We good? Well, while we're doing this, I'll introduce myself. I'm Jackie Skellyy. I'm the executive director for Itasa Area Schools Collaborative. Um, I've done a few of these uh in front of different school boards around the area. And I often um we use I ask an acronym
very freely and often forget to define really what that is. So when we talk about a task area schools collaborative, we're really referencing a a formal partnership between seven school districts and Minnesota North College. Um the seven school districts that partner in this formal agreement are the
Grand Rapids area schools including Big Fork, Deer River, uh Northland Community Schools in Reamer, Hill City, Fledwood, Nashwalk, Katon, and Greenway. And so with the seven school districts and Minnesota North's partnership, um we work through a variety of programs that really we hope to um make things more
efficient and more accessible to students regardless of where they reside. So on here just kind of the first slide is really just showing you a brief summary of what we call the pillars of IASK. And so um we have four main pillars, but one of the things that
we we have started to do a lot more in the last three years is we've really kind of spun off in different areas and provided some other services as well. Sometimes they fit really directly under these things and sometimes it's just an opportunity to be more efficient. And so the four pillars that I'll kind of talk through today um are next career
pathways technology services I ask special education services and then Darla Rani the director of early learning will be presenting on early edge just to give you some more specific updates on that program. If at any point you ever want to look at how things are going, what's being highlighted in um I
ask, we have a website there and within that website you can access any four of the pillars um as well as um other information around the I ask board of directors too. Um so the first one are next career pathways. Some of you I'm hoping have
heard of this. I know you had a recent award night and a lot of students um received awards in these areas, certificates for completion. Scott Patro is our director of that program and really the focus of this program is to provide a way for students to to kind of create a path from middle school through
high school and graduation. What we really would like is for them to practice opportunities and specific careers that they may be interested in going into, but at the same time we also want to give them opportunities to work on different skills and have opportunities to see things and maybe they don't want to go that route. So
they don't spend a four year deg, you know, four years of college before they figure out this maybe isn't what I want to do. Um we have done several different things um specifically in the last year or two by adding a CNA course. We've had a high high demand for CNA and our
healthcare partners have been very closely um cheering us on and so we're kind of asking them to take a a next step here one of these days um looking into next year and the year after. Um but also um we've increased opportunities for
like early childhood educator pathways and so we've um expanded our education pathway from just elementary education lensure to ear uh early education too. Um again there is a separate link for that but you can access um career pathways website from the um main
website as well. One of the things to know if it's something specifically you want to know how what 318 um or Grand Rapids Area Schools is doing in career pathways, if you go to that website and look under explore pathways at the top of the page and then just select Grand Rapids, you can see all the different areas and the pathways that are that are
happening um what kids need to do or take in order to have certain opportunities and certain pathways. Um it's a really good place. We direct families there. We direct students there. Um and there's there's a lot of really good information there. There's some, you know, curriculum guides that really explain if you're an eighth grader and you want to go into
healthcare, here's kind of your first step in ninth grade of a class to take in 10th grade. There's options. It's not tracking by any means, but it's definitely giving them options and some direction to help prepare them if they want to get to that last step at the end of um their high school years to go into a internship. At the end of each slide,
I do have two specifically this year, the districts that are participating in this. So, one of the nice parts about IASK is that we have um services and supports available, but districts have the option of whether they want to purchase into those services or not. So, not all districts purchase into all
services. Um, career pathways is one where all seven districts have said yes, we want in on that. And so, this year, all seven of our school districts um are current are participating in it. And then the the main way that Career Pathways is funded is we do have
school district contribution. Um, one of the big things this used to be a primarily grantf funded program and what we have found sadly in many many programs has been um when you just have a only grant-f funed program what typically happens is there's not a lot
of there's not a lot of skin in the game and so people just kind of go oh yeah I'll be in on that until you have to do something and then everyone's out and a whole program where a lot of work was put in kind of dwindles off. Um when we really look to to make this a more sustainable model, we're always looking at three partnerships. And one is school
district contribution. Um again, it's going to be less than if you're running this program yourself. Uh grants and donations. We continually are going out and seeking grants. We have a grant writer that we have a partnership with and we have had some donations from um some part um business partners as well.
And then business partnerships and we do have some opportunities with business partnerships for them to see a benefit in getting workforce by partnering with us. financially and getting access to students during the day. Um it's definitely something that's it's it's a it's not quite as easy as it seems. Um
just because a lot of times when people pay money for something they think then they have a say in that which makes sense but when it's a school program we have to follow some school procedures and policies and so it becomes a little more difficult than just hey if you do this then we can do that type of thing. Um and again the website's on the
bottom. Technology services is our second pillar. Um the director Chris Larson has been working um with us for the last two three years. He um this position was a full-time position for many many years. U Mark Curtis had it for many years and when he retired uh
one of the ways we talked about saving some um it was part of it was a financial savings and part of it was just again being efficient with our resources was reducing it from full-time to to a 0.5 position. And so when that reduction happened, the position is
currently a 318 held position that they sell to IASK uh to provide the services in the three areas. So we really the the three big areas that we have um technology services and I ask for are wireless security for all our districts. They share wireless technology um -ate
work to assist with bringing in any additional revenue and then again providing maintenance or setup for current is technology when needed. There is a link to that page as well. That's one's still kind of under construction, but it does offer some tips for safety and security that we're hoping to make sure that are available to all people.
Um, we have we worked with Chris a lot this fall around cyber security training. Um, and one of the things we continue to work on is planning. How do we roll out 5 years from now? So, we can do some planning around updates and replacement of parts and systems so that people can not only know this is going
to happen, but then if there's a financial impact to that that we can plan from that for that from a budget perspective. And again, the program is funded uh through school district contributions. So, we do bill out some of the services telecom equity aid and -ate revenue all goes into helping pay
for that. This is a change from years past. We used to bill out 100% of this. Um, so districts paid 100% of tech services. I ask partners, uh, we actually started in July 1. I asked partners with 318 business and HR services. And so in working with Cara, just kind of talking through what makes
the most sense, not only for, um, individual districts, but for as a whole, um, this seems like a much better way to utilize the revenue that we have coming in. So, we'll we'll um have students uh districts will benefit from that telecom equity aid and -ate revenue as well. The only district that does not
participate in technology services this year is Hill City. As of July 1, they pulled out of that service and they run that on their own. And then the third pillar that I'll talk through um and this is a this I mean this could be a presentation in and of itself, so I won't go into that. Um
you guys have Anna Lloyd as your director. I'm the director of the other six districts. Um, Anna and I work very closely together. When Anna started, we tried really hard to make it so that it wasn't, well, if I work in 318, this is what we do, but if I work in the co-op, this is what we do. And we've tried
really hard to streamline our expectations, our procedures, our processes for all things related to service, um, how we work with families, how we hold some of our required meetings like our special ed advisory council meetings. Um, and then we've also we've also um partnered on some
pretty intentional opportunities that weren't there before. And that only works when you have people who are willing to partner. Um, and so you you have a gem of Anna in a director. She uh we partner on Pays Lab, which is a practical assessment exploration system. I always
say at any point if somebody wants to observe that um program, it's it's a wonderful program. is for our students who have u more cognitive disabilities and they get they they're in high school 9th through 12th grade and they work on job skills in a lab um type setting. So the whole
thing is an assessment and um they walk in they punch in they punch out as if they're on the job. They connect with people as if they're supervisors. I mean they call you supervisor and they do a task. They get scored on a task and if they don't master the task they redo the task. I mean it's an assessment. Um, but
