##VIDEO ID:0hv7qC0LVCk## member school board meeting for Monday November 25th 2024 board members present tonight are banking car andin with and con absent this evening uh 3.0 is the open Forum we did not receive any public comment requests 4.0 is the approval of the agenda is there anything to add or change or remove move from the agenda there will be one thing on the consent agenda so when uh Lisa emailed us out she had lindsy CR as a junior ey girls basketball coach she's actually C Squad you'll see that's been changed so that's the only thing call anything else that needs to add or subract okay then I'll take a motion to app the agenda than by Danny second second by Shannon any further discussion car none all those in favor I opposed motion carries 5.0 is the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting is there anything to change crack delete add to those minutes make okay motion by Danny second second by Matt any further discussion on the minutes he none all those in favor I I car 6.0 is the student council report for veter created a play chain to display the colors and cut out star and displayed it in the comments and after meeting on November 6 we went to the media center as the group and worked create display and our service led by our junior class representatives proposed the idea of tie blankets and the council decided to create 20 blankets and distribute onison for American Education which started November 18 we had individuals make and bring bars for all staff custodians teachers professionals and others thinking about snow and how to decorate we compile the list of ideas we have which R from Carnival to Outer a council vote and finally we held a sign up for our for our dat for concessions we created a sign up which called for a total of 10 of our Council council members to volunteer their time to our sh all right thank you L uh 7.0 and recognitions we going to combine the Hors and recogition with that's okay y That's fine all right I'd like to start off the first person that I would like to um recognize and and honor is Teresa Brown um who is leading our Sparkle Club I don't want to say too much about it I've asked her to be here on on their behalf as well as some team members there's some really cool things that are happening around the building so if there's anything that she leaves out that that I'm excited about um I'll maybe chime in at that particular point but I'd like to thank Brown and all of her work and team's work on what's happening around the building here so than talk a little bit about maybe we'll just come stand over here well some of the senior members would come up with me uh this sort of started I don't know where to stand I started last year when I was just asked uh in with uh Kim Mitchell leading she was helping them do a lot of locker posters uh some Juniors had asked me if I would um help carry that on and in true Teresa Brown fashion you have to go to the 10th degree right so we started the sparkle Club right now um from 7 through 12 we have about 48 active members and um the seniors if it weren't for the seniors there wouldn't be a sparkle Club because they definitely have taken upon themselves I don't know if you'll have an opportunity one of the coolest things I I had a vision I shared it with them what I wanted to do and a couple of the seniors Val being one of them um made the turkey happen in the Commons from 5 through 12 each Home Room teacher and advisor was given color coordinated paper per grade every child copied Trac their hand cut it out wrote something they were thankful for and it is now displayed in the comons and that just really touched my heart to think that it unified our entire uh building and uh that was really neat um a couple other things that we've done and I I see the girls have some stuff so I'm going to let them um talk about that more but we the first thing that we had done we just did a 911 poster um it came to my attention that most of our high schoolers weren't even born when that happened now so that was that was really neat to me to see them want to do that um of course we've been working on the locker posters we did the Thanksgiving turkey American Education week uh we really had some fun with that with posters and treats and things and um National kindness day I had told them that it really is something near and dear to my heart to try and hang things up around around the school and they took it even further they made I mean like they did posters around is one thing when an old lady hangs it up it's another thing when somebody who goes here and takes pride in it and does it so um and and they they did take that a little bit further made anti-bully posters um so one of the other things is uh that really neat idea that I thought they they came up with this is that they wanted to take the American Education week and make it a year-long thing to adopt teachers throughout the year instead of just one time um put doing things for them so that's an ongoing project that we're going to have but I want them to talk about other things so well Mrs Brown kind of covered the vision but it was just basically to spread a sparkle through our community Through direct and direct interactions and we just wanted to give back to humanity by inspiring others to do the same and our mission statement is it is our hope that students will develop lifelong skills that Empower them to make a true and lasting impact on their friends family and Community driving meaningful change by nurturing kindness empathy and strong core values while learning that true change comes from within and starts with them individually yes with SP club we we like to make Locker posters and here they are here's some different Locker posters we've made and the cool thing is we had um I had went to Mr swasy and asked him about trying to because we're not an official Club of the school so we don't have a budget so I just been trying to do things and uh we got out that we wanted a Cricket trying to ra funds for that and we had two donated so our posters are sort of morphing into more than what we thought they could be so and with sparkle Club doing it everyone gets a locker poster we've never had a robotics has never had a locker poster before and I know U some make me cry oh someone thr a l came up to miss ground and said how much they appreciated a locker poster and it's the same with B inquire 2 they've never had a lock poster and a lot of band inquire students are just in band inquire so having everyone really included getting Locker posters really makes the school like having a locker poster is really something special just to say like that's what like I'm in a club and then yeah like we have all of these sprinkled around the school just kindness and having anti-bullying posters it's always something be nice to like walk around and see like everyone we had a couple meetings where a couple different people got to make all these kindness posters and we see them around the hallways and it's just something special to see it makes me smile and we have a lot of them our kids are very creative and it makes me smile and then this is a picture you can pass around this is me and my friend Lily for breast cancer awareness we went and we chose two different people that have that have currently have breast cancer and have had breast cancer we decided to make a basket for each of these people and in that picture that's a teacher from Dawson we really wanted to spread Sparkle Club not to just our school but into like our neighboring schools and she really appreciated that we took time out of liie and I we took time out of our day to go and deliver it to it and I know she appreciated it a lot um and then it was Mrs zaruk that we gave her to she cried she loved it and it's just something else to like know that breast cancer awareness is so it's really notice for us I really enjoyed it that it makes me feel fulfilled like I enjoyed spark club so much like just getting able to do things for people around the school I love it and it's just not schools ear this year Cherry we played them in State baseball their bus had a roll over and we sent them like a card hoping everything like went well and Stu School in the area those are like schools in general in Minnesota and then this is kind of our logo you can scad this around too uh if you look at the turkey we have our logo just to make sure that everyone knows like