All right. Next item up is a review of possible 202425 calendar change for professional development. Superintendent. Mr. Chair, members of the board, uh we have been talking throughout the year about the importance of literacy in the school
system and one of the major board goals this year, new middle school programming starting in the fall. Tonight we're going to have a discussion about how we're going to provide those teachers an opportunity to be most prepared for the fall. So Dr. Leoo is going to talk about a calendar
modification for our traditional half day last day of school making that a full day teacher training day. Dr. Leu, good evening superintendent law, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight to discuss the request to add the
professional learning day at the end of the year. As you know, at the elementary level, we've been doing extensive work in literacy and teachers have been working to implement their training uh throughout the year. For next school year, we will also be implementing new
ELA standards, new district curriculum, and new curricular resources. And those curricular resources will include both a foundational skills resource as well as a meaning makingaking resource or a resource to support um the comprehension
side of literacy. As a part of the ReadAct uh memorandum of understanding with the teachers, we did commit to providing our kindergarten through fifth grade teachers with an additional professional learning day to be most prepared for this work by
November 1st of next year. Uh part of the delay in the request really has come in making sure that resources and training could be available yet this spring and that those decisions were all of course finalized. and you'll hear extensively about that later this later
in May. Um that being said, we have confirmed that we would have training available for foundational skills which is functional phonics and morphology as well as for a core resource uh to support meaning making called arts and
letters. We'll be able to put resources in teachers hands and allow them to go into summer uh with that initial training behind them, some time to have collaborated and worked with their teams and to really gear up for fall. Of course, August 25th will be a deeper
dive back into all of that work which will support throughout next year. Um, as Superintendent Law also mentioned, uh, we have been working extensively on implementing a new middle school program and as a part of that with the schedule
change and the course changes, we know that it's a heavy lift for our teachers that there's extensive work to do. Again, we've worked with our teachers on a memorandum of understanding that ensures they have time to both support curricular adjustments that need to
happen for the core classes that already exist and the electives that currently exist. But we're also introducing an extensive number of new electives and opportunities for all kids with seminar and communications as a couple of those.
Um, with that, an additional day yet this year would really afford that collaboration time to accomplish a great number of those hours when all the teachers that are a part of that team or that course are available and can
collaborate together. Um, of course, we'll still have some hours to support in the summer and into next school year, but this would give a great jump start. In addition to our curriculum shifts that need to occur, our teachers who teach special education are also making
changes to students IEPs and we've committed to providing them that time as well. So this both provides dedicated time and support as well as is a cost savings to the district because if all of this work happens outside of the day
obviously um that requires significant curriculum writing and staff development funds. So, we are proposing that as Superintendent Law said that rather than having the last day of school on Tuesday, June 10th, where we have um
traditionally done an early release, that we instead do a full day of school on June 9th, as we would have in the calendar, and have that be the final day and afford our teachers June 10th to do the learning and planning and curriculum work that's needed. and then of course
have that Wednesday, June 11th as their typical planning and wrapping up grading day for the year. Um so with that we would welcome questions or requests for additional information.
Thank you. Yes. Uh for process the board is hearing this tonight. We will share it with the public tomorrow. We will have our principles put out messaging that we're considering this for board approval the first meeting in May. so people have as much time as possible. Then you'll
approve it in May. I also should say the high school will continue to follow their regular finals schedules, which that Tuesday afternoon typically is makeup finals. Um, as will Sale. We'll also have our preschool and early
childhood follow the schedule that's been published. and our community education will offer a school day uh day off that we would typically offer during the school year explorers program for the families who are enrolled in
school year explorers child care and so they also will be a support to this process if we were to move forward. Okay, board members questions, comments, thoughts? Dan and it's my understanding that this
is also supported by the teachers in the MTA. Correct. This is we have been talking with them. Their request as I mentioned for K5 was to wait to do any training until we could confirm that they had training and resources in hand.
Um but we have been you know working collaboratively with them and talking about it. And yesterday uh in our meeting um the president and vice president of the teachers association both expressed that they are very much in support of this plan. Great. Thank
you. Yes, Sally. So this is such an obvious thing but I think it's worth getting on the public record. So in terms of our obligatory instructional hours. Oh yes.
So, um, of course we exceed those hours, but as a part of the READ Act for this current school year, um, elementary students, K3 are afforded a reduced number of required hours. Typically, um,
it's 935 and for this school year, 929 and a half are considered acceptable. Um, that being said, we far exceed that at our elementary and so there really is no concern. We also have um room at the middle school where the 1,020 hours are
required for the year. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Megan. Um I just find myself wondering about families who were not expecting to have their younger kids home that day. Um if they're not in Explorers, is it too late? you know,
like on some of the uh days off of school, community ed will add like a sign up full day activity of some sort. Is it too late for us to do something like that as an option or I'm just kind of thinking about the families who have
been planning for school to be in session half day. Yeah. To have a one day school week and then have their kids home suddenly for an extra day. Um I don't know. I just it might be too late to do something like that, but I'm not sure we could have something, but
certainly our executive director of community education's in the room. If it's possible, we'll consider it. Yeah, I think it's a good point. We don't want to it's it's not the time of year we're usually making changes to our June calendar. So, I think um we have to
be a little sensitive to the community's feedback, which I'm I'm glad to hear we have a process that we will get some more feedback before we um finalize this decision. I would add um I would also add we did get an email
in support from Jennifer Lipsky and I think she made a really good point about um for teachers who might want to do work over the summer, this is a really good way for them to kind of um get some information and then be able to digest
it in their own time if they want to. and having been a teacher, like those are really helpful days because you can go into the summer without the pressure of kids coming the next day or the next week. And so, um, I thought that was a really good point in support.