the kids love it and they are it's not only telling us what the kids have and what they know. Um, it's also telling us where we might have some gaps in our programming. So, we've been able to then go back to our middle school staff and say, "Here are some gaps we're seeing clearly amongst all of our students." And that's a partnership with all seven
districts. So, Grand Rapids and co-op staff or students, I'm sorry, AC access that program. Um, we also have this Friday Prom with Purpose, which I know some of you have heard about or seen or donated to. Um, that is a that's a that
actually came from one of the high school STE seniors in Grand Rapids who contacted me last year and said, "Can we make a sensory friendly prom for students with disabilities who struggle to participate in their own prom and I, you know, as a special ed director, you just think laws and lawsuits and that's
what you think about." And so it was really hard to just say yes right away without going, "Let me look at all the risks." And and we just were like, "No, we're going to do And so between Anna and I, we we worked on the logistics of the legal aspect of things and made sure that the students had the support they needed to just plan and run and support
the students. And this year we're running our second annual prom with purpose and the co-house donated their facility to that. So we'll be running that Friday. Um it's one of the days where it it just is a good day when you get done with the day and it just you remember every reason why you went into
education. So it's a very very good day. Um, we also with 318, we partner on trainings, many, many trainings. We partner on staffing. I mean, we do a lot of, I know you can hear about it in other places, but um, there's times where Anna or or the coordinators that
work with Anna or me or the coordinators that work with me, um, we just are struggling with a situation and we just need to talk about it outside of people who know the situation. And so we have had some really good staffing conversations too which is as a special ed director I mean you can ask anyone across the state it becomes a pretty isolated position because of the
information that you need to process through and not a lot of people want to talk about it. Um it's really nice to have a partner in that and so I would say that that has been one of the the best um things in the last five years or six years with Anna that we have been
able to really beef up our partnership. Um and so with the special ed co-op specifically the six districts listed on the bottom are the are the staff who are part of the co-op but like I said Anna supports 318 and um we work very closely together. So this is just a organizational chart kind of shows what
our co-op looks like kind of uh on the top is me and Kristen Pantition my coordinator and then we have our administrative assistant some of our um data managers and our MA billing team. And then the bottom part um is really the people who do more to support the staff that consultative piece that I was showing you as well as some of the
direct service for students. So our OT's our PTs. Um we do have some of the co-op staff also shared staff. So some of the staff that are 318 staff are sold to I ask to do some consultative work. DHH um which is deaf hearted hearing PI which is physically impaired. We have some of
those staff um working with us. ASD I believe Tracy Hutchinson. Um, so we have some of your staff as well in that realm that we share as well. Questions at all before we switch to the last program and we can wait till she's done too. We
can answer all them at once. Okay. Hi, like Jackie said, um, I'm Darla Rani. I'm the director of early learning for IASK. So I oversee early childhood programming in the four Itaskca County school districts. So Deer River, Grand Rapids, Greenway, and Nashwa Kiwaten. And I'm just going to go over just a
little bit about what our programming looks like this year and then kind of where we're headed with some funding changes. So currently this year, we operate 18 preschool classrooms across the four school districts. Seven of those classrooms are in Grand Rapids um district. So, we have one up at Big
Fork, we have three at West, we have two um that we operate in partnership out at um Minnesota North, and then we have one um that is lease space um at St. Andrews. Um so, that's our makeup of our preschool classrooms right now. Um we
also operate 22 early childhood family education classrooms. So, the or classes, those are classes that um parents participate with their children. So they come in throughout the week um at the different sites. 14 of those classes are held um in in the Grand
Rapids School District and some of those include um growing together where there's some parent education time. We do um another example is outdoor explorers. So the teachers are outside um kind of showing parents and um and with the kids what the other activities and things that they could be doing
outside. We do story time at the library which is a great partnership um with the with the city and with the library. We do um a seniors and sprouts class which is at Oak Hills Assisted Living where we the families come actually to that facility and they do story time and
activities with the residents um at that facility. So that's been a new one we just added um this past year and it's been really wellreceived and we've really grown in the attendance um of the families and the kids that that go to that site. And um there's a lot of
memory care patients there and they um they set a lot of the staff will say that they um staff look forward to it and of the things that they struggle to remember for some some reason that's something that they really connect with and they look forward to those kids and families coming in. So we currently
serve 303 students in our preschool classrooms and 106 of those students are in the Grand Rapids and Big Four classrooms. We have 72 early edge staff that um is classroom staff and also support staff um that go into kind of
the managing and and running of all those classrooms at all of the the four district sites. I thought I'd go over a little bit of um funding sources because early childhood funding um for preschool and for early um childhood family education
is different than a K12 funding. So, these are all the different funding um streams that come in in order for us to fund the preschool programming. And um I'll just start at the top, but school readiness, this is state funding that comes in for three and four-year-old preschool programming. It's just a set amount that each district gets and it's
based on the um 05 census. Um so each district is um is different depending on um the size of the district. Voluntary prek, this is state funding that's allocated to four-year-olds. Um, Grand Rapids, um, Big Fork has had it for several years. Grand Rapids just got it,
um, for the first time, um, this last year. So, we currently have 58 seats that are allocated, um, in Grand Rapids and, um, and 15 that are allocated up in Big Fork. So, there's just a set amount that, um, funding that comes in for those VPK seats, early childhood family
education funding, that's also a set amount that comes in in order for us to do that ECF programming. That also is based off the 0 to5 census. So, it's a set amount that comes in and then we just we determine programming based on that amount that comes in. Early
learning scholarship, this is money that comes in, but it's actually attached to students. So, students have to meet certain eligibility requirements in order to access that funding. So, it's not something that the district or our program can um can count on. It really is depending on the kids that are enrolled and whether they meet the
criteria and are awarded that scholarship by the state. uh early childhood special education funding. This is money, regular education funding that's generated by special education students being enrolled in our classrooms. So, this is different than special education
funding. This is actually um general ed revenue that's being generated um by them being in our classroom all day. This is money that's currently not um being allocated to the program, but is something that we're um looking um at doing for next year. We also have
tuition that fees that we collect from parents depending on their ability to pay. We um this the tuition that is charged doesn't come close to paying, you know, covering the cost of the programming. Um but we in order to keep it affordable for families. Um we do
collect some tuition. The Blandon Foundation grant we're in our final year of the 20-year um grant which was the investorly project. So we're in we're just wrapping up that year and that's been a significant amount of our funding for the last 20 years. So all of the
changes that we've been doing over the last three years have been an adjustment um because of that change in funding. And then we also just have some miscellaneous. We sell some services to other districts of the other is districts. We support um some of their
behind the scenes um scholarship um allocation and just the funding piece um to some of the other districts. And then we also, you know, are constantly looking for other grants and other ways to support the programming as well. So this is kind just a graph of the makeup of our current funding as it
as it sits right now. So you can see that the Blandon Foundation grant is about half of our operating budget right now. So um we've been over the last two and a half years that's our primary focus been on how are we going to adjust either you know bring in generating more
revenue and adjust our programming in order to to be able to operate within the money that we have. And so as of um last week the programming um that we're planning on um has changed significantly. So right now we're looking at um operating nine
preschool classrooms across three districts. So um Greenway has opted to to look at running their own early childhood programming for next year. So we'll be in Deer River, Grand Rapids, and um the Nashwa Kuatan School District still. So we'll still have five
preschool classrooms in Grand Rapids and Big Fork. Um we'll continue um to operate the 22 family education classes that we operate. again 14 of those will stay in the Grand Rapids district and then um we'll reduce from that 303 to
180 preschool students served. Um we will be our plan is to still have 100 students that are served in between the Grand Rapids and Big Fork schools. So, um, we some of that we we are making up a little bit of that reduction by
increasing some of the the class sizes in our classrooms across all three of the districts as well. So, although we're reducing more classrooms, we are bumping up the number of kids in some of those classrooms in order to still be able to serve. All right, that's all I have. So, do you have any questions for Jackie or
