number of years um do and we completed inhouse you you do all the work on this is that correct I do yeah we started in 2019 with the ha system so previously we used the state job match and that doesn't
allow any variability so at that time um we were the district was given training materials and documentation on how to evaluate the points on that system is there just the two methods or is there more than that even there is you can use a state job match you can use another system like we use so there's others beyond the haze or you can use a consultant um and whatever system they develop those are the so you
can use you can use prescribe methods or else at third party yes independent correct okay no that answers everything thank you Dave yes um Casey thank you very much for that presentation I appreciate the the thoroughness of it I just have a couple of very specific questions um I believe recently this study when it was completed last please correct me if I'm wrong resulted in some adjustments to some wages for two female
employees for the district is that correct um not particular in this study so some of this information is used when we go into negotiations the district can use this um along with market and other factors okay and when adjustments are made like um to bridge the gap if you will are those considered bonuses or could anybody construe those as being bonuses we do not consider them
bonuses as their adjustments to the base salary okay and they're they're driven to try to bridge the gap correct correct okay great thank you very much for that I appreciate it yep other thoughts or questions uh for Casey on the uh on this issue uh then I believe we need to
um uh approve do we need to approve the pay Equity report yes you do um I'll need a motion so move uh move by Dave and a second by Ashley um this again will require a Voice vote uh Julie yes yes Dave Cowen yes Ashley Goodman yes uh the
uh pay Equity report has been uh uh accepted uh as presented next on our agenda is uh the FY 25 general fund budget we've seen this before you have and tonight I'm asking you to approve it um we have done a lot of work already on fiscal year 26 budget and I just want to get uh close to last the Year we're in not last year
speci year 25 books so the sooner we do this the sooner I can solidify assumptions for this current year we're in and work on um additional assumptions for next year um I provided you a summary of what has changed from our original budget to our ending budget the biggest thing to remember is we approved that before the year was even over so as much as we don't know right now we knew a little bit more last year but as you guys are learning that's not a lot we
still didn't know a lot last year when we put that budget together but it's a best estimate at the time so um if you I'm happy to answer any questions on the changes from year-to year um the biggest one I'm just going to throw out there is that covid money we moved um over $2 million from fiscal year 25's budget back to 24 we spent it in 24 I used it to pay health insurance benefits because because we wouldn't have enough from July
1st to September 30th to um fulfill the grant so and we wanted to take advantage of all that money we could um so that was the biggest change in the budget other questions or thoughts for Cara regarding the uh fy2 General uh the revised general fund budget and the notes uh that are attached there seeing none I
do need a motion in a second to accept this so moved I have a motion from Ashley I need the second second second from uh Jim thank you uh and Tom uh with uh uh with was that a second from
you no it was from Dave oh sorry Dave second from Dave uh thank you we have a motion and a second uh to uh uh approve the revised 25 general fund budget uh and Juliet will need a Voice vote on this as well all right Tom gosson yeah yes Dave
Cowen yes Ashley Goodman yes and David Marty yes the FY 25 general fund budget has been uh approved as presented thank you Carol appreciate uh your diligence that the 2526 Area Schools calendar Matt uh in your packet you'll find the proposed calendar for 2526 this
is consistent with what we discussed at the work session most uh recently um water guard rails are sort of put up around school districts on instructional hours for students in kindergarten students in first through sixth grade and uh students in 7th through 12th grade and this accommodates those our requirements it also keeps in mind contractual
requirements um it represents pretty typical or or I'd say customary calendar and there continue to be a lot of discussions about 4 day weeks uh came up recently Mountain arm bule most recently uh Mak the decision move that direction as well as massabi East kind of looking at that uh we're not in a a spot yet to be able to commit to something like that largely because of our sparsity
and the transportation challenges that we have being as large as we are but certainly not off the table but uh this was approved at the is Administrative committee level the is board of directors and uh will be the calendar the base calendar that most is school districts will be working out the thank you uh questions for Matt on the uh calendar we've looked at it uh a couple of times I think just
so it can be said out loud for the community some parents are anxious to know what kind of um winter break and um spring break we are looking at on this calendar sure the the calendar provides just because of how the the calendar year uh goes with September 1st being on Labor Day uh it provides the opportunity to have an extended uh break over the holidays of
two full weeks and then using the Easter season some conference uh teacher or staff compensation days uh we're able to have a full week off from March 30th through April 3D so uh we haven't had a spring break uh for a long time and this aables us to accommodate that without pushing the end of the school year into you know the second or