I agree. I think that that's really true about our teachers that they want to be well prepared and they appreciate having the flexibility and the time to really grapple with some of the changes prior to implementation in the fall. Yeah,
good point. All right, so we'll bring this back on the schedule you discussed earlier. That's correct. We will communicate tomorrow that the board's considering this so parents can plan for it and um remind people that one, it's a half
day rather than a full day that we're losing. And if we push this forward to the fall, it would have been a full day that we lost of instruction. So this is the minimum impact we can do for families at a time of year that many people are excited to be done. But we
Yes. All right. Well then let's move on. Uh next item will be overview of annual developmental relationships survey. Superintendent law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, we want to make sure in Minnotonka that every student feels a
sense of belonging in our schools. And one of the things that people talk about with this area is, well, how do you know? How do how do you know that students feel connected? And one of the things Menon has done prior to my time here and continues to do is ask and ask
anonymously and gather student feedback and break it down by student group and then use the data to support efforts to make sure every student feels connected. Tonight we will get the update on this year's data. The survey is given in December and data is reviewed through the early months of the year and we're
ready to present to Dr. Leoo and uh director of teacher and staff development Sarah Whiteer here. Thank you superintendent law, Mr. Chair, member of members of the board. Uh we're happy to share with you tonight our annual developmental relationship
survey data. As you know, our district has been committed for several years to ensuring that each of our students experience a deep sense of belonging and that feeling that they're an important member of our school community. And the
work we've done with the developmental relationship survey and the developmental relationship focus really is meant to impact that experience for our students. Uh early in our efforts with our belonging focus, we identified
the search institute as a key support for this goal. And the mission of the search institute is really to partner with organizations, schools, and community-based youth organizations uh to conduct research that promotes
positive youth development and equity. The developmental relationship framework aligns with the district's direction and provides that strong foundation or that cornerstone for excellence and well-being, connection, and belonging.
The core tenant of this framework is that intentional and inclusive developmental relationships create the conditions that support and foster each students academic, social, and emotional growth. in order that our students uh
each or that in order that each student is achieving excellence and really that idea of becoming the best version of themselves. So a light refresher on the DR elements, it's made up of five different elements as you can see on the
screen. Uh, according to the search institute's research, and you've heard me recently share this if you are at our student forum, when young people experience high levels of developmental relationships, they exhibit higher levels of a sense of belonging,
motivation and perseverance, connection to their school community, feelings of inclusion, higher GPA, that stronger sense of that feeling of mattering and feeling valued. valued and personal
responsibility. Um all the things that we want for the kids in our schools and that help uh create positive outcomes in our schools across the district. So the initial survey was administered in December of 2021 during the first year
of our implementation um fully of developmental relationship framework. students and teachers have taken this this survey each December for the past four years. And so we really have started to have some longitudinal
data that tells us, you know, are we holding steady and how we're changing. And we're excited to share more about that with you. I'm going to get into a little bit of survey design and the me the mechanics of the survey. Uh the developmental relationship survey is the
result of two years of cognitive interviews with young people and the adults with whom they work. Search institute was intentional in determining the words, the context and the readability level. As a result, the search institute is confident that the
results are reliable and objective. That said, individual interpretation of each question will vary. Um there will never be such thing as a perfect because each participant has a unique uh experiences and background. The survey provides us with
self-report data both from students and from staff. On this slide, you can see that there are both strengths and limitations of self-report. We believe that the strengths outweigh the limitations, particularly elevating
student voice. So, we'll dig into the data. Um, first we'll just talk about some of the demographics and who took the survey. Um, representation starts in grade four. We don't survey K3 students
with this particular survey. Um it's fairly consistent across grade levels and uh gender, race, and ethnicity. Um it's important to note that each question, including the demographic question, is voluntary. A student can
opt out of any question. Um though search reports that the majority of students do complete the demographic uh questions. Um staff also fairly consistent. A slight decrease this year
from last year, but it uh was proportional across all grade levels. Do you want to point out u oh yes uh the prek3 you might see is lun chunked together because there
isn't um student data that that corresponds to it. So they put that prek3 all together. Although all of our teachers are asked to complete the survey, correct? And then these are just um additional demographics of the staff who participated in the
survey. So the results we are going to review are the five elements. Express care, challenge growth, provide support, share power and expand possibilities and 20 actions outlined in the DR framework.
this including the definitions were part of your report if you're wanting to look back at that or reference that as we uh walk through these results. So this chart shows how students are experiencing developmental
relationships by element. The red line indicates levels from last year and the blue bar represents this year's results. Relationships are still a strength across the district. 66 is considered a
strong score. We're starting from a place of strength which means making movement becomes more challenging. Uh no drops occurred and we did see growth at the district level in three elements. Express care, challenge
growth and share power. And we really have emphasized that expressed care, that idea that we're warm and we're making those connections and we have really high expectations for our kids through challenge growth. So this is positive to see. The data shows that
young people are receiving many elements of the framework through their interactions with teachers and staff. Schools are uniquely positioned to challenge growth. part of our core purpose. Uh we expect kids to learn and grow and overall you can see that's our
strongest area. Um we do also know that experiences vary. We saw a decrease in the average relationship score from grades four when it's the highest to grade eight when it's at its lowest.