I Darla? Do do we have research on the impact that invest early the 20-year uh grant had? Thank you, Dave. You're welcome. Yeah, there I mean the I think the last Wilder report is is probably
2016 maybe. Matt, I don't know if you um so they Blandon had um opt I mean I think we had done enough um of the research and and they had the reports were saying the same thing that yes it you know it did pay to invest early and
so um we we they didn't we weren't having them any do any longterm longitudinal studies after that. Mr. Sure, David. Uh, Darl, you indicated uh that half the funding uh currently
comes from the Blandon Foundation and that you've talked uh about how to replace that. You weren't any more direct than that. Oh, so I mean we're doing a lot of things. We've we've cut um infant toddler programming which was, you know, had been um run. We we've
reduced the afterchool before school summer. Um we we're looking at reducing the number of classrooms. you know, the majority of the budget is staff costs. Also looking at um a change in the sta the staffing, the amount of of staff
that are in each of the classrooms. So making some adjustments to that as well. Okay. Tough changes. Um thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of questions for you. Um first off, thank you for that information. I think we all continue to learn and it's uh great to
see what you guys are doing in our community. Um, one question I had was um, of two. We for voluntary prek, you said you have 58 kids in Grand Rapids and 15 in Big Fork. Um, or seats. Seats. Yep. Um,
what if the demand is greater? How do you choose? So, so I mean, when applications come in, there's a lot of different criteria we look at. We have like a eligibility um flowchart that we follow. I mean we start with a
you know district kids first um and then we we rank them by risk factors and then and and then some of it is just the timing of when the applications come in as well. So yeah. Okay. Okay. And the second question was um any insight into
why Greenway opted out of the program? I think the funding changes was the big one. I mean, without the BL Blandon grant coming, you know, with our um revenue looking different and just looking at streamlining things is I don't know, Jackie, if you I mean, I
just I guess I would just say one of the things that wasn't necessarily highlighted when it listed all those funding streams was that you enroll a student, you don't know what funding stream goes to them. So, it's it's a roll of the dice. I mean, really like can you break even type of thing. And so that's where we've
had to we have a lot of expertise where we could have some pretty good um we have a pretty good idea when we enroll kids like where we're going to fit in terms of that break even and we worked pretty closely with Cara on this whole process. Um and I think that's just part of it is there's a lot of fear and so
it's I'm not saying they were fearful. I just think there's just a lot of unknowns and until you're trying to kind of make sure your district's on the up and up you distur like you just got to take care of it. So, I'm only assuming that's kind of what the decision is. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dave, uh,
Dar, would you say that all of the available seats that we have in this program are filled? And if we had more funding, could we fill more? So, I mean, this year in Big Fork, we ended up having to give back. I don't care if was
it five seats we had to give back. um uh in in Grand Rapids um we we I think we ended up not filling two and a half or three of the seats. So um although they're I mean they're funding seats, we
actually serve more kids than those that meet other that fit other funding streams. So we serve more than the 58 in in Grand Rapids because some of them are early childhood special ed or some are just don't qualify for the BPK seat or you know so there's a lot of different
pieces that kind of go into it's not a straightforward we only serve that many kids. So um so if there was additional funding I think we would always look at it serving as many as we can um within the funding that's available. Thank you. Y
thank you very much. Thank you. Um at this time we're going to adjourn the workshop. We'll come back into session at 6:30 for the regular board meeting. Did you want to talk about the meeting
that we had with R. I wanted to protect you from Julie over the table. Just take you right out. Did everybody catch that? Oh, yeah. Get Julie a sign. She can hold.
Careful. She might throw it at you. Call the board meeting to order. Please stand for I pledge allegiance to the 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. First item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. Do I have a a motion? So move David. Move for David. Second. Second. Second by Dave. Any discussion?
Any discussion? Hearing none say I. I opposed. Agenda is approved. Uh, next item on the agenda is to approve the international field trip request to Costa Rica June
2027. and Rachel Pierce is attending via Google Meets. Go ahead, Rachel. Hola amigos. Um, I am Rachel Pierce. I'm one of the Spanish teachers at the high school. And yes, I am proposing a trip for high school students that are
attending a Spanish class or in a Spanish class to go in June of 2027. Um, anywhere from a 9 to 10 day trip. It would be a discussion with parents, um, guardians and students what they would prefer. Um, uh, my opinion, what better
way to learn a language other than going and um, experiencing the culture and being in another country and actually utilizing that language with native speakers. And I know Julie has a a quick video that I sent her um, in regards to
the trip that I am proposing. here at Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica. We're hanging out at the beach right now. Like, it's paradise. It's awesome. The water's warm. The sand is like velvet. It's all secluded. There's a bunch of forest over here. You can see some sloths. There's a lot of
cool scenery. This day has been really amazing. We started off ziplining. The best thing I've ever done in my life. Best experience. So pumped and nervous. It was just beautiful. You get to see like everything from so high up. So much
fun. Oh my god. We just replanted trees for the environment. It's beautiful here. We went white water rafting. It's intense. It's so much fun. We just got back from kayaking and the water was beautiful. The sun was nice. They showed
us some of their traditional dancing. The culture is definitely what makes Costa Rica. Everything is so rich here. The food, the people, the language. I love it here. There's a completely awesome volcano right there. Best thing I've ever done in my entire
life. It's so fun. You can definitely learn more about yourself and the people around you by visiting other countries. It's a good way to become more independent in a place where you're not normally that comfortable. I would recommend it to anybody who's looking for adventure and looking for fun.
Thank you, Julie. As you can tell, it's it looks like an amazing time. I lived there when I was in college, travel to some of the same destinations um that that we'd be traveling to. Um I am requesting a private tour um just for sake of being
the only group um on the bus and going to certain destinations. Um I just don't really want to have to deal with other schools um things like that. But um otherwise um I think that this would be a fantastic trip for for my students and
um I'm hoping for approval. Yes. Motion to approve. All right. So moved. Moved by So moved. Moved by Ashley to go on the trip. Second. Second. David. Discussion or questions of Rachel?
Uh Rachel, just one quick question. Uh, I see the um estimated cost was about $4,700 or give or take, right? Give or take. Yes. Uhuh. Okay. And then how many uh adult chaperones would be going? So, every six um paying customers uh
students would get one chap one paid chaperone. Okay. And and those chaperones are all district employees. Um I yes and no. I I would imagine yes. I have two teachers who have who volunteered to go. Okay. Okay. and they're they're teachers. Yes. Okay.
Thank you. Yes. You're welcome. Any other questions, discussion? Thank you for putting this together. Absolutely. This is amazing. Senor Pierce, I do have a question. I apologize. Is this uh something because
I do see that this is for 2027. Is this something that um current eighth grade students would be able to sign up considering that they would then possibly be in your class as you know ninth and tth graders then?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Any student enrolled in Spanish. Yes. Very good question though. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Dada. Mr. Chair, I would like to just offer this the the trip is uh at the in the
same summer as a trip that you previously approved. Um but um there was discussion at the high school among the group uh the leaders of that trip uh and Senora Pierce um in conjunction with Mr. Hoffstead and and
um so they've worked that out. There's not a conflict there necessarily. Kids will have to choose but um there's not necessarily a conflict. They've worked that out. Is that accurate? That is correct. Yes. Okay. And any other discussion? I I
guess we you know we we had asked a number of questions regarding insurance and and all those types of things associated with that. I'm assuming we're kind of following the same protocols on this. you you know granted that was kind of my learning experience there also in
that but um where the funding really comes from the students or through programs they might have they might have ways to raise fund raise excuse me yeah thanks for the help I was struggling
that but it is not coming through the district per se it's really coming through programs that you're establishing for it or the student sim. Correct. And it looked like this was an EF tours. That's the same company that our
school uses for other trips too. So that's consistent. Yes. Correct. And so we obviously had went through the classification of the country in regards to safety and things like that. It'll follow those same protocols. If it for
some reason it escalates, we'll we'll be revisiting that. Absolutely. I'm sorry. And I just need to clarify because absolutely. No, I appreciate those great questions. Any other discussion? Um, just real quick, um, piggybacking off of what Tom
just said, EF Tours does reach out to you if there is some sort of escalation concern. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. Yes, they are fantastic. They um we we took a trip last April to Panama through EF tours and I just felt
so safe. That is my number one priority. Obviously the students and their safety. Um and I never felt unsafe at all. I would never ever take being a mom. I would never take students if I felt unsafe in any any way.
