How are you? I would like to call the meeting to the flag of the United States to the stands nationy and justice for all.
Motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Dan, do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any discussion, questions, additions? Hearing none. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.
Any oppose say no. Uh motion passes. All right. First item on our agenda is community comments. We've now reached the time for community comments. It's an opportunity for the public to address the school board on an item included in this agenda in accordance with the guidelines printed on the reverse of the
agenda. And I am hearing we have no one here to present any comments. So no one's objecting to that. We'll move on. Next item is approval of curriculum resources. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, welcome
back to a new school year. The first agenda on the item board agenda tonight, first item is related to our board goal of literacy. Tonight we will be summarizing all of the work we took last year to train teachers. This year we're
going to give them the stuff to work with. So associate superintendent Dr. Amy Leoo will come up and summarize the process and the final recommendation. Dr. Leoo. Good evening Superintendent Law, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. As
Superintendent Law mentioned, over the past year, uh we've done extensive work with our English language arts committee at the elementary level. I know that we re or provided updates both in March and in May about both the work of literacy
and the work of that English language arts committee. Um, the culmination of that is to provide aligned resources both to state standards and to the Minnesota Read Act for our elementary teachers to implement in our English
classrooms this fall as we uh move forward and move all of that professional learning into day-to-day practice in our classrooms. So, tonight we're asking for you to approve um core English language arts resources,
functional phonics and morphology uh for the word recognition component of our English language arts program and arts and letters um from great minds as the language comprehension component of
our ELA district curriculum. In addition to that, we did have one IB resource that we brought forward for approval, and that's the IB global politics course companion that we're recommending for
global politics um course for the 2526 school year. So, we're now looking for a motion to approve the materials. The uh materials were available for the public at the district service center throughout the summer and no comments were received. Uh
I'd entertain a motion to recommend approval of all materials. So moved. Chris, do we have a second? Second, Sally. Any discussion, questions? All right, there's a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I.
I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is approval of district language access plan. Superintendent law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, as you
heard earlier this year, the Minnesota legislature has put forward a requirement that on an annual basis, all school boards approve the district's language access plan. At our June meeting, you had the chance to hear from Dr. Leoo about this language access plan, the requirements. tonight. She
will summarize that information and seek approval. Dr. Leoo. Thank you, Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, uh, beginning in the 2526 school year, as Superintendent Law stated, all Minnesota school districts are required to have a
board adopted language access plan. According to statute, plans must outline the district processes and procedures to ensure all students and families who communicate in a language other than English can access information related
to their child's academic outcomes, progress, and any determinations or placements of students in specialized programs and services. This plan also includes how information will be communicated and accessible to our
school community, including how we'll notify parents of this information. At the June 26 schoolboard study session, I provided an overview of the current district practices and procedures related to the various components of the
plan that are in compliance with that new statute. Following your approval, this information will be available on the district website on the English learner page. Um, and additionally, additionally, this information will also
be linked in our student and parent handbooks for each school for this fall. So, that website's ready to go. all of the various components. Um, our subheaders and boxes that will have drop-own information to make it
accessible to parents as well as to our staff. Thank you, Dr. Leoo. Any comments or questions from the board? All right. I'd entertain a motion to recommend approval of the district language access plan for the 2025 2026
school year. So moved. Okay. Marie, may I have a second? Second. Mike. Any further discussion? Motion in a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed?
The motion carries. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is uh recognition of educators receiving continuing contract status. Superintendent law. Mr. Mr. Chair, as defined in Minnesota statute, teachers receive continuing
contract tenure when they start their fourth year in public education in the same district. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but that's a simple version of tenure. Um, all of these teachers have accepted a position in the district to start for the
upcoming year. There's a list that you can see of several dozen teachers across the district. Tonight is only an acknowledgement and a congratulations for the teachers who have earned tenure with Minnetonka public schools. This is for your review.