Scores then stabilize in grades nine and 10 before we start to see an increase again in grades 11 and 12. And it's probably fair to say that part of that is just developmental um where kids are at and how how they're experiencing life during that same time frame. Um this
held true across all five elements. Um and exceptions included expand possibilities where it reaches the peak at 12th grade and with the lower scores beginning earlier uh grade seven rather than grade eight in that area. Uh, as it
relates to gender, overall, boys had a slightly higher average relationship score, one point higher than girls, with the most notable difference being plus two and expand possibilities. We see the most difference with our students who
identify as non-binary overall, uh, five points less with the biggest gap in provide support at a negative seven. race and ethnicity. Um, all groups were within plus or minus one point of the overall relationship average with the
exception of Asian students who uh were three points higher than the average. um other changes in the areas of race and ethnicity from our 2023 um admission of the survey to our 2024.
Uh amongst our students who identify as Asian, we saw a growth of plus two overall and in provide support and express care plus three. All other elements saw a shift of plus one. So gains in each of those elements broken
down. For our students who identify as black, we didn't see a significant shift in student teacher relationships overall. But when we unpack the elements, we did see some changes in each of them. We saw increase in express
care plus one and share power. We saw some slight decreases in challenge growth minus one and provide support and expand possibilities was minus two. For students who identify as Hispanic or
Latino, this group saw a lot of stability in their scores. The most notable shift was in share power, which went up one point. White students also had very stable results.
um with a plus one in growth in express care. Perception gaps occur in virtually every circumstance. Uh no two people experience a single event the same way. Um so we can expect that there would be a perception gap between the adults who
are perceiving how they are providing these relationships and how students are experiencing them. And we know that those perceptions are important. How young people perceive drives their responses. And we do know that teachers are expressing these
actions. Students just aren't receiving them in the same way. Uh so the staff ratings, it's it these are interesting takeaways from my perspective having worked in this for the last four years. The staff ratings decreased in all of the areas that experienced positive
growth for students. So the students are experiencing express care, challenge, growth, and share power at a higher level and adults are expressing that they're giving them at a a slightly lower level. So in the end, the
perception gap is smaller. And I think part of that um decrease for the adults is their level of awareness and their interactions with this information with students and them being able to be very thoughtful about where
they're at and you know oh yeah I'm not consistently doing a certain action you know in my classroom which is sorry I'm stealing your thunder which is a really positive thing because it goes to our teachers being really thoughtful about
this work. The Search Institute has uh shared with us for the duration of the time we've been working with them that in many of the organizations they work with, the people who take the survey respond in the way that they feel they're expected to respond. So, they
might see a 100% believing that they're doing all of these things. Whereas we see our teachers being incredibly reflective and honest about this is where my strength is and this might be an area for me to uh grow in. Um Express Care had the
largest gap between student and teacher experiences and challenge growth had the smallest gap. Um again we know that the average experience isn't everyone's experience. Um while it's worth celebrating that 95%
of our students have strong or moderate um experiences, almost one in every 20 is not really experiencing those relationships that we want them to with um with their teachers. Uh overall 5% of
young people are are not experiencing the relationships that we would like them to. It's similar across all racial and ethnic groups with the exception of our Native Americans who um are experiencing them at a different level. Uh Native American students in
particular, while they are more likely to have a weak relationship, they also have a higher than average percentage of students with strong so they're they're they're on the extremes. Um this means the middle category is rather moderate. It's
actually smaller than all others. The caveat is that um students who identify as Native American is a very small population and thus individuals have a larger influence on the outcome. So now we'll move to the
relational actions. So these are the actions under the five elements um those 20 that we mentioned at the beginning. This slide shows which actions were rated the highest. Students had four options. Extremely, which is the dark
blue, to a little, which is the dark red. The blue segments are the more positive response options, and the red are the less positive responses. Ideally, we see a large amount of blue with most of it in the
dark blue. I hesitate to put too much weight though on an individual relational action, but I do think this provides us a good indicator of which action students are most frequently seeing or not seeing. In general, many
of the top 10 actions are part of the elements express care, provide support, and challenge growth. Those three that we saw also as our strongest overall um elements be dependable, encourage and
stretch all increased by 2%. The search institute suggests using a rule of 80% and 20% to help focus our attention. Any action with at least 80% in the blue segment is a reason for us to celebrate.