So So we're anticipating I I mean this pricing is kind of based at around 30 students. Is that correct? Um, give or take. Yeah, I I prefer a little smaller, but yes, give or take. Okay. Um, so I I guess just are we going to have any
problem with the two trips simultaneous and kind of meeting those numbers or do we have any concerns about that? And how does that affect pricing, I guess, or is that any concern? I guess
I I mean, for myself, no. Um, I kind of like the the 20 amount, like 20 students or 20 travelers in general. Um, so I guess, you know, if I took a group of six students, then, you know, I'm taking a group of six students, but um I I
guess no, I I don't have any concerns, but maybe some of the schoolboard members do. Does the price stay the same? Um, Rachel, if the, for instance, if you only had six students or if you had 20 students, it does the price stay
uh the same at that $4700 mark, give or take, or does it Yeah. would it be more expensive? What What does that look like? So, um, the student cost, what I have written down is like $3,700 basically. Um but the price would go up
because I requested um a private tour just there's so many reasons safety etc. Um I have traveled with other groups from other states and it was not really enjoyable. Um so that price would go up to 4,300. So that would be the only price increase even if I had a smaller group
or a larger group it the only reason for the price increase is just cuz that private tour. But otherwise, if I went with six students or, you know, um 18, it it really doesn't matter. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. We have a motion and a second. All in
favor say I. I opposed. Trips approved. Gracias. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. Adios. Next item on the agenda, principal report.
Darren Hoffstead, Grand Rapids High School. Good evening, board. Superintendent Gross. Thank you for inviting me tonight. Um, as I drove up here from the high school, uh, there's a lot of goings on. Um, right now there's a track meet in session, I think a
baseball game, some lacrosse practice, tennis matches, you name it. It's just, uh, it's a busy time of year for sure. And uh you know, we've had awards night um recently, prom coming up, MCA testing started today, IB testing starts next
week, getting ready for graduation. Um and at the same time though is, you know, if you have an opportunity um to attend any of these events um or even some of our band concerts, choir concerts that are coming up. We recently had the musical as well. That's another
plug. But um it's just amazing at watching our students do what they do best and at this age level too for those of you that have younger kids um to see how far that they can go and how far they've come um here at Grand Rapids. So
very proud of the students this year and and look forward to rounding out a a great great 25 school year. Um tonight I wanted to talk about our CTE, our career and technical education at the Grand Rapids High School. Um, I think it's
come up quite a bit recently and I don't think it's always really well known in terms of what it is, what it entails and um, some of the things that we are able to offer um, because of programming and because of our highly qualified staff.
So, first off, um, you know, you hear this misnomer once in a while from the community that, you know, why don't the the schools teach, you know, some fundamental skills that are going to translate to the workforce? Um, we do that. Um, we do that. We we have a lot
of classes and courses that are not only preparing students for that uh post-secary education, but also for um a career or a certification program as well. So, CTE um really prepares students by
emphasizing real world world skills and practical knowledge um really aims to provide students with a pathway to post-secary education by teaching transferable workplace skills um and those applied concepts. there's um programs that are
aligned with national definitions and regional workforce needs uh ensuring students are equipped with skills and demand in the local area. So our students um you know the CTA programs that we have at the Grand Rapids High School help students explore
those high demand careers um gain the technology and skills needed for success in adult life and also prepares them for post-secary education. So, our program um integration and benefits. So, this is really out of the
um Every student succeeds act um the strengthening career and technical education act um Perkins v I don't know I always want to say Perkins 5 because it's just the math teacher coming out in me but um really looks at emphasizing academic achievement um and focuses on
those in industry credentials um like you heard from Jackie earlier in terms of the career pathways next CTE is connected um in regards to um the program program development, but our CTE programs and staff have to take it a
step further with regards to um their license and program approval through the state. So, we work with the True North Consortium here uh in Grand Rapids and Jane Shade um is is a uh contact that or
the director um that is extremely helpful um with regards to um programming, planning, um training opportunities um for our for our staff to be able to bring this back to our students. Obviously, the student benefits are everything. um that real world knowledge
um exploring careers. Um there's there's you know the entry level programs from small engines or exploring the world world of business to our capstone um classes that include uh internships
across um the different um CTE programs. So Perkins is obviously a big part of this and this has been around for for quite some time. Um but this act really focuses on our our academic achievement as well. Um some of the
statistics at the state level um is is obviously encouraging, but we know that even here at Grand Rapids, we're our numbers are even higher than some of these these state averages. But 92% um graduate for CTE concentrators, which
means they've taken um two or more courses um CTE courses. 65% enroll in post-secary education of some type, whether that's to complete a certification or to go on to a two or four-year um school. 86% employment
placement rate um after that post-secary CTE completion. So really more than just, you know, preparing our kids for college. um this this career oriented um programs really um meet the needs of
what our our region is asking for. Um focusing on high-skll high wage careers and that's you know we have a lot of students that are motivated. They're they're you know and families as well more nervous about the cost of of two and four-year colleges and looking for
another option. um this is something where we can explore this in a high school setting while being able to offer a lot of variety um and experiences. So the overview of our our program um
itself and and we're really close closer to 50 approved CTE courses and what it means to be approved is um a program approval is necessary and the program approval goes through that true north
consortium. Um it includes um uh sequential courses along with um syllabi um that demonstrate that you have the proficiencies in the courses um necessary to be able to meet that threshold of what it means to be a
career in technical education program. The second component is having um certified staff. This doesn't just happen by accident. Certainly some students or some teachers coming out of college um have the that opportunity um
to be certified whether it's an egg teacher or an industrial arts or business. Um but in many cases at the Grand Rapids High School in particular um our our staff have gone above and beyond to acquire these
certifications. Um and and again coming in um as a principal 5 years ago obviously I I didn't realize um how much work uh some of our staff went through to earn those certifications but even now um looking to um go above and beyond
into their certifications uh depending on courses that we teach and programs that we run. So our program areas again it follows very closely with career pathways um include you know the the seven or the eight that you see the
seven that you see up there and then there's um there's even a component of with our special education program um our ACT which is uh accessibility um career and technical education um and for those of you that um know what I'm
talking about with um our Quest program Our Quest program serves um 11 students um our special education students in terms of connecting them uh to careers outside of just the high school day taught by a certified CTE instructor. Um
so it's it's it's a pretty special thing we have here at Grand Rapids. We have over nine certified instructors. Um, and even though, you know, our financial, you know, restrictions that we've been dealt with the last couple years have suppressed the growth, we've really been
creative in in our offerings to students by having staff that are not only interested in bringing their expertise into um, our course catalog um, but also to go above and beyond and get CTE
certified. And there's there's definitely more meat on the bone. I think there's an opportunity for for more programming especially when it comes to um health care or hospitality. Um but again those are things that we look towards the future on um once we
get uh an opportunity to to experience growth which we we so much need in this district for sure. Um, and again, some of our programs, you know, when you look at the broad aspect of it, um, these are things that we offer, but if you kind of get down to
the minutia of what some of these courses might look like, like a Minnesota foods, um, or a, you know, natural resources course, um, small, large wildlife game management with our business and marketing, it includes our
business courses, but but also, um, some computer, um, programming courses. um with health careers. This is an opportunity that's um we hope for growth. This is this is a kind of a unicorn type of a license for um an
educator to have that health career. So, we're exploring some options with uh one of our science teachers going into this next school year. Um transportation, obviously, auto body, um auto mechanics, um small engines. Um with our
construction obviously we have our um our courses that include um you know manufacturing um metal works um electrician or computer science and manufacturing are there as well. Now
these these program approvals and the instructor approvals um once you get them you don't just keep them. These are things that the they undergo a fiveyear review. um in terms of the program re uh approval and we also when we have a retirement um as we did a couple of
years ago we lost um the manufacturing approval with uh the retirement of uh Mr. Tim Larson. Um but those are things that we you know quickly get back with um our the the remaining staff but um it is something that we have to be very
mindful of and something that as we look forward um we continue to you know make sure that we are capitalizing on the funding. So the funding portion of CTE is is one of the things that I think as a board um is certainly attractive um
but also as a a building leader looking at the support that um the the the act gives to schools um includes a a 35% um levy reimburseable um expenditures and
salary um for our instructors and our programs. Um, so this is available to districts with approved programs and and we certainly have done um the lion share of program approvals in the true north consortium. This is something that we
still have room for growth. Um I really believe that we have um you know our our it doesn't happen by accident. This happens because you have very highly motivated staff, um, professional staff that continue to seek out opportunities.