No formal actions required. Okay. Well, congratulations to all the teachers receiving continuing contract status. We're proud to have you as partners in the district. Moving on, we have the report on annual
parent survey. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, one of the driving factors for board action since I've been here is gathering input from our parents. We do this throughout the year for topical uh changes to the system and on an annual basis. In May,
we ask all of our parents of K12 to give feedback on uh each level of our system and collectively in our system. I'd remind the members of the public that over a year ago, Dr. Getty, who's presenting tonight, our communications executive director, met with members of the board to review all of these
questions and sent them out to an outside survey provider to verify that they're, you know, statistically relevant questions and not overly leading. We made a handful of changes at that point in time and this is the second year with the upgraded annual parent survey. Dr. Getty,
superintendent law, Mr. Chair, members of the board, thank you for the opportunity to present the results. Um again this year this is um a lot of data and I know that when you get it you're looking at all the comments that come in and there between all of the different answers are thousands and so thank you
for taking the time to read through those. Um I also had some help this year in digesting the comments, coding them, theming them through an AI partner. um which is really kind of exciting to be able to use some of the tools and to help us um see through um that
third-party lens really learning how to prompt well to get the the results that really will help us. So so that was a fun new way to access this and saved lots of time as well. So but I know that you'll individually read the comments so thank you for that. Um and we did as well. It's distributed to the to the um
executive cabinet and superintendent as well as the board. So, so we're also looking at those, but it is nice to have another partner in helping us to sum some things up. Uh, so again, a little bit that superintendent law had said, we again uh used the model that we worked
with with Morris Leatherman um firm to have best practices in our survey and we deployed it from late May to early June, shorter time frame, which they had also advised in years past. We emailed to all families and we had 1684 respondents um which was about seven more than last
year. Um, so consistent with last year, the breakout of resident and open enrolled is close to the to the breakouts that we have within those populations in our school district. 91% in-person learning and 1% full e-learning students uh whose parents responded. And then we did see good consistency level across learning levels
and by grade levels in schools. It was proportionate. So we think that this is statistically sound. I did an overview slide this year so that there are things you can think about as you're looking through the data. things that kind of come to mind or that you might be calling out. Overall, you'll see that the satisfaction was um was strong. It
largely had increased across the district. Um that belonging and well-being, which was something that obviously has been an emphasis for the district and for the schoolboard. Um measurements are up at all learning levels, bullying prevention awareness has increased across levels and parents have been expressing that bullying is
declining. That was a strong emphasis again by the school board. So that's something that's good to see. Parent questions and concerns about students use of personal and schoolisssued technology remain at or slightly above last year's levels. Um, and correlation
or not, we're not sure, but just note that we had just sent out and completed the student cell phone survey with parents, students, and staff around the time that this came out. So, it might have just been on stu uh parents' minds. So, that was one of the things that we saw was a lot of mention of student cell phone use. And then middle school
academic programming and additional experience or learning opportunities um are something you've prioritized for the year ahead and that Dr. Leoo and her team have prioritized with principles and then with teachers. And that is something that you'll see that parents are looking for at the learning at the middle school learning level as you look
at this data. Uh so these are the questions that we asked. I'll fly through them, but if you want me to slow down at all, please let me know. I'm happy to answer any specific questions I can. Uh, overall, how would you rate the education provided by the Minnitonka School District? 97% said excellent or good.
That was a 1% increase from last year. It's really hard to move these markers when you're talking about that many respondents. So, a 1% increase is strong. We feel good about that. Um, has the education provided by our school district during the past 5 years improved in quality, decreased in
quality, or remained the same? We take out the ones who say I don't have enough years in the district to to give you a good marker of that. Um, but we did see a 4% shift from the decrease column to the remained the same column. So that's an uptick. We saw consistency in the
improved column. For preschool education, they use a model of our survey to do the same and we take a frame shot of that. They work closely with their team on the results. So this is just a snapshot and they had 29 respondents. So every single respondent if it moves in a direction is pretty big
percentage. So it's like 3.5% for every single person that responds. And so you'll see some shifts and it might be one parent or two. So that is information that they take uh and use for their programming and follow up with families individually. Um but again strong numbers in the 90s uh for the
most part and that's great to see for elementary education. These are the questions that we asked about teaching and learning. And you can see in that column of 2025 that the numbers are consistent either within or above or within a point of where they were last
year. The one um that we see that is a shift of 3% and I marked all the ones that were 4% shift positive or a more negative, red for the more negative, blue for the more positive and there weren't any that fell within that 4% but technology fell within 3%. So 3% fewer
um elementary parents said that technology is very important to their child's learning. On building relationships of the elementary parents uh that answered the survey or said they had an elementary child. Again no huge shifts in the questions about building relationships.
