July 8th, 2025 meeting of the Lakeville Area School Board. If everyone would rise with me and say the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. We'll do roll call. Start with my right. Amber Cameron, Brett Nicholson, Paul Carbone, Matt Swanson, Michael Bowman, Carly Anderson, Brian Thompson. All right. Are there any uh additions to
the agenda? If there are none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda as drafted. So moved. All right. Is there a second? I'll second it. All right. There being a first by Director Cameron, a second by Director Carbone. All those in favor of approving
the agenda as drafted say I. I. I. Any opposed? Right. It's approved. Superintendent Bowman. Good news. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, I have good news to report from Lakeville Area Schools. Celebrating the class of 2025
GED graduates. This June, six students graduated with their GED GEDs through Lakeville Area Schools Adult Public Education Program. We're very proud of their hard work and we wish them the best in the next chapter of their lives.
Lakeville North seniors compete in class doubleA state tennis. Congratulations to Lakeville North High School seniors Kade Bishop and Ezra Mahoney for qualifying for the 2025 boys class doubleA state tennis tournament in the individual
bracket on June 5th. While they didn't advance past the first round, their appearance at the state caps off an excellent season and high school career. Way to go, Cade and Ezra. [Applause]
Lakeville Area Schools students shine at speech nationals. We offer our congratulations to all the Lakeville North and Lakeville South High School speech team individuals who competed at the 2025 National Speech and Debate Tournament June 15th through the
20th in De Moine, Iowa. The Lakeville North Speech team earned the National School of Excellence Award, finishing in the top 20 in the nation out of over 3,100 teams. Individually,
incoming Lakeville North and incoming senior Meredith Leo placed fourth in her category of program oral interpretation, performing in front of over 2,000 attendees. So, congratulations to both our Lakeville North and South High
School speech teams. [Applause] Lakeville area schools track and field athletes make great strides at state. Student athletes from Lakeville North and Lakeville South High School track
and field teams participated in the 2025 class AAA boys track and field state meet June 10th through the 12th at St. Michael Albertville High School. Lakeville South junior Eva Welsh
placed first in the girls 100 meter hurdles. South South's first track and field champion since 2015. Congratulations, Ms. Welsh. And you can read more about the amazing things happening in our district at
isd194.org/news. That concludes my report. Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you, Superintendent Bowman. Uh there's no one signed up for public comment tonight, so we'll keep rolling along uh and move on to the consent agenda. Any items on the consent agenda that board members want to remove
for further discussion? If there are none, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve it. All right. So, motion by director Carbone. Is there a second? Second. There's a second. Any discussion?
being the first by Director Carbone and a second by Director Nicholson. All in favor of approval of the consent agenda say I. I. Any opposed? It is approved. Uh reports and discussions. Uh first we're going to start with the safety and
security prevention presentation. Karen uh Lisa Holen, and Holly Ryan. Good evening. Good evening, Chair Swanson, board members, Superintendent Bowman. Thank you for the opportunity for us to meet
with you tonight and present. My name is Karen and I serve as the dis the um director of student health safety and wellness. And I'm proud to be with Holly Ryan, our threat assessment specialist, and Lisa Hollen, who is our student
service specialist. A few weeks ago, you heard a presentation about the physical security in our buildings um and the measures in place across our district. On behalf of the student services department, we're here to provide an overview of our work
related to early detection, prevention, and management of safety and wellness concerns. This work is a key part of the district's comprehensive safety and security plan, and we are committed to these efforts so that we can identify
concerns early and prevent situations from escalating into crisises. Tonight's presentation highlights the tools, strategies, and systems we have implemented to proactively support student safety while also promoting a
positive and responsive school climate. Our focus includes anonymous reporting systems, digital monitoring platforms, suicide risk screenings, and our behavior threat assessment and management program process, all grounded
in evidencebased practices. We'll also walk through how these tools are helping us detect concerns early, intervene effectively, and connect students with the support they need. Good evening. My name is Lisa Holen and I do serve as a student services
specialist for the district. As we begin tonight's presentation, I'd like to ground our conversation in the concept of prevention. This is a concept that many of us are likely familiar with and it's a critical component of achieving student outcomes and ensuring that we create the conditions for students to be
successful personally, socially, academically, and behaviorally. Prevention is rooted in a very simple idea. Essentially, it's stopping something bad from ever occurring in the first place. We know investing in preventive measures is essential to avoid the impact of negative outcomes.
Prevention is achieved through increasing protective factors, factors that promote the health and well-being for our students while decreasing risk factors, factors that increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Prevention is also achieved through the selection and implementation of evidence-based tools and strategies.
Utilizing effective prevention tools and strategies is critical to the overall effectiveness of our prevention efforts. As we think about the overall concept of prevention as a foundation of achieving positive student outcomes, it's important to recognize several aspects of our collective district work
contribute to the student well-being and safety. Certainly, many more than we can even highlight tonight. For the purposes of tonight's presentation, our conversation will be focused specifically on the tools used to detect and respond to concerns related to student safety and security.
We believe prevention is a verb. It's actionable. One way we can make prevention and early detection actionable is to educate everyone within our schools community that safety and security is rooted in this. If you see something, say something and do
something. We will soon review some specific tools that help students take that action. But the most comprehensive prevention strategy we can use is to remind everyone to take action when you hear or observe anything of potential concern. It isn't the responsibility of a person to necessarily assess or
determine the merit or validity of the concern simply to report it. Tonight we will review three main tools that guide our early detection and response efforts in Lakeville area schools. Our anonymous reporting platform, our G Suite monitoring platform, our suicide risk screening and
behavioral threat assessment and management platform. So first, anonymous reporting. The first tool we utilize is our anonymous reporting system, currently P3. Maintaining a positive, healthy culture and climate within our schools is the top prevention strategy related
to safety and security. And anonymous reporting is a key factor in creating those conditions. Anonymous reporting provides our students and community a way to communicate potential concerns in the moment they observe or experience something of concern, which ultimately positions our staff to take timely
actions on those concerns. Use of anonymous reporting gives us insight into individual student needs, concerns that may be present within the school community at large, or concerns that have been observed outside the school environment that could negatively impact individual students or the school in
general. Some of those concern areas are noted here, including conflict with peers, mental health concerns, substance use concerns, and acts of violence. There are obviously many others. It's important to highlight one though, and that's the importance of anonymous
reporting and how it specifically relates to acts of school violence. In 90% of acts of targeted violence towards schools, perpetrators told someone about their plan. That's also referred to as leakage. And this is why we strongly promote the see something, say
something, do something message to our students and our community when reviewing our anonymous reporting platform. Our school communities have many access points to utilize anonymous reporting. They are noted here. The P3 app is a standard app on all secondary student
iPads. Additionally, the P3 app is available for download on any mobile device for anyone in our community. There is a sightsp specific link on each school's web page and a general use link on our district web page so people can access P3 through all of those methods.
When a tip comes in, it gets delivered to designated staff at each site. These designated safety team members include a building principal, one AP at the secondary level sites, and one student staff member, student services staff member. An example of that would be a school counselor, a middle school
student support specialist, or a school social worker. Once a tip a tip is received, a safety team reviews that information and routes it to the administrator and/or student services staff member assigned to the student noted in the report for continued follow-up.
Our anonymous reporting system does have a two-way dialogue feature, so we can engage a tipster to gain additional information by prompting clarifying questions as well as advising them to submit new information if it would occur. The system also supports the uploading of images if a tipster wants
to include those as well. Again, it's important to reiterate a tipster doesn't need to determine the merit or the validity of a concern. Only communicate what they observe or experience. Outside the school day and over the summer, there are designated district
level staff members who remain on call after hours and on weekends to respond to incoming tips or emergency situation. This support is provided 247, 365 days a year. Here in this graph, you can see the P3
activity over the last school year by month. As noted, we had 20 529 total reports received. The distribution over the year is generally what we'd expect to see with slightly more reports occurring in the fall. That's when school's been in session for a little
while and students have learned a little bit more or been reminded about P3 as a tool. And then again in the early to midspring when we tend to see a little more energy in the school environment and that and some of that uh year end fatigue sets in.
Holly had a quick question. Do we have any issues or have you run into any issues with false reporting? I would say we we always find that there's a little bit of um reporting that may not be accurate or you know it may be used in that way but it's very
rare when you look at the total number of reports. It's very uncommon. Students use this in the attention in which it's designed most often. Uh the next graph shows P3 activity organized by our highest frequency tip types. So when viewing this data, it's
important to note these metrics represent potential concerns from the reporter's perspective that need follow-up assessment to validate the information and determine the appropriate response. When a person makes a report, they're choosing the category that best matches the concern
from their perspective. The tips highlighted here are the 12 highest frequency types that that we're receiving. But it's important to mention that we have a total of 31 categories available to reporters. Again, these numbers don't necessarily reflect substantiated situations. They reflect
initial concerns as are reported. The next graph indicates the incident of what we call life safety events. These events occurred over the last school year. Life safety events include those categories that are the highest risk areas, considered imminent, and
requiring immediate response. Life safety tips escalate to the highest alert level and will call or text our designated personnel until until the tip is reviewed. It's important to note that life safety tips are generally read within one to two minutes of receipt and
responded to immediately. Again, it's important for people to know that there are designated staff members who monitor reports made outside school hours and immediately respond to and manage life safety reports like we provide that support all year long.
The second prevention tool we'll review is our online monitoring software called Bark. Bark is the platform used to monitor districtisssued student G Suite activity including Gmail and Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. So, district issued. Bark uses AI to scan and detect
keywords, acronyms, web addresses, and photos that may indicate a concern. That AI context alerts those designated building team members who will review for additional context. Based on the contact context applied at by the staff at the building level, alerts are
assessed for validity and responded to accordingly. This graph illustrates bark activity over the last school year again by month. Again, the role of this platform is to prot bring potentially concerning situations to the attention of our staff so that we can determine context and
validate the information of potential concern. You may be wondering why October is considerably higher in flagged activity. Our analysis showed one flagged document was shared between multiple students in this case and accessed multiple times, each of which
will count as a separate alert. It is not as common, but we do sometimes see multi-ent multi-access situations like this, especially with student email and Google Docs. Here you can see bark alerts by category of
concern over the last school year. Again, it's important to note not each record that is flagged represents a substantiated concern. Flagged content often occurs for developmentally expected commentary by students, such as a student says something to
appear in justest and the the bark will flag or uses a phrase or acronym in their banter back and forth between peers and it flags. Sometimes it could be a classroom health assignment. They're doing a mental health unit and it doesn't recognize all the context and it will flag us just in case. The role
of this tool is to detect a potential concern and bring that to our attention for validation and potential follow-up as needed. As you've seen in our previous slides, are several student need areas that are served by our early detection tools, anonymous reporting, and bark. The third tool we will review tonight is the
platform supporting our response to the most concerning student needs. We detect, suicidal ideiation and threats or acts of school violence. When responding to concerns of suicidal ideiation, we use the Colombia suicide severity rating scale. The Colombia is a
risk screener we use throughout the system whenever a concern of suicide ideation is reported or detected. This tool provides consistent evidence-based protocol to identify suicide risk, assess that risk, identify any existing
supports already in place for a student, and determine when additional support may be needed. The Colombia is administered by our student services staff, our school counselors, social workers, student support specialists, and psychologists. And following completion, they work with parents and guardians to review the risk results and
create a support plan, including helping families identify and connect with community based resources and supports in addition to the support that we provide in school. Over the 2425 school year, 59 risk assessments were completed with 13 students indicating moderate
risk and nine students indicating high risk. I'll now invite our threat assessment specialist, Holly Ryan, to review the other side of that platform, which houses our behavior threat assessment and management response protocol. Yeah, sure.
And thank you. In terms of the the screenings, is there any um difference in terms of what level we're seeing? Is it is there greater risk at the secondary level I would assume or is it happening across all levels or is the intervention or um I would say the risk that is probably
validated is going to happen more at the secondary level but it doesn't mean that our elementary students aren't making comments that require that risk assessment and so I don't know do you have the numbers off top of your head about how it's stratified across the grades? Yeah, I'd have to completely agree with you that it's more of a high
risk when you have secondary students that are making those comments and reports of the screenings are done versus elementary students that are saying it in just or they heard it playing Xbox, you know, about killing themselves and just are using that language inappropriately. And when you screen them, you find that there's no
intent there. They were just using appropriately. I'm going to have to ask you all to speak into the microphone for the benefit of those who are going to listen to this later. They won't hear what you're saying. Uh so just make that a practice, please. Thank you. So if you could just repeat everything
you just said. I would say we are seeing a bit of an uptick though in elementary students who are making comments that we are identifying as at least some moderate risk. So we're working with those families obviously right away as well. Director Cameron. Um, a question about Bark. Um, and I may
have missed this. Does this screen Does Bark screen for web searches as well? Um, okay. Is any monitoring happening with that? No, it does not. So, we do have a platform called Securely um that gathers
information on web searches. It's part of our filter that disc kind of controls, but um there's no active alerting on securely. So whereas Bark sees something concerning, sends out an alert and then we can follow it up. So how we use securely is when we have an identified student of concern, like say
we're doing a threat assessment, I might run into sec well I will go into securely. I'll type that student's name and I'll look at the last 30 days of what they've searched for on their schoolisssued iPad to see if they're looking at inappropriate content like past school shooters or mental health or
top 10 ways to kill myself. Whatever the concern is, I'll look and do that kind of analysis to see what they're spending their time on. But it doesn't track it is what you're saying or it doesn't flag you. It does not flag us. Is that service available through Bark?
It it's it's not a Bark service. It would be available through securely but it's an additional cost. Okay. So yeah, Dr. Carbone. Yeah. Do you um do you keep data on repeat offenders? I mean the curious thing is when you look at the most
frequent uh uh activity it was like 500 and something. Are those actually 500 and some students? No. Separately or two students doing 250 things? Yeah. So what happened that month of October? There was a Google doc. Okay. And sometimes when kids lose their
phones, their parents take their phones away, they fi say, "Hey, I'm going to be creative and be able to communicate with my friends by creating a Google doc." And their parents think they're doing homework and they're on their Google doc having a long conversation. And sometimes there can be 10, 20 kids on a Google doc chiming into this
conversation. There was the October numbers were high because there was one document. I believe it was shared with 12 or 13 students and every time someone added another inappropriate comment it flagged bark again. So if you times that many people by one document that's why
the numbers in October and that happens a couple times you know throughout the year um you know with Google Docs etc. Sometimes with emails if someone sends an email to three students it'll flag all four times the one that sent it and the three that received it. Okay thank you. So,
Director Nichlson, do we have any comparables? Like, I mean, are we seeing more or less? Are we on par with a lot of people in the metro? I mean, what what is your So, comparable to like our data, I would
say we are um slightly less than the years preceding the pandemic um and returning back to school. like those two years after have been really intense across the board for all the systems that we use. So maybe a little bit
slighter um of reports etc this school year. Um but I also it's a it's a little bit hard to compare apples to apples especially when you're talking about P3 or anonymous reporting because we haven't always used P3. We used P3 in the beginning. Prior to that, we used a
software called Report It. And then last year, we moved away from P3 and went with a free option called Stop It and then went back to P3 this year. So, in doing so, the data, you can't compare apples to apples. Um, and so forth. Just like Bark. The first year we used
Gaggle, now we use Bark because it's much cheaper. Um, so we have that data, but sometimes not comparing the same thing. How about like comparing us to similar size school districts throughout the state or in in which system?
Any of them. I guess I'm curious just like are we because I mean I you know I look at it and again one person says oh five times you see something on there and you know that seems like a lot in terms for me to just think about but obviously we're looking
at 12,000 students so right you know comparing 12,000 students to say a Y Zetta. Yeah. So I I'm part of a lot of collaboratives um Dakota County as well as Metro Collaboratives where we talk school safety things. The problem is
people use different platforms. They train it out. They train their stakeholders differently. Some don't have it on their student iPad. Some have a just a um like a Google form to fill out for anonymous report. They don't actually use a platform. So it's I haven't found like a comparable size
district that's using the same platforms with the same like length of time we've been using it. I would say you know all of having our comprehensive prevention strategies we've always been a step ahead of other districts and now districts are like catching up and
putting those things those layers um in place. So it's a great question and I think we'll get there. Um, I think the hard thing about Minnesota is, and I'll talk about this a little bit when I talk about threat assessment, is there's no mandates in Minnesota for a lot of
school safety initiatives. So, as compared to states like Florida that has a statewide anonymous reporting system, Texas that has a state um reporting system, they're going to have that data comparing one district to the other. Um, and that's the same with threat
assessment. It's the same with BARK. Um, so that's just how we are in Minnesota. So, we have to find those people and hope that our data can kind of align to answer those questions. Director Anderson, I I was just going to say I would guess some of this is like a cultural thing
too in terms of how much the district is emphasizing reporting and the do something say something versus so to me maybe a question would be how many incidents are we actually having having versus because reporting is a good thing. Um we want to encourage it. It's
more how many incidents are we having of actual you know the follow through indicates that there are serious there's serious bullying there's serious threat in terms of have there been suicide attempts or you know those kinds of things that are the later stages that we want to prevent.
So within Yes, I agree. Um BARK's a little bit harder to pull that data from. It would be going through tens of thousands of reports um to get that. P3 is much better. Um, all staff that are trained in using P3, there's what's called a disposition report. So that's
where they make their notes. So student maybe said, you know, someone had a weapon at school. The team investigated it. They put their notes in the disposition report. The student does not have access to weapons, did a search, etc. But there's that it's it's not a quick like you'd have to look at all of
those instances and I can pull those and tell you like for those what happened, but it's not like a report that I can run those dispositions if that makes sense. Director Cameron, and this this probably isn't for this conversation, but um Brett, your question makes me think I wonder if um
either through FastBridge or through other student surveys, aren't aren't we tracking um student behavioral questions and needs, not through not through what you're talking about tonight, but maybe there's other surveys where we can
compare talk about integrating the information then. Well, we could integrate Yes. but also comparing ourselves to other districts like how like what are the surveys looking at and well I guess my point was you're looking at you know kind of the early indicators right so like I mean I'm I'm trying to
consider you know like OSHA has near misses you know so you're looking at like what are our misses yeah I mean these are the the early indicators of a potential issue so you're trying to again prevent so you need to know the early indicators which is kind of the you know it's a it's a
little bit of You need the reporting piece of it. You need somebody to say something. Otherwise, you have no early indication of anything. So, that's where behavior threat assessment and manage comes in because you're getting that information, identifying there's a concern, you're doing the assessment, and then when there is a
validated concern, you're managing managing that and then you have more sound numbers of what really is a threat versus what is not a threat. Right. So, Director Thompson. Yeah. I think what I what what I think what what I was hearing was that you can
how do you consolidate this data data and centralize it and and obviously with the data analytics piece I love to be able to see this annually to see how are we progressing obviously the the numbers are going to go up as as or as our headcount goes up but percentage- wise are we lowering that and back to what you were saying how much could we have
saved or how what did we save or potentially could have saved um uh in these transactions um I I'm really a appreciative of students being creative and And but uh but let's put it on the record that anything in G Suite is accessible by the district. It is a
district device. And so let's be uh uh for students and for parents out there like when we go to school, let's focus on on school things. Uh the anonymous reporting, I do have a quick question on that one. I I see a lot of the categories they maybe it sounds like they're very
student focused and so if a student had a concern or they heard something about a staff or they were treated whatever by a staff is P3 the sort the the tool that they use as well and then if a staff saw another staff do something inappropriately do they report that in
P3 and what's their mechanism the first question was whether or not students can report complaints about staff. Yes. Yes. Um and it happens, but it happens a very small percentage of the time. Like
maybe this year, I would say there might have been between seven and 10. Okay. Um and then those go right to leadership. We don't address those. If it's a staff issue, it goes to HR and and the building administrator. Um the second question was
does do does I mean can staff submit something? They can and we've talked about like utilizing that. We've never really rolled that out. Anybody can. Anybody someone in can Florida can pull up our website, I guess, and you know, make an anonymous report if they wanted to. Um staff don't really utilize it
that way. Sometimes we'll have staff put it in there just to create a record of it. Um just because it's a nice place to house that data. Um so so so it's a tool right now focused on students based on student uh behavior, student bullying, XYZ
and parents and the community. Got it. I think we need can do better at training our stakeholders in the community to use this if they're seeing something out in the community. Y um that's a concern that you know is our responsibility to handle because our school resource officers they don't get
every tip that comes in but when it pertains to something legal or law enforcement related they're included on that tip. Got it. And so I'm glad we have something for our 12,000 students and and it sounds like it could be a tool that could be leveraged for our 1300
employees that work here as well. uh whether it be uh you know the bark system that has different keywords and you've got the AP3 system. Um again the opportunity to gather feedback from all of our constituents and being able to leverage that data and make any course
corrections where it makes sense. Um sounds good. Uh and then centralizing the data for uh you know for for future and ongoing reports and we can see trends. It seems to be the right path to go. All right. Thank you. Agreed. Uh Director Anderson, can I just clarify one thing? I'm sorry. I know you guys are trying to get
through your presentation. Oh, that's so good. Um, so I just want to clarify that because I think this would be a question when you're talking about parents getting more involved. So, let's say you're at a football game with your kids and you see some stuff happen. You have no idea who the kids are. That is still something that you should be reporting
because even though you can't identify them, that might change how the administration approaches the next football game. Maybe more security or other kinds of things if we're noticing any trends or something like that. Absolutely. Okay. Just want to clarify. Doesn't have to be an identified person.