Um, this is not something that I have to beg our teachers to to to do. It's something that a lot of times the staff brings to me. Um again, the additional support that we have here, um that ACTE funding for students with disabilities,
um our work-based learning opportunities have increased, um in the last couple years with our business and our manufacturing pathways. Um our our industry recognized certificates. You might have heard a little bit about the the CNA program that was was is a very
popular um course that we offered this year and plan on offering it again next year. Um but these types of things our local industries are are asking for and our students are too. Um one thing I want to mention too, the the ICC
Foundation is has sponsored a $1,000 reward to students that complete a pathway. Um and they have a minimum of 2.0 GPA. Um, of course you got to enroll at the Minnesota North It Itaska campus, but we had 64 students um receive their
PIN um at a recent awards banquet, meaning they completed a pathway. So 64 um that are eligible to receive that $1,000 scholarship at Minnesota North. So um obviously we feel like there is support at the state level um and we
want to continue to um explore opportunities for our students. we've got a good foundation. Um, but we're always looking to the future in terms of how can we expand whether it is our career pathways, our CTE offerings, or
even our um program and instructor approval. So hopefully um again tonight was a little bit educational with regards to our CTE. Um, you know, there's there's certainly a lot more to this. Um, you know, our staff are really always open and welcome if you ever have
any questions with regards to a specific um pathway or CTE um program. Uh, don't hesitate to reach out. Um, any questions? Um, one quick question, Mr. Chair. Um, the you said something about the state.
Um, is it state funded? I see there's a levy of 35%. And along that line with um Mr. Superintendent, any concerns with this year's uh state budget? Is any of this funding at risk that you know?
None of the reimbursement uh is at risk, at least that I'm aware of. I think Mr. Hoffs had mentioned support at the state level and a number of bills that have been advanced to try to increase that reimbursement which would be great for us but you know there's no money to do
that right now. So we're kind it's just another one of those things on the list of good ideas just not the right time. Um I don't know if Carol wants to answer that levy question. Nothing that risk that you're concerned about. And is this one that you spend it
and you get like for it after the fact again? This one actually um I have to put a budget in before. Oh, this is one of the only ones that um they pay you and then we short up at your end. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah, we'll we'll put together a budget proposal in the spring
here. Okay, great. Thanks. My turn. Um um you mentioned uh True North Consortium. What exactly is that as an entity? I guess I'm I didn't get a good feel
for obviously everything's kind of funneled through them. It sound like you had to kind of get approved through them. Is that correct? Or did I misunderstand that or they have to be involved in uh less about approval through them other
but more about support in terms of how to um navigate Perkins and some of the licensing as well. Um maybe Mr. Gross can speak a little bit more to the court consortium. This is the history coming up. So it used to be that consortiums
were formed locally with a little bit more um uh local uh decision- making around that or organizations. So for a long time I ask had been our Perkins or our Perkins
consortium in relationship with ICC. Um and you had like Chisum and Hibbing maybe working together with Hibbing Community College and so it was really pieced and parcled out. Uh a number of years ago they came in they was a state
reorganization saying you need to consolidate and you can have you know three but you can't have 12 of these consortiums up there. So it sort of turned into a east consortium, a central consortium and a western consortium.
Ours didn't change really much. Um it was still pretty much it's still I is ask because it you know seven districts over here. Um but especially on the central and east where they hadn't all glombmed together as much. So the idea behind that was you know obviously
consolidating uh and making the process more efficient and lean so there's fewer uh fewer layers I guess you could say. uh if you were you know every consortium had some sort of administrative component of it to monitor the grants do the
applications interface with the state now that's all uh condensed so ours just happens to be called true north okay so so is it really kind of basically I ask or yeah okay okay
um any other questions or comments Um these are obviously electives for students, right? That they can choose to kind of go this route when they're in maybe like as a sophomore, junior, senior.
Yes. Mainly. How low does it go? I guess it all the way down to Yeah. Ninth grade. Nth grade. It does. CTE does not extend to the middle school. Okay. Um but it does um you know starting at 9th grade and you know some of our courses
that we teach are they could be CTE courses and those are things that we are looking to you know make sure that we can capitalize on as well to make sure that we you know can can use the the 35% yeah levy and those are those are
opportunities again that we we want to make sure that I we capitalize on. Um, how are we able to offer any of these services in Big Fork right now or electives and Okay. Yep. It's uh it's
it's scaled down just because of personnel and numbers, but Stu Austinorf up there does a really good job. Is that what he was getting uh some of the approvals he was getting or certifications? That's exactly it. Yep. Yep. So he offers he offers kind of as a
oneman show up there a lot of the same courses but getting that certification in place. So So it's going to be more skewed a little bit up there probably towards manufacturing and and and the construction or I forget the seven groups you had or six groups you had up
there. But yes. Yeah. There's no egg up with you know there's not an egg teacher. There's not a business teacher. It's more more towards construction manufacturing. Yeah. Do we have any opportunity with the with
uh so so how involved do the local like manu obviously the quest program had some local manufacturers involved and and maybe local labor I I think what you're getting at too Tom
and and I'm glad you brought this up because our our staff have done an excellent job in terms terms of reaching out to our contacts here in the community. I know one of our teachers has over 200 um businesses that he works with throughout the year. Um so that is
a really big component in terms of tying in with local industry and companies and I think again we have a staff that's very um experienced so they have created these relationships and partnerships over the years but that's a big component of our CTE program. So I'm
really glad you brought that up. Okay. there are advisory committees uh as well involved in in it. Okay. Well, that that helps then. Good thing. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Darren. Thank you.
Thank you. Next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes of the March 31st, 2025 regular meeting. Do I have a motion? So moved. Moved by Dave. Second
David. Second by David. Discussion. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Minutes are approved. Next item on the agenda, approval of the March 2025 claims in the
amount of 7,734,587. Do I have a motion? So moved. Moved by Dave. Second David, second by David. Discussion. Hearing none. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. March. Excuse me. March 2025
claims are approved. Next item on the agenda, approval the following retirements. Casey. Good evening board. Tonight I'm recommending approval of one retirement Kathleen Sumner ESP. Kathleen
has served for 28 years. Have a motion to approve. So moved. Moved by Ashley. Second. Second with appreciation. Absolutely. Second. David. Discussion. Congratulations and thank you for her service. Kathleen's an
amazing ESP. She will be missed. Yes. All in favor say I. I opposed. Um Kathleen's retirements approved. Congrats. Next item on the agenda is to approve the consent agenda. Uh all matters listed under the
consent agenda are staff related and considered routine and do not require discussion. Um I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Moved by Ashley. Do I have a second? Second. Second by
Dave. There's no discussion on consent agenda. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Consent agenda is approved. Next item on the agenda, financial report. Cara. Good evening. Um, you have a summary of where we are
in third quarter um in our school this school year. Um there are some acrruals built in there but some of them are difficult to estimate. So um the first one would be property taxes. We've collected 44% um of what will be due this year. Um a
lot of those come in at year end and some property taxes aren't collected. So we have to um build um contingencies into the the budget for that. So right now revenues are 70% of we've collected
70% or accured of what we're expected. We're 75% through the year and expenditures were 69% spent of what we're expecting to spend. So um right now our bottom line looks better than um flack. So that's good. Um so this is just
basicallyformational for you. Any questions for Karen? No. Oh, sorry. I was just going to say uh thank you for sharing this. Um and it's great to see that we're in a better place than we would anticipate being right now. Um knowing that there's more
to come for the rest of the year, but um it's encouraging to see where we are now. So, thank you for all that. Yep. Dave Cara, I would second that. Uh deeply appreciate it. Any surprises for you in this? Well, interest it's very
simple one. You know, I I budget very conservatively for that, but right now we're at about 150% of budget. So, I'm just happy that's a good thing with where we are with our Yeah. our interest revenue. That's an easy one to grab. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Cara. Uh, next item on the agenda, accept second reading and approve policy 704. Superintendent Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you can see in your packet, 704 has to do with our, uh,
fixed asset inventory and accounting. Uh, as referenced in that board report, it aligns with Gazsby. I've lost track of what number we're on now. Uh, Gazsby, what are we on? 50some. I don't remember. Um, as many times as they've revised it.