Uh you can see that in the column about um I have meaningful opportunities to be involved in my child's school. There was a huge uptick two years ago and that maintained. So that's nice to see a 16% increase in that from 2023 and that held again this last year. And then it was
also great to see that the the principal at my child's school is accessible grew another percentage point. And again there were a lot of parents have an elementary child who answered 1,086 and so moving it up even a percent is just big and that's really great to see. Um I know that well-being and belonging are
two incredible efforts that we're trying from the schoolboard down to really um effort through our schools over the past several years. So, it's good to see some growth in this as well. And we see it uh staying the same at the well-being level. It was in the 90s and then moving up a percentage for belonging. So, that
um was good to see at the elementary level and continues to be a focus for our principles and staff. Um for technology, so this one is one that we did see a little bit of a shift in. We saw a slight drop in those who say that the iPad works well for them and that they're comfortable with
educational screen time. Um we did see some consistency in children using technology in a balanced way. Um but still these are things that we think are on parents minds. Amount of homework. We get about the same balance every year. In fact, this year it was the exact same percentages
as last year. So 78% telling us just the right amount of homework. 10% said um too much and 12% said too little. And that pretty much stays the same year-over-year on the elementary level. U for subjects by elementary school parents. Again, no major shifts. Nice to
see things in the '9s. Some of these are smaller classes and so when you do see a shift um that especially on the middle and high school, you'll see that that course um that it might be a really small percentage of people taking the course. And so again, jumps just like with the preschool u bullying
prevention. So this was an important slide to show you. I know that bullying prevention remains something the awareness of it that we really try to um educate our families on. Um, and we saw 5% increase in awareness about our bullying prevention efforts at the elementary level. That's a really strong
marker. And a 3% increase in those who say they've helped a child to report an incident. That's not a bad thing. We know that as there's more awareness about bullying prevention efforts and avenues to report things that we're going to see an uptick and that's okay. Um, not that we ever want to see an
increase in bullying, but that may not be an increase in bullying. That may just be an increase in reporting. uh we ask if you'd recommend your child's school to a friend or neighbor. On on average, we saw a 1% increase over last year from 94% to 95%. And this was
the breakout by school. And then breaking down the data, we asked um and again this this was helpful to use AI have a fun partner in that. Um what would you advise elementary school parents? What would you advise the district and your child's school principal on? The number one piece and
again this was out of,086 who took the survey. So 8% of them said tech usage and policy, iPad screen time or student cell phone use or policy. Um 4% or 48 said class sizes. Uh 38 said communication consistency and brevity.
It was kind of a mix of things and so some of it may have been I get really great communications from some of my child's teachers but not all of them. I'd like more of that across um and consistency across the subjects or my principal gives me lots of information but I wish it was bucketed differently
so that I have talking points or like bullet points rather than a big narrative. And so we do uh get comments about that and that's always something that we try to help with. And then uh 33 parents said academic skills or learning that might have been a concern about a particular subject or a class or programming. Um and so a mix of things.
Uh 28 said school scheduling and time management. This was new one on the list, but it also came at the end of the school year when we uh ended the school year at a different time and that was kind of a late notice to some families. So, we heard about that and I'm sure you noticed that in the comments that we had several comments about. No last minute
changes, please. It disrupts our daycare. Um, so that did come up in this. And then bullying prevention and student safety does remain on parents minds. 2% of the parents that responded to the survey who have elementary children or 26 parents told us that was something they wanted us to continue to be working on.
And then what would they commend their elementary school principal on? Um number one, 17% of the elementary parents that responded or 189 said principal leadership and personal connection. They were really pleased with the principles. Uh strong communications of those principles, school culture and community building,
student support and individual care, academic programs and innovation, teacher quality, staff excellence, and special programs and services. And that was great to see. It was kind of across the board intervention, special education programming, advanced learning opportunities that all fell within
special programs and services. Any questions on the elementary level before I move on? Nope. Middle school education. So again, we ask about teaching and learning questions. You can see the one that is in red was a 4% drop over last year. So these are things that again I've shared with um Dr. Leoo.
We've shared these with the principles across the school so that they see where there was a drop. Um, and that's something that they can focus in on, but also as you've prioritized middle school programming for the year ahead and we've made some switches there. That hopefully will be one of the markers that we can look at and see if it's grown. U, you'll
see two more and they fall also within the academic component. So, one saying, I believe my child will be academically prepared to be successful by the grade xgrade level and overall I'm satisfied with my child's educational experience. Um, had a drop. But with a lot of the other ones we see on or at the level of
last year and that was strong to see and we'll see where those markers go for the ones that are in red for next year. For technology, let me get my notes on this one because I think this was another one where we saw light shifts. Uh we had a 5% shift from the iPad works
well to it does not. And we had a 4% shift who said they were not comfortable with educational screen time and a 3% shift in those who felt that their student was using it in a healthy balanced way. So there was more awareness and again this came right after the cell phone survey and there were as you saw I'm sure more comments
about cell phones. So it was kind of all tucked together with education whether it was personal device use or iPad use. There were comments across the board. So, it's something we know parents are aware of or that we're aware parents are concerned about and that we are sure to, you know, give to our principles as well
to see how we're um enforcing and using. And one of the biggest comments with iPads wasn't to get rid of them. It was let's make sure they're used in an intentional way, which I know our teachers do um you know, and that they're not used as a reward after the kids's done with the schoolwork.