No. And I mean, you can use pictures, but you can describe them. And sometimes when something a situation like that occurs, we're getting multiple reports and one person saw one thing and one person saw another thing and we put them together and then that gives us more information to follow up on.
Do we do we compile just one more, sorry, do we compile all the disposition reports into some sort of like monthly summary or anything like that? The disposition reports are part of the system. Um, so it doesn't necessarily get compiled.
They stay in the system. So like say if you wanted to know on one of those was weapons. I'm really interested as a board member to know what those five weapons were. Were they confirmed weapons? Was it five people reporting that one student had a weapon? I want more information. I can go in and give
you that. Now when you're talking about bullying and harassment or it's 134 or whatever, I can still get it for you. It's just going to be more manual. I can't go in and run um run a report that just lists the dispositions. And I mean it we're talking about kind of maybe a
good point about um there's no way and Kim and maybe if I'm not thinking there's no way to like provide a false like the like a false reading that would take that out like make it easier. You know what I mean?
Like so if you're investigating it and you determined it's I'm not sure. We'd have to look at into that to see if that was the information that you wanted, what we could pull from it. Okay. Sorry. Here I am again. So there's not an option in this system to let's say at
the end of the day with this event, you have a choice of five different options of what happened here. You it's more text or you do have options. Sometimes people don't complete the option and they write a note and if they write a note then it doesn't pull the data. Y exactly.
Um but if everybody did if everybody did you'd get better at being able to provide what that disposition what that would mean. I just don't think that data would be very accurate right now. Okay. But I can share those with you what
options they have. Um so P3 is a really robust system. Um I know um because we had a different one last year and everybody was like stop it needs to stop it because we wanted P3 back. Yeah. And I think what we're getting at is I mean be curious to see you know the
number of reports through P3 how they're dealt with and then what the disposition is of that obviously. Um yeah. Okay. To Paul's question earlier. Do you have the same issue with the same individual happening over and over again? Sure. I mean there's there's some students that they come up and it's like
yep we know them very well. Sure. So okay better hurry up before Brian asks behavior threat assessment and management. Um, all right. So, BTAM, behavior threat assessment management is
the recognized as the leading violence prevention strategy by the FBI, United States Secret Service, Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National School Safety Center. But what is it? Um, it's a systematic fact-based
process used to identify, assess, and manage individuals who pose a threat of violence. It's focused on behavior, not a profile. And the focus is on intervention, not discipline. When done with fidelity, the process
reduces biases, over or underreaction, and minimizes liability. BTAM is grounded in decades of research showing the acts of targeted violence, such as school shootings, are rarely impulsive. Individuals who carry these
out don't simply snap. They decide and engage in a process of planning and decision-making over days, weeks, months, and even years. Importantly, during this planning phase, individuals often exhibit warning signs. They may engage in concerning behaviors or share
their intentions, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly through what is known as leakage. These warning signs offer a critical window for intervention. By intervening early, we prevent potential harm and connect students to the help they need at school.
What behavior threat assessment is not? It is not a criminal investigation. It is not a disciplinary process. It is not profiling and it does not replace special education due process. So the process BTM process starts when
someone reports behavior that raises a concern for potential violence or harm of others. This could include threats, aggressive behavior, writings, drawings, or significant changes in behavior. The building's multiddisciplinary threat assessment team conducts a screening to
determine if the concern or threat is valid. When the threat is determined to be valid, the team gathers information from multiple sources to understand the context of the behavior, underlying issues, access to weapons, stressors, and protective factors. This process
helps identify those that pose a threat from those that make a threat. Using the structured professional judgment behavior threat assessment and management tool, the team evaluates whether the individual poses a transient low-level threat or a substantive
potentially serious threat. This classification of threat includes examining the student of concerns intent and capability. When a concern is substantiated, the team creates a meaningful management plan that may involve increasing supervision,
support services, and safety strategies. Then the student is managed or and monitored over time to assess their compliance with the plan, change in risk level, and the students overall well-being. Adjustments to the management plan are made as needed.
All right, we kind of talked about this a little bit before, but um currently Minnesota does not require school districts to implement behavior threat assessment and management in K12 settings. This puts our state behind 12 others, including nearby Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, that have adopted BAM as a necessary component of school
safety. Although it is widely recognized as the best practice violence prevention strategy and supported by the Department of Education Minnesota and the Minnesota School Safety Center, Minnesota has not yet manded mandated its use statewide.
So kind of a little road map of how we began. Um we started using behavior threat assessment management in 2017 using it to address just like the really big serious safety concerns as they emerged. Um from 2017 through spring of
2021, we averaged about 12 assessments a year. Um as the needs increased and um cases become more ma became more complex, district leadership recognized the importance of strengthening our response system. This led to the
strategic decision to hire a full-time behavior threat assessment and management specialist, a key move in deepening our district's commitment to proactive safety and prevention. So phase one was uh prior to the beginning of the 2021 2022 school year um we
trained all secondary admin administrators and support staff in behavior threat assessment and management. Phase two the following year before the start of the year we um additionally trained all elementary administrators and this marked our full K12 implementation of behavior threat
assessment and management. Since full uh implementation, Lakeville area schools has averaged about 125 threat assessments annually across all grade levels. This growth reflects not only an increased need, but also improved identification, consistent application
of the process, and our district's continued leadership in student safety and well-being. BTAM continues to grow both locally and nationally. In Dakota County, nine out of 11 school districts are now utilizing BTM practices, demonstrating a regional alignment and
shared understanding of its value maintaining safe, supportive school environments. As we look ahead, our focus remains on ongoing training, refining our thresholds for intervention, and ensuring that our practices align with national standards, emerging research, and threat
assessment, and school safety. costs because we knew you'd ask questions. Director Thompson, do you have enough resources? Because when I look at the number, 125 assessments a year seems like a lot.
Maybe it's not a lot. I mean, I know we have 12,000 students, so maybe it's not a lot. It's a lot. I mean, because it's not I I'll I need to jump in here. So it defining a lot um
I think is a a slippery slope. What we want to be able to to articulate and put confidently in front of everybody is that we have a system and we continue to improve on our capacity, our capability
and the fidelity of implementation of that for the protection of all. That's the numbers 125 versus 225 I I think is not the essence or the nexus of what what we want to be able to communicate
and what we want to be able to do from a trained and execution entity and not all of those 125 are substantive threats. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So then I think my includes not a threat and transient
low-level threats as well. So, so, so let me rephrase the question. Are all the assessments are um able to be reviewed and investigated to the level that you think is reasonable to determine a you know a threat or not a
threat and and is there enough capacity and resources to have that fidelity of assess uh review? We're working on improving time, resources and capacity and education are always a challenge. Um, so we keep improving our training and our process, procedures, checklists, support. Um, so
I think we're doing the best that we can. Um, more resources are always, you know, going to help improve that process. Um, so and there's always going to be information when you're doing a threat assessment, information that you don't know. It's I mean, this was a really short this is what threat
assessment and management is. It's not talking about breaking down silos of information. Are you talking to the teacher? Are you talking to the coach? you're talking to last year's English teacher. I mean, when we're there's different levels of threat assessments. The lower level concerns are level ones. The level twos, that's a
huge deep dive. Those things Lisa and I spend eight to sometimes 20 30 hours on one student threat assessment if it's substantive. And we're looking back as far as we can see back to kindergarten or if we have records for preschool. Um, so
yeah, honestly, for the importance that this is, I don't think that's a big number. Yeah, director Anderson. Um, so I have two twopart here. Um, so my first part is I just wanted to really commend you all for the presentation a few years ago that you did with the
community. I attended it as a parent. You collaborated with the police and the student the director of student services and it was a wonderful panel of people. Um as when I attended that as a parent I was horrified um by what is going so just to provide some education that was
very much about kind of um how to protect our um students who are on cellular devices and what are so the reason why I was horrified is because there is a lot going on um in terms of how kids are being harmed um by social
media and by predators and so um it was very eye openening for me and my husband in terms of what we needed to do to safeguard our own child. So my first I just want to commend you on that. My first question is would you consider doing something like that again? Um and
then my second thing is we did have a group come to our stakeholder session a couple weeks ago. Um and Brian Con I can't remember what the name safe be smart sorry be smart. Um and so it was it's a group that um basically
educates on gun safety. Um so all the things that uh people can be doing at home. Um so just wondering if there's any possibility for a collaboration there. Um so I know there's interest there as well. There is. Um and I will say we'll do whatever anyone wants us to do. We'll
have that again that community um presentation um because I do think it's really valuable. Um I think what's hard is I think we had 55 people there and that message needs to get to every single parent. And so, how do we as a district continue to trickle that information in front of parents? And
Grace from the communications team, we've already been meeting on a three-year plan to try to get that in front of people more slowly providing it um rather than just a oneoff one time, one night a year where you get 55 people and then more to also improve our digital citizenship
training of students and what their dangers are online. So, we're looking at all of those pieces and trying to improve to just have a comprehensive package when it comes to online safety. And then and then maybe the BS smart group should just be contacting you about how to potentially collaborate. Is
that that? For sure. They can they can reach out. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Director Cameron. Um, this might be bigger than a question just for the three of you. Um but kind of piecing together different presentations um and different conversations we've had as a board over
the last couple months. Um from my perspective I feel like we have made substantial investments as a community in physical safety and threat assessment um protocols which I think is fantastic. I think looking at the Bark data and the
P3 data, what concerns me is that it seems like the highest area of concern for students is really around self harm, depression, suicidal thoughts. Like th those were by far higher than the threat of like an
active school shooter, right? And so just like every school district, we are very underresourced in terms of behavioral health support. However, Lakeville is substantially behind. like that is not a place where we've put investments as a community, as a school district. I know this year was the first
year we had counselors in our schools. Looking at that, we need I would argue we need to support the data more and put resources where the data said our kids are asking for help. Um and so I just like to put that out there. Um I think to have nine kids in high risk of
suicide is unacceptable um for kids to be going through that. And so what are our systems of support for behavioral health in our schools? Um in addition to your team, I'm not this is not all your job, but how do we create those systems of support for them
is and that might not be a question, but you can respond if you want. I can just speak a little bit to that. Um we are constantly working within all the tiers just so the public and and you all know. Um so we're working now the counselors are on board. I'll be working along with Karen. um we're going to really work to
to to kind of now they're in place get some of those uh tier one strategies going so they're visible they're in classrooms they're doing some preventative training and some working with students directly from the classroom perspective and then one-on-one or in small groups we're looking at early detection for behavioral concerns and for emotional
concerns as well um and doing some intervention around that and then of course our tier three needs that are really individualized and and student focused with specific in-depth need we're also addressing that so we're really working to embed a lot of additional supports um now that we've
got these some of these resources we do have colloccated mental health resources through two agencies and I think most people might be familiar with that but we do have those professionals working with that top diagnostic tier of students as well so I will just also point out because this might not be easy for you guys to see but um the same
platform does behavior threat assessment management and Colombia suicide risk screening platform and the reason is because there's if you watch the news Most people that commit targeted violent attacks are suicidal. That's where they start and then their ideation continues
and then they start thinking, okay, well, if I'm going to kill myself, then has anyone got me to this dark place and do I want to take anyone with me? So, there's a reason those platforms are within the same is because they connect that information. So we can see if a student has had four suicide risk
screeners and now is making maybe a low-level threat, we can link that to say this is a bigger picture here. Sure, Director Thompson. Um, very good points. Thank you for calling that out. Um, a separate question that I
have is the the bullying, cyber bullying, teasing. I see 141 obviously tips and and that might not be that total number amount but obviously it's significantly more than all the other 31 categories that are out there. So, can you remind me like what is our position or what is Lakeville's position where
someone posts something on Instagram, they're teasing another friend, but it's not on school property. It but it may impact another student. Like, what what's our scope? Because I I I don't think I know. I mean, what do we It's tricky. Do we email Does it like they'll email
Instagram or Snapchat? I don't know. There's a couple different things. So if it impacts the school day, we have more of a requirement to respond to that. If it disrupts the educational day, if it doesn't, it doesn't mean we're just
like, "Oh, well, we don't care. It happened outside." We still provide support. So if it's something someone posted something online, we provide information on how they can report it to Snapchat or Instagram or whatever social media outlook. And then that student that maybe feels that they were teased,
they have their counselor that they can go see and kind of work through that situation. And then administrators can be told and then they can have a conversation with a student that did that and say, "Hey, we're you know that's not how we rise or you know whatever the sayings are, sorry, but
like be excellent." Um and then if it happens again, you know, we just respond. So it what does that mean when like when we when we respond like if it's not if it wasn't done on school property and it was on someone else's device it's on Instagram like what like what what
authority do we have with that if it disrupts the educational day we have the authority to respond that can be discipline it can be it's the scope of what it was and we've had those situations where something's happened on social media and there's been a large disruption in the school
day a very large disruption And so that changes. I mean, that's where the court has kind of found that it falls on how much of a disruption to the to the day it is. Yeah, it's probably pretty incident specific, but director Anderson, I just wanted to add, sorry, Amber
Cameron made a very good point in terms of kind of the lack of support we've received with getting additional supports in the schools. And yes, we have the high school counselors at this point on grant funding, um, not um, community supported funding. And the
other piece is we do not have these same supports in the middle schools. Um and so just want to make that plug as she has that um these numbers certainly drive the need for support. Um the other question that I actually have and and
then I'll be done. But um when someone makes a report and it is bullying related or those kinds of things, let's say a parent makes a report on behalf of their child. Um I know a lot of this um is confidential information when you're talking about students like what can be
shared but how how is that addressed on the reporting side with regard to a parent figure finding out like did something happen did this get resolved or is is there no communication because I've heard that before like
where where a parent is like I don't know I made this report I have no idea what happened and then if it's I mean due to data privacy Unless someone was threatened and their like their safety was a concern, we're not allowed to give a whole lot of information, but we can say it was
addressed. Um, we're just not going to be able to say kind of how it was addressed. It would, you know, we've been talking for a long time about kind of the behavioral matrices and the student hand and like those kinds of things that I will still come back to. It would be helpful um for us to know
how things are, what interventions happen, at what levels. And so that that is information that we can share with our parents too because I think if you make a report on behalf of your child and it's very stressful if your kids's being bullied and you don't get much information at least if you have
something to go to that says like in this kind of situation this is how the district is approaching it and there's a consistent approach to that that might be helpful just to know to be able to refer that parent to this is our behavioral management approach. Are you talking about behavior threat assessment and management or or different just
behavior matrices? Yeah, the matrices because I feel like we have the last I heard that was kind of illegal and supposed to come back to and it just we haven't had that kind of followup. So would be good to know.
Well, I'll do the closing. Um, as as we've shared uh tonight, prevention isn't just a program. It's a commitment to early action, safety, and student well-being. Um, the systems we've put in place, including anonymous
reporting, G G Suite monitoring, suicide risk screening, and behavior threat assessment, um, reflect our proactive approach here in Lakeville. We believe that true prevention is not about reacting to crisises, but it's about creating safer school environments that
help prevent harm uh before it occurs. And then we provide compassionate responses. We're really proud of the collaboration across the departments and the school sites um and the shared commitment to creating safe, supportive environments where all students can
thrive. When students feel safe and supported at school and they feel connected, they are better to engage in their learning and reach their full academic potential. Our efforts in prevention and early intervention are not just about safety, but they are foundation. They are foundational to
student success in the classroom and beyond. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Uh any board member reports? Director Cameron. Uh just one update. Last night um myself
along with Director Anderson and I believe doc director Baker was there earlier if I did not see her attended the family connection special education PTO puzzle contest. Um it was held at Lakeville North um run by um special ed families in our district as a fundraiser
for their PTO. Um they had over 90 teams compete. Um and it was it was really fun to go. I helped clean up at the end. Um and there was still a team working a group of four seniors from the community working for hours getting their puzzle done and um but the fastest team put
together a 500 piece puzzle in like 20 minutes or something was the record. So, it was it was a great event and thank you to those parents for um supporting um our school district. Superintendent Bowman. Uh I would like to move on if we can.
Let's go. Okay. I think the next one's you as well. Mr. Chair, board members, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to uh talk through and um bring to you a proposal uh from the staff
administration uh regarding activities and athletics realignment. Uh you give me the next chart. Do I have a no other button? Back up.
Okay, thank you. We want to talk about our current activities and athletics organization operations. and I am coming forward to um share with you a recommendation that's essentially a transformation and
maybe a a step to um getting us into a standard with the rest of the South Suburban Conference with regard to how we manage and organize our athletics and activities operations. I asked uh
Mike Zabber. He's uh the tenur AD in our school system. He's been with Lakeville Area Schools as a as an AD for a decade now uh over at Lakeville North. Um one of the things so he he'll join me here
in a minute, but uh this is our current organizational structure. This went into uh practice in Lakeville area schools uh when Lakeville South came online uh circa 2005.
Um and it's been it's been our method of organizational uh layout and how we've been managing our program and administering our activities and athletics uh since that time. Uh I just
want to share that when I came here in 2013, I came from a system that had seven high schools uh and had several athletic directors both at the high schools and then a district uh operating
uh athletic director. uh that allowed that system to do many things, but most importantly command and control um and strip variation out of what could very
easily become a highly variable system. Uh I think we're we are a system that is highly variable and I'll I'll talk about that in a minute. Um now that's not to say that this wasn't good when it started. Um, but I did I have made
several attempts uh in my previous role in the district and as a superintendent in the district to deal with some of these challenges and and I'll I'll try to outline those for you here in a minute. And it's uh I feel like the opportunity is now we have um recently
hired our third uh activities and athletic director at Lakeville South in the time I've been in the district. Um I'm concerned about that. Uh I'm concerned about the workload as we are currently aligned and that's kind of what's driving me to come
here now and say there's an opportunity uh and we should maybe consider it and um that opportunity is that we have had to deal with another change of athletic directors at Lakeville South. Um, so
that and I think also one of the biggest concerns that's always brought up with regard to anything that we do at the district level is how do you fund something like this and keep it uh off of fund one and keep it out of the classroom? And I think I've worked really hard to try to figure that out. I
have a high regard for our core mission which is academics. Our core mission happens in the classroom. Uh but I will tell you I'm also a very big believer in athletics and activities for our kids because once the school day ends
the learning doesn't stop and many of the life lessons that I think uh our kids can benefit from happen on the fields of friendly strife and in all these other different kinds of activities whether it's speech drama
dance those fine arts all those things are super valuable to our kids and uh this community. I moved into this community in 2005 and the one thing there's no question in my Kool-Aid
pumping heart that I know about Lakeville is activities and athletics are a big deal and they should be a big deal. Um and I just want to let everybody know that I'm very sensitive to this. Uh, I've done as much as I can
possibly do to be supportive of this. Um, but I I feel like our administration of this has grown and will continue to grow and we have to be prepared for that. And so that's that's kind of my why on some of this.