sparkle Club is really working to make our school a brigh and I think we we try to have like one big project a month plus our locker fores we working on so like last month it was um the baskets and this next oh we've got something for next month I warned Mr SWAT but our goal is that every single Locker has a poster and that senior that stopped me in the hallway and I can't ever talk about it without crying but he stopped me in the hallway I didn't even know anybody even paid attention to our whiteboard in the LA lab and he goes Mrs Brown robotics isn't on there anymore they said no I said we're getting ready I said we cross them off we erase them as we get done he goes he's a senior and he said if all the years I've been here I've never had a locker poster and when that because I stopped and I turned and I looked and I said how's that make you feel and he said really good and so I shared that with the girls because that's their their classmates and I I really feel that this year things have really shifted out here so I'm very very proud of [Music] [Laughter] them and Spark it's definitely leisurely it's crafty like I enjoy getting to go down to the lack lab and get to make Locker posters and get to make like these kindness posters it's not like I have to do it like I enjoy so much to I know I will down the I saw the different I was when I go down the I always to see else up well then you know what we noticed this week now somebody took a um notepad those sticky notes and did you have you teachers noticed that someone has taken that and they've been writing their things and putting up up around and I thought well that's a good thing to be catchy so I thought that's this is an organization I just really appreciate the the kindness that they're spreading around the building and the community and I'm thought very worthy of first of all the young ladies involved uh great leaders great representatives of our school that have good Hearts um and uh sort of their leaders and so just very much appreciate what what you guys have done and the foundation that you're building that hopefully we can continue to do this for many years to come so thank you very much thank you thank you [Applause] so the next group of individuals that I would like to um recognize would be um Charlene rice Andrea young and then Diana Smith is not able to be here um this this particular group took on a large undertaking starting last year with a character character initiative and it really ties in was start of of what we're doing out here so with the sparkle Club but I guess beyond the the academic side of things it's the humanity side of things and how can we create better people how can we help them to empathize with just things that people are dealing with and and whatnot so these ladies have um LED some very um entertaining engaging character development initiatives that our 512 building has has locked into this year we changed the name to sore and I'm going to let you two ladies talk a little bit more about just the stuff that you've done but but I think two correlate very well yeah so it all started just with um a group of seventh graders and the teachers will know which ones I'm talking about but they're now ninth graders you know that group um they're they were awful and they treated each other awful and they treated just teachers awful it and so it started with an email char sent out to all the parents and unfortunately I had a seventh grader so I got this email and or parents square and it just talked about how they're just so hard on each other and they they're not they're just tearing each other down every chance they get and so I checked in with her a month or so later after Christmas break or whenever it was but I checked in and I said is thing do you see any Improvement and she said no and I know a lot of the parents had talked to their kids about this bad attitude and so like us parents doing our thing talking to the kids didn't help didn't change anything and so she and I started chatting and that's where this idea came up like can we do some character building using advisories to help give them some skills to work together maybe with kids that they wouldn't normally work with teachers students kind of mixing together trying to bridge that Gap and so that's where the whole started and it kind of started with the name character initiative and it kind of evolved from there um and so where it has landed um we now call it sore setting our attitudes right um and our mission is to provide students with opportunities to build self-awareness and confidence develop empathy for their peers and others in their communities and create a culture of Integrity um so uh last year was our first this and we had um some activities that didn't go so great and then some that were um really fun to see um so I remember one from last year we had taken a bunch of posters and cut them out in puzzle few shapes and Scattered them um across the advisories and so each advisory got um a baggie of puzzle pieces but none of them were for their own advisory so they had to walk around the hall and find the number for their advisory and the ADV to put their poster together completely and tape it together on a prize um some of the ones we started out with this year um kind of a team building activity in the advisories um we gave them this image of an eagle um and then some markers with strings attached and they had to in groups of um three to six they had to hold just the string and try to work together to draw the pictures um really entertaining um we got those back um we've had an activity called cross the line so there were um two strips of tape on the floor and then the advisories um the students split into two groups just randomly and the adviser would read out um statements like cross the line if you've ever been camping and then they could step in and see who do I have stuff in common with um and then mixed in with some of those light hearted um like drawing and painting or have you ever been on a roller coaster um there are other deeper ones um for example across the line if you've ever felt overwhelmed by school or other responsibilities um or if you've ever experienced a significant change or transition in your life just so they could start to get a sense of um the other humans in the advisory with them that they see every single morning um let's see we've also um worked in this week what we call bucket week uh we've had one of those so far so we task each advisory then with brainstorming um an advisory someone in the building a person um an organization that they want to fill their bucket with kindness um so some I know my advisory for our first bucket week um they had they voted on they wanted to U make a poster for Mrs Brown um so they did that and then they also made cards for the kitchen staff to thank them and one bigger project that we have coming up is um the humans of lack so it's based off of a um the humans of New York not you're familiar several several years ago now um like a decade ago um feels like not that long ago there was a guy that um started just like taking pictures of random people on the streets of New York um wanting to his goal was to photograph 10,000 people and then along the way he started interviewing them um and put together this huge project of photographs of these people and then little Snippets of the conversations that they had U and it was a huge powerful project um if you ever get a chance to I recommend um so we thought that we could take that idea and do the humans of black and have um advisory students interview each other and kind of build empathy and Le about each other that way I think throughout this our we had kind of three main areas that we were trying to tackle the first one was empathy because we saw that a lot of the students left that in themselves um another one was the self-confidence self-awareness and then the third one was integrity and so all of our activities have to do with one of those three categories so yeah I think uh you know just to close this one up is again it ties right in the line of we have so many of our staff members that are going beyond the the Call of Duty in terms of their their classroom curriculum and so people's willingness to help our young people grow and and uh just be better at being human beings and life is is so appreciated and um it takes time it takes energy um a lot of effort and you guys