By subject areas, you can see the in the red was a drop in satisfaction. in the blue was an increase. Um the Chinese program there were um Chinese immersion there were fewer students in that. So again just a couple students parents marking that as lower would cause a big
shift like that. Whereas with some of the larger programs it wouldn't happen that way. There's more kids that are a part of the program. But French and German were the same thing. It's small pocket sizes. So again those big leaps that's because one more parent said that that was a good experience. Um and then
the drops in teched again that's a small sample size. The one in STEM was u stood out a little bit because that is a larger sample size. And so again, that's something that goes to the principles and they're aware of on the well-being and belonging markers. You can see they both ticked up 1%.
That's really great to see at the middle school level. We love that and we'd like to see those grow even more. So I know that continues to be a focus. I'm building relationships. um a slight drop well a a significant drop maybe in school to home communications keeps me
well informed. So again we're always looking at ways that we can support with communications um and happy to continue to do that and this again is something the principles have seen a lot of the other markers stayed strong with where they were. We're happy to see parents feel we provide a safe environment that they feel welcomed during the day that
grew by a couple percent. There's an adult in the building that the child can talk to if there's a problem. The principal is accessible that grew a percentage point. Great to see um and the satisfied with guidance services that fluctuates um that has fluctuated um various years both at the middle and
high school level. So that's one that we look at as well in particular. Um has your child told you that they were bullied? And that number 27 um so we had a decrease in bullying. 5% more said not at all. That
was great to see. Uh and 3% fewer said that it happened five or more times a month. We wouldn't want that to happen to any child, let alone five or more times a month. But it was good to see a drop in the in the frequency. Middle school parents, would you recommend your child school to a friend
or neighbor? This is same number we saw last year. So we held that 93% saying yes, 7% saying no. And then these were comments. What would you advise your middle school principal on? Um, again, out of the 449 parents who said they have a middle schooler who
took this survey, 74 of them said tech use or policy, iPads or student cell phone use, and there was kind of a heavy up on student cell phone use again at this level. Um, academic skills and learning, that was usually a particular class or a particular teacher or a particular um program that they had a
advice on for us. Communications consistency and brevity, that was similar to what we saw at the elementary level. And then homework and overload we saw and workload we saw that at this level. Uh school scheduling and time management a lot of comments again about don't make changes at the end of the
school year. It was disruptive. Um class sizes that was 15 parents. Uh student mental health 15 parents and transportation or pickup drop off or parking logistics. There were 13 parents at the middle school level that commented on that. And then for what
would you commend your principal on at the middle school level? Strong leadership was number one, 57 parents. Uh strong communications and transparency. Um it showed up on both though you need to work on it and it's great. Um more said it's great. Uh student support and development. Um
they're pleased with that that the principles are providing positive school culture that um there's academic innovation and learning approaches and that there's a really strong principal student engagement. Um, and that was something that we heard a lot at the elementary level, but it showed up in the comments as well. Um, on the what
would I commend the district on? So, that's great at the middle school level. So, any questions at the middle school level before we go to high school. Okay. Uh, we ask about teaching and learning questions. Um, I'll preempt this by
saying really big good news at the high school. There's some really nice shifts that we see in some of the data coming up. Um, I believe my child enjoys school. That grew by 4%. I think that's hard to do at the high school level. So, bravo to principal Ericson and team and teachers. Um, I believe the school
provides an environment that supports my child's sense of well-being. And then the next one, belonging, uh, grew by 2% and 1%. Those are great numbers to see and we'd like to see them go up even more. Uh, you can see some of the growth in the programs here. I think it's hard to grow by 6% in physical education at
the high school level and so good for them. Um, momentum, tech ed, and that group. um Vantage um and world language and compass all grew. Compass is a smaller program u but still nice to see that rebound.