And um I do think there's some limiting factors in the current model. I'm going to ask Mike's waiver to come up if uh if you can Mike um and share with you just kind of high level I've said some of the things already here but more specifically the variation in the system
around training mentoring partnership administration and that's a big deal our partnerships in Lakeville whether you're talking about boosters you're talking about Lions uh Rotary you name it we have a lot of supporters in our
community for not just for our schools in general, but in in our activities. And we really need to get to the next level with how we're doing that partner administration. Another big concern of mine is compliance. And I don't mean
like you must do what I tell you to do. No, it's about what are the standards that we have in our system and how are we applying those standards consistently across high schools and middle schools and our programming. Um, I also know
that communication is a big deal. It's a big deal for our parents and I try to listen to our parents. I've had meetings, many, many meetings with parents over the years to try to listen to their concerns and I often find
myself hamstrung with some of the limitations that are presented with uh with these inconsistencies and trying to apply and and help remedy some of the problems that we have. But I'm gonna let uh I'm gonna ask Mike to share also uh
some of the context of this. So you may have some questions regarding that. Michael, thank you, Superintendent Bowman. Uh and thank you to the board for allowing me to be here tonight to kind of share a little bit about uh my side of this um and and what I see happen. So, um,
as I've watched, you know, this board work, uh, through the time and certainly over the course of of Superintendent Bowman's, um, tenure this time and last time as a superintendent, one of the things that has become very obvious to me is that, um, there is a desire for efficiency. There is a desire for um,
some some standards that we'd have kind of across the board. And and when I was talking to Superintendent Bowman about this, this just kind of fell in line with where it seems like the rest of the district is going for many years, 10 years ago when I when I got hired, um you know, you had alluded to a little
bit of the turnover in this position. Activities is a it's a big beast, you know, and it's a it's a very um fun thing for people to joke about about how big a beast it actually is. Um but um it it provides a lot of turnover. provides turnover um more turnover than we want
in the coaching ranks and then even at the activities director uh uh point it provides turnover as well. Now I have done this for the last 10 years. Um when I stepped in I was uh taking over as the fifth AD at Lakeville North in a nine-year span. Um since I've been here
in the 10 in the 10 years that I've been here um South just hired their fourth AD. So there's there is there's too much turnover to create standards that would result in ongoing and long-term uh sustainability even though our programs are competing at high levels which they
are. Um it is we're we're at no capacity as as we're working through that. And so um I'm hu I I beyond the 10 years that I've been an ad here. I've I've been in Lake my entire life um and um a teacher and a coach since the 90s.
tradition is huge for me. Um, but as much as tradition is huge for me, um, I think if if if anybody's ever worked alongside of me, they'd say the other thing that's really important for me is I don't just like doing something because it's the way it's been done. There has to be a reason for it. And we have to we have to have a purpose for
moving forward. And so, you know, those kind of things seem like they might be opposite because tradition might may mean that let's just do it because it's being done. But tradition has a purpose in in specifics. But um so as we look at this um as Superintendent Bowman talked
about it um we are spending the vast majority of our time um implementing events whether it's a a sporting event or an activity or fine art or whatever. Um but not necessarily getting deep into um the directorship of
that and and and looking at best practices. And so when we look at things like training our coaches, um training our student leaders to be leaders, not just a good basketball player, but how to be a good leader and and and some of those kind of things, those are some of the things that are falling to the wayside um in the current structure that
we have going on. Um the other thing that we have is we have and this goes back to what Superintendent Balma was talking about when we, you know, implemented this uh this practice uh when when this high school split into two is we created silos. We have a Lakeville North activities department. We have a Leville South activities
department and we have a middle school activities department and they don't not only do they not really work together, they're actually competitive against each other. Um, and they should be and and our programs that that's one of the reasons why our programs compete at the level they do is because um we have good
healthy competition within our city boundary. Um, and that's fantastic. But with that being said, we look at, you know, the second point up here is that there's redundancy. there's things that we're doing just because of the fact that we're living in these silos and not necessarily taking advantage of the resources across this community. Um
whether it's from the middle schools to the high school or between the high schools. Um and so I think by a restructure we can we can uh eliminate some of that redundancy. When you eliminate the redundancy, you can start to um not only have better programming, but you can have a wider variety of
programming as well. And I think that that's something that we can continue to look at as we move into this new structure as well. Um and and you know I mentioned the third point as being the workload is is um kind of a little bit off the charts but as we shuffle the
deck and just reook at where staff and the activities department should be working and what they should be working on um I think we can get away with that. Originally going back 10 years ago I'll I'll finish with this and then kick it back um to Superintendent Bowman, but um 10 years ago we looked at what is the
solution to do this? What have a lot of other school districts gone to is they've just brought on an additional person within their high school and as as an assistant uh activities director and that model 10 years ago when I was interviewing to be AD, it was like, hey, we're going to get an assistant AD. This
is, you know, we're we're behind the eight-ball on this. We should have had an assistant AD um for, you know, many years already and we never got there. Well, now we're 10 years in and we still haven't got there. But I believe that there was a reason for that because even though we could have thrown a bunch of money at two additional staff positions um at both schools, we still would have
been where we're at today with these silos um and not having um this organization kind of work itself through the entire district and so on. And so what is going to be presented here tonight is uh something that um takes away those silos and doesn't require us
to hire two different positions um which saves us some money um in the in the big picture of this as well. So I'll kick it back to you, right? And you want to talk about the new stuff. Thanks. So, uh, our proposal is to
establish, uh, this, um, setup for Lakeville area schools where we have a athletic and activities director that's reporting to our executive director of operations to, uh, deal with some of these problems that I
think have persisted over the years and, uh, can get us aligned and get our two schools in our middle school um far more efficient than we are right now. Um so you can see on this
chart here you have still have the 2 AD positions at the high schools. Um that's important because we want to maintain the integrity of the relationships and the dependencies that the coaches have on ads. Uh we want to have assistant ads
to do two things. one is to handle the the middle schools and provide that support uh uh ballast that we don't have right now uh in in those areas that are activities related. And just to give you
a flavor for what I'm thinking uh with regard to what an uh uh AD at the district level will do budgeting and finance and programming for that working and developing on long-term
facilities and equipment needs that are siloed right now. Establish clear standards for hiring and human resource management within the activities and athletics across the board. So stripping out that variation uh by having those
standards clearly laid out and articulated and then compliance enforced district lead for booster club guidance common policy procedures and liaison. I can uh attest to some challenges that I
had in my role when I was doing uh the the executive director of business services where we were trying to develop and I worked with different board members at the time um standard operating procedures um
defining what roles were or weren't but enforcing that was hurting cats because as this as the execut Excutive director of business services primary mission is on finance secondary
mission is on all the other logistics of the system uh and and not being able to concentrate. So if you go back to the top there and having an executive director of operations which we bifurcated that business operation with uh some more direct leadership I think
these two fit together uh appropriately and properly. compliance with student coach eligibility, MDE reporting, Title 9, Minnesota high school rules and regulations. Um, that to me is also uh
an area that again given the the way our siloed operation works, there's too much variation there to have fidelity and excellence uh across our system. Manage education and professional development for coaches and adviserss. develop
standards for hiring and evaluation of all of our head coaches, conduct annual program evaluations, which I think you all would appreciate um being able to see how these programs are looking from a data viz perspective. Um conduct and
archive all our historical data collections and manage and administer our school halls of fame. I don't know how much you guys know about the halls of fame and if you've participated in any of those, those are a big deal um in our system. Lakeville South is coming
online with one this uh shortly. Uh and I know that uh principal Sean Murphy's done a ton of work with that and we want to bring the proper support to that across the system and into the future. Standardized common technologies. We
have live streaming. We have website management, social media policies and game film processes and procedures that I too much variation in there. That's just that's my analysis and assessment. Membership and involvement, how we're working with our Rotary, our chamber,
our our conference and region Minnesota High School League uh systems. Um that would be under the purview of this position and setting culture and branding for programs and ensuring that the missions and visions are being set and met. Um I just and that's just a few
of the things that I wanted to highlight. I know that's a lot, but there's more. Um, there's more within this role that I want to get to. Um, and these are these are things that I believe we will be far more effective at
and improve the quality experience for our customers who are our students and our parents guardians. Yes, sir. Oh, I'm sorry, Matt. Director Carbone. Yeah. Thank you, Superintendent. the the managerial hierarchy makes sense to me
on a business aspect. I get that. Um but one of the the rationes that I think you mentioned early on was turnover turnover of coaches and etc etc etc. Are the things that you're mentioning are they going to solve the turnover problem? I'm
assuming that's that's the whole focus of this. that is a major focus of this and I think it has to do a lot with the workload and and you can imagine if if you're at a high school and you're doing all of this plus
trying to run events and I don't know they go into the late evening. I mean, these I I just my hats off to the to what these men and women do in our activities and athletics with the hours
that they're putting in and the event efforts that they're putting in. It's it's a lot. Uh having some support from over the top, I think, would be a direct shot at trying to cease and desist with that kind of turnover.
Sir, thank you. Um, I don't Mike, do you want to add anything to this? Well, I mean, I guess the one thing I can add to it is that, um, you know, a lot of times coaches, um, they like the autonomy to do, you know, whatever they want to do and not necessarily have the
oversight. This is one example where I feel like, um, we're we're no longer there. Like, coaches want to be able to coach their programs. Um, and when this stuff all trickles down to them, then they're no longer able to do what it is
that they're trying to accomplish with their um, participants or student athletes within the program and so on. And so, I think we're taking some of that off of their shoulders that I believe will then result in in people um, wanting to stay longer, performing at higher levels, and hopefully
eliminate the turnover. Director Cameron uh to the workload question um how what is our current staffing model for games and activities in in essence like in addition to the activity staff what are
the expectations of our administrators teachers who might be sight leads etc. How do we run it right now? Well um good question every every activity is a little bit different. And it really kind of boils down to um you know what type of um communities you
know would be coming into that particular event. Um but um if we do have a a large spectator sport for example um we'll have an administrator on site um the activities department is kind of running those events all the
time. And so, um, between the AAD and the administrative assistant, um, who really is outside of their role, but the administrative assistant with from the activities department is is always typically on site as well for those activities. Um, and then we'll hire casuals. So, depending on what the event
is, whether it's a a scoreboard operator, press box, you know, workers, um, site security, all those kind of things. We'll add those in as as necessary. So, are we utilizing like um for example, I know some districts hire teachers, some with administrative
licenses to be site leads so that the AD is not running ragged to everything. Do we implement any models like that where we're utilizing staffing? Certainly. Yeah. Absolutely. We Yeah, there it would be impos there's multiple events, you know, every day. So, um without question, we use the the whole
administrative team at at all of our secondary schools. If we're talking about teachers though, it's optional for teachers, right? Uh yeah, completely optional. Um and they are paid on a casual stipen basis if somebody steps in to work on that.
Director Thompson. So So I've got like seven questions. So we'll scale it back a little bit. Um I just want and maybe Jack, you can you can help me out. Um I'm looking at the budget and make making sure that I've got clarity. We as a district spend $6
million on activities and athletics in the budget. Is that is that accurate from what I'm reading? Uh that sounds about right. Yeah. Okay. And so, uh with that much money being allocated towards that's that's all I needed. Just wanted to make sure I was good. Um with that much money being
allocated, I mean, uh Superintendent Bowman, I think you are right. Our community does have a passion for our activities and and sports. And I even had a conversation today over lunch around, you know, does this help uh college interest entrance and and and
acceptance where maybe you're a 4.0 student but you have no activities or you're a 3.7 student and you're but you're in three activities from debate to lacrosse to you know theater whatever it may be. Um so I I do feel like there is a high value in our activities
programs and that also is what drives people into our community as a whole. um the model that you've got set up and to answer your question uh Director Carbone you're adding the an assistant ethic activities director to each high school
correct so that's to kind of provide additional coverage for the AD right now do you want me to get into it okay so essentially do you want me to kind of speak to the big picture on that um do we have the ability to go back a slide yeah I'm sorry you have that
backwards other Nope. I'll go through the whole thing. Okay. Well, I'll start talking to it. But anyways, so um it changed the the structure of this changes significantly. Um so if you saw on one of the earlier slides um that that we had up here, there's currently eight people positions
in the activities department within the secondary schools in Lakeville. We have an AD and an administrative assistant and then another office assistant at a halftime rate at North and the same thing at South along with a middle school AD and administrative assistant
um at the middle school level. So there's eight positions there. What we're looking at doing is just reshuffleling that deck and flipping the two people from the middle school to the district level. Um and then changing that half-time office assistant to an
assistant AD. Um and so we're going from seven staffing positions to eight, but doing it with the eight positions. Two of the positions were halftime. Um and so um that structure then would require us to say that the middle school programming and high school programming
are going to be better aligned. We're taking those silos away. So those that are on the north side of town will take care of 6th through 12th grade programming on the north side of town. And those that are working on the south side of town will take care of sixth through 12th grade programming on the
south side of town. Very similar to I guess the closest district that does a model like that would be Prior Lake. Obviously a one high school situation. So they have an AD and an assistant AD and an administrative assistant that are working their high school and both of their middle schools. So that answer
Yeah. Yeah. So, so what I'm hearing is that having that the assistant AD at each high school, uh, while they may not be 100% dedicated to it because they're they're providing some support to the middle schools, certainly you've got two, you've got two bodies now instead of just one. Correct. And you still maintain the administrative
support or the admin support if need be. uh the uh is there a reason why because I don't know the level of effort between if you're an ad how much time is actually allocated towards uh providing support for sports versus non-sports and
I'm just wondering like does it make sense to have 180 who does sports for both high schools and then 180 who does non-sports for both high schools so because I don't know yeah it's a great question and we've you know we looked at lots and lots of different models within that and Um, I
think at the end of the day, I I don't think it makes the most amount of sense to do that. I think it could be done. I think that's a way it could be done. I just don't think it's the most efficient model when we're looking at um a combination of um, you know, as with continuation as kids are working their
way up through whatever program we're talking about. Um, you know, there's there's cultures built within, you know, those programs, within those brands. And so I think having people dedicated more towards um a cougar or a panther is far
better than crossing some of those lines when we're getting into the culture side of things. What we're talking about is is being very systematic in things that don't really affect the culture of it. It just is the foundation of it. Um and that's kind of what we sucked out of of
this structure that was bogging down and putting into the new one. If that makes sense. Well, I' I'd also like to say uh if you bifurcate activities and sports and and you assign uh positions to that, it it's
it costs you more financially, it costs you more. And um I don't think we have those resources in the system uh right now. I know there are other school districts in the South Suburban Conference who do bifurcate it that way.
uh and they have their reasons and and maybe financially if they have one high school it's it's maybe more achievable than if you have two and and you're a growing district which I don't think a lot of school districts in the South Suburban Conference can say we're also
growing one of the things that I think that that I hear the most is this um the Lakeville I don't like not culture but like our expectations And it feels like and even for me myself as a parent with a child in an activity like the bar seems to be high and maybe because we live in
Lakeville or maybe we just expect to to win as much as we can. I mean maybe that's just in general but we want we want our students to uh to develop we want a a fun culture, a welcoming culture uh a winning culture and just being able to to grow as an individual
through team sports or individual sports. uh with the hiring of the uh the centralized athletic or activities director. Uh I I appreciate the need for consistency as well as a adding systems where it makes sense and a kind of a
foundational shared service capability. Uh would this AD at the central level be responsible for hiring the coaches or will that be the the principal of the ads at each high school level? Because again, I want to be mindful like if you go to one high school and then if you
trans transfer and go to another high school, my hope is that that it should be similar in regards to the the feel except for your mascot might be different. Uh but uh the systems, the registration, the you know, south might be always better than north. I I don't
know. Maybe maybe but but there's we got to watch out for that. We got to watch out for that. But when you've got certain if you got two ads that have different styles uh at the high school levels and they're responsible for hiring their respective teams and coaches that continues to
magnify the differences of this coach or this AD likes to hire this kind of coaching style versus versus that. So will the centralized AD be responsible for that for the hiring like an NFL general manager they pick the quarterback and the 80s that's who you get and you got to work with that? I I
don't know. Well, um it's more of a yes and because principles we don't want to we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to respect the fact that there are cultures involved. There are uh the
principles have been longstanding under the previous the model that we're currently operating under uh have a a longstanding interaction with activities and athletics and we don't want to break that. It's a it's a yes and when I was
talking about uh establishing clear standards for hiring and human resource management is getting at exactly what you're talking about. But I see that as a collaborative process with a leader and that leader would be the executive director or correction the uh uh the
district ad and and I also will tell you that I look at it as functionally an operation and the executive director of operations is the appropriate person to be interacting with that uh whole system.
So it it's the combined effect of that I think is what we're we're going to be able to get at. I mean that's that's my belief. That's my experience and that's what I will press for. Director Cameron.
Um thank you. Um a couple questions about the staffing models. So I think it was one back. Um I think this idea of a district ad position is good. I um resonate with a lot of the rationale
that you mentioned um and in looking at other districts with multi- high school models like Anoka Henipin 186 South Washington I think this is a new way to think about things. They none of those districts as far as I know have this
dedicated role. They have maybe some FTE but not not a dedicated. So I appreciate that. Um my question comes with the assistant AD at each of the high schools. While um I think it would
probably be fantastic for staffing, uh we work in, you know, a financially limited environment, right? And so we're always weighing like resources and how to best allocate, right, as we all know. Um, and so a challenge I'm having is
that like for example when you look at 196 high schools, so Rosemount, Apple Valley, Egan, East View, when you look at their administrators, their principles, um, APs and ads, they have four FTE. Right now, we are at six per
high school. So, we're already two administrators more than they have for roughly the same student body. And then if we're adding an assistant AD, we would be up to seven. So we would have three more than our neighbor has. And while I don't disagree that they
probably could do great work, um I'm concerned about the budget, I'm concerned looking at South Washington at Anoka Henipin, for all those high schools that are more or less equivalent with our sizes, they have one AD and one admin assistant. And so I'm very much in
support of adding this AD role like additional thing on top. But from a budget standpoint and from a resource allocation, knowing all the needs of our district, I don't know if I'm in support of additionally adding a lower level
support at this moment. Um I think having three more administrators per high school than 196 is should cause pause in our budget. And so in 196 I can speak to it somewhat. Um in 196 they do they split
their you know each of the schools has a split between their athletics and their activities um within that process. And I I will say I know and even the athletic director that you you spoke with um knows that the structure that they have
right now, he's not as excited about it and wants this. Um and so they aren't feeling like it's working um in the way that they have it set up right now either. Um, and I don't I'm not sure if they're going to
go down this path if we, you know, go this way, but this is what they are aspiring to. Yeah. And I appreciate that. And yeah, I I was able to talk to a couple ads in 186 and also in Anoka Henipin and um again, I think having this new position
at the district level makes a lot of sense and I I really appreciate that. And it's not that I don't think an assistant AD would be valuable. Yes, of course. going back to like for example the security safety conversation we just had. We are well below our peers and counselors. So that's two counselors
right there that could be at the high school. So it's all weighing priorities and values of the district. I think adding support here with that AD district 80 role and clerical role is important. Um I just don't know if d like surrounding both sides of the ad
at this moment is is where I would put the resources. The the other piece that I guess I wanted to to speak to on that as well though is remember this is including 6 through 12 programming as well. So again you're not you're comparing just the high school in 196 compared to 6 through 12.