are putting that that in I'm so grateful for that so thank you very [Applause] much okay the uh the last one that I have here is um Mr Lowry you want stay seated you got a big one you want you want to come stand up Mr Lowry um Mr Lowry I I kind of joke with him but it's it's really the truth um he uh a weakness that Mr Lowry has is being able to say no um I appreciate that because anything that I come to him with he's like yeah we can do that yeah I'll help you out with that you know not a problem but um some some of the big initiatives that he's helped us leave um we'll May a stand over here just so the camera can get the better side of you um but uh we we've got some some big things coming up I know there's been some questions about um the CDL program and that is a new piece that we are exploring for second semester and it has fallen into place which we are very excited about anybody that I've talked to um from other districts or around the area are like how are you doing that how is that how is that working in a school and um the the reality is the leg work that Mr Lowry has done with some others that have certainly helped out and and some strong Community Support um financial support and just an excitement for how can we help create some industry um some some work opportunities for our people within our within our area so I'm going to there's and there's a couple other ones we're going to we're going to hit on all of them real quick um but maybe we'll start with the CDL program probably sequence presentation that we can cover to uh kind of get you guys some information on some of the things that we've been um working on here coming up must to shut off on there we go there it is that be just a second thanks so so um I guess what I want to talk about if to cover here is the CDL Class specifically but then also kind of an overview of of this concept of career Pathways um you know what can we do to prepare our students for that next step After High School uh but the development of the CDL class so kind of initiated through some networking uh with Madison Eda um the idea was brought up to me um that you know could we do this um it was viewed as a need within the community need for licensed truck drivers and uh so I thought yeah let's let's look into it so the first thing we did is we reached out to Minnesota West the customized training department to explore would would this be a Bible option and through some conversations uh with James we we determined that this was something that we possibly could get with the big challenge being refunding um so our first step was to look at the lift Grant this is the same grant program that we've used to start fund other programs uh like the CNA class we have Medical Careers class or exploration class an intro teaching class that we're all lift Grant uh recipients this uh CDL program was awarded a LIF Grant as well and then in combination with this uh lift Grant one of the requirements is that you partner with another District so we're partnering with Da Boy on this program it's kind of the idea behind this what is the um the goal of the program So currently we have 11 students enrolled uh the first month of the class will be a classroom based work where prep the students for their permit test uh so going through the coursework requirements getting them ready to uh take their permit exam uh once they've completed that then the students will have to take the test the permit test down in Marshall to be a permitted driver at that point then they'll be able to start their uh behind the wheel training and that will be done here on site at lapr Valley uh the initial plan was to use the uh fairgrounds in Appleton uh but this fall we uh met with the instructors kind of toured the site and they felt that the grounds here at laar would be enough to work on backing up and uh shifting and then you know doing driving on some of the gravel roads in the area so uh the plan is that it'll be all housed directly on site and that'll cut down on some of the transportation time and things of that nature as well uh with Minnesota West they'll be providing the driver instructor uh behind the wheel training and one of the things I'm kind of excited about uh Mr swas is looking for me he might have to come look in our uh old storage area because we're going to get a uh semi simulator uh set up where uh the students can log additional practice time and hopefully cut down on some of behind the wheel requirements um that in itself is about $120,000 piece of equipment and uh Minnesota West is providing that to us fore at charge at least for this first uh first year uh and then the truck and trailer um will be housed out here uh for that behind the wheel training and then the students would have access to that then when they take the as well okay so the ultimate goal then is for a student to at the end of the school year here be a licensed CDL driver um you know when we look at kind of the impact of that you one of the things we've talk about is preparing students for that next step and uh you know obviously a four-year college or even Community College Technical College type program is one of those options and I think we have a strong base for that but the reality is that college is not for all of our students so how do we prepare students acquire them with skills that will allow them to be successful members of our community and so I think things like you know they graduate high school with a CDL license now they have an employable skill that uh they can take into the workforce um an alternate goal that would be an option would be that class B license if for whatever reason uh they're just not picking up those skills um the instructors felt pretty confident that the minimum of a class Fe would be attainable for everyone so the costs and funding um so right now what we're looking at costs the classroom portion is is it's a one credit class so that's $236 um per student so that's a pretty minimal expense but we some those real costs come in is the behind the wheel training and so right now we're at $150 uh per per hour for that behind the wheel training um and different numbers have been kicked around in our conversation um initially they thought between about 24 to 32 hours so if you're doing the math you know you're looking at about $3,000 or so um for a student to do this um we come up with some ideas things like shared uh shared driving um doing two people in the vehicle at a time and uh that type of thing but they felt pretty confident that it would be closer to that $2,500 Mark but that's kind of the ballp part that we're looking at in terms of costs so how we're funding this um $115,000 come through the lift Grant and then we've reached out with some corporate sponsorships um primarily because that's where this idea initiated from um one of our big big sponsors right now is Bellingham Farmers Elevator uh they've uh committed $5,000 with an additional $5,000 in matching funds um so that's a total of $10,000 donation there and then we've had some other sponsors as well that have come through with smaller donations we also have some ver verbal commitments um from the Lac parl Valley Coop um vement Trucking and some other sorts but what that actual dollar amount um is going to be is not fully known but uh right now we have 15,000 or $330,000 uh either in on hand or in committed funding for this project so the next steps so one of the biggest things is this funding Gap you know so how do we address that and that's one of the questions that needs to be answered still um we've explored some couple different options one of the things that I've gone out to these uh uh some of our local businesses with is would you be willing to sponsor a student with the idea that hey we'll cover the cost of this training and you work for us this summer or you work for us for you know whatever that would look like that's some sort of sponsorship and return for now I'm getting a future employee uh so that's one Avenue that we've talked about um obviously the recruitment of additional sponsors so there's some larger uh corporations that we haven't been able to uh uh connect with yet and that uh would be potential for some additional funds and then another option that is out there is is this kind of like a partially funded thing with the school so maybe the school covers $1,500 or $1,000 of that behind the wheel the student then is you know task