third week of June we're still this calendar still has us uh out the first week of June which is always something people appreciate having most of their summer intact yep other notes comments questions Matt you uh uh addressed this uh during our Workshop but uh people have been around a long time wonder how many uh snow days we have built in yeah used to be that calendars had indications even on them
sometimes that a particular day might have been a snow day and it doesn't work that quite that way anymore um when it shifted was when the the directive from the state moved to the number of instructional hours in so we have a cushion built in uh in terms of those instructional hours but it isn't like there identifi days in the calendar okay built in we have had to in the
not too recent past uh make up some time when we weren't going to hit that instruction and we were able to do that through some minor adjustments in the calendar in the spring yeah thank you one other thing if I can a really good thing for our community to know along with the calendar as a school district we don't get paid based on how many days school is in
session it has nothing to do with the revenue that school districts get so um you know if we have a day of of school where we do call off school for snow that has zero effect on Revenue uh so it's just I think that's a conception that's out there and good to clear up too okay thank you um with that we do need a motion uh to accept the uh uh school
calendar as presented need a motion in a second so moved uh motion and a second second Ashley uh have a motion second uh Julie Voice vote Dave Collins yes Ashley Goodman yes David Marty yes and Tom Guston yes the 2020 5 26 school calendar is approved as
presented uh we're looking now next item is uh the graduation dates uh for Grand Rapids High School and Bigfork high school we need to um approve these dates and we need to uh uh uh assign some uh board members uh um uh duties to be at the uh
represent uh the school board at those meetings um it's okay I think I will uh accept a motion for both of those graduation dates at once if that's okay need a motion in a second um so moved Ashley is moving second thas second or either one either one uh Dave I'll take your take your
second uh we need a Voice vote on those and then we'll uh look for representation Ashley Goodman yes David Marty yes Tom Guston yes and Dave Cen yes uh so we have uh graduation set at Grand Rapids High School uh on May 29th of 2026 and Big Fork on May 30th on Saturday
of 2026 and we generally have a couple of board members uh uh attending uh each in an official capacity uh do I have any volunteers for Grand Rapids High School just a quick question uh Mr chair on our notes here it says uh Friday in the first portion here it says Friday May 29th uh that's a Thursday but then the second portion where we're appointing representative that is the correct date for Friday
May 30th so I just wanted I am in error uh We've approved the 2026 dates now we need to slip down and uh approve the uh board member and alternance for the 2025 graduation dates so thank you for seeing thank you uh so Grand Rapids High School on May 30th 2025 uh Dave yep I'll volunteer uh
got one volunteer anyone else want to volunteer for that I volunteer okay and Ashley uh Big Fork on H Saturday May 31st I have a note that Mark schroer would travel up to do that I can do it also okay and Tom will do that as well Mr chair can we also assign alternates in the event that one of the board
members is unable to attend okay I can be an alternate for Big Fork alternate for Big Fork okay yeah and I can be an alternate for uh Jerrys so done we have uh appointed board members and alternates um Partnerships getting down there school resource officers appreciate
you coming in uh Jeremy and Troy H good evening um it's our first meeting we've had uh with h the board this this year this school year so um some changes big changes last two years we've actually had some big changes start of the 23 24 years when we had big changes for State Legislature with uh rules regulations for school resource officers in this year uh because of budget constraints we're down to one
school resource officer a lot of discussions this summer of how that was going to work with uh principles from east west uh rgems and grhs it's kind of one those we'll see how it works when it how we're how we're how we're moving along um spend most of the day at the high school with uh responding to the elementaries more or so and then a little bit of time at our gems um as far as how the year is
going we started off really busy I Mr gross some other board numbers that were on the board at the time kind of remember uh we had some uh just some busy times um but at the same time it was nice because we had started to do um in the last couple of years some kind of threat assessment stuff to try to get ahead of this stuff and use that when we get incidents like this and it's worked out really well I think um able to determine what was going on um
determine what kind of threat we had and how we're going to move forward with that so um those plans in place worked really well um we're still seeing um a battle with social media with students um one of the things we try to mitigate that with I think there was more than that with the school but for at least in our in our world um no phones in the School seems like it's working pretty good but uh students are students and they're young and they seem to manage to find their way around that every
once in a while too so uh we still battle that in the school um there's still a lot of communication and it's sometimes not productive at all and actually causes a safety hazard for us in schools so um uh one other thing we've been doing uh when I started a school resource officer a couple years ago um uh one thing we wanted to work on is if we do have some type of major incident could
be anything um what are we going to do after how's I going to look with coordination between the schools law enforcement fire service whatever whatever we need um recently we had a sit down um table talk of basically a discussion of hey this is the scenario at West Elementary you know what are we going to do or where is there what's everybody's role in that um principal Martinson kind of headed that up for us over there uh we like I said we sat down and talked with fire service police police service and