Can you share the f the finances? I'm sorry. Just I mean I just wanted to clarify because I did have a question on that. I mean did you talk to 196 about what they do with their middle school because I think we're going from seven Yeah. seven full-time employees to eight
full-time employees. Um because essentially the middle schools are losing them. Does 196 have a separate AD for their I didn't ask about middle school and I I realize that this is just adding one additional FT right if I'm okay. Um but I think we're examining the whole
model. So it's not just like for for me it should be an examination of every role um and making sure we're utilizing dollars most efficiently. I I do think based on our vote last week or last meeting, there will be some zerobased budgeting going through this as well. Right.
I just as a as a past person who was an admin in 196. I just wanted to there is a little bit of a different structure. Um yes, they have four people who are are 12-month principles, but they also have a series of deans who are also administrators who work with uh student
discipline and and different pieces. So most of the high schools actually have an admin team of six versus just the four. So just just for I just wanted to make sure that that was clear that it it does look different. Um and yeah, I
appreciate that. I think what I what I want to emphasize is that Lakeville has decided to hire more principles and and assistant principles at higher salaries than our peers. Right. So that's it's probably a good decision. I I wasn't part of that.
However, it's more expensive than hiring some deans and two APs. So, I think I think everything right everything costs money and um I think it warrants a a conversation about about the whole model if we're going to look at the whole model. Yeah.
I just wanted to make sure that Thanks. I appreciate that. Uh, Director Baker, I also just want to clarify that um the districts that we're using in comparison um 196 is the fourth largest district in
the state. Um, and then Anoka Henipin and the other ones that have been mentioned, we fall on number 12 on the funding source and they're clear up here above us. So, I think it is um important for the board to have this discussion about the finances and what it costs
because we don't have the funds right now to do some of the things that we would like to do. Um and one of the focus of the board has been to figure out, you know, how we're educating our kids and and focusing on, you know, what what we need to get it done when we are tightening the purse strings a little
bit. So, I appreciate, Director Cameron, the um the research that you did and and sharing that with the board and and I'm appreciating the discussion that we're having about all of the positions and the need for that. Director Anderson, um I know you guys aren't through your pre presentation here yet, too. So, I
want to just acknowledge that. Um obviously some of us have looked in or looked at it and kind of know what's coming but um I agree with you in terms of the overarching position and kind of um the for me the question is more the below positions and I just want to
highlight in some way that um this isn't normally the decision-m we are part of um and so there's a reason this is coming to the board and I'm so I think many of us are thinking about the many many things we have talked about over the last I Since I've been on
the board, when we had to make $7 million of budget cuts, there were pretty significant things that were cut that have direct impact on student experience, just as this would have direct impact on student experience. And so we could all say this is a great idea. Um, but we are also balancing, you know,
we have special education teachers leaving the district. We have school psychologists for one reason or another leaving the district. And so turnover. Um I guess what I'm what I'm missing here is more kind of the broad I would love a discussion as we've talked about as a
board. What are the major priorities of this district right now and our job is not to say how Mr. Bowman you're going to manage things. I feel like you can make this decision and and perhaps it's coming to us because we would have to approve a change in the budget. I don't
I don't exactly know but um just food for thought that I think some of us are struggling with where does this which clearly is a priority but how does it fall relative to the many many other priorities that we have talked about as people have come and presented to the board. So, I I just want to thank you
though. I'm part of North and um my child so far has had I'm have a couple more coming through, but they've had a wonderful experience, wonderful coaches. Um so, you're doing a lot of things great and don't want to lose you. Don't want you to be happier in your job, but also kind of I also want our teachers to
be happy. I want our kids to get the behavioral supports they need. I want them to get, you know, all the things that we've been talking about for months. So, I I like this. And, you know, What? I'm sorry. Well, let me just quickly chime in here.
I um and as I finish, let's have you go through the rest of your presentation because I think where because I did a quick pre pre u preview. Uh good questions around priorities, but I as I looked through the financial model here uh just briefly
uh the financial model is all activities and athletics related. So you're not taking money away from other uh core education delivery by increasing activity fees uh or recalibrating activity fees to increasing ticket fees,
sponsorships, XYZ. That is what's being used to fund this new operating model. And so, um, because of that, I think I'm in more in favor because we're we're making changes to the activities financials for it to impact the staffing
model of the activities division. And so, while I look at the overall number, there seems to be a shortfall. Uh, and I'll have you kind of go through that. Uh but I think there will be I think it's reasonable to uh look at ticket prices again to to change those even
maybe another dollar each to kind of offset the closer that we can get to net neutral. That would be my preference. I think uh you know a $10 ticket to go is is not a lot compared to a movie ticket that you can go uh that that you'd have to spend. But I'll pause here. Uh but
just want to just clarify that the financial model here is impacting activities related uh functions for an activities model. Can we just clarify too uh and kind of going off from what Director Anderson said? Um are you asking us to vote on
just increasing the ticket pricing or are you asking us to vote on the model change as well? Because I think the model change I mean arguably would be under the purview of the superintendent, right? So yes. Can I I can answer all those questions.
Director Anderson's question was right on the mark. Appreciate the question and I would like to address it. Um so in the context of priority and the budget, we just completed last board meeting our
fiscal year 26 preliminary budget for our upcoming fiscal year. And I think we laid out all those numbers. This does nothing to change that bottom line. And those priorities are funded within this
change, which kind of goes back to the conversation around it. If we would we be better if we split or bifurcated activities and athletics and and funding and all that. And my answer was, yeah, but we don't have the financial resources. So, I'm working within that
based on what the board has already articulated to me since I returned to the district. So, I'm uber sensitive to that and as I started the conversation is the core mission of the district is
academics and we have a budget. So, I'm staying inside of that and trying to lead the way in the South Suburban Conference with how we're doing our next generation to set conditions for our future operations within the parameters of what I
understand to be the priorities. that I know we're going to meet as a a board and and myself as an exopicio to talk about future goals. Uh and I will be faithful to those to the nth degree. Um
I I do agree uh also with director Cameron uh talking about the issues around uh counselors and um we've gone to state funding. I mean, since I returned, we found a way to get to state funding and add that into the system, even though we weren't able to
successfully pass an operating levy or uh to to get those in the past. Um, and I am very sensitive to that as well. My concern with the the assistant ads are workload distribution challenge that we have I think and and I haven't been able
to bring this to you but we've been working the last two months on our after school and our activities safety and security systems that we need to have in place to to mitigate some of the liability there. So I I am asking a
little bit for your trust that I am considering those things and that I'm staying within the budget parameters of what we've asked for or what you have directed to me. Um, and I think also revitalizing the unassigned fund balance
as kind of the bottom line metric. Been able to do that and I will continue to work on on um future priorities with regard to mental health support, counseling support across the system. We've, in the time I've been here, we
went from four to eight counselors in elementary. We've gotten to four counselors per uh high school. We do need to do some work in our middle school. No question about that. And I get that priority. I just I just want to say all those things out loud because I
I hear what you're saying to me and I'm trying to work within that construct and be faithful to that budget um that we have already passed. Director Cameron. Um thank you Superintendent Bowman. I appreciate that. Um just ex forgive my
ignorance. Is this funding part of um the unassigned fund balance or are we restricted to use is it only for athletic and activities? Well, it it's fund one but from an accounting perspective, right, we are look we're coding within activities and athletics. When there's a
delta, director Thompson brought that up. Um we'll walk through that we will I will reduce expenditures and operations in order to cover that delta. And that is that is logistical operations, not classroom operations.
But there's nothing preventing us from reducing this. Like you you could take some of the money that's in this and put it towards some other category in theory, right? It's not in theory because it's fund one. Okay. Yeah. I just your statement is is your statement is not inaccurate.
So I guess my point with that is just that I appreciate your perspective um director Thompson. However, I'm thinking bigger and more creative about just because we have things slotted like this doesn't mean they have to stay slotted, right? And perhaps there are needed
resources in other areas where those buckets need to get rearranged or altered. I don't know what that is. Um, the other thing I just want to throw out there is I and I agree this is Superintendent Bowman's decision. I think there are opportunities to fund
like an assistant AD at reduced cost through like a TOSA. I I think we need to consider models where we're not hiring people at um principal level salaries. I I should make sure I point this out
too that these people are not on the administrator contract. So that does affect the bottom line obviously as well. Yeah, I I thank you. I appreciate that. I'm just pointing out that like this the 80 we hired at South is at the high end of a assistant principal salary. So it's
an equivalent salary as what our um APS are making. Director Gerbal. Yeah, please. Um Superintendent Bowman, a point of clarification. So what you're saying is that this these positions are
paid for through increase in activities, activity prices, events, and so forth. You're not you're not robbing Peter to pay Paul. I mean, that's what I'm trying to understand. If it's Paul, you No, sir. Uh I did want to address one other thing
to to answer that and to uh to Director Anderson's um Yes. and and I think Chair Swanson said this too. Yes, from an administrative perspective and a management I could do this. However, to do this, there's also the the the
funding which we want to get to. And what compels us to bring this and have this conversation today and just to be completely transparent is the if we are going to do something the with tickets andor participation fees which are part of this conversation that we have yet to
get to. Uh that is the purview of the board and we cannot do that as administration. And so I bundled this together to just be completely transparent with all the stakeholders we have in the community. If it's a bad idea, it's a bad idea. If it's a good
idea, which I happen to think it is, that it it'll stand on its merits. Um, I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that financially this is within the purview of the budget, notwithstanding that the other
parts of this that you have authority over um have to be approved as well. Does that help answer the question of the the compelling I think keep going and I appreciate your transparency. You want to jump into finances? I'm sorry. What's that?
Oh, I said do you want to jump into the finances of Yeah. Okay. So, um the next thing that we will talk about then is is piggybacking off of everything we're talking about right now. How do we get how do we bridge that gap between the cost of this new structure and the and the one that we had before? So, the first thing we'll talk about is u our
ticket sales at our events. those events that are ticketed. Um, and so we're we're proposing a ticket price increase from the current rate, which is $8 for adults and six for students, um, to $97. And there's a couple reasons for that.
Um, and the biggest one of the bigger reasons why we chose the levels that we're going to is eight and six has kind of been a common practice within our South Suburban Conference schools. Um, all but I believe one school is probably going to be making this move. their boards are voting on this this summer as
well. Um but uh at looking at going to the nine and seven. So we would stay in alignment with um our our like schools, the ones that we're competing against and that would generate um I believe um do you have that pulled up?
It goes back here. So I believe the the ticket price increase of just that dollar alone um will um get us Yeah. uh $65,200 towards that that gap and that's just based on the number of tickets that
we've sold in previous years and and using that as kind of an assumption going into this next year between north and south. Um so that that's step number one. Did you want to speak any more to that or should I move to particip participation fees? Yeah, director Anderson.
I do think I want to just point out something that um I mean I think when I go to a sporting event for instance and I have my uh three kids and two adults, this is not inexpensive. Um and so I know we're talking about an increase and
it doesn't seem like very much but when you start multiplying that or even for some student or some families who just want to send a couple students um that can be a pretty significant cost. So, I don't want to I want to be careful of how we talk about that just in terms of
that's not a big deal. Um I don't know if there is any support. I mean, I know when I go I get to use my schoolboard card and that reduces my cost, but um for families who maybe aren't um able to pay for that, how does that affect
attendance and things? There. Well, there's a there great question. There's a couple um I guess I I I could have clarified in this proposal. We're not changing um anything about the current practice of how and what we're charging for. So um currently and for many many years in Lakeville um
the only events that students actually pay for are football and hockey. Um and so everything else they're free. So again, when you're going to all other ticketed events, those students are free. Um another group that I guess fits into that category um that has, you know, some relief in that area is our
our senior citizens in the community as well. um we have an opportunity for them to they can go down to the the senior center and get a pass so they can get into all of our activities for free. That part doesn't change either. Um, and so those things are still out there, but yes, there outside of that, the adult
prices for the, you know, your general adult would be there at at the $9 or the dollar increase. Hockey, you feel it. Then director Cameron, um, something to consider. Um, and I think we're voting. I don't know if we
vote on this or not, but, um, I understand the increase the need for the increase in pricing to to fund this new model. Um, I might throw out an idea um of raising adults by $2 and actually reducing students by one. I think there
are some schools in our conference who charge students nothing for all activities. And I think for me that that is a really cool practice in the sense like those districts are trying to encourage their student body to um build community with one another to attend
things together. it it um removes stigma stig um stigma from students who might not be able to afford to attend. Right. And so I'm concerned about the increase for students and I'm wondering if we can make up the difference by actually making it more affordable for our students to attend and then just raising it on adults more. So something to think
about. Yeah. What's the ratio between adult purchasers and student purchasers? Can can you get to the same the what's the proportion of adults who are buying versus the proportion of students who are buying if if we take if
we take Amber's premise then you've got to make sure that those proportions work out so that you still get the same re excuse me you still get the same revenue. So I So overall it's it's significantly more adult tickets obviously because we are not selling tickets for you know all
other events outside of football and and and hockey. Um with that being said um the number of students that attend the football games is significant and so that you know that increases the number of student tickets quite a bit but still there are far more adult tickets sold
based on the fact that they have to buy them for all the ticket events. Is that true for hockey too? Uh, hockey is significantly more adult tickets as well. So, if we took that proposal and raised it to $10 for adults and kept it at $6 for
students, $5. No, you can't go backwards. I mean, you guys, this is a dollar. I mean, we're looking at a dollar. I I would recommend $10 for adults and leave students at seven. And and that should hopefully close. I think the delta is like $50,000
to get us closer to roughly a 10 $10,000 gap if if that's kind of how is what I'm guesstimating. I mean, we're looking it's a dollar. I I mean, I understand it's a dollar. And I know there are students in our community who don't attend because it's $6, right? And there are families in our
community who can't afford food. They're not going to send students to a football game for $6, right? So, I appreciate the communities who have made the investment to allow all students to go to any event for free. We're not gonna get there tonight, but I think the idea of
reducing the cost for our students is a way to ensure that all students, more students have the um financial wherewithal to attend their school events. Yeah. And to your point though, Amber, I think the goal here obviously is to be as netneutral on activities as we can so
we're not taking away from the classrooms. Um, and yeah, it would be great to go all students can go everything for free, but then we'd be probably looking at a larger delta to make up. Um, but I don't mind No, I don't mind the staying at six and going to 10 for the adults, you know, if we
still are going to net around the same. Yeah, I would have to obviously crunch numbers to know specifically where that would be at, but I would assume that that would generate extra dollars. Mhm. um if we did that I will just to clarify as you're you know thinking through that that side of it um in in
the conference although and I kind of was focusing more on the adult side going to nine but interestingly enough two of the school districts that made their move this uh going into this next year for ticket prices have gone to a $9 flat rate across the board no student ticket price so kind of the opposite
trend than what we're talking about there was both Farmington and Prior Lake have gone to Okay. Um I'll move into the next one. Uh so the next things we looked at and this is actually was something I felt like we've needed to look at for quite a while as well and that's the our participation fees. Um the amount of
money that that you know families are paying for their uh students to participate in our programs. Um set this whole proposal aside. One of the things that I um that I deal with on my side and in my conversations with you
know families and whatnot um is um and I don't know where it came from. We've had our we've had our fees set where they're at for many many years now. I think 2015 was the last time that they were ever adjusted and they were adjusted in 200 so that was right before I came on as an AD. Uh they were adjusted at that time
um because they had gone extremely high during a a budget adjustment from I think back in 2010 or something like that. So, um, in they've been set the same way since 2015. But where they're set at, in some programs, you're paying $275 to participate in that sport. And
in another sport, same season, you're paying $300. Um, in a lot of school districts, you'll have just a fee saying this is how much like programs, like sports are, like fine arts and activities are and whatever. And you have um, uh, levels kind of set there. So, what we tried to do is we wanted to
balance those out. So if you have two kids, one participating in soccer and one participating in volleyball, same season, but they would pay the same amount of money to participate in those two programs, which they're not doing now. Now, there are a lot of other
things that go into, you know, as those of you that are parents of of of uh kids in activities, booster type projects and everything else that goes in that changes the game significantly. but we're just talking about the amount of money that they're paying to get into the sport.