And most of these are at that point or slightly below that mark. So these are all areas that we have you know how students experience strongly and frequently only listen and encourage are
below that threshold in the strengths. This I'm make a quick comment when we move to the the growth areas. Um, whenever I'm working with administrators or teachers and talking about this, I remind them that any time that we have a rank order, half of them are going to be
on the bottom half. It's the way it's the so it shouldn't be a a these are growth areas and when you rank order, there's always something at the bottom. So, this slide shows our opportunities for growth. For the most
part, the actions are reflections of lower scores in the elements of expand possibilities and share power. The action of reflect on failures did increase by 3% and be warm increased by
2%. As a point of clarification, connect and inspire which are ranked lowest can be misleading if you don't know how they are defined. So that idea that connect is actually defined as introducing me to
people um who can help me grow not I make connections with you and inspire is defined as inspire me to see the possibilities for my future. While it's sometimes tempting to just look at the lowest actions or the actions that are
experienced least frequently um as the next focus area. Um that's not always really the best approach. Uh and Sarah's gonna elaborate on why that is. Yes. So on the screen you'll see a possible progression in a developmental
relationship. We know that in a relationship you start by getting to know someone. And those actions listen, be warm, respect me are the foundational actions. Whereas broaden horizons,
connect those are much later in the progression of a relationship. So, when we're thinking about where we want to um focus our energy, focusing on the items that are just at the bottom may not actually have the greatest impact on how
a student is experiencing developmental relationships. So in addition, the search uh institute has allow us allowed us to add some additional questions and we started with these questions actually the year before we did our first survey with search. So
we asked for them to include them because we thought they were important elements of our belonging efforts. Um and so as you can see we again surveyed students on how
well they are uh finding trusted adults and connecting with adults at their school. There was a significant increase in the percent of students who responded strongly agree to connecting well with teachers and decreases in both the
strongly disagree and disagree categories. And then the second one, there is an adult at my school that I feel comfortable going to if I have a problem. For this second question, there was an increase in the percent of
students who reported I don't know and decreases in both the no and yes response. So this is an area for us to continue to dig into to better understand why kids are feeling less certain about this.
So, with each iteration of fresh data, administrators and teacher leaders at sites create plans to respond to the survey results. I'm going to highlight just a few um of the things that have been happening in the last year since we were here. So, as I've mentioned, uh the
survey gives us the data regarding perceptions, but it doesn't make meaning of the data of those perceptions. The only way to make meaning of those perceptions is to get curious. So, one way administrators and teachers have unpacked the survey results was by
elevating student voice through student focus groups and interviews. For example, last spring, high school students were interviewed and recorded sharing how uh how they experienced the elements and actions of the developmental relationship framework. Then that video was shared with teachers
and that served as the inspiration for their individual projects. This fall, teachers at the high school used a sample of the developmental relationship survey questions which with each of their classes so that they had individual actionable feedback from
their students in addition to the aggregate student data. Here you see uh high school teachers analyzing and developing a response plan at the November professional learning day um with support from their administrators. teachers will be conducting a similar
spring survey to see how those intentional plans um they had this year impacted their relationships with their students. Um you can see that intentional focused attention on
creating and developmental relationships with each students. Um the results on the 24 uh survey just at the high school you can see there was an increase in four of the five elements and the share power stayed consistent. So the work that they
did really yielded results. The search institute continues to tell us that when you are at a score of 66 or higher it's really hard to make those um shifts. Um, administrators at Scenic Heights worked closely with their staff
to design this poster that you see on the screen that showcases the essential characteristics or character traits that lead to a feeling of belonging. These traits are then focused on each month as a school community. Um, examples include
kindness, respect, and inclusivity, which help to inspire students and broaden their horizons by highlighting positive behaviors. A final example is a new MME initiative uh MME pride. This strategy is designed
to foster a stronger sense of student belonging and specifically address growth areas that emerged in the developmental relationship survey. uh pride initiative stands for prepared, responsible, integrity, dependable and
empathy and places a strong emphasis on the concepts of integrity and empathy um as they apply to how students and adults interact with each other. Uh most monthly SEAL lessons have included teacher-led conversations with students on what it means to show empathy for
other students and have asked students to share specific examples of what empathy looks like and feels like in school common spaces, in classrooms, and in digital formats. MME teachers also identified specific students at each
grade level who exemplify these traits in their daily interactions. and those students were celebrated in a schoolwide recognition. So those were the three examples and that summarizes our responses to the
2425 developmental relationship survey. Thank you board members. Any questions or comments for our presenters? I'll dive in. Um, looking at the slides, uh, I was interested in the slide that
showed this year compared to last year on the each of those segments as to how similar those results were, uh, year-over-year. Um, that that had the red line, I think, and the bar that um,
and it made me it got me wondering, are the percentage points statist statistically significant? I mean like is a is a onepoint or a twopoint change a meaningful change when we're looking at this data? um when we
worked with the search institute um Justin Roscott who's one of their analysts comes out and works with our administrators and he would I don't know if it would qualify as a significant but he would say that it is an impactful uh change that that there is again that
the when we're starting at anything above 66 it's really hard to make those incremental changes. Did you want to add something? You know, I I think it might be interesting to see from 21 to 24 because we might see some statistically