uh kind of what each one of our roles are going to be so hopefully we can get hopefully it never happens but at least we want to have be prepared if something does happen so um that's going to continue on uh we have a meeting this week with uh Middle School staff about doing their sit down um and then also the high school should be doing one here in the near future um so we can kind of go over and and see what each building would look like uh another
thing I'm going to work with or looking at is uh especially most of our schools are pretty easy to get around pretty easy to navigate our high school is you know is a maze um we have a lot of new officers that have come on between us and the county I'm looking at just verifying their access to our buildings um and maybe even doing a tour in the summer when the students are gone uh kind of getting more at least the ones that aren't familiar that didn't
graduate from grhs giving them an idea of what our building looks like and what they'd be getting into if they had to respond there so um Captain Nelson here my supervisor is going to talk a little bit about um statistics that um but also he's going to talk about our new with starting this year postboard came out with some new kind of regulations and policies for us as school resource officers it's more based on um they want us to be
less involved I shouldn't say that it's a bad word to use but um using a different type of uh alternate consequences for students keeping them out of the court system as best as we can um in offering alternative Services whether that's um you know behavioral mental health services or maybe even some type of Addiction Services for them um if they're addicted to certain substances um but that's all I really
have let Captain nson talk here and then if you guys have any questions or concerns thank you wait so like Troy said the last couple years have been challenging to for everybody um and I think we've all navigated it well together um whatever adjustments we've had to make we've made and um I think we're we're in a pretty good place right now uh with the
new state requirements from the legislature like Troy mentioned uh We've adopted new policy uh set forth by the legislature through our post board which is our licensing Authority um that's been changed a couple times in the last couple years but at the end of the day it still allows Troy or SRO to do their jobs as pleas police officers when needed but gives
them guidance um on how to what's the word I should use here try uh use the least restrictive meth methods that they have to use or that are available and um not getting involved so much with school discipline um referring that to the proper administration of the building but uh step in when they need to step in [Music] um Troy I don't know how many citations
Troy's written this year uh I I go through and approve all of them when I read his reports uh most of the people that are most of the kids that are getting citations for something it's their second third fourth offense they've been they've had school discipline and it's just this is the next level we we need to take it to unfortunately but uh I think Troy does a very good job at uh uh working with the schools for disciplinary
issues and it's uh I think been very effective so as far as uh statistics and I just uh pulled these quickly um we're actually right about the same for each school um that we were last year uh High School uh school year to date uh we've had about 40 icrs our reports that Troy would make there uh for different things that he's
dealt with compared to 50 this time last year uh the middle schools 25 compared to 34 last year and then the elementary schools are about the same and those are usually just very minor issues um parking issues driving complaints at the elementary schools is what we see a lot there um otherwise I I I think our partnership is going great um I haven't heard uh heard any
complaints really I like Troy said we started out the school year um running but that's uh definitely slowed down here and uh I think we have a good thing going so thank you sincerely appreciate the partnership uh Matt do you have anything to yeah I think uh just to Echo what opelon said you know that we're
certainly in a spot where maybe we neither party would prefer to be from a capacity standpoint but uh there's just a lot of cooperation and you know the more we communicate the better and we really appreciate you know I know on the school side um Administration Etc appreciate the relationship we have with grpd and you know as an organization but also the individuals you know that looking at here tonight and and
others in the department so it's really appreciative thank you any other notes or comments for uh uh Captain Nelson or uh CH Scott I have a question yes please um first uh thank you very much both of you um especially officer I see you often in multiple buildings so I appreciate you taking your time and keeping our kids thanks say thank you very much and then um you had mentioned uh that you were in uh
a couple of meetings with some different administrators uh going over potential scenarios if you will and how action plans essentially yep um right now our schools go through uh lockdown drills yes um is that going to be something that will be implemented into those lockdown drills the scenarios that you're currently going through with that was admin did that make sense what I just asked I'm sorry yeah I think so
um I don't think we would push that that' be a question for Mr girl probably more than me I don't think we would do that with the students okay um I know there's talk about potential anxiety issues actually yes that's why I was asking I was just wondering if that would if that too much or that yeah so it was just a question yeah yeah I would so one of the we have a team that has been kind of re reset