Um there was an adjustment to the threshold that was uh included in in uh recent changes and recommended by MSBA was reviewed by a policy review committee and uh comes with their recommendation. I'd recommend approval.
Do I have a motion to uh accept the second reading and approve policy 704? So move David. Moved by David. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Ashley. Any
discussion? All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Policy 704 is approved. Next item on the agenda, resend policy 533.2, bicycle and walk to school. Superintendent Gross. In our uh in the
process of reviewing our policy manual, we came across 533.2 bicycle and walk to school. Um, we're not really sure about the origin of this of this policy. Uh, in taking a look at it, the policy
review committee uh determined that while it has some good information in there, it really communicates a philosophy about kids getting to school, not a policy item for the board to be weighing in on. Uh we do have other policies that
address our obligations when it comes to pedestrian and bicycle safety. So this is doesn't really fall into that. And um this isn't a policy that MSBA has in its manual. Um we brought it to the wellness committee too and even at that level
there wasn't a a burning kind of uh intent to keep it there. So, this is a policy that as opposed to adding, we're we're uh recommending to rescend and pull it out of our policy group just because it's not necessarily policy work
and um doesn't necessarily belong in that policy manual. Do I have a motion to resend policy 533.2? I'll move by Dave. Second. Second David. Second by David.
Discussion hearing none. All in favor say I. I opposed policy 533.2 rescended. Next item on the agenda, approve agreement with ISD 319 and for assistance with moving
schools. Cara, this will be the first summer where Grand Rapids isn't moving classrooms or schools. So, it's kind of exciting for us that Nashwalk gets to move from two over 100-year-old buildings into one brand new one this summer and has requested our help. We have a lot of experience with that. So,
we put together an agreement with them that allows our director of buildings and grounds and a maintenance tech to assist with that process. they will not um be over there every day doing this, but this is an assistance
um with the moving process. So um the costs are in there. The costs um are wages and benefits and an additional amount because um the buildings and grounds director will be working more um to make up for stuff he is not doing
while he is here. So, I'm just asking for approval of this agreement. Do I have the motion to approve the agreement? Move to approve. Moved by David. Do I have a second? Um, yeah. Any discussion?
Um, yeah, Mr. Chair, one quick question. So the amount um I was just looking for it that we're charging or we would charge Nashville K1 is like 39,000 or something like that. Is that correct? 29 293 29,300. Um that's just wages um and
benefits for those two individuals that will be helping to coordinate. That is for and and it's mileage also. It's for the Grand Rapids staff. So the director and um Luke Hootman the maintenance tech. Okay. Okay. For their travel and wages and benefits. Okay. And then if
there's a overage over and above that, would that is that that we would I I feel like Nashwalk would honor that. Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks. Further discussion.
Um Tom, I I did send a few questions before here and and appreciate the quick response. I just would want to note that that I appreciate the fact that we're kind of recognizing our costs and not just the hourly cost, but the fact that
we're potentially taking staff away and trying to, you know, get pro proper recompense from them on this. Um, I appreciate the time that was taken on that. I also really
appreciate the fact that um you looked at the liability insuranceances for the professional services. You know, the risk we take a little bit. You you looked into that. Um you know, if something gets misconstrued in in the communication that we're not taking any
liability on that um action and I I appreciate the fact that you looked into that and have something in the contracts for that also. So that's all I wanted to say. Any further discussion? Mr. Chair, I would just, you know, just recognize
collaboration. I think it's it's a good indication of that that um Nashwa Keyton reached out recognized that as Cara said, we have quite a bit experience that we've gained over the last few years. uh you know, understanding
logistics and what to have where and when um to put together kind of that moving information. And so I uh I appreciate the opportunity to collaborate um with them again. Any further
discussion? All in favor say I. I opposed. The agreement uh with ISD 319 is approved. Thank you, Carol. Next item on the agenda, uh, continued community engagement
discussion. Superintendent Gross. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last week, we began a discussion about next steps for our school district as we look ahead, knowing that uh we'll continue to have funding challenges, increasing costs, and um budget concerns. And rather than
focusing on this from a referendum standpoint, we focus the discussion more on community engagement because we know that um what we're really talking about is increasing, you know, making sure that that deficit stays closed on expenses and and revenues. And uh in the
future, we'll either have to be talking about increased revenues or more budget reductions. And so having a good idea where the community at is really important. um whether that has to do with what the community's priorities are as far as programming, as far as class
sizes, as far as you know, our building operations on that side of things or um if there's an opportunity for revenue at some point, understanding that that's been uh challenging as well. So, as I presented in my board report, circling back to those questions that I brought
forward, um first, is this something that the board wants to lean into? essentially and and kind of work strategically or intentionally on a community engagement campaign. That's something we want to take on. Second, if the board thinks
this is important, is there an appetite to uh get some assistance with that? We heard a snapshot of what Jeff Daylor uh and his organization could potentially do and and I'm not suggesting it has to be them, but I know he's been insightful
and discussions that we've had subsequent even to our referendum and and leading up to it previously and he's um done a good job working with some school districts in rural Minnesota. And then third, uh, if there's interest in in those things, if there are a couple
board members that'd be interested in in meeting to plan what next steps might be, including following up with Jeff or someone else, if that's what the direction the board would want to look at. So, I guess with that, I would sort of defer to the board for some uh some
discussion on that discussion. I think it would be beneficial to con to move forward in any sort of engagement with our community in figuring out where they stand. I mean they essentially we are all sitting here
um doing work for them and their families. Um and so it is very important that we hear how how we do things on this end affects them, affects their children, their students, however that might look. Um
and so it's I think it it would be very important for us to continue moving forward in that regard, making sure that we hear what they have to say. Um and I'm just going to skip right down to number three that I would be willing to put time in um to figure out how to move
forward with that. Thank you for volunteering. Yeah. U other discussion. I would I would agree uh with Ashley. Um I think we do need to lean I think that's a great word is to lean into the
community to to find out what are the community's priorities as it relates to our school district. Um and what does that mean? um and helping them understand that uh the path forward is um murky right now and we need some
clarity from the community on either um reducing opportunities for our kids um or um or or what that is going to look like because the status quo your point here is not going to to cut it. So fully agree we should lean into that. I don't
know about Daylor or not. I think it would be helpful to understand what the cost looks like before we can uh make a decision like that. But I think I'm a big believer in um trusting professionals that do things like this and leaning into them. Um if they're
consultants that are wise in this area, I think it's um I'm certainly not a public relations community school financing guru and I don't think any of us are. Uh and so I think if the cost is justifiable, I think it's worth exploring that opportunity. Um and
uh at the risk of overburdening myself, I think it's really important and I would also agree to to to help with this effort discussion. David. Okay. Um, you know, I I agree
wholeheartedly in the community engagement. We need that, right? That's our that's our job. Um Um I am very concerned about um you know expending money that doesn't result in something for us,
right? and and so bringing in a third party, you know, I' I'd want more definition just as Dave mentioned before we even consider that and try to really put some guide rails on it and and know that we're because obviously anytime
we're doing that, it's not going into the classroom, which is where we all want that money to go, right? And and to be directly to the students. So, so we want to make sure that anytime it's not going there that we're we're using it
the way we need to use it. Um um uh so that's that's all. Tom, do you do you feel like uh maybe that subcommittee could make a recommendation to the board about about uh services like that? Yeah. Yeah. I think we need