So, what we looked at doing is we brought down actually brought down the fee for um uh 21 of our different programs. Not much, a couple bucks. Um but we brought that down as we brought um eight of our programs that were sitting at that lower rate back up to meet that. So, we kind of just balanced
everything out and kind of had everything on on an even plane. So, those that were paying 300, I think now it's down to 298. So again, it's not a significant change by any means, but nevertheless, those that were paying 275 are coming up to 298. Now everything's kind of balanced. When you look at the numbers, you'd kind of think, well, that
doesn't look like it's going to get us anywhere. Um, considering that 21 programs are decreasing fee, eight are increasing fee. Um, but at the end of the day, that will bring in an additional $14,736 in participation fees. Um, by simply balancing it out and fixing that right
off the top. Oh, Georgia Baker. I just want to say like I I understand where all of this is coming from and the amount of workload that's on um an activities director knowing that the
activities happen all day and all afternoon and all of that. Um, I think where I'm having a difficult time with it is I feel like we're justifying paying for an administrator on the backs of our students like be by increasing
student fees to participate in events by um to go to a dance and increasing student fees to actually be in the sports themselves. So, it's like it's we're double charging our kids to have another administrator. Um, I guess just like as an educator that that doesn't sit really well with me. Um, just
knowing for a fact like uh I love the fact that Minnesota has adaptive sports and it's one of the things that my son enjoyed the most. Um, we paid $300 per sport for him to do that. So that was $900 a year. Um, adaptive sports doesn't have a big like
booster club that that serves them that helps provide kids scholarships to attend those sports and a lot of families just don't do it because they can't afford it. Um, so then one of the things that the kids did like to do was go to the football games and now we're
increasing the price of that too. So now we're it's almost like we're shutting down inclusion like and for the kids that are the ones that really need to go to those types of events and be involved in sports. So um I worry about it impacting our student participation um
actually attending events, actually being able to participate in sports. And I do realize there's funding sources through um the stray cats or or things like that. Um there's really not a funding source for our students in special education um that are doing adaptive sports. So I you know I know
there's big booster clubs for football and all that. We don't have a booster club. Um in fact like the only time the Blazing Cats get um money is when a student passes away and their parents leave a memorial fund to to their their their fund. I mean, there was a point
like two years ago we were at zero and we were just asking people to donate anything to help kids. So, I look at this and I go, how many other kids are in that same situation? Probably a lot. Um, and as an admin administrator myself, like if I knew like my pay had
to come from the back of a student, I would say not going to do it. Um, but again, that's just my opinion. Director Carbone. Yeah. What um how have we kept up with inflation? And and here's my question. When when we look at um teacher
contracts, when we look at what we do with vendors that we hire, there there's inflationary adjustments that take place almost every year or maybe every couple years. My question is how how many
inflationary increases over x amount of years have we had with tickets or have we had with events? Have these things been stable for a long time as inflation keeps going like this? Do you want me to speak to that? Sure. Okay. Um, so
with participation fees specifically, um, we have not adjusted at all, as I mentioned, since 2015. And the reason for that was inflation has kind of caught up to where we had to put those fees at in the budget adjustment back from 2010. So, we went to the highest in
the in the metro area with our participation fees. Like I said, in 2015, those were actually adjusted down, but still at the high end. And now these inflation adjustments as you look at participation fees around the metro area now you're starting to see that school
districts are now right we're kind of right in with everybody else at this point in time. Okay. So we're at a point where they could potentially be increased with with inflation but we wouldn't have done that when we were that far ahead of everybody before. Director Nicholson. Same thing with ticket prices. Ticket prices um have gone up twice over
the course of like since I've been AD 10 years. They Yeah. They went from, you know, they're at eight and six right now. They were at seven and five and now the proposal is for nine and seven. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Participation fees for the for kids to play. Um I
looking at everybody else in the South Suburban Conference. Are we about where everybody else is? Yeah. And that's what I was just kind of speaking to like we had been far higher than everybody. Yep. But as the other school districts have kind of adjusted their fees over the course of the last
10 years, now we're kind of right in with everybody else. And this adjusting us to 298 across the board, right? That's what you're talking talking about doing. That puts us pretty much on pace with everybody else that we're playing against. So all other supporting or surrounding
within like a $20 range of almost all of the schools. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We keep rolling. Okay. Okay. Um, another topic that came up as um, you want me to speak to this as well, right? Okay. Uh, another topic
that came up at a a previous board meeting was uh, the idea of the family cap. Um, how much a family would be um, capped out at if they were to have multiple kids and kids in multiple activities and so on. right now. And this again goes back to that, you know,
2015 adjustment. It's been sitting at 3,000 um for all of these years. $3,000 annual cap is essentially not a cap. Um and so I think there was desire um on behalf of the board and certainly community members that had come in
potentially at the time to say, "Let's readjust that and take a look at that." Um and so in this uh proposal as well, we would reduce that annual family cap from 3,000 down to 1,000. um which I think opens up obviously a lot of opportunities for inclusion into other
activities um for some of our families. So the good news about that is um and you had mentioned the stray cats. The stray cats we I I had a conversation with um one of the founders of the stray cats about this because again at the end of the day if we're trying to look at ways
that we're generating funds and so on um this is a huge help to you know certain families when they hit that thousand cap that they will be capped off at that at that point in time. the stray cats um are willing to come in and kind of make up that difference. So, when we have a family hit that family cap, um maybe
they would have had, you know, $1,200 in registration fees or whatever, the stray cats will come in and and fill that gap for us of that $200 difference that we would not be bringing in through activity fees. So, we have a a side source through community um involvement that will cover that. That's great. D Anderson,
I just want to thank the mom who came into that stakeholder session and brought a really great proposal and reason for this and made us think about this and just these are reasons why you come into our stakeholder sessions. So that was great. Okay. Uh in addition to that, there are
um other additional um revenue streams that we're that we're looking at as well. And a lot of these have to do with the auxiliary type things that we provide at our events. Um that typically it's really the booster like we're giving you know we're allowing the booster club to generate funds at our
events. Uh the two areas one of them is in our live streaming that's relatively new. Um we brought in a live streaming network um right before COVID and obviously that has grown significantly ever since then. Um, and so, um, our live streaming revenues that comes from
ad sales when we're, if you're watching, you know, Ellen Panthers live or Cougars Live, um, ad sales are are spent there. The profits from those ad sales would come back in, um, a $12,000 donation per school back to kind of help cover some of these costs. Same thing with
concessions. Um, when we're when we're looking at concessions, um, running those in advance, that those the the profits that come out of concessions, um, can be a donation back to the school as well. And I know that one of the conversations that we had had um because
those are all right well what happens if you don't make money and what happens if you don't sell ads and whatnot. Um so these these would be donations that would happen at the beginning of a fiscal year and so those donations can happen now based on the profits that those um organizations have made
previously and so we'd be able to do that before every single year. So those are two additional um sources. And then the third one um is um would be on the responsibility of the district AD to secure um a $5,000 sponsor um for their
opportunity to share their brand at our activities. Um right now each individual sports booster club has the ability to go out and and and uh and do sponsorships on their own. Um but this would um add one kind of title sponsor for the activities department at North
and the activities department at South um that would generate another $10,000. So that gets us fairly close to covering the gap if we were to implement everything we just got done talking about, but there still is a small delta and you wanted to talk about that, right? Yeah. So this is this identifies what
the the delta in in uh the the cost between proposed and uh proposed cost and revenue for this model um of of operation. The ability to deal with that
within the logistics operations. I think one of the things we talked about in last board meeting I think director Thompson brought up uh and I want to say it's 100 600 700 and admin is a ZBB uh zerobased budgeting uh exercise. So we
are working on that. Uh but my plan would be in our logistics operations reducing the expenditures there in order to cover that that delta. Um, I do think there are a lot of benefits
uh uh that this system can bring to us and I just kindly ask for your consideration on this matter. Do we want to address these things one at a time? I kind of see four different four different issues. Um, if this is what you're asking for us to vote on,
you can clarify. uh ticket ticket pricing, activities, participation fees, athletics operation realignment, and then the annual family cap. Looking for a vote on each of those items? I'm sorry. Are you looking for a vote on each of those items or collectively? Or collectively?
I I would leave that, sir, up to you how you want to do that. If it's up to me, I'd say we could vote on each one of those uh if that's better for all concerned. Yeah, I'll I guess I'll open it up to the board if somebody wants to make either a motion to approve um one
of those items or all of those items and then we can get into discussion if there's any. Yeah. Point of clarification, please. Um I I'm not quite sure where we are in the ticket pricing. Is it is it what you had stated up there or we can or we consider it's what you had
stated? So our our proposal is what we shared. Um although I will not at all dismiss what Director Cameron offered, but I think maybe that would require some other parliamentary procedure to to modify that. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I Well, whoever makes a motion, initial
motion gets to set where we're going to be at the starting point for that. So, yeah. All right. All right. I I would make the motion that we accept the dollar amount proposals that were listed in your
uh comments here and I'm putting the motion on the table. Motion for everything just for point of clarification. I I just think we should take the whole package. Whole package. So, ticket pricing at 97,
activity participation fees at the amounts provided in the board presentation, athletic operations realignment, and the annual family cap at $1,000. And the the annual family cap came from 3 to one. Correct. Okay. Yes. All right. Uh, there is a motion. Is
there a second to the motion? I'll second it. It is seconded by Director Thompson. Is there any discussion on the motion? Director Anderson? Um so I have one remaining question. What so I know you said sorry this is not exactly discussion on the motion but
um it's still a question um with the with the change with the middle school and I know you said that one would be looking at north students and one would be looking at south students but Kenwood is like a blend of north and south. So can
you clarify how that would work? Yeah, that's a fantastic question. probably should have laid that out a little bit better. Um, and so, uh, yeah, in in this model, when you're running programming from 6 through 12, um, those that would be a continuation student in
competitive based activities, um, those that would be in a continuation to North, whatever middle school they may be attending, um, they would be part of that school's program. That programming programming may happen at Kenwood, it might happen at Meguire, it might happen
at Century, and so on. Um, we've got shuttle buses that go around the district at the end of the day and the kids would go to participate with those that they they participate with. Really, what that does is it more it aligns our programs much better with those programs in our community that we don't offer
through our middle schools. Um, our associations, our our coaches, our head coaches at the varsity level do a great job working with our community associations. Take basketball for example. um and and they'll work through and kids are either in the North Basketball Association or the South
Basketball Association. Doesn't really matter what school they go to. That's part of the association they're part of. Um when we're running them in the schools, again, that whole silo model, we're saying you're a Maguire kid or a Century kid or a Kenwood kid. Um and that creates that somewhat of a branding
problem that, you know, that we deal with at Kenwood because they're kind of a little bit of both. Um and so now we would have programs that are going to the direction that the student would be continuing towards. Okay, that would be a implementation after a year though based
on timing right now. So that would be we would still be having um century uh century programming maguire programming in Kedwood for one year as we transition to that. Things that are not competitive based student clubs and things like that that would happen on site. Okay.
For their building. Okay. Any other discussion on the motion? Director Thompson. Uh I I'd like to amend the motion to change the adult ticketing pricing from $9 to $10. When I look at the uh delta is, I
believe, $58,000 gap. When we've got 64,000 tickets that are sold, I'm going to just arbitrarily assume a 60 40% split. 60% adults, 40% students. uh that extra dollar will get us to an extra $38,000
uh um addition. And so that would make the delta closer to 20 grand or so. Uh for me personally, as close as we can get to net neutral, that would be ideal. So my first motion or my first amendment would be to change the adult from 9 to 10.
Is there a second for that amendment? I'll second it. Any discussion on the amendment? So, so you're not proposing changing the student you you want to raise ticket prices on our students, right? Just incorrect. No, just just the adults.
Well, we we have it moving from the proposal is to raise. So, I'm just clarifying that you're saying the as the proposal reads, you want to increase student ticket prices. I would like to increase the adult ticket prices from 9 to 10. Correct. Only and not students at six. Leaving the students as is.
That's six. As as of the proposal, which is seven. That's an increase. Okay. I'm sorry. Clarification, Brian. 10 and seven. 10 and seven. Right. Okay. 10 and seven. So, six goes to seven, eight goes to 10. Correct.
Okay. I have a question. Director Nicholson, do we have any avenue for um alleviating a buck or two off of kids that can't afford it? Is there any avenue to do that? Is there any
booster club or anybody else that is available to help with something like that? If somebody was in need and wanted to go to events and you know, No, I'm I'm sorry. I I I thought you were talking about participation fees. You were talking about ticket prices.
Ticket prices. Yeah. Uh we don't have a vehicle for that at this point. I will say that I'm open to leaving student pricing at six. If we amend this up to 10, we can amend again though. Well, we're amending the adult price up to 10.
And then if we're amend, you could amend. Yeah. Then we can amend the student price back down to six. But we take care of his amendment first adjusting the adult price. So we're not voting on student to can we No, this is just the amendment to the original motion. So
in addition to all the other things in the proposal. So So my understanding as originally presented Yeah. I made an amendment to the motion which is and this is the only one that we would have to vote on first which is adjusting the adult from 9 to 10 and then whatever decision revoting result
is after that then we go back to Mr. Carbone's motion. Correct. It's just changing changing the components of the original motion. How many other schools are at 10 bucks adult? None that I'm aware of. None that you're aware of. Okay.
I love the idea of being net neutral. I do. I completely agree with you. I love being marginally competitive, you know, as well. Um I don't know, Director Thompson. I I I understand the
the difference from 8 to nine and then nine to 10, but when I think about that additional dollar uh and what we're going to get at the district level from an activities director uh and the cost the potential cost savings that that individual may in uh have uh I know that
there are significant inconsistencies with um you know potentially um uh program feedback from parents. Some parents don't even get to provide feedback on certain programs and they don't get a survey or if they get a survey uh surveys are from students that
are leaving and they don't they don't respond. So, you know, this is an opportunity in my mind to recalibrate if we are going to uh since we've allocated $6 million already to our uh activities and athletics division.
uh if another dollar is what it warrants to make sure that we've got an organizational structure in place for consistency, I am in favor. And and just to say I I'm in favor of raising it to 10 if we can drop because then we can drop the student pricing down to six
or leave it at six. Leave it at six. Leave it at I was just going to say I I think 10 and five is clean. Um I I also don't like being higher than other districts in terms of our pricing. I mean cumulatively we wouldn't be you
know if we leave the student pricing the same but in any event any further discussion on the amendment to raise the ticket pricing to 10 for adults? If there are none, being a first and a second, uh, all those in favor of
amending the motion to raise the adult ticket pricing to $10, say I. I. All those opposed? No. No. Roll call. Yeah. I didn't I didn't hear what was on the side. Could we do a roll call vote on that?
Uh, yes. Brett Nicholson, yes. Amber Cameron, yes. Matt Swanson, yes. And Baker, no. Ryan Thompson, yes. Carly Anderson, no.
All right, it's passed 5 to2. And now I will make another amendment to the motion. Um, as just discussed, to lower the ticket price for students to $6. Is there a second? Second. I'll second it. All right. Seconded by Director Cameron.
Any discussion? Yeah. Can I just clarify? Retain the current ticket price. Is that lower? Lower it from the proposal from the original. Yeah. Just to So it's the existing, right? Yeah. Any other discussion?
Right. Director Nicholson, I like to keep it if we can. Um I mean again, cost neutral is great. if uh if 6040s are split, I mean, we're we're getting a little bit more on the adult side anyway. Um Director Thompson.
Yeah. I mean, so I'll I'll look to Superintendent Bowman. Did you get any data from Jack? I don't know if you you were talking to him, so I was wondering if you if you got ticket split, data. No, I was just verifying the the uh aggregate number. Uh and yeah, that's that's what I was doing.
Okay. You know, I mean, again, leveraging the 60, I am I'm guessing the 6040 split. And so, assuming 40% um uh and bringing that back down, it's, you know, we end up saving we end up gaining an extra
$8,000, I guess, roughly by moving adults to 10 and then keeping students at six. and and then hopefully I mean there there isn't a mechanism right now for those who can't afford six come to the to come to the games for football or hockey and and maybe this is something that we can take back to the boosters
and say hey uh maybe those who are part of the free and reduced lunch program uh we have an opportunity to send them a letter or something where maybe the football club or the hockey association can give them a card where they can come in as free as well but that's probably a
separate thing that we can explore later. But I think if you wear your jersey, if you're in the football program as a kid and you wear your jersey to the game, you get in for free. I'm not sure if it's the same for hockey or not. Yeah, some games. I think for some games, but for those who aren't part of the football program and want to see but can't afford, you know, that
that's definitely something we should consider. So, what I'm hearing right now is that uh keeping the students at six and then Yeah, I mean, it's back to what it was originally. I do have another uh proposal and and maybe I'll just tee it up right now and if there's general If
it's an amendment, then I I get it. Let's vote on this one and be But I think this would be helpful for me to just make sure they're uh for helping me with my vote. I know that the um title sponsorships uh the goal was to
get one per high school for $5,000. How realistic is that? And is one like super easy? Because I because I mean is it can could we could we easily do two? I don't know. Per high school. Uh yes. The answer to that is uh we certainly can. The question and the kind
of the balance in that whole thing is we want to make sure that we're always supporting our booster clubs as well which are still putting a lot of funds into the operations of our programs. And so um although we can go out and get additional sponsorships um does that
take away from the booster club's ability to gain their sponsors which then just kind of trickles everything back the wrong direction. So, sure. So, you want to step on their toes essentially. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Is $5,000 a um an entry level
sponsorship? I mean, I'm assuming it's something that would be for the whole year. And so, is is 10,000 way abnormal or could we could we go can we get to 10? I don't know. It depends what we have, you know, obviously to offer. right now 5,000 is is fairly pretty much in alignment with
what um our biggest booster sponsors would be paying. So that's kind of where the that dollar figure came from. Cameron, I don't I don't think this we're supposed to be having conversation on this, but since we are, I'm going to enter it. And that is
come on in. When you when you said that earlier, I mean, this is not a board level thing, but I I would encourage you to think about raising that um dollar amount, too. I run a very small one-day festival for the city of Burnsville. $5,000 is like nothing for sponsors. It's a
six-hour event. So, we have $20,000 sponsors for our one-day event, right? So, you It's just something to consider. So, Brian and Amber will help the committee on No, I'm just saying. And I think that the reason I'm asking is because if there's if there's appetite from the board to
come back for that, then I would be in favor of keeping students at six. So, all right. If there's no further discussion, all in favor of amending the motion to reduce keep reduce keep No, we're going to reduce it to six in
the current motion for students. Um, there is a first and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? All right, it is back down to So, now we're at adults at 10, students at six, and the other three items are still on
the table. Any further discussion on the now amended motion? I'd like to I can make an amendment now. Correct. Okay. I'd like to amend the motion to remove voting on the entire staffing model. I don't feel like that is a board
level thing to vote on. Um we don't vote on other department staffing. And so I don't want to set precedents that this is how a board should I think that's at the purview of the superintendent along with other
executives to determine staffing. I agree. Uh so there's a first seconded by director Anderson. Any discussion? Director Thompson. I I don't think the staffing model was part of the initial motion. Was it? I
thought it was just the four things. It was one of the four things. athletics operations realignment. Yeah. Okay. So, to to clarify then, you're removing that piece of it and that basically puts it in Superintendent Balman's hands to make a
determination. Okay. Right. Yeah. I I mean, I do think that us voting on the other things kind of just gives him the authority to do that anyways. So, I mean, from a from a legal standpoint, I think it's
I I I think what Director Cameron pointed out earlier about raising funds doesn't mean you necessarily do anything. Like, we're approving a a fee increase. That doesn't mean we're saying what it's going to be used for. So, it's it's in his purview to decide how
that money is going to be used. One fee increase and one fee decrease. The family fee is coming down. You got two kids playing three sports. You're paying one is staying the same in terms of what it is right now. Yes. But that I agree. I think this is outside of our purview.
I think we are like you said earlier, Superintendent Bowman. What we are required to vote on is any fee increase or change. And so and then and then the reduction from 3,000 to 1,000. And I'm okay with that because we still get to the same place. I mean, it's a
matter of changing the pricing. actually changing the pricing on one thing and one thing staying the same and one thing going down. So, it's actually pretty positive that way to some degree and then ultimately we get to the same place. The revenue that you're asking
for hopefully will be generated and then it's your decision based upon what you're talking about here. Any further discussion? Was that a motion or was that just a discussion? Uh, it was an amendment to the motion. So, approving Yeah. So the amendment is
to remove voting removing the part of the vote related to the staffing model and only retaining the agreed upon ticket prices. The reduction in student participation um uh cap, right?
And um what's the other thing? Activities participation fees. Participation. Yeah. Yeah. Just to be clear, it's the it's the family annual cap. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'll second that. It's been seconded.
Oh, it Okay. Welcome. Welcome. All right. Uh, if there's no further discussion, uh, being a first and a second, uh, the motion is to remove um
the vote on approving the athletics operation realignment um from the original motion. Uh, all in favor say I. I. All opposed. All right, it's passed. And so now we're back with the now
thrice amended motion, which is ticket pricing for adults at 10, students at six, activity participation fee adjusted, and then the annual family cap reduced from 3,000 to 1,000. Any discussion on the remaining motion? I'd like to make another amendment to
the motion uh for the title sponsorships. uh I you know to the initiative to secure one 5,000 title sponsorship. I mean this is I mean throughout the full I'm I'm assuming this this can you
let me rephrase that. I do not want to add another amended motion yet. Let me ask a clarifying question. This title sponsorship would be from school sess season all the way to the end of the year or is it just during football season and only during hockey season? Like what is what are you thinking
throughout the entire school year? I I mean I don't Yeah, before you make the motion, I mean I think the issue is they're going to raise as much money as they can for the title sponsorship. Um well, yeah, regardless of what we set the cap at.
Well, so let's talk through that because when we had naming rights for uh what is it? The as hi. Yep. And then uh and and then we've got the the title sponsorships. I agree as much as we can, but if we're going to
just go with 15, I mean it like is there a threshold? Is there a minimum that we want? And what do we think is the right value for having a sponsorship uh that you have 12,000 student eyeballs plus potentially 24,000 parents or I mean
70,000 community members. And so is $5,000 like a really really good deal? And if there's an opportunity again for me to for us to get to more net neutral, would would a $15,000 sponsorship be reasonable or a 10 thou $10,000 minimum
and then let's see how the the new district AD does. So I'll pause here and kick it to you, George Cameron. Point of clarification. Are we voting on the title sponsorship amount? I didn't think that was No, I I haven't I haven't made a made that's not even something that the board
would vote on, is it? at this moment for this proposal. I mean, it would have to be an amendment to the motion. Um, and then it gets into the question of is it and this goes back to the question of the athletics operation. Is it really something that
we need to be dictating? Um, so yeah. So, do you want to just I guess the question is there is there a motion? If there's no motion, then we're still back at no motion to amend, then we're still back at our original motion. Three times amended.
I think I think um I would like feedback from the rest of the from the rest of the board members. I mean when we had to pass the the Ames uh the the the hassi and then it was like um I don't know I I just I feel I if we
have to approve if we had to approve back then name rights uh and but that's a collaborative effort with the city as well. That was yes. Yeah. So it's a and we didn't have a whole lot say yeah I mean I feel like we don't generally get into the nitty-gritty of
this kind of kind of stuff. So my I guess I would say we stay out I mean I know I mean the boosters do it the boosters do it already. So it's explaining how we're trying to get the money generated but I don't think it's our place to dive.
So you just want to encourage them to go for a bigger sponsorship. Yeah. Yes. to help. We are think we call All right. Yeah. Are we good? Yeah. If there's no further discussion, um I'm
going to call the matter for a vote. Uh all in favor of once again ticket pricing at $10 for adults, $6 for students. Um activities participation fee readjustment and the annual family cap lowered from 3,000 to 1,000. Uh say I
I. All opposed? No. All right. It is approved. Thank gentlemen. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, Superintendent Bowman, I think you're still up there.