maybe about a year and a half ago and one of the goals that that team set this last summer was to hold tabletop um drills if you will uh at each of the buildings and so uh officer Scott mentioned that and and essentially it it's a an opportunity to talk through the process one of the things might be you know uh how are we going to make sure that we can safely get all the
kids uh home with their parents if parents have to come and pick up their kids in an off-site location or um if there's a particular scenario let's talk through where the hiccups might be before we even run through that scenario so we've had that we've had those drills at each of the at at three or four of the sites others are in their planning phases but um they're always I think always useful always learning that happens but to your specific question about you know the
most severe drills you know schools and districts like ours have moved away from enactments if you will or you know playing those out because they're just not a it's not a healthy scenario the the instead the goal is to prepare the adults to be ready um to be able to go through that rather than you know anything that might be triggering yes thank you I appreciate it thank you very much yep thank you any other go
ahead sure um just for myself we we're rotating one between the schools in Grand Rapids right yes correct um and that's used to have two the year before or what was it we've had two in the past yeah yeah and that was we had one at the high school and one at middle school and um they covered our elementaries as well um you did mention an uptick which which I know early in the fall I was getting a lot
of people asking questions right y um any any post analysis as to what what that you know any feel for what caused that and and it's I mean the numbers you presented today are actually reduced for the year across the board there's probably a reason of just document more stuff in the past than this year
um okay that would probably be a question that I would more welcome to answer if we if you came up to the school and and had that's fine yeah um but yeah it was very isolated incidents to be honest with you um like I said talking and getting more into the social media aspect where you know it starts out something that you know might not have been I don't want to say a
big deal but something that was probably misinterpreted and it just grows bigger and it becomes a life of its own and it happened to be two separate incidents went to high school went to middle school on the same date that weren't related so I just remember like a a wall I looking in two different places at the same time it was yeah and I'm probably helping spread it right an interesting day a lot of conversations are had and I said myself Mr girl had conversations like how how are
we going to go forward with this and who do we who do we alert who do we tell how do we how do we get that information out so um and then you kind of learn if you're right or wrong after you're done so Dave Captain Nelson and officer Scott I just want to say thank you again and Echo what a lot of people have said about the partnership that you've created with our school district I think that to Tom's point there is a lot of community I'll say angst that was out
there this fall um and I appreciate the partnership and the fact that cooler heads prevail as we work through um separating fact from fiction and communicating appropriately um I think in a perfect world you know communication gets out instantly and it's all accurate and done but that's not we don't live in a perfect world and I appreciate the partnership that we have together to make sure that we communicate the right information at the right time so thank you very much thank
you agreed and I would also note that uh uh every staff member uh at ISD 3 team takes Alice training for the security uh of our students as well so uh got your back thank you very much any other questions or comments or notes great deeply appreciated all right next time thank you um
other Partnerships uh the American Indian parent advisory committee APAC uh Fawn yay hello and good evening this is I'm happy to be here this is my first meeting um I wear a couple different hats um but today I'm here as a um member of the American indan parent advisory committee um and we met earlier this
month um to kind of go and vote uh concurrence non-c concurrence on the annual compliance of state aid for Indian education um just some room for improvement um I kind of summarized we had I think over 30 plus points of discussion um in our meeting and so we got some information we met with teachers um their Advocates and um our staff um teacher Equity came up um so more licensed teachers focusing and we had questions and Clarity around that
um community and student collaboration um engagement so that's more of um how we bring Community more broader so thinking of like tribal councils um and how our district um shows up at our events and then cultural fluency across the district um so getting more teachers um culturally fluent um not competent I think those are two different words um and then some top highlights I think our program is really good at doing
their paperwork they due diligence on following up with the aid um everybody's at capacity so they're doing what they can and kind of putting out the little Flyers everywhere supporting students um the staff shared some data with us that showed that they're getting across the Finish Line we have a pretty good graduation rate amongst our students despite some challenges along the way um and then we all voted um that District uh 318 I work for 317 too so I'm
like what district am I in that we are in concurrence uh with the state so that's all I have great any uh comments or notes or questions for f I just want to say thank you uh you and the rest of advocates in our Indian education Community are doing a wonderful job and thank you for taking the time to educate our students about uh your culture thank you thank you y