to outline how we're going to use those services, what we're going to look for, look for some quotes as Dave, you know, we got to have a little you you know and again I know we're early on um you know you can't come to us with that right now
but but that is my cons that's my concern in the discussion we've had obviously right um is you know we're already talking about financial problems the last place I want to see any money going is outside of the classroom right now and and I know we all want that,
right? But you know, yeah, so I would agree with uh Dave's very well made points. Uh I appreciated the presentation uh from Daylor very much. Uh and we do need to reach out to the
community. We do need to listen and understand what direction the community wants and believes and and the community needs to understand what the choices are uh as well. Uh it's uh uh there's an education
process that has to happen going in both directions. We as a board need to be educated and the community needs to be educated about uh um the uh murkiness um the challenges that we're faced with
and I'd be willing to assist however possible. Uh looks like at this point we have three members that would be willing to serve on a subcommittee. Um and we can only have three. We can't
put four. We'd have a quorum. So, uh, Superintendent Gross, would you be willing to pull that subcommittee together and that discussion and then bring back some sort of a recommendation to the board? Sounds great. Does it make
sense, Mr. Chair? Does it make sense, Mr. Chair, to set some sort of timeline that we can work towards because I think having a goal date in mind will help align our efforts. Mr. share if I can our uh you know we
um the we're in this interesting place where uh you know sometimes you can go slow to go fast and sometimes you can't afford to go slow. Um I think coming back with a recommendation there's it seems like
there's unonymity around the fact that we need to do an engagement. So then it's just more about specking out what what does that look like and do we need help and if we do so our first board meeting in May is the 5th. Um we have a work session on the
12th. I guess my my recommendation is that we have an opportunity to discuss this at the 12th. Is there two meetings in May Julie or one? So my suggestion is that uh no later than the 19th there's a
recommendation with from the committee as far as what a plan looks like. Does that seem reasonable? That that seems like a good timeline. Any any further discussion? I I guess do you do you feel you can do that? That's pretty aggressive with everything going
on. Yeah. You know, and I and I and I hear you I hear you on we we need to be fast, but But I guess is there any do we foresee any real opportunity having anything you know we've talked about timelines
of if you were to go to the community on anything it's not going to be this year is it or do we even I think that's part of this group's you know it's part of their work. Tom when you say this year do you mean like this school year or just this year in general? Well, I guess
when you look at the time frames, what we're really talking about is you'd be going, do we think there's something that exists to go to the community to look for money, right? I I mean, that's what we're really on the revenue side. Yeah. On the revenue side, right? Yeah.
Um I guess yeah, the flip side of the engagement is how do we cut, right? Yeah, that's that's what we're talking about. Okay. So, I guess I was focusing on that, right? because there is no rush on that because we're we're already behind on that. Yeah. To to do anything.
I think the just from a from a product standpoint for the 19th that really is about a like what does a preliminary plan look like as far as what does a preliminary community engagement plan
look like? Not that we'd be kneedeep in the work necessarily, but you know, kind of a a calendar for instance, or you know, if there were to be a situation where um the group thought there was some wisdom in bringing in some help, more
information on that along with that plan and and how what would that look like? Yes. Yep. Not even solicit quotes per se, but not necessarily depending on where we're at. Yeah. What would outside engagement potentially look like?
Okay. Okay. No, that's fine. I that that sounds like kind of talking out loud. No, that's good. And uh so I feel like I got some call together that first meeting and come back to us on the 19th. Yep.
Great. Uh next item on the agenda, board reports. Uh Jaden, we'll start with you. I'm sure there's a lot going on. Yeah, a lot going on as we like wrap up the last couple things, last couple months in the school year. This Friday is our second annual prom with purpose at the Kassa
Community Center, which this is like an alternative prom for students that wouldn't normally attend our regular prom due to circumstances, which could be noise, um, sound, distractions as like balloon, streamers, anything like that. So
that'll be this Friday and it'll be for surrounding schools and we'll be able to get all the attendees ready and then continue with prom and serve lunch. Next week we're going into spring fling and then we'll go right into prom that Saturday which our theme is bet on a
night to remember. Grand March will be at 7:00 at the Refe and then prom is 8:30 to 11:30 at the Timberlake and then postp prom will follow at the arena from 11 to 3. Tickets for prom are $25, but it's free if you then want to go to
postp prom. So, that's the one plus. Um, for spring spring thing spring fling themes, Monday we have Hawaiian tourists. Tuesday, Wednesday, we're wearing pastel colors. Thursday, we'll wear green because May is mental health
awareness month and green is the color for mental health. Friday is orange and blackout. Um, as spring fling wraps up, we'll also wrap up our Ronald McDonald House fundraiser, which is our poptab fundraiser. We're currently at over a
100,000 pop tabs collected. And we have two more rounds of collecting to go. So hopefully these last two rounds, people really rally together and we can end with a total of 200,000. Last Wednesday was our academic excellence awards night for 9th through
12th graders. Um, 9th through 12th graders were able to get like department awards. There was the Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale book awards. And the United States Marine Corp had awards for 9th through 12th graders. For in addition for seniors, there were the IB
diploma candidates, medallion candidates, and merit candidates. Three sport athletes, captain's council, career pathways, and AAA winners. And the last thing that was announced was the presidential awards, which this was our yellow cords that students got if
they had a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher throughout their whole like high school career. So that was a big accomplishment for all the students that were able to get that. Like Hoff said mentioned, we have IB testing starting in the next couple weeks and that will last about 2 weeks. And then in two
weeks of May 7th is also our scholarship award night for seniors and that will also be at the rice. Thank you Ashley. Um so this let's see this
past Thursday um myself David Marty Tom Gustoson and Melissa Bar uh we attended a Rams um event. Rams organized um uh a meeting with the local school
board members and their superintendent uh at Hibing High School as well as um our legislators attended. So we had Senator uh Robert Farnsworth, Representative Igo, Representative Scrabba, and I believe Representative
Warwis was Thank you. Um um we as board members and superintendents were able to uh essentially let them know where our concerns fall with the current um school funding choices, mandates, uh
legislation, um things of that nature. and where that all falls for all of our districts as far as um all of our districts just essentially needing more funding and and how it affects each one of us personally. And
they were very receptive. They let us know that they are encouraging um not just schoolboard members and staff members and superintendent, but um our local community members as well to email them and let them know how
important it is that our districts receive funding and appropriate funding to make sure that we can keep our career pathways open, to make sure that we can keep our early education and invest earies open. Um and that when um the
lawmakers come uh and have that omnidus bill put together that they all have everybody's concerns about what that looks like and why all of these things need to be appropriately funded and and make sure that each one of our needs are
met um on an education level. Public schools uh need to be funded appropriately. So that was the one meeting that I really could have give a little bit of a report on um from this past. Thank you. Working. Yeah,
David. Yeah. Uh I appreciated uh Jaden the the report on the uh uh academic excellence awards and the notes that uh principal hosta that you put uh together for that. Uh it was an incredible awards evening recognizing tremendous success
among our students. Uh again uh very proud of what our students are able to accomplish. Attended policy review committee uh and uh superintendent has reported on that uh already. Student of the month club is at the uh final uh
final Friday uh of the month and that's always a great recognition of some really special students that uh that combined to make our schools uh a much better place to be. Uh and commendations
to the high school for uh those recognitions. uh endowment planning and the Boys and Girls Club meeting. And uh finally, we have an election coming up on uh April 29th, and I we need to