Questions about technology. I'll get my notes on that one. Um we saw a slight uptick in those that said the iPad works well and in those that feel their student is getting a healthy balance or have comfortable with that balance. So that was good to see. There are always more concerns at the elementary level.
this year, middle school, two um and then these numbers stayed pretty strong with building relationships. No big shifts um across there's an adult with that my child connects with that grew by a percent. The principal is accessible that grew by a percent. Um again satisfied with guidance services.
This is something that we see and every year we see differently. We had a big rebound last year from 2023 of 13% and now it's dropped just 3%. So it is something we continue to look at. Has your child told you that they were bullied?
Um, we saw no we saw slight shifts um in the three to four times a year or five or more times a year, but no, no big shifts and no increase overall in those that said not at all. Um, the school works cooperatively with parents in the community to prevent drug
and alcohol use. 83% strongly or somewhat agree that's consistent with last year. And would you recommend your child's school? 91%. Yes, this is a growth of a percent year-over-year. It's nice to see. These were the what they'd advised the high school principal on. Tuck use
was number one, but student cell phone use was most of those comments. Um, academic skills and learning, having different advice on different programs, things they'd like us to add. I mean, it was add this strand to Vantage, add this strand to I mean, some of it was very positive, but it was more. I want more of this. Um, uh, transportation, pickup
and drop off, and parking. A parking pass is also factor in at the high school level. Communication related to college counseling. So this was a new one and again I think this was helpful with AI. This isn't something that I necessarily ever saw in the past but it might be interesting for me to go back and if I dump last year's data through
AI is this something that calls out because it isn't something that I made that connection on. But that is something that came up with 20 parents and that was 8% of the high school parents that took the survey. Uh school culture and student support something we continuously can work on. uh sports and activities. Um there were comments like
some about coaching quality and it wasn't any one particular sport. Um fair opportunities for all students. This was again one that hasn't been on my radar but that showed up on these results. Um 16 parents. So that was 7% of the high school parents that commented and school
scheduling and time management. And a lot of that was about um workload like homework workload and students learning time management and what can we do to help them be successful. Uh for what would you commend your high school principal on? Number one, strong communications and transparency. Jeff's
a great communicator. Strong leadership, academic innovation and learning approaches, student support and development, having a positive school culture, of course the teacher quality and staff excellence, and the academic program diversity. Just those opportunities out there. Any questions
on the high school level? Okay, school and district leadership. Um, some good data here too. Good. Always good to see growth here. So, um, we have a statement and then we ask people if they agree or disagree. School district administrators are accessible to me if they have ideas, concerns or
questions about the district and its schools. 84% strongly agree or somewhat agree. That's a growth of a percent. And so, that's out of the 1684 who took the whole survey. So, it's nice to see even a percentage growth on that. And when you jump down to the next one, schoolboard members are accessible to me if I have ideas, concerns, or questions
about the district and its schools. 79% strongly agree or somewhat agree. And that's a 3% growth over last year. That's really good to see. So, um, so that continues to track in a good direction. I trust the Minnitanka school board and district administration to do what is right for the children of this
district. 85% strongly agree or somewhat agree. And that's a 6% growth over last year. So, congratulations. That's a really good number. Um, and that's a really important marker. And then our community receives a good value from its investment in local public schools. That's consistent with last year at 92.
Our all-time high in that was 96. And we'd love to see that track back up, but again, those percentage points are hard with that many people to track up. So, really incredible to see the growth both with school district administration and then with the school board. Uh, so good job. Uh, how do you like to engage with the
school board? Um, you can see school board news email which I'll be working on tonight and received tomorrow. Um, the schoolboard web pages on the district website, emails, personal calls, the inerson meetings that you have with constituents. Um, many attend or view the schoolboard meetings. We have them of course all live stream now
including study sessions, listening sessions with the school board that have been held and school news postcard which we send out a few times a year. And then I find the following communication efforts helpful regarding important announcements, events and opportunities. We divided out principal and superintendent this year so that people could really tell us like what
works for them and those were the two top things anyway. So the principal and superintendent emails were by far number one. Then the annual report which comes out in late October, the district website content, the Peach Star effliers, um social media posters, the
Oh Minnotonka district podcast, um and that continues to get a point or two every year. We love that. We're going up on season 3 coming up. um school news postcards, printed flyers, and uh updates from the child's principal on video and then feature videos.