Tom no comments thank you oh uh I appreciate uh the work you've done uh I was curious I went through uh was it 23 points uh 30 30 yeah y I reviewed those and many were uh very highly ranked uh there were a few that were kind of uh just really not making yet and I'm interested in the in a perception of what can
we do what do we need to do uh where's the where's the where's the hitch uh in the get along for those yeah so our uh staff is pretty transparent with our parent committee our parent committee meets at least once a month um and so my other role and other hat that I wear in the district is a and I coordinator um so we my program the program that I oversee is working in
partnership with um the Indian Ed O Ed um and we kind of talk through some talking on discussions about how we're going to improve some of the things like teacher lure teacher Equity um how can we get more people engaged um and a lot of it is capacity and I think that goes the same for across many districts um and figuring out how to best utilize staff time um and seeing how we can get more people in um involved within our
APAC as well so lots of conversation happening and I think when we voted in concurrence is that the discussion is we are identifying that we do have some needs in other areas um and not going to fault our district for that because that's not I think a AEP issue I think that's just something that we're addressing um and there is conversations coming down the pipeline so okay yeah thank you uh any other thoughts or comments
for Fawn uh we need to then um accept I've lost my um the we need to accept the compliance report the American Indian parent advisory committee report I need a motion in a second to accept the report as presented so move uh Dave moved I need a
second second second thank you uh and Julie we need a Voice vote on this as well right Ashley Goodman yes David Marty yes Tom gustaffson yes and Dave Cowen yes excellent the um the American Indian parent advisory committee annual compliance report is accepted and again thank you thank you um moving
along board reports um who wants to start anybody I can yeah please okay so recently Rapids Rising sponsored and hosted the piece of my mind this was put on by John nler uh can you can you uh speak into the mic it's I'm having a hard time hearing uh recently Rapids Rising sponsored and hosted the Peace of my mind uh the award-winning photographer John nter went
on the road in 2020 and went over 93,000 miles to get hundreds of stories it was then presented in posters like standup things all around our R Center and Social Studies classes were able to go see the exhibit the staff and community members were asked to be part of this exhibit and questions for discussion about Legacy and hopes for the school and Community participants were photo photographed and featured in the final
presentation at the end of the week thank you to Jim Kel Rapids rising in the grip Coalition for bringing in such great bringing in such a great exhibit for us to be part of student council has been doing a lot this past couple weeks and has a lot moving forward so we just did a fewu of the fire which was students going around and giving teachers just a simple gesture of appreciation so we just gave them like
a simple like a beverage or something warm to have just to like know that we are appreciative of them and that they're like well deserved another thing that we have been working on is making Valentine's Day cards for the elderly so Rapids Rising club and student also have been working together and we've created over 600 Valentines to bring to the elderly and they will
be delivered this Friday we've also are starting a fundraiser called pull together for RMH this is support the bronal McDonald House so we're going to be collecting pop tabs during our third hour class and just any all like the proceeds will go to Ronald McDonald and then we're also doing a candygram fundraiser for Valentine's this week and those proceeds will
also okay um so our IB diploma candidates for seniors are doing their annual IB project so they started that up last week and collected like toiletries that'll be sent to Grace house so they just wrapped that up last week and hopefully our class wins um uh registration started up for 9th through 11th graders of the high school
um then there's also tonight there's a band concert for it's their bridge concert with the high school the symphonic band in the eighth graders and they'll kind of do like some pet band songs just to kind of introduce them to the high school environment um math team sections is tomorrow with Mr Anderson and he's bringing 15 students which is a lot in the past few years is what they've had um and then Friday has their
annual Key Club blood drive so there's still spots I believe for the community if people want to sign up and high schoolers as well um and then Coach Bon started his annual uh Super Bowl bowling competition between the football team so they did that started that up last year and they had their this was second annual one this Sunday that one pretty good um then kind of just some
sports updates swimming have like a big upset against Luth East at the Hibbing invitation yeah oop um and then girls hockey has their section finals against Andover on Thursday and um and then Boys Hockey and wrestling will start up there second ctions and yeah that's about
it perfect thank you thank you Tom um well we've we've been pretty busy here as a group it seems like been trying to keep up with that thus far and I can't say much Beyond trying to get our head wrapped around that budget and understand things so about all I have to rep thank you great Dave all right um so since the last meeting um right after the meeting um I was able to take a kind of a personalized
tour with principal dooster up at the Big Fork school um since I wasn't able to make the board visit a couple weeks back um the thing that stood out to me was the new weight room and workout room there and the Community Partnership in that space it's just a great way for the community to interact that was that was pretty impressive on Monday the 27th I had a great meeting with Carol line our business manager to talk through people process and systems in the business office in my new role as Treasurer um she walked me through our purchasing and