relevant or statistically significant changes over multiple years. Um I I wondered the same thing. This is an incremental change, but if I remember correctly from a year ago, there was also an incremental change. And I think when you get to two
points out of 62 or three, you're starting to be stat statistically relevant. Yep. And we'd be happy to provide you with that data, that longitudinal look. Yeah. And and I was also interested that it's just a very So like if I'm thinking it as a curve, the
curve is really the same. So it it shows a real strength in challenge growth and it shows real areas to work on this expand possibilities section. And I'm wondering how that informs our work going forward or if that has been informing our work
all along, like if we're thinking we should be spending more time in these areas. You touched a little bit on that, but I guess I'm I'm just thinking about that. So, it's interesting because in that area of expand possibilities, um, typically youth organizations are
significantly stronger because they're focused on a student's interest and their purpose is providing opportunities to help them, you know, uh, grow maybe in an area outside of school or in an area of connection. Um this is a very
typical result for schools to see expand possibilities significantly lower than the other areas. And while we of course are looking to expand possibilities, the definition in that area really is about
introducing them to different types of opportunities. And we do that probably most through our high school programs and opportunities, especially things like Vantage, Momentum, um our, you know, science
research, our experimental, boy, that word is not going to come out, experiential learning, um opportunities really are designed to provide kids that one-on-one mentor and those opportunities to expand their horizons. be interesting to know
to be able to break down the students who have those opportunities compared with other high school students as well. Do we have the opp ability to modify this survey next year to uh differentiate between our high school
students involved in experiential classes and high school students who aren't? I think in our demographics, we could ask them if they have been enrolled in those courses for our 9 through 12 student survey because we've been able to adjust demographics. We
could work with them on that to see if there is a way to do it. I know they've been very protective of what we can adjust, but they've also tried to help us customize some pieces and so we could certainly work on that. I think that the the survey would go I
don't know if there's a way there might be a way to have a separate survey for the high school that would have that question on there. I think it would be very confusing to a fourth grader if that was on there. And I'm not sure if the same survey goes to I know that the
the rest of the survey goes the same way. The survey does, but the demographic section is slightly varied by grade level developmentally. And so that's where I think we would have some possibilities and I do think that would be very interesting to see that
difference. Um but that is an area that's expected to be lower just by the nature of the way the questions are asked and the way that schools that makes sense designed. Megan I saw your hand up. I just had a comment. I noticed that there
was kind of wide variation in participation um by school sites both for students and staff and it kind of made me wonder why that happened. Um and I'm sure that you probably don't have the answer but I I was just thinking
does it reflect a logistical challenge for the staff? is is it reflecting buy in or you know is there something in that that is um relevant um to kind of the rest of it and so I don't know if
going forward if there's a way to um you know push for more participation or um something along those lines. Um but I think it would just be interesting to find out why people didn't do it. Um, and then my question was, um, so for
longitudinal data, I don't know if this is possible, would we be able to look at the data for this year's seniors compared to two years ago sophomores to see if specific students have been
impacted by the changes or by the emphasis? Because what one thing I you know there's always variation in just year-over-year and who the students are and I would be curious about if our efforts have made impact on the same students in that. Yeah. Like cohort data
um or fourth to sixth or you know just any kind of same student group. Sure. Have we been successful at moving the needle for that group? So again not something we can do right now but just kind of a suggestion for thinking. I always kind of just wonder about our
impact directly on specific students versus the at large. That's a really interesting idea. Yeah, I sort of echo that. I think that could be particularly uh useful and instructive when when looking at our
smaller groups of students whose, you know, each input has more of an impact on the the values that we're seeing. Um, and and those are the groups where there's a a lower sense of belonging, like your non-binary students or your Native American students. It'd be
particularly interesting to track them over time to see if that growth is happening in those groups. Sally, yeah, I would like to see the data aligned on the student um dem by student demographic as well. You spoke to it, but I'd like to see it to
visualize it to see where where we might have some gaps in that. Um that would be interesting. Also, I was curious about whether as we're considering different ways that we might capture demographics, whether there is any perceivable difference between our resident students
and open enrolled students because traveling in and out of district um maybe not have we had a kid at our house this week who very rarely gets to go to friends houses um and was really thrilled to get him to you know have him in our home but I wonder what that what
impact that might have on on students and if there's any way to detect that. So, um that's that's a great wondering. We'll have to think about how we uh would frame that question when students are still identifying. We had some
challenges initially with um EL versus ELT because of our immersion program and kids being confused. So, we just have to ex explain to kids what that means. Just just put that out there as a potential. I know. No, it's interesting. They're
all interesting thoughts. Anything else? Well, then thank you. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have a couple of stamp updates. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the
board, uh, Mitaka is unique. Normally I proceeded messaging about school districts across the state do x or y. One of the things that not every district does is measure growth for students who are studying in immersion
programs. So uniquely init select number of districts. They get reports publicly on how are immersion students making progress throughout the year. Tonight, director of research and assessment Matt Ria is going to give us an update on our students and immersion programs and
their growth throughout the year. Mr. Ria, thank you, Superintendent Law, Mr. Chair, members of the board. I'm just going to remind everybody about the stamp the stamp test and the scale that's used for the test. And I think this impacts some things with um students and families and staff in a