for that remaining fee so different ideas um the other big question then is how do we make this sustainable okay that $115,000 Grant was a onetime thing and so that's one thing that I don't know that I have the answer for but is something we're discussing you know is this something that we can continue to provide um in the future and what would that look like and one thing that comes to my mind is our CNA class so that started out with this lift grant program and uh to be quite Frank um the funding left and we running the class but at that point in time our hos area hospitals reached out and were why aren't you running this class anymore and we explained the situation and they were willing then to pick up the funding and have funded that program um and so what the hope is hopefully that our community sees the benefit of of this these types of programs and are willing to fund it in return of the realization that they're providing future employees for them um and then on top of that where do we go from here so we talked about that idea of preparing students for that next step um whether that's college or other Pathways and that kind of gets to this idea of career Pathways um you know can we create a curriculum or how do we shape our curriculum so that it's meet meeting the needs of one of our community okay are we meeting the needs of our Workforce and what are the skills what are the things that are needed within our community how do we address that as a school system I think one example of that that I mentioned is our CNA class and uh we had some meetings earlier this fall looking at expanding that into a medical pathway so adding on to that CNA program um doing things like trained medical assisting um maybe some uh Pharmacy TX but adding addition work and hopefully would culminate with an internship type experience in one of our loal hospitals um again looking at Northern uh Community needs one of the things that came up this summer um the owner of Northern Geo reached out over the last few years he's had interns working for him um during Christmas break summer break Spring Break um and have been a valuable resource for him um done a lot of drafting and Design Within their program and he has expressed an appreciation for this but also a need hey these are the kinds of skills that we need to continue to provide to our students you know I need future workers and and so the idea is does our curriculum then provide these skills that um you know our Workforce is in need of and then are we addressing the needs of our students so do we have things in place that are preparing students for what they want to proceed um are we teaching foundational skills things that they can take to that next level whether again whether that's college or or the workforce or are we providing them with some sort of certification or or credit payment you know also things like our CNA they're becoming they're they're leading this class as a certified nursing assistant again directly related to employ employable uh opportunities the CDL class would be a similar situation directly leading to employment opportunities um and so that's something we want to continue to look at and expand on um whether it's new Pathways or the addition of of uh some additional college credit type course one of the things that we're currently exploring we lost our college credit class classes in our Sciences with with uh uh Advanced chemistry and physics and so we uh working with Mrs rle to expand on that with some earth science type opportunities we thought we had something lined up with Minnesota West um however it sounded like their faculty um is maybe not willing at least at this time to move forward with that so we've reached out to some other schools as well and feel pretty confident that there's going to be some uh potential in the near future there as well so um does anybody have any questions no this was awesome that one's good all right well we'll keep plugging away at it then thank [Applause] you um just just kind of a uh a uh once an appreciation for so many people doing a lot of great things um just Mr L you want me to kind of chime in on my um so I'm not going to dig into some of the items that I have on my on my report but uh there's two things that I want to kind of touch base with with the board the first one being the cell phone policy and where we're at with that type of deal very quickly um as you know by March 15 2025 we need to have an official policy update in place um we've completed a survey um with community members students staff we received feedback um right now we're kind of working through some organizing that data and I I think the plan is to really come to you with more information in December on what that feedback States from different the different entities if you will um so that we can kind of move forward with a policy plan in regards to that so I don't have a ton on that but do you have any questions or anything about the cell phone policy what are we where are we at where where these phones will be be in their lockers are they be in the office they going be pouches in the classrooms we I don't know that I mean I I can say that we haven't officially determine that at this particular Point um right now we're taking the uh we have an individual who's working on a on administrative lure who has reached out to Mr Lia for some hours some service hours if you will and so his project is going to be his or her I'm not sure matter is going to be um organizing the data and putting in in some in an informational manner for us to review and look at and from there we'll we'll um you know make an informed decision about what the community feels would be most appropriate I think there's definite snap shots of what we're feeling um and and if you want you know I I think that's fair for me to say you have the teachers on one end or staff members you have the students on the complete um opposite end if you will and I'd say maybe the parents are to some degree maybe in the middle maybe leaning a little closer to the teachers um but we'll we'll get all that information together so um we're still ahead of the game we have plenty of time for um we want to do our due d sure we come up with a plan that we're we're comfortable with Scott talked too about presenting to the board that data that was talking about be collected in the survey of parents and students at the next board meeting as as well as maybe some recommendations for where we for our policy the other thing that I'd like to talk about um and highlight I know hope schm was in here talking about the um just kind of what's happening within the program and what we have been doing this year is there's a focus through mved on mtss it's multi-tiered systems of support and it's it's kind of a big umbrella of items but um what we've done is we've taken our e our English language Learners initiative and really um dug in deep for how we can help our kidos out the classroom um what can our teachers do to help provide more meaningful um and appropriate learning experiences for them and so um on October 16th we had a guest speaker to M come out um made possible through MV Mr Kurt Slater gave a great presentation um and then hmid has done a a great really just a great job of facilitating our learning opportunities as far as staff development so big kudos to her on that um on September 6th we we really kind of reviewed what our e program was all about um our data um the access test results the spreadsheets um and uh kind of dug in deep to that particular stuff on the 16th we created some El assessments by proficiency level and so every staff member once we went through what what some of those best practices might look like they were given some time to take as at least one but as many um assessments as they could and work through modifications and accommodations so that we could get some meaningful feed on on our on our assessments with those kiddos and I guess what I'd like to highlight here is even though the focus is on E it really encompasses all of our students it's our special education students it's kiddos that might be on the cusb maybe they don't qualify for special education and the the practices that she's working with and and the E team is working with us they really impact all of our students in a positive way and some of the strategies that our teachers are using when I when I'm walking through classrooms doing