payment processes to help me get a good understanding of who does what within the district as it relates to finance it's a great meeting and we've already set up another one to continue to have that partnership and build that um relationship on the 30th uh I visited the science here at the Middle School uh along with Ashley um I walked through the displays and talked to several students um some cool things about ice melt alternative to Salt aerodynamics and paper airplanes which was pretty fun uh the effects of different types of water on plant growth beekeeping all sorts
of great thing so lots of thanks to Lori garwitz for her work in organizing that event um for these years and then uh just lastly on the 31st um I attended uh the Grand Rapids High School soon of the month program and what a great event to see these kids recognized for their hard work that's all I got thank you Dave just echoing what Dave said we were both at the uh same events here on January
30th there was the at our gems Middle School which is put by Lori karoz our sixth uh along with the help of other sixth grade uh staff as teachers um and Lori does that with the help of grant money um please help me say his name correctly jimne schway thank you he graciously donated uh $10,000 and that helped our science fair
happen this year um and also Mrs garwitz puts in her own time and money as to um basically add some things for the students um you know a pizza party and different different prizes for those children and I believe it was 20 uh the state round for our science fair um and they've mentioned some of the awesome exhibit it's one of my favorites what what kind of pens were the best um so that was that was
just interesting because I'm definitely a pen no pen is safe so um the other also like Dave had mentioned was the uh that's always nice to see uh just different students that um generally you know we are used to seeing uh children that are excelling out or you know are just always on the top academically uh or Sports athletically um and it was nice and refreshing to see some
of these students that were chosen um you know on their day-to-day and how that impacts not just uh themselves not just their you know their teachers but their peers as well and so it it was nice to to be a part of that and just see these children be given um the accolades that they deserve so that was that was also very nice to see um and then like Tom says just learning all the things trying to just take that all in and do the best we can and
so yeah that is what I have thank you uh very briefly uh I uh was at the student of the month uh and uh oh ceremony uh and Echo the comments of Dave and Ashley uh and the uh student science fair my goodness uh what a great presentation and uh other board members were there as well the students were so well spoken
and so deliberate and so well schooled in what they had to communicate uh I had to keep reminding myself wait these are middle school kids um they were really U very profound uh just to note the uh uh endowment committee is gathering today as a matter of fact uh we have uh for to award uh and thank all of the teachers in our district uh this coming week
uh and so those plans are in place right now um lots of budget talks and with that superintendent gross yeah that's been a lot of the work the last few weeks and just in the last just today we held our third of three initial budget conversations with Staff first two were uh on location and this one was was online I think we're probably up around
that 100 Mark as far as attendees between the three so trying to make some progress to get the word out uh about our budget situation upcoming budget reductions that type of thing uh we are looking as a administrative team and and met last week actually with some staff about uh rolling out an online learning program it's become prevalent really in schools across the state and um you know with the number of students that are
uh enrolled online or homeschool uh an opportunity here to affect our enrollment uh and address our budget Gap or deficit from on the revenue Side Of The Ledger which isn't always something we can easily do along with that watching legislation uh the house is back now and uh they I think they today maybe started hearing bills and so watching a number of bills that are important to us on the
Senate and now soon the house side whether that's about funding or or other items policy items so those will be really important to watch um you know I can't say it enough I said it today in our budget meeting that there are a couple things that our legislature needs to act fast on that doesn't necessarily jive with political typical itical process or you know timing but uh if they wait till May
to do some things that they need to do and I think already know they're going to do it will cost jobs in the state and so they need to act first and act fast on some of those things that they I think are aware they need to fix uh Joe Wheelock was uh presented this week uh last week at the Minnesota Elementary School principal Association conference with uh an award on behalf of kasset the school of excellence so it's great to see to see her get that award and
be honored she's a very humble and skilled leader and uh so that was great want to recognize our retirees just amazing people D and so just appreciative of that and um and the gift that they are to our community um I think that uh exhausts my list thank you good list thank you uh
meeting notices uh we have uh upcoming Schoolboard committee and meeting dates that are posted on each agenda uh the meeting agendas can be found on the school district's site and on the designated posting sites at the isd318 Educational Services Center here uh uh is there anything else
that needs to come before this board going once going twice if not we stand adjourned thank [Music] you e