positive way. Um, so the stamp has a scale that measures students as either novice, intermediate or advanced. And the stamp scale has a nine-point scale. So 1 2 3 4. So the novice part of it is
1, two, and three. And the intermediate is four, five, six. In advances, seven, eight, nine. And within each of those proficiency levels are sub levels. So novice has low, mid and high which is
one, two and three. Intermediate, low, mid and high, four, five, six and so on. I think the scale is pretty easy to follow and over the years um parents and students have become more familiar with it which has made a positive impact I
believe on our bilingual seals program for students. Um, I've received numerous emails over the years from students, from parents asking about what they can do to increase their seal level before graduation. And so to understand the
data that well and how it could benefit their child when they leave high school is that's one way. And then the other way I've noticed it is we we offer the stamp um optionally as for juniors and seniors and we have a number of students
taking the test because they want to increase their seal level and we see students who are at a gold level which is the second highest level wanting to increase to the highest level which is platinum for different reasons. Sometimes it's testing out of a class at the college level or for whatever reason
or just because it's a personal goal of theirs. So over the years we've seen um that bilingual seals program grow and we've seen it grow with the number of languages that are represented. We're up to 15 different languages now that are represented with the bilingual seals program and that
started out with our Chinese immersion and our Spanish immersion students. So it's really grown into our world language program including um our sign language program as well. So um and Stamp now offers it um ASL which is great. we used to have to do that in a
different way. So they're obviously they're they're doing doing they offer many languages and that's another one that they've added. So there's some highlights here. The Chinese immersion student results showed really strong increases in all areas for
both eth and 10th grade cohorts. And there was a decrease in writing and listening among the 10th grade co cohort last year. So it was really nice to see all the areas show increases. Um the reading tests range from intermediate mid for eighth grade cohort to the intermediate high for the 10th grade
cohort. And eighth graders saw improvement three of the four subtest um with a really solid improvement in listening comprehension. In Spanish, um 10th graders reached the advanced mid-range for reading and listening and intermediate high range for writing and
speaking. Um, one of the things to point out about the stamp test, it's a great predictor for AP test performance. Now, most of the immersion students will take that AP test in nth grade, but for students who are approaching that advanced low range
prior to taking the AP test, they're likely going to score four or five on that AP exam. So, it's nice to monitor the students over the years. If we see them approaching intermediate high before they leave middle school, there's a good chance they're going to easily pass the test, but to perform to score
at a four or five. Um, eighth graders, that cohort showed significant increases in reading and listening, which is historically a very difficult test because it is comprehension and measures higher level reading skills for students who are learning a second language. Um,
so they're mastering that pretty well. And then the listen listening listening subtest shows the students outpacing the national targets by two sub levels. That's that's a significant amount. And those national targets, I just want to point out that was through
research by Sverb Bansky, our director of curriculum, and myself when we research districts across the nation that have similar immersion program, similar time spent in the language, similar subjects where it's being offered um like they offer social studies and language arts like we do.
They offer about 90 minutes of in instruction in the language for middle and high school. Um, I think it's probably time to think about looking at kind of recalibrating at and seeing because we continue to outpace the national targets by a significant amount
on the listening test. Um, and on the other test, but really significantly in listening might be worth taking a look at. And then the listening and reading subtest, sixth, eighth, and tth graders for Spanish immersion perform within the intermediate high to advanced mid-ranges for the second year in a row. Um, again,
reading and listening to score that high, you're probably going to score very high in the AP exam. And we've noticed over the years that writing was a lower area um for students, which is typical um and it has been a goal at the secondary level for teachers was the
writing test. Well, the state has changed the criteria now to earn the bilingual seal, and it's going to benefit our students because one subtest that's a little bit lower won't um remove that opportunity of getting that
level of the seal. So, you can have it used to be you had to reach a certain level on each of the four subtests. Now, it's a certain level of a composite score, a total score. So one subtest does not impact it. We'll still focus on writing probably in in many areas, but
we'll see more students earn higher levels of the SEAL because of that. So on there's several charts here where we show the national target level. That's the dotted line. And then the the red and blue in this case are reading and writing. And we'll show listening
and speaking on on the other one. And then the national targets are highlighted. So for Chinese immersion, we're looking at reading and writing and we see the national target is intermediate low and we are well surpassing those national targets that we set. Um you know at 6.2 that's an
intermediate high. That's the two sub levels that I was mentioning about and reading and writing significantly outpace the national norms. Um and then the writing surpassing the national growth. So the rate in which they're growing is at a very high level. Um and to do that
between sixth and eighth grade, that's that's really good because they in elementary we're at a 9010 um ratio and then we move to about 90 minutes in the language. But again, those targets were created based on similar programs
nationwide. So we're still outpacing that growth in many areas. And then the um national growth um expectations again for listening they significantly outpace that for
um for u from 8th to 10th grade. And really this shows that speaking may be an area of focus just because it kind of um kind of flattens out a little bit. And then for Chinese immersion to eighth graders, the speaking is meeting
or surpassing national growth expectations. again. So we had 08 is that average growth from sixth to eighth grade and we're at least meeting that or surpassing that. And this is a different way to look at the subtest. So we have reading,
writing, listening, and speaking listed along the left side. And then we have two tables, one for 2024 and one for 2025. So typically what we do is we show numbers in bold if there's an increase from one year to the next. And what I do