We ask about innovation every year. We are a district of innovation and we ask about their ideas around it. So we had 491 parents who commented on this out of the 600 1684 who took the survey. Um and 5% of the overall who took the survey
said technology balance, screen time, iPad uses, student cell phone use. That typically is the first thing that we see. Um artificial intelligence. So this made the list last year, but it's risen on the list this year. Um so that was 43 parents specifically saying, "How are you using it? Are your teachers using it? Are there guidelines? Do the kids
get to use it? Do the kids know how to use it? Are you teaching them to use it?" Well, all things on parents' minds. Expansion of successful academic programs. In particular, momentum and vantage were mentioned. the thanking you for that and then also asking for even more opportunities for students and more
onboarding with that which I know we're doing now at the middle school level with the electives outdoor learning and more physical activity. It was interesting that this landed on innovation but it didn't land on the um advise the principal for the elementary level. Um so that's interesting but it is an innovation that more are seeing
what's the opportunity with outdoor learning. What are you going to do more with that? um how do you increase that life skills and practical education that shows up every year and a lot of times it's about financial planning or some of the other pieces with that district tech info how-to for parents so that is something that our executive director of
technology Amanda Fay is working on kind of an onboarding piece for our elementary and we just did um for the new families to the high school an overview of things and she gives a presentation on district tech to really show parents how do you use SSO you know how do you um what do you do with schooly how can you find things and and
I think even more of that has and helpful and I'm really excited the elementary parents will have that too. And there's a lot of resources on the website for digital citizenship and and helping families through that. Um then individual and advanced learning support and language program enhancements all
got a nod, but we could do more. Um what would you advise the district on? Uh so 9% of that 1684 said uh technology balance, student cell phone usage like a policy around it or guidelines screen time and iPad usage. Um, 86 said class
size or staffing concerns. 68 said communication or district tech suggestions. 59 59 said enrollment and district capacity. 52 or 3% said academic standards and support for all learners. Another 3% at
44 said bullying prevention and school climate. 2% budget priority and resource allocation. And 2% homework and academic balance. And then I thought I'd end on a positive. What did they commend the district on? Um 11% or 184 parents said
outstanding leadership. So great work. Um communication excellence opportunities for students, specialized programming for students, school culture and community building, academic excellence, and program variety. And these are all AI's terms, so I didn't insert certain words that I just really
liked, like the excellence next to communication. I didn't put that there, but I used it because they put it there. Uh, individualized student support, immersion programs and language learning and teacher quality and staff excellence. Um, so that was the results of the survey and I know you had all the comments as well, so you got to really
see those uh in comparison, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Dr. Getty. Um, board members comments. Uh, Kimarie, thank you. this is has to be so much work for you and your team and it's just
it's an enorant amount of data that is so useful to us and and our goals and it's aligned so well and thank you for all the work question that I have is of the 1684 is that increasing year-over-year of the families who
respond or is it about study well it's steady with last year and last year was the year that we really revamped the survey and in the past you had to take the survey multiple multle times if you had multiple kids. And so now you can take it once and we record you as one parent, but you can say,
"I've got two kids at this level, two kids at this level, two kids at this level." And so, um, it's it's hard to I mean, I could go back and hand count how many are are additional, but I think it's actually more that, you know, than we've had in the past. We used to get about 2500 and now we're at um almost
1,700, but several have multiple kids. And so it's been great to see the the interest and the we we'd always love to see that number grow. Sure. Well, thank you. Yes. It's great great information for us. Thank you. Who else? Sally. Yeah. I'll just add that I am hearing
from community members that they appreciate the changes that were incorporated into the survey that they do feel that it has great integrity and that the questions are not leading etc. So thank you very much for investing in doing that. Thank you for helping look at it. We did have a few board members who helped us
to kind of put another lens on it before we met with Morris Leatherman and even after we did and that was super helpful. So thanks Dr. Mike. Um just one quick question. Uh Dr. Getty you had mentioned uh the bullying in particular. You said that there was a
increase in reporting um and I know we have systems in place to actually track the events themselves. Uh can you probably with the help of superintendent law kind of just kind of remind the public what what we are doing to actively ensure ourselves and
basically make sure that we are confident that it is an increase in parent reporting and not that the incidence itself is on the rise. I think I defer to superintendent law. So one of the hard things is this survey
isn't connected to those other data points. So, this is parents self-reporting that they've helped their children report bullying. Um, we are going to have a at the November session, we're going to talk about ways that we measure um student behavior in
school and trend data on that. And so, we'll try to overlap. We did very intentionally many times during the year communicate our bullying prevention efforts including reporting. So you we saw an increase in awareness about bullying prevention and and we