EVS walkthroughs Etc I'm seeing a lot of these practices just naturally um put in place so it's it's fun to see that it's that it's happening um we at the end of this date there are some presentations on how people are doing it within their classroom and some of our our veteran leader teachers um stepped up presented what they're doing and I think that really gave some clout and some maybe the green light to say it's okay you know like we should all be doing this right now so very very much appreciated those individuals and it went from our veteran teachers to our very young new teachers that said here's some of the stuff we're doing it was a pretty cool experience and then on November 1st we had um Anita fonan who's one of our Care Professionals um she gave a micronesian cultural presentation there's um lots of emotion in it uh she's you know very grateful for the education that that is provided to them um but she really gives us gave us Insight on what families are feeling what they're experiencing how grateful they are with some of the challenges they're facing Etc and give us some snapshots of what the micronesian uh Community looks like on the islands and how when they come here uh you know like I think one of my thoughts is there's these kiddos are so smart they're so talented they're so capable and um what she told us is when you look at what they have on the islands they have the World by the T when they're here in the United States because they're living in homes um they're getting good food you know they're they're having just amazing experiences you know whether whether it's right or wrong there's there's even more opportunity for them to reach and I think we're starting to get there with some of our kiddos and and that Community started to say well if I if I go to college or if I do these little things um there there's a whole another level that we can we can me um teachers on this particular date selected some culturally responsive focus groups that they participated in they created some slideshows and brought back some presentations to the group then we'll have another opportunity on March 21st and so I guess what I really want to highlight here is our teaching staff and um what they're doing to go above and beyond it's our jobs for sure right but they're embracing it um they're working their tales off and they're making meaningful changes and applications to their their prac and I'm very proud of them for that so um and grateful any questions on what we got going on Scot Scott Scott else um add right there then we move on to monthly financials I think think I will it starts on page 23 agenda P3 24 to 25 um the um board did approve a preliminary budget back in June um that budget included the most current information at that point in time so now what we've done is we back made updates to what changes have happened over the summer and and actually to into the fall whether it's enrollment Staffing um updates of contracts with te teachers grants donations Federal programs that sort of thing um has all been updated to the best of our ability um this is considered our adopted budget um it will be published in the newspaper in front of you um this is what will be um this is an mde formatted document what we are required to publish um on our website and in the newspaper so that will be actually going into the newspaper this week um majority of the changes happen in the general fund um and so I'm just going to focus on those updates um we did go through everything in in quite detail back in June um but if you do have questions um just let me know the side starting on page 23 I believe it is 23 um general fund you'll see on the left is the preliminary budget that was what we the board approved back in June on the right is the adopted budget that's what we looking at tonight um general fund first of all looking at enrollment on the revenue side um normally we use enrollment as of October 31st that is what is in your agenda pack um but what we know right now which you see on both September and October we sitting at 832 K2 um what we know right now is that we are um losing several students at the middle school high school level in November so what we know right now is about 12 students that we're losing at Mid middle school high school so we have taken that 832 anded it by those 12 kids for budget so we're K12 the budget is 820 students okay that equates to about 98 almost 99 people unit Early Childhood is in at a level that we that they're sitting at right now um typically those are parttime kiddos they're need based um so typically that does increase throughout the school year um DK is in um even though we um have lost some students now in November we still are highed than what we had expected back in June so back in June our preliminary budget had 808 for K12 so now we have 820 so we're still up um you look just at people units about 14 almost 15 people units so um and of course that is truly um due to our Comm classroom uh we knew being conservative back in Jun put kindergarten there at 62 that was conservative really were not sure what we come in at and they're sitting now at at 79 so um um quite a bit more students in that classroom than um what we had put in the budget back in June so that definitely is helping um our our numbers and our Revenue um now as we're doing updates this fall majority of course at the elementary site um just a reminder of our Jed formula um have back in June that was a 2% increase from prior year and um so we're sitting at $ 7,281 that's what we our main piece of funding um of course there's several other line items within J that go up and down based off of our mix of students um whether they're high school or Elementary um um looking at Federal programs very close to what we had seen back in June our main Federal programs now are Title One and title two and then we also receive some federal funds in the special ed area we will have um some onetime funding in the title one area that will be spending in this year will be working on that state special Aid uh that is an area that I did update and actually increas in June very much a um struggle to to work with that piece of funding there so many variables the state uh does not make it easy for us to get a handle on what we will be receiving in that area I actually think it potentially could be maybe a little bit more than that but um definitely a risk to put anything higher than that interest Revenue another area that was increased um advised us back in June to decrease our um interest Revenue by about 20% um for this upcoming school year seeing our our numbers going down so I I increase it back up again increased by U over our spring estimate by 50,000 not sure where rates are going to go it's definitely a um very um risky area we do not want to balance we talked about before on the backs of Interest however um we are definitely appreciating the um additional funding that we're receiving in that area um piece of new funding we did have this in the budget back in June um summer unemployment it's summer term I should say Unemployment uh we are um receiving onetime funding for that um we have it both on the regend expenditure side have headed at 50,000 I up it to 80,000 revenue and expense the risk there is that that is a one time funding the state of Minnesota funded it for a certain level for all school districts in the state when it's gone it's gone and it comes on the back of the school districts that of course will be something that assuming they will address at this upcoming legislative session because it is a will be a big toll on school districts in the future if they don't uh give schools a funding source for that because it is now in legislation Reed to pay that and so it will be the unfunded mandate basically if they do not address it in this upcoming legislative session because the talk is that the funding will be gone after the 24 25 school year so it will be an issue for next year's budget uh two pieces that were added that were not in the June budget is funding that is also onetime funding um the difference there is that um we have the expenses will um they have certain criteria for each of those pieces of funding and we will be able to carry those dollars over so whatever is not spent ining those new requirements be able car over restricted fund balance and be able to use it as impl requirements in um these next um few years uh