fill uh a Senate seat uh for District 6. I encourage those from district 6 to uh get out for the election on Tuesday the 29th. Dave. All right. Uh thank you, Mr. Chair. On Tuesday the 15th, I attended
the Refe Arts Council meeting. Uh we were able to see a preview of the season and all of the uh entertainment and the acts that will be coming through to the Refe this year. It's a little bit less than previous years, but I think it's a it's a known um benefit to have a few
less uh and then at least some uh spots open for ad hoc opportunities to come through the area. Um it's a great lineup. Looking forward to that. Uh, one concern that was shared that I um shared that I would share here uh is that the
Refe is seeing less attendance at school events at the Refe from our district. Uh, and so I just wanted to um share that that that's a concern that's out there. There is busing monies available um for our buses to get the kids there even though it's a short distance. Um,
but just curious about why that might be. I'm not looking for an answer right now, but said that I would bring that up here. It's a great opportunity for our kids. Um I know there's a lot of different things uh competing for interests in our schools. Um but this is a question that was uh asked and so
curious about what that would be. Um last Wednesday I also attended the academic achievement awards. Kudos to um Principal Hoffstead and Heidi Claremont. That program is um uh heartwarming I think is the best way to say it. It's so cool to see one
the Refe Center filled to capacity. You just don't see that very often. And standing room and literally watching these kids be celebrated for their achievements is pretty incredible. And then along the lines of what Mr. Marty was saying, I actually talked to candidate Heindman this morning. Um
she's one of the candidates for Senate District 6 and I brought her up to speed on our mascot situation. She was not aware of it. Um I brought her up to speed on what the issue was, the history of it, where we're at, where we stand. Um I'm reaching out to candidate and
forgive me if I say it slippy slippy slipy um tomorrow to do the same and just share that. I think it's important knowing that we may not have a rep a senator from our local area. So it's important to just make sure that they
whoever wins um is aware of our um situations here both with our district and our our mascot issue. So I have top um as Ashley had mentioned uh I was able to go to the the Rams meeting there. Uh
it was it was really good again that Rams hosted that. Um I think it allowed us to have a little more focused conversation. Uh I felt it was a little more effective at least for me than when
we went down to the cities per se. um little more one-on-one time with them after uh which was nice. Um and and I found it interesting um when they brought up the fact getting those emails out. So I think as a group we'll we'll
make a real good effort at at hitting that target date. They gave us some dates to hit there and I think it'll be important for us to to make sure they're seeing that inbox flying up there. Um, I had a little bit of a scheduling mis
mishap on the big fork advisory group, but uh we were talking a little bit about it there and unfortunately I would I missed that. Uh, but I've now got it on my calendar. It's amazing how dependent I become on my phone there. So with that, uh, that's all I have.
Thanks. So I'll I I can kind of pitch in on that. Um, I attended the Big Fork advisory last Tuesday. uh that committee's been working on setting uh goals for the school. uh primary focus has been on their music program
and they've done a lot of really good work uh putting together a a strong growing music program in Big Fork and uh a lot of the discussion Tuesday was around setting some some goals and some
timelines to have certain parts of that uh plan implemented. Uh with that uh we'll go to you, Superintendent Gross. Thank you. One of the practical things that came out of that group and you know I I thought I was just kind of grateful for
um when in the course of time or different changes of staff the the building became in need of some music chairs and music chairs are specific right um it's not
like you go buy the folding chairs at Walmart and ask kids to sing or play instruments in them right so um through the course of the discussion, one of the community members, sister was a former music teacher in Big Fork and De River
and now teaches uh down in southern Minnesota and they had gone through a recent building project where their chairs all got swapped out. And so we were able to acquire a whole pile of these chairs for like kind of pennies on
the dollar uh and completely outfit that music uh room now with Wanger chairs uh which are what you know what you want and uh so you know they're being creative too. Uh so I appreciated that and you know that community person went
down there and picked them all up for us. So, I mean, um, I I just those are the kind of cool things that can happen when you work together and collaborate. Uh, a couple nuts and bolts things. Um, Blackboard, who we've used for our website for many years, was purchased by
Final Site in 2022. And the tech industry, it's, you know, buy and sell and all that stuff. Um, and at at that time, we were notified that we were going to have to migrate to the new platform at some point. And um Julie and I remember talking about it going this is just not the right time to do this.
Um so we put it off and put it off as long as we possibly could. Um so we delayed that we delayed that implementation for three years but we will be updating that site this summer converting over to the new final site platform. Uh it's it's kind of a good opportunity to sort
of do some spring cleaning on the website too because things get added to websites rather than taken down more. And so I think that's good. I think in the end it'll be good. It'll look updated and fresh. Um just but uh I think that'll be good. Um uh Jaden
mentioned scholarship night on the 7th at Grand Rapids High School. That's also the same night as the senior banquet in Big Fork. And so uh if you um if you're able to head up there, I know um like Dave, I have senior and so I'll be
sticking around town. Um but uh if you're able to get up there, that'd be good. I had some follow-ups from our discussion on uh other post-employment benefits last week and I just wanted to make sure the right message is getting out there that the reasons we are
talking about that issue is first to determine the best way to pay these benefits moving forward and to make sure we're paying them in the most efficient and economical way possible. we didn't mention or talk about for a second. Uh the idea of eliminating benefits, but
you know, health benefits are are really uh something people pay close attention to and for good reason. So, I just wanted to make sure that people know uh that that wasn't part of the conversation. We're clear on our understanding of our obligations and um to provide those benefits. So, just
wanted to make sure that was clear. Uh I had the opportunity to visit the tech crawl that was hosted down the hallway uh last week or two weeks ago and so that was an opportunity for students from area school districts including
ours to come visit the um the tech hub and so there were presentations on uh drones on coding on GIS. I'll probably get some of these wrong and say more than it, but uh it was really great from all the school districts. And so they
were exploring career opportunities. Um our partners at uh Smart North helped with putting that together. Josiah did a good job of hosting and so I think it was a really really good event. Uh had the opportunity to talk about public
school funding with Jeremy Olsen, the uh superintendent from Baiji on Lakeland Public News uh last week. I don't think we can talk about it enough. It's complicated and confusing and uh so I think that's important and that should air here in the next couple weeks.
Finally, tomorrow night, the ISK board of directors is going to be meeting to to be talking about the future. Uh, I ask has undergone a lot of changes and you heard Jackie and Darla talk tonight about, you know, I'd say what for years
was the um, I don't know, the the pinnacle program and I ask maybe was invest early. It had national attention when it was at its pinnacle and uh a lot has changed with that program and has needed to change and and those two have done a
really good job leading through some really really hard time. Um but every once in a while it's important that is gets together to talk about what priorities look like, what partnership looks like, what collabor collaboration
actually looks like um to gauge commitment and those kinds of things. So there'll be some of those discussions tomorrow night at that meeting and um I'm looking forward to that. It's uh I ask has been around since about
2006. So, we're going on how many ever years that is. And um when you have boards that naturally turn over, superintendents that turn over a great deal, maintaining that institutional
momentum maybe is challenging. And um so it's been I think an amazing group of districts doing a lot of good, but uh figuring out what we want to put our shoulders behind is going to be really really important.
Um, I think that's it, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Uh, reminder, upcoming schoolboard committee and meeting dates are posted on each agenda. Schoolboard meeting agendas can be found in the district website and at the designated posting
site at the district 318 educational services center. Is there any other business to come before the board? Julie, has anyone signed up for public input? No, they haven't
this time. meeting a journal.