Well, sure. Shri, can we get through the Can we deal with this quickly and then maybe take a quick break on the facility use fees? So, the facility use fees uh no change from what our proposal was uh at at uh
our presentation. I'll ask uh Devin to summarize that and then we can take a vote. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um so a summary from what we went over a couple weeks
ago. Um the recommended updates I think is what Superintendent Bowman was referring to. Um we are looking to have our rental rates and I'm hoping we can get through to That's Nope. Oops.
This is where they told me before, don't you have to listen to how to use the clicker. There we go. All right. So, number one would be rental rate increases that would go into effect on September 1, um, 2025. That would be our class one, our local would be restructured. So, the rental rate
would be based on spaces and not a flat fee across the board. and our class two and class 3 rates would have a 7% increase. Um, number two, we've added equipment use fees to the addendum. Um, they had been um, omitted in the past
and we have brought them back. Uh, number three, events where custodial has been assigned due to the size of the function or the function being outside of building operational hours or holidays be assessed an additional two hours of custodial time beyond that. um
so that we we can assist in covering the full custodial costs for that event. Um and elementary use requests will require each user group um to provide their own hall monitor for their group activity and if they do not uh they will be
charged a fee and a supervisor will be assigned um and that will be what we are recommending. Um it was linked in the presentation two weeks ago. Um the reference to the proposed addendum
policy that I believe each of you have. I I know I said I had no questions earlier, but I do have one. Um just in communicating with the stakeholder about um like certain activities uh namely our our senior
party that was hosted at our school. Are there other groups similar to that? Um because the question was well can we just and maybe we discussed this a couple weeks ago too. We do. Can you can we provide like an exemption on right just that initial fee for but are there other groups that would then come and
say hey we have the equivalent yes and and I guess how many other groups are we talking about is it significant uh I they would say it's significant I mean the number meaning I'm speaking on behalf of user groups just um especially our class ones
user groups our local organizations associations um out ofseason booster clubs our nonprofit agencies whether they're youth or adult. Um each one of them would definitely with a many volunteer hats that they wear. Many times it's our own staff people um who
wear multiple hats. Um what they're passionate about and helping our students of all ages. Um they would believe that that's helping that student in that. And that's where um with myself and my team, we get to walk through that that line that we talked about last time
of who's who's owning that piece of the money, who's owning that piece of the liability. Um and if it's not something that Superintendent Bowman can bring to you as a board for discussion or approval on changing a vote or whatnot, it it will ultimately end up outside of
district sponsored, meaning it's a non-dist sponsored use. And then we do have to be consistent because if we're not um whether it's saying there's favorites or we're picking and choosing or we're saying that or one group or one
department or one person or one employee is saying that one group or event is more important than another. Um it it it gets to be a very uh sticky sticky place to be. Director Anderson. Um just one question. um just given the
change with the September 1, 2025. So um has there been concern expressed about just the timing of this in terms of planning for this next year? Like in terms of how much um I know we haven't started the school year, but how much groups have tried to raise or how it's
impacting their booster clubs, things like that. Uh I will frankly this time around with the conversation um there have been conversations not uh the level that there was when we initiated an initial um class one rate uh 3 years
ago. Um the conversation about how much the rate would be, how the groups are going to adapt, what they're going to do. I know that there's um multiple groups in our community um who have been quite vocal
and said if if things change then then we know how to pivot or we will help others pivot in how to raise funds um reassess how their fees are done. um the timing for bringing it to you um in a perfect world um I would have brought it
to you in March or April but there were higher level priority items that you as a board um had in front of you um and we needed to wait for the right time to to be able to make it in front of your plate. Director Nicholson, with some of the smaller user groups, if
they've already, you know, started registration or anything like that and they're going to be drastically impacted for, you know, the fall basically, is there any thought or consideration from the district to give an exemption on
rate increases if they're below a certain size, if they're, you know, their revenues aren't high enough and they're going to be underwater type thing, you know, immediately. I mean, is there have you considered anything like that or would you be willing to like I
guess hear petitions out if somebody said, "Hey, we like we're going to Yeah. be sunk here if you guys do this and we only had a month, two, you know, two month leeway." I would point out two to three things. Um just saving grace there. Um first one
goes back to and I sound like a boring book on this one. Everyone has to be treated consistently the same within their classification because if they don't then we fall into the traps that we've already that I've already started
started with. Um with that said um we work very hard with all of our groups um in the past and currently. Uh and as far as how we do invoicing collecting, um if it's the last day of the invoice or if it's 30 days past the invoice, if
we need to work with them as they adjust that, we have been given approval in the past and I've worked with executive director Homegrren um when we did initially have that in. And the third I would say is the um evolving of the facility use and contribution agreement
um that um has specific language in it and um executive director Homegrren and I are meeting hopefully as soon as he comes back from his vacation. Um but we're meeting to be able to really reestablish what that looks like for this year. That
program began um two years ago to help offset the initial cost of when we put that class one rate in. and it needs to be revised to be current and look at larger pieces that are being donated um and how that impacts local user groups
um usage fees. So, I'm not sure if that totally answers your question, but yes, there are lots of different behind the-scenes thoughts going into place to work with our groups, but still make sure that I'm able to say I've I've done what you've asked,
but definitely we've kept things consistent and by the book. I mean, I think I mean, to that point, Brett, I'm guessing, and correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, if it's a smaller group and they're just using the facility once, it's not going to be, you know, you're going from $10.30 30 cents
to $20. It's the groups that are using it 50 times, you know. Um, and they probably have a little bit more size is my guess. Um, but yeah, I get what you're saying. It was the only concern that was kind of, you know, that I kind of Yeah.
Yeah. And then I heard the same thing that Carly did about timing. Um, but I just don't know when when would you implement. I mean, that's the problem. We're going to hit somebody at every point in the year unless you push it out a year, you know. Um, yeah,
right. I mean, you can push it out 90 days maybe, but but again, like the only way you're going to make this work is that it it gets implemented September 1st to be net positive. I mean, to so that we break even with Well, not just that, but September 1st is when all the usage starts for the
school year. And so that means that once again, everyone is treated the same. So from the first day of school until the until the next time it's amended, everyone is treated the same. Meaning every group who uses our facilities throughout the entire year will have that same standard that they have to
meet along with all the same rules that they'll have to follow. Director Thompson. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to circle back on that um the high school graduation one. Um it so right now we the PTO's don't pay a
fee, correct? or do they pay a fee to use? Uh the only time the PTO's will pay any fee is if they are requesting to use the spaces in our buildings outside of the elementary operating hours. Um the example that I gave the last time um was say an elementary school wanted to hold
a daddy uh daddy daughter dance on a Saturday and our elementarymentaries are closed on Saturdays. They would pay the staffing cost for that to make sure that we cover our costs. Um the determination was made a little over three years ago that our PTO's um the entire purpose of
what that PTO does is for the entire the entirety of the child, the well-being, the education, uh the social emotional, all of that. Um, and that's again we go back to, sorry, keep going straight back to look at you, but we go back to what
is consistent for all groups because we we can't pick and choose and we can't choose favorites, at least from a facility usage standpoint. Well, except for the PTS. Well, that I should say that wasn't that was a district leadership decision based on um
leadership that I was um given the job, which is fine. And so and that and that and then we as a board provide district leadership direction. And so um how much how much does it cost them? I mean for for these graduations is it like are we looking at a couple thousand dollars or are we looking like
300 bucks? They there are costs for staffing. So it's not just the hourly usage rate. It's it's we're trying to cover our cost for staffing. That is the majority of what the fees are. Um and I'm happy to pull that information to get to you. I
don't know the exact dollar amount right now. I do know that it is under it it is estimated between 1,500 to 2500 depending on which building because they both have different they both have a different group of volunteers. Um and
they're they're in charge not just of providing the environment and the activities for our seniors. Um they're in charge of everything from making sure that each vendor that comes in has been vetted and has provided their insurance. They're in charge of making sure of security. And you know, those are things
that after each senior year party is over, I get to meet with administration to be able to share here's here's the successes of what happened at the senior party and here's here's the challenges that we had and safety and security is a challenge.
So, did you have a question? So, just to clarify, Devin, I appreciate you providing absolutely. Um, so in the case of the senior party, they're paying a fee in addition to um all the staff costs or is that they are paying a they're paying the
hourly usage fee for class one which is currently $10.30 an hour just like the majority of the costs would be coming from so even though it's south or north or whatever the majority of the cost would be coming from this covering the staff. Yep. We need to have custodial on from
the time they arrive to set up to the time that they leave the building. That's a that's a depending on the time of day, depending on if it's a holiday and there's facility supervisors fees that are included that they are charged for because we do end up having safety and security issues that our staff ends
up having to help and assist with. So, so I just want to point out I'm just thinking about the PTO cost versus the graduation party cost. Obviously, the graduation party is also geared toward like let's let's say this is somewhat protective for our students because they're going here and not somewhere
else, let's say. But the cost that is so significant is more because the staffing is so much more than what a PTO might require for doing a an event after hours. Correct. Yeah. And it's the timing, too. I mean, you're looking at staff in the middle of the night versus Right. Yeah.
And the challenge is the past two years specifically there was school the next day. Sure. So, our custodial had to um a lot of logistics went on at 2:00 in the morning between many different custodial and um my staff to be able to make sure, hey, that space is done. They can get in
there, get it cleaned. Okay, okay, now that space is done. Just for an example that it's a um it's a challenge turnover for for a custodial to get that space ready so admin and teachers and students can walk in the next day and not knowing to them for that. Yeah. Go
ahead, Director Cameron. Um, I know many other schools have their senior parties not on school property. So, is that an option that we've considered for like if if it's this if and it's not our decision perhaps, but I also don't think we need to offer the
service necessarily. So, did you say they don't have them on the school property? Right. Many many use private businesses, Bolaro, Madina Center, whatever it's called. The only thing that I would say is unless I'm given district leadership directive not to and explain that to that
particular party or that committee or whatnot, that is direction that I have to take from Superintendent Bowman. If I don't receive that, I cannot pick and choose unless they have specifically broken rules like any other user group that would put people in harm's way or
violate district policy such as bringing alcohol on property or things like that. Sure. Director Thompson. Um, I have I have not had enough seniors to know how how often this senior party has been going on. Has it been like five years? Is it is it a is it a tradition
that's been going on for 20 years? Um, so pretty much every high school um anywhere in general, we're going to we'll give it a 70% because I know Let me rephrase that. In our buildings, how often have I mean, is it a tradition to always have the graduation party in our high schools?
Um, except for CO. Yes. from my experience in Lakeville. Um, but again, I've been here going into my 10th year, um, I don't know if you want to speak to any further than that. I know many districts that don't hold it on property for the reason that they don't want to have to pay for the staffing fees and
they can have more freedom at, you know, an event venue or something like that. So, so Mike, so I think where I'm leaning towards is that it's a one-time scenario. It is the very last thing that they're doing in high school, I'm assuming. And if we can shave a couple
dollars off of whatever they have to pay to go to this event. I mean, we're talking about we just talked about lowering ticket prices for students and these additional costs are allocated to this. Uh knowing that our usage fees and know we're looking to be a net positive
roughly $24,000 assuming everything is on track. Obviously, it's going to eb and flow a little bit, but uh I would be in favor of like it's not like they're finishing, you know, kindergarten or or seventh grade. Like they're completing ideally 12 years of Lakeville education
and uh it's something to be worth celebrating. So, go ahead, Director Nicholson. Point of clarification. I mean, that's not in the what we're voting on. So, we're talking about you want to add an exemption for that party or something like that. Do we even need to talk about
that now or can we like see how the year goes and as we're cruising into next year? If it's uh you know, if finances are looking good, we say, you know what, give it to them. Well, prices are effective September 1st, so we probably need to make this decision now. They'll be making the reservation.
Yeah. Don't know. Yeah. I just I I guess I I have sympathy on both sides because I appreciate what you're saying and I also appreciate what you're saying Devin which is if we grant this to one group there are going to be many groups that come forward and say we also do XYZ for students it's all about
students and why don't we get some sort of special exemption as well. So I think we have to be very careful about I know but there are lots of things that we could get behind as a board on an individual basis. Bri Brian has a senior next year. So,
if I could add one other just a point of for awareness in regards because I know that this is special to all of you and I want to honor that. um just like many other things that you've talked about tonight and just like many of our boosters do and um large events that do
um these I know that one of the senior parties I don't know the details of the other on how they did things but I know that they got their own sponsors sure to be able to help offset the costs so and how much they got and who they got and those type of things. That's not in
my purview to um dial down into that with them. um if they wanted to talk about it, I will listen, but I'm not in a place to be able to give them advice on it simply because I'm a public school employee and um I want to partner with them. Um but many of them have spoken um
groups including one of the senior parties saying, "Well, if that's the case, then I'm going to work with local community um venues and businesses and whatnot and see if I can get sponsors." So, I'm not saying that's the answer. I'm just wanting to bring it just another level of awareness because I
know that that's a this is an important topic you guys have wanted to talk about tonight. Director Thompson, I believe we uh we we fund graduation, right? I mean, we don't have students pay extra dollars for for busing to Maruchi Arena to get the diploma to do all these things, but then they got to
pay to have a celebration. I mean, anyone else aligned or No, I mean I I'm sympathetic to it, right? My question is how many more groups are going to come to us if we Well, if they can show me that they're graduating if they've been here for 12 years. Yeah, it's not it's not it's it's not very
I don't disagree with you. Um Director Baker, I just want to add that um there are lots of groups that rent our facilities and they add a lot of benefit to our district. Um, for example, the PTO's, like I know there was a fund run last
year that raised like $30,000 or something for the elementary school and all that went to benefit the students and the staff within that building. Um, and then you have the booster clubs that really honestly like fund a lot of our sports. Um, and they rent they have to pay to rent the facilities even though
they're raising money for us to do these sports. So again, like if you make an exception for a senior party group, then you're going to have those people come back to us and say, "Where's our benefit?" Because we are actually doing things for the district and giving you money, so we shouldn't have to pay at
all. Like I can just hear the things that will come from this. So while I've had two seniors go through, one at North and one at South, and we went through it with the senior party, um rented the facilities, went through the whole thing, and the parents are just like, "Yep, we've got to do this because this
is what we like it's part of the contract. I just think once you start making exceptions that it opens the door um and then that's going to put more stress on our people that are in those positions that say, "Well, this is just what the board said. They just were going to give for the seniors." Well,
what about the other students? I I just think it opens the door. I shouldn't have asked my question, De. Absolutely. You should always ask your question, Dr. Nicholson. So, I think we're getting close. So, so just to counterbalance that one a little bit, I met with the treasurer of one of our
clubs. And she said, you know, if you could make the senior thing free, that'd be awesome because we'd rather them be in the building where you're not supposed to have alcohol. You're kind of controlled. The parents know where they are, all that kind of stuff. So, I mean,
you know, that and then that then it was but if you could push the fee back a little bit too and not start in September, that would also be helpful. So, but I get the you know I I get the whole thing but again I go back to the the original point though if I could ask the stuff that's up here
though is not we're not talking about any specific event. We're not talking about giving any treatment or deal or cutting anything right now. So that's what we're looking at. Aside from that like this could be done we could talk about this at any point throughout the
year. We can bring it up even next May if we wanted to. If we wanted to give them their money back. Yeah. So with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the proposed adjustments to the facility use and fee schedule. So moved.
All right. This first by Director Cameron. Is there a second? Second by Director Anderson. Any discussion? Any more discussion? There being none. And the first and second. All those in favor of approval of the use of school facility and fee schedule um as proposed in the board
book with the increases say I. I. Any opposed? All right, it is approved. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Have a great night. Let's take like a five minute recess and then we'll get back into it. All right, we are back. Uh, just one
little matter left to discuss. Um, Tracy, uh, good evening, Chair Swanson, school board members, Superintendent Bowman. Uh, my name is Tracy Broald and I'm the director of technology and, uh, data
services for our school district. I am back here this evening to be able to share the work that the attendance area workg group has performed over the last few months. Um we are going to be reviewing two options
that have already been presented to the school board on uh two previous occasions and then um some other work that the workg group looked through. So, we looked through a third option that we wanted to talk to you about today. And then we had some additional uh requests
for information from our schoolboard members that uh was was given back in May that uh our team worked through and uh created some additional uh uh data and maps for you. And then we have some new information that we want to share
that the city of Lakeville has approved a new subdivision. So, we'll talk over all of those and I'll try to be as quick as I can here. I know it's getting late. So, option one was presented to you all
on um March 11th of this year. Um option one was titled preliminary area adjustments. And I want to go over um this really briefly that our current students at High View and CMS would not be impacted
by this model. Um, if students are currently enrolled at High View and CMS, even our incoming kindergarteners, they would continue to ch uh to attend High View or CMS unless they chose to go to the other school that is part of this
model. Um, sixth grade students going into Century Middle School would continue to attend Century Middle School as well. And, um, for all of those students, transportation would be provided. um any of the students that are residing in the attendance areas
that are impacted, they are welcome to transfer to the new school if if they'd like to with transportation provided. Now, this plan said that any student who begins school after September 2nd of
this year would transfer to the new school. They if they enrolled after September 2nd, they would transfer to the new school. And then siblings of students who are currently enrolled would attend the new school boundaries after this school year. So no students
would be impacted during this school year. This was the data that we showed at the time and we have updated the data here so that you can see the the new numbers with our uh the current students that we have. Um, what I'd like you to
really focus on is at the bottom of this screen, we have the new development areas with the recommended changes and not grandfathering siblings. This is taking a look at high view numbers over the course of the next five years.
You'll see the cap that's over on the right hand side is showing the capacity of enrollment within that school building. And so next year, actually we're down to 720 students for next year. This says 724, but enrollment
fluctuates every single day. Um, so we're at a cap of 103.4 students right now. As we look out to 2030, if we adopt this model, option one, High View would uh decrease down to 94.4%
capacity. So it would relieve the the pressure that we have at H High View. it just wouldn't relieve anything for this next school year. This was the map that we presented to you um back in March. Uh on the left hand side you'll see our current
boundaries and on the right hand side is what we were recommending for the adjustments after September 2nd. So you'll see up at the the top that um purple area uh that's uh outlined. That would be students would be moving to CVE
in that area. And then just below that, above the HVE where the building is located, those students would be moving to East View. And again, it's not the current students, but it's anyone who moves in after September 2nd and siblings after this next school year.
When we take a look at option one, our middle school numbers, you'll see again these are updated numbers from what you saw before because we used our real live numbers that we have now. You'll see CMS, KTMS, and U. Magguire listed along
the bottom. The bottom in blue is what the numbers would be if we moved forward with this option, not grandfathering in siblings. you'll see that uh CMS moves from 91% capacity, drops down a little bit in 27
uh but then uh drops down to 88.9% capacity by 2030. And if you'll recall, we have those third grade bubble students that um we have a very big class of third graders coming through. This model considers that. So those
those numbers of those third graders are in these next five years. You'll see at KTMS under this model they do increase um quite a quite a bit um by 2029 to um a,1 students at 97% capacity. And then
you'll see me actually um does grow quite a bit over um time uh with this model and with our um third grade bubble class. the map for our middle area adjustment for option one. On the uh left you'll
see our current map and on the right you'll see how we adjusted that for the enrollments after September 2nd. The um orangey color is that orangey maybe those students would be going to um moving to Meuire instead of attending uh
Century Middle School and uh moving to Kenwood in that purpley color. So that's kind of overlapped there. U our work group identified some advantages and disadvantages of each one of the models that we have. And I won't
read through all of these. Um it this the advantages of this model is that they it does relieve pressure at High View and Century Middle School. U a disadvantage is that it doesn't relieve pressure for this school year. and we're already um implementing mitigation
efforts to uh relieve some of that enrollment pressure that we have. U another advantage is that it offers families the flexibility to transfer to their newly assigned school with transportation provided. So we want to make sure that we have transportation
for um our students and then as I said it does account for the third grade bubble that we have. We know that that's going to increase our numbers at the middle school. Uh some of the disadvantages, as I said, it does not address our high enrollment at High View and Centry Middle School for this school
year. Um because siblings are not grandfathered in, some of our families may have children who attend two different elementary schools or two different middle schools. Um under this model, uh Magguire Middle School would become a split feeder school like
Kenwood Trail. So, um, students at Meguire would go to two different high schools and then we would have additional elementary schools that are split between multiple middle schools um where we tried to limit that with our um boundary adjustments and then we might
have some increases in transportation costs under this model. So, I'm uh any questions on model one before I move on? Kim, we might have a ton of questions. Do you we've heard some of this already. Do we just want to save it till the end when she's through it all and then we
can go back and Okay. Option two uh was presented to you on May 5th of this year. And this more uh narrowly limited the students that we would be moving. And so this again,
current students would stay in their school buildings and we would adjust adjust the boundaries to new construction areas only where there's houses still being developed. And so we would tell those students that
they would have to go to the new boundary area schools and siblings would be able to continue to attend their school. um not this year but the following year and years after that until we did make some boundary changes.