you'll see a note at the bottom there did reduce the revenue by um just a straight 20,000 that's for any future unknown declines in enrollment um if we do not have any declines that will be added back in the spring we bud in the spring um on the expenditure side stacking any stack changes were updated we did add the district did add the brand new teer there um also added a for some student needs in the Madison site um utilities were reviewed again not a lot of changes there we've had such a mild winter that um probably are again going to have a year that don't have a typical year yet with our new building project we've been kind of waiting to see where our utilities too bad again this year uh had to add a little bit for some student in students in par treatment that is based and um we do have on the expenditure side of the budget us being fully staffed um I don't know that we've been fully staffed school year there's been custodial positions open and professional positions open so very very um surprised if underg the in the overall you'll see there um the top part which is our main operating piece of the general fund we have a positive cash flow of about 106,000 which is is great news because you I did up the um interest Revenue which um we again do not want to be relying on for ongoing costs also helping in that area is the increase in enrollment and also the increase in the special Aid that we're seeing um the restricted area there in the middle part we've talked a lot about that we are in a second year full har lless for that piece of funding that is the same piece of funding that um we had a huge bump in in to um students that qualify for reduced we are currently getting that funding based off of um a direct certified GRE red list from the state of Minnesota um we again are in the second year this is our second year home termless next year we um I do not know our formula yet we've been waiting for a long time what we know right now um very certainly is that our population is considerably down which will item um I I hate to scare anybody yet on that we'll hopefully know you know a little bit better in a month may not till May I don't know if it's going to take legislative session to actually get us a funding formula for that piece but um I am a little bit more fearful even than I was before this piece will because I do see our funding or our population going down to I just wanted to add something that's not unique to us um I've had meetings with my superintendent colleagues in fact a recent one we were discussing that very thing um and while the amount of money it could be less would be significant for us it's significantly more for a number of other districts districts that are looking dollars and funding so it's a reality that schools are going to be facing we will keep learn more about it right now what we know is of that 457,000 we pretty certain we'll get 45,000 but um I don't want to put the fear fear into anybody yet because um we are still um trying to get a firms population number um that is still being accumulated once we get that we School know that piece there is a Formula out there in statute however um with everybody's in the State numbers going down there's going to be appropriation left and they need to allocate that back to schools they just don't know how to do that and so basically that that causes us to not know what we're going to get for funding um so two what we did there you can see is um we moved what we put up above to ongoing costs to try to get that piece as low as possible as far as the goals and at the end of this fiscal year we will hope to put into our fund balance 000 which um for us um will um buy us time to figure out what's going to happen in that area if our country goes down we will not have to make adjustments to some of those programs that that we have funded in that area which um I think there's a lot of schools that have not done this they've not done they've not you know realized that this is some risky piece of funding get um and I think one of my workshops uh you could you could tell they were extremely nervous their funding it was going down 70% ours with our number right now we're going down about 34% and that again is a preliminary number but there's some schools that are really you know hurting badly in that area and that's why I feel like they're going to have to do something about that so bottom line is as you see um where we're sitting right now in total um piecing out the compensatory are ongoing um the uh one other risk and I did mention this before is the summer term employment that will impact us in the future and enrollment we'll have to really be watching enrollment we know it's com down in November hopefully it'll taper off and we stabilize but um currently we are seeing a little bit of volatility in that that area that watch and that's as we do every year Watching very very CL Transportation increase enrollment affected that fund as well in regards to the revenue special Aid increase also affected that fund so that was an increase uh update to the expenditure side for the specialed um student travel routes those are the special van routes those are need based um so they they have currently been updated but um truly changed throughout theol needs change um fuel was left at 175 we what we had in June and we were within budget past school year so thinking that should be adequate and vehicle purchases was U from Spring we had 65 we to 90 which would allow us to purchase a bus if we capital expenditure fund um number of small grants and donations we've received in that fund those were added and up inome um also some miscellaneous income we received that helped the revenue side of that fund and then of course on the expenditure side we added the automated lawnmower that board approved this past summer which was after our June budget and um the middle section you see that of course is our psychologic donation money um that was increased just slightly from June our electrical costs went up a little bit um had originally estimated and remember from last month that piece of funding end fund balance of about 123,000 so we fully expect to still have funds available from those those donation dollars at the end of we're not concerned having a little time the shortfall you see here is okay we do have fun balance we have been planning for that have those funds to cover to cover those needs Student Activity is also part of our general fund as the last couple fund or three funds were no changes there food service um you'll see we have a shortfall there of 62,000 that is a planned shortfall we had actually to getter than that but um this budget does include a to the equipment budget line item we have currently now 15,000 equipment that we're going to um try to um um purchase through assessing the kitchens again and we of course will be replacing lunchroom tables that are now a brand new item that the state is allowing us to purchase through this fund so that those Lun tables will be out here at the high school and then also Elis state and federal reimbursement rates were updated from July or from last um from June we just received those updated rates in July interest Revenue also tax fund so um that helped on the revenue side budgets were updated that has increased significantly the last year and a um it's they really really up um but we do have a healthy fund balance that is why we trying to purchase some equipment P that F balance down and get more on the levs that it should be sitting at and again we'll be looking at each of those kitchens and seeing what the needs are and trying to address those needs the only thing that qualifies though are things with kitchen um so through that F so no concerns financially at all in that fund um Community Ed Z did make some updates um to reflect some of his current programs and change test since June Z and Miranda um updated legal State care budget um which you see in that special section um below um I do know there are some additional ches to that budg so they are currently working on those updates and maybe at some point we'll share that with the board but um we will pick up those changes come May so once they can communicate to officially so yeah little eal daycare does that include the donations they're going to get from the community no it does I don't believe it does they have 15,000 in this budget for um grants and donations but I do not