here is I show those bold numbers, but then I show it I color them green if they're at least three or higher. So those are solid increases moving from 24 to 25. Um and if we look at that 10th grade group, um they surpassed 10th
graders from the year before in all four areas, but pretty solidly in three of the four areas. um they were bold in all four areas but and we can see almost every area there was an increase um across for Chinese immersion and for Spanish immersion this
is 10th grade cohort information all in one area so that's all in one chart so reading writing listening and speaking and they all outpace um national targets by a pretty significant amount um there is a that blue and red which is reading
and writing kind of flattens out a little bit. But at 6.2, that's intermediate mid. Um that's a very solid um number considering um what the national targets are. And then we could see a real strength is listening. That
8.4 number, that's um that's advanced mid. And we'll see what advanced mid looks like, what students can do in a language at that level here in the next a couple slides from now. And for Spanish emerge in the eighth grade cohort outpacing the national
targets. Writing and speaking did not keep pace with national growth. Um that's pretty typical but writing is like I said is an area that has been um where teachers have focused with students. And so for Spanish you know we saw in Chinese all the green and then on
the Spanish one again they're performing at very high levels already. Um it's kind of like the last presentation when you're performing very high it's very difficult to show that increase. So I know it so shows a lot of numbers in italics but none of those numbers are showing significant decreases. It's
almost as if if they would have taken the test again they probably would have performed very similarly to last year. Um not um not anything significant to report. Nothing more than.3. And these tables what we're looking at are the building level results, MME and
MMW. Sometimes I mean there's a couple ways to compare that. We can compare both sites and that does give us good information and also tells us information about the schools that feed into those schools, but it's also good to see the growth that they're making against themselves. So on the left side we see reading results. On the right
side are writing. So if we look at the bottom that's 2024 and the top is 2025. We can see a number of areas in green and we see MME showed a pretty solid decrease in in reading dropping from 5.5
to 5.1. Um, which is also a suble intermediate high to intermediate mid on average. Still a very high level of performance. Um, then eighth graders on the writing test, they were performing at the intermediate high at both
schools. And for Chinese immersion, we have listening and speaking here. And we can see there's a lot of bold increases as we saw on the other slide as well. Uh but eighth graders at the intermediate high level at both schools and those students can expect to see really strong
performances on the AP exam. And eighth graders as they leave us are for speaking are intermediate high at MME and intermediate mid at M&W but very close to each other. That 5.5 and 5.3 are the average scores.
And there's those Spanish scores again that we see the italics. And this is just the breakout. When we show the overall district averages, we saw that they were in italics. Slight drops. Um MME had a little bit more of a drop. Um dropping by.3 for sixth graders and eighth
graders by point4, but both sixth and eighth graders at MME were performing at the intermediate high levels. And MMW was intermediate mid for sixth grade and intermediate high on that reading test. And then writing is pretty much intermediate high across the board
except MMW was for sixth graders was intermediate mid but a very solid score and a slight decrease from the year before. Again those are different students but and for listening and speaking you can see the results there.
M&W had a little bit more of a decrease compared to the year before among their sixth graders. So when we're approaching that advanced mid and advanced high ranges, so our students, these are the types of jobs that they could have with those
proficiency levels. So anywhere from marketing to finance to law to linguistics uh in the military they I mean when we think about the average student when I'm showing suble or sub levels of like advanced mid and advanced low that's a lot of students that can
perform at these high levels in the language. Um, and we can see on the right side it shows at advanced high range students with graduate degrees in the language and the advanced low range where we have several students in that range which are immersion students at
the at high school graduation where they're performing, but we have students in there that are eighth graders performing at that level in some cases and definitely 10th graders that we're seeing. So by graduation, if they stick with it, um, they can continue to increase it. That's why I made those comments at the beginning about the bilingual seal because that's kind of
motivating a a group of our students to challenge themselves. So, and then these are some recommendations that I have u focus on writing uh for Chinese immersion and at middle school seems to be reading and speaking seems to stand
out for Chinese and Spanish immersion and continue to work on IPA assessments where they could look at revising those especially as immersion is going through review. That might be a recommendation that the committee makes. Um, but that's it's definitely a recommendation that I'm making. Um, the secondary level
wrote those more recently than the elementary level, but they might have some tweaks to make to that. Any questions about this test? Uh, no. Great report. Um, Megan, I always have a question. Um, so I found
myself wondering like the target for speaking and listening is the same and generally the target for reading and writing is the same, but there's like a difference between productive and receptive learning. Like I was thinking about myself, right? And I can watch a Spanish television show and I can
understand the bulk of it, but when I go to try to speak it, I sound like a toddler. And so it's so interesting to me that the target is the same. Is that reflected in the actual test or are we actually expecting that they would have similar skills in both? That's what we
saw when we looked at districts nationally uh with how they were performing. But I understand what you're saying as well. Um, also there's a difference between the two languages. If you've noticed where Spanish has the same across each of the like for sixth grade, it's the same target and then
Chinese it's it's split between those and that's also a difference in how it's taught. Um, a Chinese immersion classroom looks very different than a Spanish immersion classroom. And we've seen listening scores pretty high in previous years in Chinese immersion. Um
because there's more listening in those classrooms, listening to the adult in the classroom versus the but we've also speak seen over the years where speaking is super high um because that's part of our philosophy in Minnotonka is that we don't break the language in immersion.