think that that probably also linked to encouraging parents to report things that they wanted to have addressed. So we you know we'll look at that other data point but um all of our principles had multiple times during the year communicated this is how we address
bullying, this is how you report bullying. And we're hoping because that was an area that we had seen before that parents weren't aware about our prevention e efforts that the two are linked and we'll have some more data on it. Perfect. Yeah. And I was like like I said, it was mainly because I don't want
especially if there's anybody watching this this live stream for the first time who isn't aware with this the the conversations that we've had. And I don't want them walking away thinking, "Oh, the reporting is up and that mean must mean that there's more bullying going on." And actually that we do have evidence that it's not that there isn't
a correlation between the increased reporting of parents assisting with reporting and the actual bullying events themselves. That's a great point. I think we we talked about that a couple times in the spring and I'm glad that here we've got
it on the calendar for November for a data driven report. Sally, I have one point of curiosity. In the elementary school data, there was the question there about is my child prepared for to move to the next right
grade? And I'm curious if we could determine if that has is impacted at all by the COVID bubble. Let me back to that one. It's right at the beginning, isn't it? Yeah, it's early. Was it the middle school level or was it the Was that the one that was I might have missed it on the transition
was a little lower, but here we go. Oh, it grew a point um on the elementary level. At the middle school level, we saw a bit of a drop. Is that where you were thinking? Okay. Well, I think it was the elementary school level one. I was just It's just a curiosity if if we can trend if I don't think we get down to the You
can't slice this down to the grade level, can you? For the respondents. I could. I just was curious if you could see that bubble if anything is happening with that bubble of kids who especially were really young learners at the time that we were in COVID and if that is still, you know, showing up in data.
Yeah, it'd be interesting to compare. I mean, we we might get some data that we could pull out of that, but since the survey has shifted considerably the last two years, it might not be really clean data. So, we could look at it and it would be in the ballpark, but I don't know that it would be. We'll try to pick
a grade level like fifth grade is the transition year and look at and see if there's trend data. Okay, great. Thanks, Dan. Um I I just want to make a point that you know it it might appear to any folks watching like this is this is a
big like sort of impersonal aggregation of data that gives us a broad overview of what's happening in the district and in a cynic out there could could look at this and say well that that's great that this just a big pile of data that they can pat themselves on the back and move
on. But we get the full report. We got probably a hundred pages reflecting 2,000 some individual comments from parents in the district. So we saw all the call outs where you praised a teacher or praised a principal for having an impact on your kids' lives,
your frustrations with the budget or transportation or anything like that. And so we we see all that stuff and David and the administration make sure make sure all those individual comments get funneled to the places they need to be so that we're responding to your
requests not just in in individual not just in an aggregate way but on an individual level as well. It's a great point. It's a good point. Yeah, I would I would echo that. I think um I really appreciate the uh continued effort at
improving the quality of the survey data and the and the efforts that we're we're having. And similar to Dan's comment, I think the community members should know that um we take this stuff very seriously and we listen to our community in a lot of ways, but particularly
through the survey and this is part of the one of the data points we look at when we're setting our schoolboard goals. And um so thank everyone here uh and anyone in the community who took the time to respond and gave us all of those
uh genuine comments and reactions because it really does uh put you in the conversation with us about what we should be focusing on. Um and so we do hear you and we take it seriously. A couple of things that I I think bubble
up for me is the technology was level after level. there was still some concern and it might not set off alarm bells that were only 75% of the people were satisfied with our use of technology but the way that it comes up
again and again I think it's it's always going to be part of the conversation um and uh we have more coming on on our cell phone policy and other things uh in the fall but uh stay tuned hopefully we can keep you part of that conversation
as Well, just to remind the uh the public and the board knows this that when the board turns around and and studies a specific area, it's not uncommon to ask that a detailed survey about that topic like cell phones. We asked uh throughout the year last year and we might come back
and um one do a better job communicating technology expectations in school and then two talk about how to move this needle with small groups of parents on terms of expectations. Okay. All right. Anything else? Thank you for that fantastic report. Appreciate it.
Yeah. Thank you very much. All right. The next item on our agenda is the approval of sale of 2025D long-term facilities maintenance bonds. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, you're very familiar with the fact that when we
bid projects early, we have the ability to get great prices. Another part of the financial picture menota is is when we sell bonds for future projects, we have the ability to invest those bonds and make interest that helps the bottom
line. I believe this was the first day we could sell bonds. So this was a carry-in item for you tonight, but tonight executive director of finance and operations Paul Bourgeois is going to summarize bond sale for the 2025D long-term facility maintenance bonds. Mr. Bourgeoa.