believe any of that is local community donations to my knowledge did you hear so they're not going to need any donations this year um I think they have some work to do on their budget a little bit and I can speak to that little BR we looking at that here last week and feel that the monthly projections anding that up the the year we feel like in the child care area that that expenses could be higher than are projected and that's why we're saying we need to go back and revise that um by some very informal estimates I think it could be over 40 to 50,000 that's that's very much of all Park and that's but that also does not account for the insurances that are in place with number communities um entities out there that would be helping us to offset that but we will bring that back to we feel like they have just as a reminder if it's not solvent and Community is not going to make it to one other comment in the community ed fund is another area that will need some significant amounts I would say of work in looking into and that would be the learning read area the preschool um area that is ended the year last year in our fund balance is now a negative and the budget that is included in here is also um reflective on the shortfall so there is some work that needs to be um in that area as well uh the district just to keep in mind the district does general fund does pick up the cost for a large piece of the Appleton one and Appleton 2 preschool program and that's because that is part of our VPK program so um um the shortfall that um their experiencing from other Mr L and Zach will are currently they have been working on it um this summer and into the fall so continual issue we've been trying to address the last page only changes there would be um updating The Debt Service fund for for additional interest Revenue interest F that fund as well and where they're sitting um had to increase that and just a com 2 um we are um in our year for Actuarial um audit valuation and I will be working on that um and getting that data data off to our act and get that updated and that would estim 31000 so we'll have a better number come probably April May on that this is just an estimate but um any questions general fund and that's what would be ref form quick one other quick comment um you have all should have the audit report that has been issued and in front of you we will have that included on the agenda DEC approval have any questions there's a lot of information in in the book it's 7 some pages um we have unmodified opinion which means we have a clean opinion um there were no entries in our our only finding that we had um was that we don't we don't put this together so um which I wouldn't even want to attempt that but anyway um main main Pages um when you're looking through this book a couple um interesting and and um good pages to look at 45 61 those are where your fund balances are representative represent and it's on in the notes to the financials and also in the in the supplemental solution and those are the same balances that you've seen at both the September and October board meetings that we went through um so you can kind of see them in the audit report summary form and again in in the notes on pages 45 and then on page1 questions that take a motion to approve Shannon second by that the discussion favor iOS 11.0 is the Toth and Taxation presentation and hearing yes so D we can put that up on the screen and um before we start into this part of the presentation for taxation is presenting the the current status of our budget so BR just went into great detail on that thank you I would also point out um and I know Brenda would never to her horn on this but um audit time is is pretty pretty substantial in the budgeting world there's a lot of information that has to be processed and and um I'm just very thankful to to Brenda for that she has put in a lot of hours and uh and it's not surprising to me that our audit comes out clean um because of the she puts into it so thank you very much for that and then uh I'm just going to speak um to the rest of the truth and Taxation um so the purpose of this uh presentation is basically to provide the big picture of our tax situation and kind of how that impacts the the Greater Community um but the big picture is kids it's uh it's how do we uh whether it's ly doar or all the other different fund areas we just talked about how do we do what's best for our children here to create grade learning opportunities so why do we have a truth and Taxation meeting it's a requirement by law um there's two major requirements one of them is uh to uh tax statements counties must send out proposed property tax so earlier this year we uh we made the decision to maximize our Levy that's going to that allows the to put out their information to taxpayers but then we're also required to have a public hearing um and most tax jurisdictions do hold a public hearing U basically to look at our payable 2025 Levy and the 2025 budget which Renda just spoke to just a little bit [Applause] ago um who sets the school levy that is um that there's a big difference between and other public entities um government uh entities uh City governments things like that can Levy uh tax dollars by choice schools in most uh situations have to take that to voters so we have what's called limited Authority and um there's two major components that go into setting the leev levy there's a state formula that's set by the legislature every year um um and then you can see underneath kind of what areas are affected by that and then there are voter approved as we did back in 2023 and I believe back in 2020 prior to that um to be able to do the work that we've done the exterior of our buildings and things of that nature and this just talks about how property taxes determined the county assessor determines the market value for each parcel of land and then um the legislature creates the funding formula and then those areed in the calculations to determine um how much tax an individual or an entity has to pay um this is just uh for information for the public but um this is kind of an average across the state of how our um the funding that schools use to fund their work is is acquired um about 70% of that comes from the state um and then the second largest portion of that um and Statewide it's about 16% comes from property taxes and then uh followed by federal money and then other sources of Grants um and this is just to illustrate uh to the to the public too why districts do Levy dollars um if you look at the the two lines there the the dark line represents what inflation would um would do to our number over time the dotted line represents the sorry put my glasses on to see this represents what schools actually get so if you look at that you can see that over the course of time we're uh the funding that were given by the state hasn't kept pace with the uh the cost of inflation now there have been um I think there's an up to 3% increase um on the basic formula bance that's going to go forward um starting in 2026 that'll help us to keep Pace but it doesn't close the gap and that's that's why districts um have to seek other ways to to bring in uh finances to go run the district okay and then this slide here shows um you know schools do account for a large part of the taxes that different communities pay but this also shows we're just one part U if you look at the dotted line that shows other non-school or local government entities um and you know they they account for probably the larger portion of money that is that is levied in a community schools also account for part of that but one thing that's interesting to note if you look at that trend line um school districts have about doubled since 1992 in um the amount that they've been levying but if you look at local governments and other entities they've quadrupled in the same period of time so we're going to skip ahead here and then again this is just information for our taxpayers uh but the these are just Statewide averages for property classification and it just shows um what the tax rate is or the multiplier that's used when figuring out the taxes that paid and I won't read through all of them but you can see commercial industrial pays the highest tax rate residential also pays a a fairly substantial amount you can see the others what I want to speak to is this is the share of tax liability um remember that we have the a credit