We did note that there are seven students that have moved into the area that we would be moving to East View in this model. Um so those students we would grandfather into High View because they've already been going there and one student who would be grandfathered into
um Century Middle School with uh uh if they wanted to continue to go there. Under this model, we would have to implement boundary changes uh at a later date. This model gives us the opportunity to pause to um
to look at our data to um give our work group some time to um look at the broader picture and to be able to make adjustments at a later date. Uh we are, as I said, we're using mitigation measures right now at High View and at
Century Middle School. And this is something that we've done in the past at Cherry View. Uh before we did the boundary changes, we had two classes that were sharing the the media center. And so this isn't new to us to be able to provide some mitigation measures.
In this option two, you will see the part that's outlined in red. Um those areas, any new students would move to EVE, would be asked to go to EVE. A lot of that is not developed yet. There are
houses that are going up in um in that area. The bottom part there are town houses that are going up there which uh actually nets us fewer students than in our single family homes. So it is beginning to be developed um but it's
not there yet. So those students would go to East View. And then um on the bottom right you'll see that we would move any other new development in that area to um Cherry View. There is no development in that area right now. And
as far as um uh Lakeville, the city of Lakeville, there's nothing proposed in this area that we are aware of. our middle area adjustment. You'll see that that same group of students that we would be asking to go to East View would
be asked to go to uh Kenwood Trail Middle School. And here are our workg group identified advantages and disadvantages. Um one of the advantages is that it does mitigate additional student enrollment at High
View and Sentry. So no new students could go to High View and Sentry from those particular areas. Uh it grandfathers in students who are already enrolled. So those students won't be disrupted. It is just new families
moving into the district. And as I said the the advantage of this model is that it does give our our district time to conduct a more comprehensive and long-term boundary study. Our disadvantages is that it's not immediate
and it doesn't alleviate any high enrollment at High View and Century for this school year. Uh it doesn't fully resolve some of our long-term capacity in enrollment imbalances um that we know we're going to have at the middle schools as that third grade class comes
through and um near future boundary changes. So thinking ahead that we know uh two years from now we will have to do boundary changes under this model. It might require some students to change schools again. Students who have already changed
schools um this this school year they might have to change again. So option three is new to you and it's one that the work group thought that we should at least bring to the table for your consideration. Option three uh is actually the model
that was not chosen by the school board on our February 27th, 2024 meeting. We chose actually D3. We did not choose E3. And so what we thought was let's take a look and let's run the numbers of what
this looks like, what this model would have looked like if we chose this model back in February um of 24. So, one of the things I wanted to comment on is the numbers that you're going to see here are just slightly off
from what you'll see in the chart that I show you. Um, I typed in the numbers and then I took a picture of the chart on the next day and our enrollment changed a little bit. So, I apologize. It's just a little bit off. Um but under uh E3
option three most of our schools would run within a healthy utilization range from 70% to about 86% capacity. The exceptions where that JFK is a little bit lower than that at 56 uh% and OLE is
higher than that at 93%. OE you are going to see at 63.9% capacity but that is not considering our Ignite students that are going to that school. So we add students at OE compared to this model. And then E3 our
middle schools had really minimal changes in the enrollment compared to the model that we are currently existing in. So here's the data that aligns with model E3. And you'll see here my numbers are a little bit off. I said 56% for JFK
and that's at 57%. Ole on the last slide I had 93% and it's that the number here is 94%. So you'll see that we are pretty healthy utilization across the board um with the exception of JFK that's a little low and OLE that's a little bit
higher. and our middle school. Um, that is uh cut off on the slide for some reason, but that is CMS, KTMS, and Maguire across the bottom. And you'll see that really doesn't make it this model really didn't make a difference at
our middle schools. We still have um CMS at uh high capacity at 90% capacity. And then we have KTMS and Maguire. Actually, KTMS just uh loses students in this
model and um Magguire gains students, but uh Sentry isn't really touched in this model. Somebody have a question? No. Okay. Here's what the maps looked like. Um you'll see our current map for our
elementary boundaries is on the left hand side and E3 map is indicated on the right hand side. And you'll see just a little bit of of tweaks um to uh each of those maps.
This is our uh middle school maps. Again, on the left hand side, you'll see our current boundaries, and on our uh the right hand side, you'll see how uh Kenwood Trail is in the the purplish color, and it extends um out a little bit further um underneath Century Middle
School there in option three. So our work group identified again advantages and disadvantages here. Um the advantages is that that E3 does keep most elementary schools within a stable range. It um that helps us to promote
consistent class sizes across our district and staffing. Um it slows the continued enrollment growth at High View and it improves our facility utilization across all of our elementary schools. Our disadvantages is that we see OLE at
a high enrollment. JFK would be under enrolled. If this was implemented in 2627, it really doesn't address any of the overcrowding that we have this coming school year. Uh this model also
moves more students and as I think back to um February, um this was one of the reasons why we didn't choose the model. We wanted to move as few students as we needed to. Uh we would uh boundary changes would require some students to
change schools again if we went forward with this model. There have been kids have that have been moved already once. This would require some of our students to uh move again. We also took a look at some schoolboard member requests for information. We
actually had for 13 models that were requested of us to take a look at and um I believe you um Superintendent Bowman you shared a presentation that had screenshots from each of those models and um some of the models attempted to
address enrollment imbalances in um certain schools but it didn't address High View at all and so we continue to have um overcrowding at High View. There were some models that alleviated pressure at High View, but then they introduced new challenges at other
schools. And this is really the trick of boundary changes. I think I've said in a presentation before, it's not as easy as just moving the lines. There's a lot of work and thought that goes into um why those boundaries are set up how they are because when you move something at one
school, it changes the demographics or the numbers at another school. And so our work group um didn't deem that um those models were viable models for us. We also had a request to um look at a model of a voluntary transfer option
where we would allow students who previously attended East View Elementary School to go back to to go back to East View if they were in High View. and students who attended KTMS last year if
they were enrolled at CMS to go back to uh KTMS. There were 130 students that we identified who used to go to East View that are now at High View and 24 students who are all eighth graders that would be at Sentry who used to go to
KTMS. And what the work group looked at uh with this model is that it there would be a financial um piece to this as well as a staffing piece because if we let 130 students go back to East View, we would have to provide teachers for
all of those students. And it might seem like it's easy enough to say, well, we can just send the High View teacher over to East View. But it doesn't work that way with our minimum class sizes that we have. Um there's a lot of math that goes into all of that and so we looked at
that with our HR team and um saw that there would be a financial piece to allowing those students to go back to um East View from High View. Um additionally, our busing company has a firm August 1st deadline so that they can get all their routes set up and
ready to roll. And um today's July 8th, is it the 8th? I think it's the 8th. um that gives us a really small window to be able to put anything like that in action. Um we had some uh new information that
came to our work group just recently. the city of Lakeville past or um Amelia Meadows is a new subdivision that is going to be built on uh it's kind of the corner of 200th in Cedar and um that
was just approved by the city of Lakeville. And as we've done our research and we look at how long it takes from the city to approve a plot map to the first houses going in, we know that houses will most likely be permitted next summer. The the
subdivision is having 88 single family homes, which we know will we count about one student per each home, and 144 town homes, which is a smaller number than one, but we can look at um probably over
um 125 students that will be coming to us from this subdivision in the next few years. So with that, our work group talked about currently in our current boundary areas that subdivision is in Lake Marian and
KTMS attendance areas. We know that Lake Marian predictions uh next year they are going to have 733 students which puts them at 82.8% 8% capacity and our five-year prediction is that they will
be at 90% capacity. Adding another 80 students to that mix would increase their capacity quite a bit. And so um we would like to recommend to mitigate that increased enrollment at Lake uh Lake
Marian due to that subdivision. Um, we want to move that subdivision out of the Lake Marian prior to its development so that when it's developed, we could at least tell the families you'll be going to this um certain school. Under option
one that we just went over, the subdivision is earmarked to attend CVE and Meuire. So, it's taken care of under option one. Under option two, the subdivision was still um marked to attend Lake Marian. And so I want to
show you some maps. Um I will come back to this to talk about option three. But what we did under option two was we extended our our um our u map to show that subdivision attending JFK. So at the
bottom right I wish I this is a good time for a laser pointer. You think technology could get me that. Um oh you have one. Can you point to it there at the at the bottom right there? Um right up yep up just a little bit.
That's where the subdivision will be located. That is currently in the LME boundaries. And so thanks Brett. Thank you. So under um this model option two we would like to extend option two so
that uh we're moving them to JFK. And then on um for the uh middle school, can you point to that same spot again? We would be moving that subdivision to Meuire instead of a attending uh Kenwood
Trail. So we want to just mitigate that subdivision under option two. So we would just extend option two to be a little bit bigger than what it was before. Thank you. Nice job. I am going to go back to this slide because this subdivision under option
three they would be earmarked to attend LME and KTMS. So we would have to do some work mitigating that subdivision and where they would be going if we chose option three. Uh after our work group had some time to talk through all of these different
options, uh we quite honestly we landed on option two with extending um that that map so that we include Amelia Meadows subdivision going to JFK and Maguire. Um option two will immediately mitigate enrollment at High View and
Century Middle School because anyone who moves into those areas will go to a different school. they will not attend High View and CMS. Um students will not be moved from their current schools and so we wouldn't have any um families who
are uprooted and moved at this time. And then it also gives our work group some an opportunity and the time to further evaluate enrollment trends and to make sure that we're developing a long-term solution. And it also gives us time to
be able to communicate out with our families um how we're going to best move forward. So that's all I have for you, Director Cameron. Not sure if my question is relevant anymore, but it was about option one at
the time and it seemed like with the updated numbers for the middle school, um it didn't seem like a change was almost needed. Like century went a little high, but they all kind of ended up high. Um,
so at the bottom or if you look at no change versus the change, it just kind of swaps the highs with. So that was my question. Did the updated numbers change how option one might play out or if it's even needed.
But if option two is what you're recommending, then I don't think this doesn't relate to that, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Tracy, um, you mentioned in option two that no students would have to be moved.
Uh, and I think that's a good thing because I believe it was last year when everybody all the chess pieces moved. Correct. And there were some parents that were a little frustrated about that. Sure. So that's that's a good attribute of two. The other thing is I want to make sure
I'm understanding. Um, nobody moves. You're going to do a long-term study, which I think is a good thing, and that may actually extend out to 28 and 29, a school year 28 and 29. So, there may not be any movement for the
next couple of school years. Is that is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think that our team would really want to look through that. And in option two, um we would want to implement boundary changes in either 2728 or 2829.
So either either one depending on what the work group decides, they would be implemented those years. They'd be implemented based upon the long-term study and correct. So there would be a little bit of stability from not jumping everybody around from last year again. Correct.
Okay. Thank you. The extended for two. Yeah. For elementary map. Yeah. This is the part I hate. I don't I hate not having the people who literally can
throw a rock from their porch and hit the building. Oh, sorry. like what is that? Um is there any way to consider how these people who are around the building similar to around
the building around the building around the building around the building? Is there any way to make this consideration a possibility? And what would it take to have people who live around the building, especially with all the walking paths
that were just built right around High View and 185th? Is there any way that that can be part of High View? And I guess how what does that look like? Can I let me piggy back off of that because No. Yeah. Well, yeah, let me
take that because I think what Brett is saying is that we should have philosophically wherever your middle wherever your elementary school is, you do a I'm just making a number up a one mile diameter and if you're within that circle, you should be able to go to that
school. You shouldn't have to drive past an elementary school to get to your school. So when with with the model here, you know, you've got a in your option one and maybe if you can go to that quickly because I think that has a good visualization. Uh in your option one model, you've got
the very top end of the high view boundary going to Cherry View. And so I'm and I think this is the right move. And while you because there's a there is like a stream or a river or something like this right underneath uh the Cherry View
boundary. And you could even potentially go all the way across uh where that entire piece would then go to Cherry View. And so if you're at High View here, that that all these people that you were supposed to move to East View, um I think that if you ended up keeping
them at High View, that would be the that would be the preference and and then whether you cut a division here, which is part of E3 design. So the question is how many people would this be if you ended up having this model? if
that makes sense because because what I want to do is get to the point where what is the future state boundary for Cherry for High View and that's where our starting point ought to be. Yes. And director Cameron's got a question. Yes. And I'm going to say that option
two option two gives us the ability to do that. It mitigates the new construction and people moving in. So can you go to the option two slides so that we have no more students that are going to be going to no new students
going to high view or sentry and then it gives us the time and space we need to be able to continue to study this just exactly what you're asking us to do. I I think if you're in kindergarten through fourth grade, you go to the new school like wherever like and and if you're if
you're in go if you're in fourth grade, you have the option to kind of grandfather into High View because if you want High View at a low capacity of let's say 60 to 70% capacity knowing that there's room for growth on the west on the east side, you have the ability for those fifth graders to for those
fourth graders to stay in fifth grade. Like if you're going to rip the band-aid, let's just call it a day. So the only only people and maybe this is where you're going to go because I know Amber racist before is the Castlano neighborhood is the only one that's really affected by this because there's no one to the souththeast of High View
yet and there's no one directly west of High View yet, you know. So, the only one that's going to be affected is just south of the horseshoe above. But go ahead. Yeah, I appreciate what you're saying. And I actually had like the same thought in my head like if if you're within
walking distance, it'd be nice to walk to your elementary, right? However, I unfortunately I don't think that's like how it can play out at all times. Even in option one, if you draw the mile radius, not everyone is is in that
radius, right? So, but can we use this philosophy for the high view design? And then when we move into the larger conversation, we'll have to recalibrate. But even Now, it's not that way. Well, in in this option model, it isn't
that way. What I'm recommending is that you break it at the river or the stream and all these east move these to east view should actually stay in high view. And then if we have and if and if it's over capacity, then you use the E3 design off of 190th and that's
where it breaks and and those go those go to like Marian or or East View, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think where I'm struggling is like it's July 8th. We need to for this next school year, we need to figure out
what we're doing like ASAP, right? I mean, I I have a question about like what are the costs of the mitigation measures that are happening at um High View and and CMS and are they substantial or minimal? um if they're minimal,
I feel like I have to respect the work that you've done with your team and the superintendent that option two is probably the the best option for this current for this upcoming school year knowing that we need to do some thorough investigation into the best model long
term or at least for the next five years. Yeah, next year. Yeah. Director Nicholson. And then is there anybody outside of the horseshoe yet on the south side? You mean? Yeah. Enrolled? Yes. Are they they seven seven people that are in
students at High View and one at Sentry and they're building homes and so I'm sure we're going to get more enrollments eventually. Um are they are those I forget. Was this was this the one where you going to grandfather those seven to stay? Yes. But then anybody new would move?
Yes. Correct. Okay. And then then I mean we're we're really looking at I mean we're talking 25 26 26 27. So like it's max two years but it's going to be like next year is when we're going to have to really make a decision on future state.
Correct. And those may move again. I mean if those kids that are moving to East View here where right now in this model and then next year's design we we're having them going back to High View. I mean this is where we got to be very
like thoughtful. Mhm. What is the future state of high view to accommodate um the below the river line? You have all these move to east view and then draw a line from 190th straight over and then like how many people does that cover and is that enough where
could we actually go all the way to the right and maybe we can't but I I don't know. I mean what's the probability of these East View folks staying in East View in your ideal scenario because across the street is High View. I would think they'd want to go high, right?
So then we wouldn't want to like we wouldn't want to move them now. But we're not. But they're not. In this in in this in this model there is no in this option. Future kids who have not yet registered or moved in yet would go to East View, right?
For all of this year if they show up to start school this year, right? And then maybe next year, maybe next year, unless we let them grand grandfather. Otherwise, you could grandfather or you make or you snap the line from this from the this river right here and
move these kids to Cherry View because that's where they're going to go maybe. And then that frees up however many. Okay. So, my I was I raised my hand before, so I'm just going to jump in. Um, so I mean I think one of the things to for us to be thinking about is kind
of what Amber said, which is time or decision-m is critical at this moment in terms of our upcoming year. And I think we can all play around and say this looks great and that looks great, but then you shake the numbers don't shake out. And so I would say we we move
forward with something that's going to cause minimal disruption this year and we have big decisions ahead. And I don't think we can prioritize one school like saying we do this for high view and then see how it shakes out for everything like we have to be able to make major adjustments in the future that are going
to address the overall boundary issues. So I would say my opinion we make minimal disruption this year do some this board is going to have to make pretty significant decisions in the next two years. and why make big decisions
now and then that' be my opinion. Could I could also just share too there the other element to this um and I've I've had some conversations with different board members on this matter but um the the long range facilities when we start talking about even the
next level up um I is something that my staff has been working on. We need to bring forward. I call it facilities vision 2035 and that is also going to influence
um boundary adjustments not just for elementary but I think you know we know we have three over 3,000 students uh programmed to go into middle school I want to say 28
um and we have three middle schools so we know there's another that's just the simple math that even I can do that's a thousand a middle school. Um so we have those challenges. We we also
have uh you know early childhood issues. We have that that's a another big one um that I think has to enter into this conversation and that's why the staff the administration is advocating for
option two. So, we've vetted I know we vetted 14 different options through all this that we tried to play out what the movement of those students are going to be. Um shared that with you. Um
the the challenge is as we do it here in in this boardroom, in this setting, unless I have a computer and we're running the numbers, it doesn't give us solutions that that we can um communicate accurately with our
community. Um, I again I I feel like option two gives us the most flexibility and there's a couple other layers that I want to make sure the staff brings to the board um obviously sooner than later, but to buy
some time and space and in the meantime stabilize for our community uh where their kids are going to go. Um to the question I think director Cameron asked regarding costs uh with the mitigation strategies. Uh great question and thank
you for that. Uh we're doing it inside of the budget that we've approved. Uh it's capital it's capital dollars. I have to repprioritize. Um and I think I've shared as well with board members that we've already put some things in motion because the nth
hour I I can't action. for example, furniture. Uh, and if we were to do something different than I I would expect or anticipate, that furniture could still be used. So, I I I want to be a good steward of of our tax dollars
and for purpose and stay within our budget. So, that's what we're trying to do. And then, if we have any uh tenant improvement kind of things that we would have to do, that would be a rep prioritization within the budgets we've already allocated.
Just a couple things. Hold on. Me and then Brett and you. Um I don't like the idea of moving kids again like this fall. I I I don't even think that's I don't even know that we can consider that especially given the late stage. Um
I do agree we need to move on something else though and I would almost say you know in the next six months we have in some of this is it's been it takes a while to get back the projections. Um, but if we're going to do something in two years, it'd be nice if we know what
that's going to be like in the next six months so we can let people know. They can start planning. Um, to that point, E3, um, did you look at how E3 will play out in the next three to five years projection-wise?