Thank you, Superintendent Law. And uh Mr. Chair and members of the board on this uh 80th 80th anniversary of the sessation of hostilities in World War II, which is a good thing. Um we also did another good thing. We sold our uh 2025D general obligation long-term
facility maintenance bonds. Uh that's a a big mouthful. So for the public, it's what we use to maintain our buildings for the long term. over over the past years, our community made significant uh investments in the facilities and uh so it's incumbent upon us to kind of pay it
forward and they've been built with good bones, I keep saying and and uh they continue to have good bones and so we can a continued investment in them for the long term will help us uh make sure that they're in operation for future generations and again that's honoring the past and getting ready for the
future. Uh we had a very good bond sale today. Um our our our bond rating is AAA. Uh there's only about five or six dozen school districts out of about 13,000 in the country that have that rating. We
first got it in April of 2010. So we're in our 15th year of having that rating going going on 16. Uh the um the important thing about that is when you go to the market, we have a really good appetite for our bonds. Uh in fact most
of our coupons today were had uh they call them getting subscribed. They were subscribed at two times the the the uh number of orders uh for coupons available for most of them. And a lot of the coupons actually had four times the number of of subscriptions asking to to
buy our bonds compared to what we had available to sell. So uh that helped us to actually lower the interest rate a little bit, but we got a really good rate. So we were expecting to sell at 4.64%. We um actually ended up selling at a total of 4.46%.
Uh and um so a very good result in that regard. Just a little bit of information, some tiny Tonka tidbits about what we're using this money for. It's a lot of nuts and bolts things. Uh for this this money will actually be used to pay for projects in summer of
2026. Uh when we're looking at doing about $4.5 million worth of roofs, uh almost $1.2 million worth of paving. You never get get away from roofing and paving in Minnesota, right? Um and their cold winters and the the freeze thaw
cycle. About $3.3 million worth of boiler and mechanical room uh replacing old components and uh uh updating those those factors. About $2.6 million worth of window replacements and another 2.6 million of cabinet flooring and print
and and uh painting and those types of things. So we have about 1.8 8 million almost 1.9 million square feet of space. Uh it's kind of hard to believe but uh we have almost twothirds of our space is actually over 60 years old. So it's
really important for it to have steady tenderloving care so to speak to keep it going uh and have it be in good shape. Our public expects us to have buildings that are not ostentatious but that look uh you know stately so that uh if your student is being dropped off it's like
this is an important building and what happens there is important. So we want to keep them in a state of good repair. Our high school the core of it is actually 72 years old. Uh the core of our middle schools is actually 64 years old. The core of most of our elementary
schools are actually between uh 58 and 60 years old. So, we have to keep putting this TLC into them and um make this investment to to keep them uh in good shape for the future. So, with just that little bit of background information, I'd ask you to approve this bond sale and uh then we will get about
the business of getting ready for next summer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bourgeoa. Um to start us off, may I have a motion to approve the 25 2025D sale resolution as prepared by Dorsy and Whitney? So moved.
Dan, may I have a second? Second. Chris, any discussion? Camry. I will thank you for all of your work on this because uh not only are you always on top of the actual projects themselves, but I appreciate the savings
on the interest that we get by having such a good market for our bonds. We all do our part, so glad to do it. We've got a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any oppose, say no. Motion carries. Thank you.
All right. Next item on our agenda is uh the consent agenda. May I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda? So moved. Camarie, may I have a second? Second, Chris. Uh all those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed?
Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is board reports. Any reports? We've all had lovely summers. Um, may I have a superintendent report? Mr. Chair, members of the public, next
week all of our new teachers come back. The next week all of our staff come back and then the next week students come back. So, the next few weeks are busy. You'll probably notice fields are busy morning till night. Students are selling gold cards and other various
opportunities to support our teams. please get involved and support them. Um, we're excited to welcome students back for a wonderful new school year. All right, next item is announcements. Do I have any announcements? I would not be a good theater parent if
I didn't announce to everyone that there is a student showcase coming up at the end of next week. It is free seating. The students put this on themselves. Um, uh, and I'm embarrassed that I don't remember the date because I'm a student. I'm a I'm a theater parent whose student has graduated, but it's either Friday or
Saturday. Look at your calendars and uh it's a lot of fun and the students put on a very high quality theater event. If you've never been, I highly encourage you to attend. Any other announcements? All right. May I have a motion to adjurnn?
So moved. Mike, may I have a second? Second. Camry. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? We are journed.