and things so um again you can see residents uh residential homes pay a large share of the tax um interestingly farms and again that's that a credit Farms makeup um Statewide about 18.9% of the tax base but they are required to pay 6.8% and again that's that tax credit in an effort to try to make that more fair and this is just more information about that tax credit was law that was put place in 2017 and this shows that it's at 70% currently and it's staying there for 2025 um this is just a map and and there's links to all these um that you can actually go in um if anybody needs it I can get it for you um just overiew the slideshow but um essentially this just shows that we the tax credit affects us probably more than most districts we would fall on that well above the median um as to how much money is kind of subsidized by the government U through that tax credit and if people have questions ever about why would my why did my taxes change there's a number of things that can impact that and those are listed here um one of them would be change in the value or the classification of your property that happens often so that's an annual impact changing enrollment numbers also impacts that that's part of the formula change in the valuation of um of property in the district and so on and so forth but there's basically the point of this slide is there's a lot of moving pieces that affect how much your taxes are year toe so putting it all together this is the important slide I wanted to share and this just basically shows what's the impact this year compared to the impact of the previous years and so if you look here general fund um there's a about a 9% almost 10% increase in that um that area Community Education we're um last year to this year um there'd be about a 12% 12 and a half% increase Debt Service down slightly and then the overall net impact uh for our taxpayers is pretty low this year probably was more significant last year when we had the the levy and um more money being levied for the the exterior projects that started this year this year um it's very minimal if you look to the the number you want to look at there is on the right hand side so basically there'll be an overall increase of about 75,000 which is across our entire tax base it's about a little over a 1% increase in taxes so not not as bad of a hit this year and then I just included this slide um for anybody here anybody at home who wants more information on their own personal taxes you can contact our auditor Treasurer Angie and um find out more about your specific property any questions on that and so this this is our truth and Taxation hearing for this speci year all right we'll move on to 12.0 for the claims I make a motion to accept the November 2024 board bills of 287,213 the October 2024 manual checks in the amount of $2,997 37 and then the November 20 24 construction bills of 1,285 68971 for a grand total of 1,685 321 a motion by Danny I'll second that questions hear none all those in favor motion cares 13.0 is the acceptance of gifts donations and grants thank those people that listed there motion to Shannon any further discussion gifts and GRS he none all those favor I oppos motion carries 14.0 is the consent again under employment should be cket take a motion toot second shanon any further discussion consent none all those in favor I OPP motion carries 15.0 is the resolution to adopt uh the mer ad flexible year learning year apply application so if you recall this is with our mbed school um members and it's a application to be able to start before later there's no questions on that I'll take shanon discuss he none all those in favor okay 16.0 is the resolution for our district office as the location for absentee bading um during non Statewide election this is basically saying you want absentee ballot you have to come to office there no questions on that I'll take motion to approve Mo by Danny second second by Shannon any further discussion he none all those in favor iOS carries 17.0 is the resolution establishing combined poing places so as you may remember had on the Fiasco and didn't do this and we had to have people voting in different places than where they normally would and these townships no longer do um for say the uh ping places it's used a nail in or at a certain location so uh city of Madison City of Apton and city of M you'll see those townships that are included there what be if we referendum oper ly thing you go to those three places so I'll take a motion to approve by Matt second second by Shannon any further discussion carry n all those in favor all right iOS Mo carries 18.0 is the e-learning day Plan update I that briefly um the every year the state requires districts who would like to be able to have new learning days um and move adding extra days to the calendar in the event of weather related closures things of that nature we have to have that approved by a board each year um the plan has is going to be the same as it was the year before um that seems to work basically outlines when um staff after how students can get a hold of staff that they need to different regions um so we would ask the board to questions onar approve by Shannon second by Matt any further discussion car none all those in favor iOS motion car 19.0 is to establish the date and time for our annual School Board organizational meeting see January calendar in front of us probably want to do it no later than the 10th in the morning thats [Music] Tuesday the 7th Tuesday 7th at 7:30 I'll take a motion to set that as January 7th 2025 Shannon second by discuss none all those in favor Post building leader updates you'll see those in the exhibits there Scot Marine anything to highlight as far as what's happening I would just Pig you back on Scott talked about the teachers attending theed speaker in Dawson andss elementary teachers also attended that and a lot of what they are doing through Thea aligned right with the multi the support program so there's a lot of work going on in the elementary buildings as well they are really with SB screener and then Brena talked about the new read funding the literacy committee is talking about what because we want to the anything so we are in discussion about that and on Friday I received an email I think we sended to from msba Bing policy updates we'll have to at our next Association anything you the science department here one thing you should know um with the state science standards they're actually all the way back in 2019 but I think this is the first year where um everything's kind of in order and so for us last year we to I just have a couple things to um as well um we have a new board orientation scheduled for October 2nd Ard member Ken congratulations to being Ved in for the district being vacated by and so that will take place on the second um believe it's at 4:00 have down here FR but um I did invite Cory but I wanted to open that to all the board members are welcome to be there you like to be certainly just to introduce yourself to Kent um you welcome you join us for even just a part of it if you want stop that is on October Monday sorry December that's what I thought you said it was October I said it twice too yeah and that's just what welcome new board member new board member orientation it's an orientation y so we'll go through some um just some information kind of on board practice and the protocol as well as um committees basically a quick welcome to the to the board I thought that's what happened in January at 730 morning off yeah and we do say hey um and then the only other thing I have is um just notified board members be on the lookout for email at some point I would like to look at and talk to the board about getting a um a work session on the calendar for sometime in December possible we can can in January but just to um having been in here for a little while and we've talked about some needs in Theon building Staffing standpoint and so those are things I want to work board those supp so I'll be reaching out to you try have work session here in the next or so keep that that's all I have uh so 21 just a reminder December uh regular meeting will be on Wednesday December 18th at 5:00 that change for meeting then also the MSB annual leadership conference is coming up January 16th and 17th so if you're interested interest uh 22 anything else for tonight n take motion to a by dny second by Shannon all those in favor I