We didn't look at that. That's something we can certainly run because E3 is not looking bad right now. I mean, even if we take and I think the other component that maybe I don't know if we need to decide that right now, but um moving Amelia Meadow is just saying that's going to be JFK and MMS, you
know, um because that just seems to make sense. And again, if you need to pocket it off um no matter what model we're using and just say that's where the growth needs to go, right? Um to set some sort of expectations, that seems to make sense. Um
but yeah, I and again I mean we're we're dealing with an unfortunate situation because again if we would have chosen if E3 would have been chosen last year um we wouldn't be we wouldn't be here. But uh yeah, if if we I don't I don't know
that we rush it. You know, I agree on the planning and thinking about where things are going to line up in two years. Um, but I think the current option two, even though I I don't love it necessarily, it's not affecting that many kids. Um, they're already where
they're at now, so we're not asking them to move again. And if they do end up moving in two to three years, you know, it' be the first time they moved. Sorry, I think Brett was actually up. One thing I do want us to consider is just um D3
looked like it was going to work out, right? And so one of the things that um not to not to say I don't wish we could go back and know what we know now and all those things, but with this new development coming on board, we have a
prediction of one student per household, which is what you know, like that is not how the High View area played out. So that's where I think it would be better for us to wait this out a little bit, kind of see what happens so that we have
a better ability to make lines that make sense and not be have pockets going to schools far away. Um so right that was over time that is how we came up with a very interesting map of
neighborhoods going to school you know so I think we can't we we don't have control over the growth of Lakeville um and if we can wait it out a bit to see how to better draw the lines um yeah that would be nice
uh with option two or any of the other ones that we're talking about interd district transfers. Are we freezing anything? Are they going to be okay to like can people take their like if they don't want to be at High View anymore and they want to interdist transfer? Are we going to allow that?
Um intist transfers are frozen into High View and into Sentry Middle School as well as open enrollments are frozen there. Um but as far as going out, we follow our process. people can submit an application to do that and then we look
at um the enrollment at a particular grade level. If there's space within the class sizes that they have, we work with HR to determine that. Yep. But that process is still going to be open assuming we move to this. Yes. Correct.
Okay. Brian, would would the board entertain another 2A option for review where if you did a cut off right here where the river line is saying all these students above are going to be notified that they will be now zoned to go to uh Cherry
View because the Cherry View school is like right here. And because there aren't a whole lot of walkways, I would assume by this river line, that would en enable all of these students here that are considered moving to East View within walking distance to High View and
that that whole block then just becomes High View and that's it. I mean I I just my concern is that when we make these changes and then while these folks are in high view uh the future design and if we end up uh zooming out you'll see that
like this is these these uh students more than likely will end up being at Cherry View in a final design model. I mean that's that's how it's going to look like. And so I'd like to see a a two-way option. How many does how many kids does this have? What's the capacity
level? what does the five-year outlook look like and can that be done in the next couple days? I mean, I I've sent a few options over the weekend as well. And so, it's it's that's I I don't like this. And you know, with with Director Nicholson's point of view as well, I
that's that's my point of view. If if if other board members agree, feel free to chime in. Well, I guess the only challenge with Yeah. I mean, long long term if we're going to think of adjustment, but now you're kicking kids out of school or I mean moving them this year. Well, it's either this year or next
year. Like, that's the issue. I mean, and but for the benefit of people who don't already live in the district, you know, that's the problem with the Klano area. I mean, that's not even developed. So, those kids might not even be in the that one, the one to the east, and then the one to the north. North is Kasano. I
mean, some of those houses aren't even built yet, you know. So we're so but what it does for their benefit but what does it lowers the capacity of the high view location for those who might be in fourth grade and want to finish elementary and fifth grade can stay there but everyone from kindergarten to fourth grade like we did
last time they have to make a you know pull you know rip the band-aid off and and they end up moving to their next school and so if you zoom out the capacity for Cherry View right now is at what six seven 65% you know so and and and knowing that
where else can you get students to fill Cherry View is is to keep going further south because you can't go west. And so if you want that school to be at a higher capacity, you got to go south. And this is the most appropriate breakout line. And if there's not enough
uh capacity uh in this current model, then use the E3 breakout and cut off cut it off by 195th and move these kids to uh is it Lake Marian potentially? And then but Lake Marian's at capacity. So then on the left side of Lake Marian is
IPava. All of those from IPava going to uh Kenwood could be zoned into East View because East View is sitting at like I don't know 50%. Like or 63. I mean I mean so what I'm trying what I'm asking you guys to think about is next year and three year and
three years from now what is the future boundary design of what High View might look like? That again that's the future though. So the question is do you move them now or do you move them in you know do you move them next year the year after I mean that's that's what you're talking about
and but no go ahead go ahead. Sorry I'm just going to suspend the decorum. You can just jump in. I wasn't originally gonna talk about this, but I I mean I I hear what you're saying, Brian, and I appreciate like you
wanting to minimize impact for kids, right? I mean, that's what I'm hearing. The challenge I'm having is like even in the in the E3 model, the line you're drawing is not the line that that that area would still go to high view. So, we
can draw lines all night long. I think so. Oh, I don't I'm looking at the So, I guess my point is like like to to Tracy to your point when we when we shift lines, it changes a lot of things,
not just student count, but demographic count and um busing and you know, a whole host of things. So, that's why I say it again, I support option two. And this is what I was going to say earlier. I fully recognize and we've at least
I've received a number of emails from families that live close to High View. Um I'm not sure if they're part of the group that um is kind of the cutout that that would remain at High View regardless or if they're one of the seven families who would be
grandfathered in and and they're very passionate about wanting to go to the to High View that they can see it from their home. And I I fully appreciate that and sympathize with that. Um I don't think that's the reality that we can operate in unfortunately um at the
moment. Um and and know that there are many families who don't go to their nearest elementary in our district. That being said, I think the message is always that we have amazing schools and I know that's not it's not trying to be
a copout, but you know, these families are going to go to East Rio Elementary. The administrator for um for that school is here. very passionate about um what he does in Lakeville and and the teachers at that school. And so they're going to have amazing educational experience wherever they are. And I and
I think if parents understand like the overcrowding that their child would experience versus um having the space to really learn and be a kid. Um I think those are things to also consider. Um but I also appreciate what the families are emailing us about.
Yeah. Brian and Brett, question for you too. Um, if option two gets implemented, both of you get what you're asking for, don't you? I mean, well, hold on just a second, Brian. You You don't move if you can look out the window and see your
your school this year. Nobody has to move, right? So, so you've got stability in that as opposed to the instability from last year and doing it again this year. So if we go to a long-term again option two a long-term
um analysis and study of boundaries what if we start that study with the premise that you're bringing forward go back to option two with the premise you're bringing forward. So in that study there's it
starts with the fact that can we do this with like I said like you guys are saying if you can if you can see a school out your window can can my kid go to it and what if the study starts with that premise I I don't you still get
what you're asking for I mean this year and potentially next year or in 28 and 29 that's what I'm that's what I'm not understanding and I'm fine with that um I guess I'm looking at sorry I don't like this um
the I guess the only you know I I I hate the cutout but again we're looking at it for a year and if there's seven kids already and they're getting grandfathered in then it's anybody knew they would go to ESU for a year and but they would know that hey well I wouldn't
maybe they don't know but like send them a flyer like hey guess what you're going to this year but we are going to redo all this and you may be at high next year. Like I mean it comes with your welcome to the neighborhood packet. Like I don't know. You sign your paperwork and guess what?
Well, you might be zoned for that, but and that's where I think it it helps if we make if we start working on the next decision quickly as soon as possible, you know. Yeah, I would agree. So people can anticipate when they move into a neighborhood. Okay, this is Yeah. Yep. And I love not moving people, but I love putting that kind of premise like
you know again that if you look at E3 or whatever one you're talking about here I mean most of these schools they are pretty much surrounded by the people who go to that school and then the boundaries stretch wherever it has to go to you know meet all the needs of
whatever. I mean they kind of do that like so I mean again I think that's the goal you you want people to go you know if you live I'm sure I understand are you saying maybe I was maybe I misheard that anyone in this boundary right now are
grandfathered into high view for next year for sure and but we don't know about the following year but for for next year for sure and then any new developments or new homes that happen uh between now and the end of the next school year they're all going to East View. Okay. And then all of these kids
that are up here are still zoned to go to High View. And so where where are we at right now from a capacity wise then in in this model? Can you can we go back to the numbers to show 720 724? Yes. 724. 720. 720. And And what And so what percentage
capacity is that? Um it was 103 I believe. And so we've talked before 85 90% is comfortably tight and we're at at 103 already. All right. So, if you go back to the design, I just want to know as a two-way
option, how many kids are in in that in that breakout here? Because north of the breakout, north of the breakout. And and if that's a 100 kids or 50 kids, that gives you a little bit of capacity to reduce high
view. And while I I disagree, I mean, while I agree that the change isn't going to be favorable, but their school next year more than likely would be Cherry View. I mean, if you look if you look at the the interactive map, but E3 E3 has that one remaining as at
High View. Agree. E3 does, but because it also has a different cut down the bottom. And yeah, but but I think then I think because the issue right now is capacity, right? And we're and we're only moving these kids over to to to Cherry View. And how many kids is this down in this
bucket here? No one. Oh, sorry. Nobody. Okay. So, we haven't made any really changes then. That's that's And we're still sitting at 103. And we're getting emails from teachers saying it's packed. I don't have a room. I think there was a teacher that moved on because there wasn't maybe. So,
either we rip the band-aid now or we or you have 700 kids running at 103% capacity for the next year because you don't want to make the you don't want to make the call today. That's that's what I see. But, but Huh.
I don't think we're like what I'm trying to avoid is ripping a band-aid now and then ripping a band-aid in another one to two years and and but then you you're running a school a whole year. I realize that in addition to what we had today this
year. Um and the reality is that we can talk about how these lines are going to move, but we don't know how that is going to impact the numbers. And so we can play around with it on the thing, but we
don't have the numbers in front of us, which means if you say that, we can't make a decision on that without knowing the numbers. Fair enough. Which means we have to push this out further. Can can we can we propose a quick turnaround on what a two-way option might look like and get it via email and we can discuss it next week or
call a special meeting and make a decision by Friday? Tracy, do you have thoughts on that? I mean because that's I mean that you how many people are in this work group that you would have to get you know what I mean? Like it's a it's not just of us, right?
So there that area just north of that river I think we got the numbers on that it's pretty densely populated with students which if we move that to Cherry View then Cherry View is over 90% capacity which is all right so then
so then Cherry View is running hot by adding it's actually close to 97% is what we would be doing to Cherry View that was I think that what Cherry View is right now is at what is it right now 60 something% Mhm. Yeah. And so so I think in in uh
for sure there is one uh of your line draws uh Director Thompson that we did evaluate. It's uh coded BT8.
And um I think that that one did uh realign us uh at Cherry View. And I think there was another one um that you you in fact did give us over the weekend. Um I'm not I'm not being able to pull it up, but I'll share it back with you as soon as I can get my hands
on it. I think it was putting Cherry View in the 900s. Uh that's that's uh so so I guess that's that's the unknown like how many kids or students are in this in this pocket? And and I think what I saw in your
enrollment counts, we've got chair view right now at 639 and it can and how many can it hold? Roughly 900, I thought. And so I I'm I'm having I mean, is this 200 students here
or 250? I So And I guess we're weighing bad options, right? Do you move kids two years in a row or do you have kids at an overpop populated school? You know, which one does more harm to the students? Or we wouldn't be we're only moving kids once.
No, we would be this pack. We moved them last year. That's the challenge is like we Yes, they This isn't going to solve the problem. So, it's going to be something that we have to develop a longer term solution that I think is more significant.
Yeah. and give the space and time for that so that we can do something once that's highly effective and not going to result in multiple changes across multiple years. So I asked and I think Brett did too. I
asked parents because I, you know, I'd thrown out the idea of voluntary transfers back if we bust them, right, which there are a lot of other complicating factors I've learned. Um, namely, yeah, adding additional teachers and it would just increase our costs
quite a bit. Um, but I asked some of the High View families, you know, given the population issue, would you voluntarily bring your kids back to East View? And the ones I asked said no. And I think that was the same for Brett. Yeah,
it was the same for me and part of it was because of uh the new principal. Yeah. So, which I was kind of surprised. See what the new principal will bring to the table and maybe change some of the
culture at that school. So, but I will say also, Director Thompson, with your suggestion of moving that whole subdivision, that causes a lot of issues with staffing that we have um in place,
and I know Jessica's here if um if if you needed to speak to that, but that would um impact our teachers and the staffing that we already have set up at High View and at Cherry View. We would have to add teachers there to be able to
accommodate all of those students. Are they allergect? So like that's where it's hard I know. I'll just start yelling. Um, but that's where it's hard right now is looking at it like, you know, if we had, you know,
if you had a little bubble over it and said like this neighborhood there's, you know, 20 kindergarters, there's 10 first graders and 30 third graders and whatever, like that'd make it a lot easier to look at a map and start drawing lines. But until we have something that's a little more
interactive like that, I mean, it's really hard to know how many kids are going in each way because again, the staffing issues and whatnot. I mean, yeah, what if I mean that little chunk that's been developed for a while, hasn't it? What if they're all fourth and fifth graders right now?
So to that point, and it'd be good to share the information on the um the voluntary transfer costs and just the because class sizes, it's interesting to look at um you know, we need to lose x amount of kids out of High View before we drop a class there, but if you add,
you know, three kindergarteners to to East View, you have to add another teacher, right? And you don't lose, it's not one for one, you know, you could very easily start adding. So if you move that whole area there north of the river, you know, over to Cherry View, it
could equate to five teachers, right? Is that unfeasible? Isn't Isn't this I I think the whole point or in my mind is that we do not know how that would play out. And I don't think it's a quick fix solution. To me, this seems like let's, and I'm
reiterating, but like let's make a decision tonight that helps us get through a year to then in this next year make more significant long-term plans. I I I also don't want an overpopulated school. None of us do.
I mean, we already heard about it, not this year again. So, I just want to say to Director Thompson's point, um my my oldest son was in a classroom that had like 36 kids
at Cherry View. They couldn't even fit enough desks in the classroom at the time. Um I don't think that we consider, which I appreciate Director Thompson's comments about uh what that does to not only students but staff when the building is that overcrowded. Um, so one
of the things that we experienced with that, uh, he was in the autism program at the time. Um, we had no inclusion that year, absolutely none, because it was so overstimulating to be in the classroom with that many kids and then it was hard to have another adult in the classroom because there are kids that
need pair professional support and then that adds another adult and then we can't do that. Um, it makes it really hard to do interventions within the classroom because you can't bring in another teacher to run a small group because there's not enough space. So then you have teachers doing small groups in the hallway. Um it makes it
really hard to have like the specialists with like PE and music and all. I mean it is very very difficult. There's a lot of things. So I do appreciate him bringing this topic up because we are letting it sit with a building that's been hot all last year and now is again
over capacity this year. So Tracy, to that point, I mean what are our class sizes looking like at High View? I mean, are we hitting are we over our norms for all the other schools? Do you know 24 in kindergarten? Microsoft.
Dang it. Uh, looks like 24 uh enrolled in kindergarten, 23.8 in first, 24 in second, 26.75
per class in third, 26.4 four in fourth, 29.75 in fifth. So is that all within our like those are all within our normal ranges at every school. So we don't have a Cherry View. Was it Cherry View? Yeah.
Yeah. Y So we don't have that situation. We're monitoring that and operating in our guidelines. um to the point of uh director Cameron and mitigation uh second and fourth we know uh we have to do classroom mitigation there in order
to keep within our guidelines because we don't want to have that situation uh and we're being very sensitive to that and and I'm not suggesting that the capacity at uh high view is in in any means ideal. Uh I think the the longer range
or the bigger picture is and I I think I've had some conversations with uh director Thompson about this and that's across the whole system getting into a a better overall percentage and that's the
goal. uh if there's another um guideline if you will that there's you know a line of sight from whatever distance that may be as a premise then we can start doing that detailed analysis and comply with the
board's desires there and and serve our community that way. I I just again feel like this option two gives us the optimum amount of flexibility in order to do that and to do it well that um I think
the timeline we're in right now if we did option one or three has second and third order effects that probably don't serve us in the long run. That that's just my I'd just like to reiterate that. Right. Um,
understand, agree, and I I had you send me all of these numbers. So, I and I I know I specifically asked you about like fifth grade being somewhat pivotable pivotal in my opinion going into middle school. wanted to see
about three schools that had 31 uh kids per class in fifth grade and the cost associated with that as well as one I think one school for kindergarten I think is what I asked. Um you know the cost associated with that was almost
$400 some thousand to add teachers for all of those to try to drop those down. Um, so given kind of where we're at numbers wise, I mean class size technically they're all kind of within they're
within the chart. They're within the range. High View's just got too many classes. So you need to pull 30 kids out of like multiple classes to make High View work. I mean, you're looking
at for sure fourth grade, second grade, and first grade. You need to pull 23, 24, and 26 kids out of those grades. Like, I mean, it's 60 some odd kids you got to move, but you got to move them
strategically because those are the big sections. So, all right. Do we have a motion? I make a motion to accept option two. Is there a second? I will second. But did you have No. Go. Okay. I will second that. All
right. I'd like to make amendment on No, I'm just kidding. You joke, but uh we're not there yet. Um any discussion on the approval of option number two as presented. I assume that includes um the uh Amelia Meadows
going to JFK and MMS as well. Can I just add one extension? And I know Superintendent Bowman, you're already thinking about this, but knowing that High View um will have a new administrator next year. I think it's just important to surround her with um mentoring and support, right? And
probably more than if it was a seasoned 194 principal in this situation. And I think she'll be very successful. I'm probably going to move my office over there for the first three months. But I I I'll also share that um there's uh because they're over 700 there'll be an AP there as well and that's been
programmed in the budget. So um yeah, and I know what you're thinking. I just want to say that out loud that she will call and we'll make sure of that. I appreciate that. I do want to say I mean to Brett's point earlier um in district transfer is still
open if if parents and families are concerned about uh the number of students at High View. So, yeah, good point in your discussion. I I'm not in favor. I think as a board that's part of our job is this like we
should have be having working sessions and yeah, we probably should have had conversations on this in February and March instead of waiting until July. I mean, I get school starts in two months, but I'm not gonna have another school run this hot. And and part of our job as a board is to have these working sessions, hammer it out, and if we have
to have one tomorrow or have one on Thursday, that's what we should be doing. But that's my point of view. Yeah. And I don't disagree with you, and I think we do move quickly to get the long-term plan in place. I just don't like the idea of moving kids two years
in a row. Um, I don't like the idea of moving kindergarteners who've already sort of gone to orientation and whatnot and met, you know, staff and everything else. And they they haven't had orientation since July 8th. That doesn't start until what,
August? They h they happened in May, I think. Okay. Back when we still had all the teachers there. I Your committee I don't love it. I don't love it either, man. I really don't I I love the fact
then let's ask for a 2A option then if you don't love it like come go back to the drawing board and come back but it doesn't it doesn't impact anybody who's currently at the schools. They get to stay where they're at. There's no turmoil on that side of the house. We have to mitigate the school with the
plans that they're doing already. They're going to put bodies there to help out. I mean, I if we were if we were in a Cherry View situation like two years ago where there's 36 kids in a class, I think that's that's where it's like, okay, we need to make a a tough
decision now. I mean, but if the class sizes are the same, we just have more classes. Um, and if they're still able to use the communal areas, you know, effectively, the lunchroom and the gyms, um, I don't know. I'd just rather make the right decision this time so we're
not doing it again. If I I I'm I'm assuming that lunch is an issue because even though the class sizes are small, you still have to get that many kids through the lunchroom and you have a limited amount of time to do that. Um so I'm just trying to be
transparent with this and I'm sure that this does not take care of lunch for this at all. Do you want to continue then? Do an amendment. Like it's fine. All right. If there's no other discussion, um there being a first and a
second, all in favor of approval of option number two, say I. I. I. All opposed? All right, it's approved. Um motion to adjurnn.
Seconded. All in favor? I. All opposed.