That's what we've historically done. So that really requires students to use the language. Um the other thing is we see that in our world language classrooms because those students are mixed in on this test as well where they are um required to use the language and produce
it. Um but I think it's really it's that comparison across what we've seen across the nation. Yeah, it's so interesting because you see the students performing so well in listening and to me that makes total logical sense that it's easier to receive the language and
process it than it is. And so it's so interesting to me that the target would be the same for the two. But that just really interesting. Yeah. And we'll see something with reading on the next one with Chinese immersion, which is very interesting as well. So definitely they're making a difference. The teachers are doing something differently
over the years than what they had done when we first started measuring this. One one thing I find myself wondering is um looking at these year-over-year results, wondering if this is an area where we saw a sort of CO dip, CO
rebound as we've seen from other test scores. Um absolutely um we did and it and that would make sense also with masks and um we that's pretty similar especially with speaking that was very similar what we heard for students that
were in special education as well um with speech specifically and our multilingual EL learners as well um because there's that interaction in the classroom that is so different than it was when it's online it's really affected those the languages is language
acquisition for students in those areas, not just immersion, but those other areas, too. Yeah, we've seen a nice rebound since co. Yep. All right. Okay. And to the next
one. Yeah, there's that. He's finishing his freshman year in college. Okay, let me just go roll right into it. The next board agenda item is a continuation of our stamp testing only at the elementary level. Mr. Okay, thank
you superintendent law. Mr. chair, members of the board. It's obviously the elementary version of the stamp when we went we switched to this a few years ago just really to provide that alignment between the elementary and the middle and high school. And again, it's easier to understand for families and students
the scale because that scale remains consistent. So the targets are listed up here for grades three and five. We used to do the test at fourth grade as well, but um just being aware of how many tests immersion students take in English
and in the language, we chose to eliminate the grade level that made the most sense to our staff and our administrators. So, we use third and fifth. I'm going to read this one out loud, though. for reading over the past three years has been an increase in average score among Chinese immersion
third graders improving by a full point since 2023. So now they're reaching an average score of 3.9 points or the intermediate low range. That is that was historically the lowest performing subtest for Chinese immersion was reading comprehension. That's a
significant increase of a full point. when we talk about a 0.5 as being a significant increase and a full point is outstanding and in Spanish immersion students in reading for third and fifth graders were one sub level higher than the national target and interpretive
listening um Clear Springs really had a a nice rebound year this year and is really on track with their third and fifth graders where they saw 2 points and.3 point increases and Minasha third and fifth graders both saw grade levels
surpass the 5.0 0 mark and uh for the first time and our Chinese immersion students um at for third grade at scenic and at excelsier saw a significant increase of 0.5 points on the interpretive listening test as we were
talking about and uh after a significant drop of.7 points we saw um for scenic heights. So they re really rebounded there. So it was just that just tells us that that might have been a particular class if anything. Then third graders at
Excelsier saw a .02 point increase compared to last year. Some district results. I had some teachers send me some photos. These are our students of different celebrations. So this is from Chinese New Year. Um so
these are district results and we have some targets at the top for speaking, listening and reading. We do not use the writing test for the stamp. Um, that also could be a recommendation that comes out of the review is to start doing the writing test. I've informally
pulled staff and they said they thought that would be best if they were to add the writing test to be at fifth grade versus third and fifth grade. So, that could be something to think about. Um, on the bottom here, we see Chinese and Spanish immersion, the 2024
on the left and then 2025 on the right. and third graders showed an increase to 3.9 points in for Chinese immersion and a decrease among fifth graders in Chinese immersion 3.9. When we look at the building results, you see which building impacted
that the most and I have an explanation about that. Um, third and fifth grade Spanish, we can see an increase, a significant, pretty significant increase from 4.4 to 4.8 points. a slight decrease for third graders and then a slight decrease for
fifth graders in Chinese immersion and really roughly the same for Spanish immersion, but at performing at the intermediate mid for third graders and intermediate high um for fifth graders, well above national
targets. Um this year the they're still scoring Avant the company is still scoring the speaking test. So, they're still not I was hoping to be able to include that into the presentation, but they require up to 12 business days and they're using every bit of that time this year. Um, part of that is the
teachers waited a little bit in the window. So, that kind of all the stars aligned on that one. So, I'll add those as soon as we receive them. But, we saw increases for Spanish immersion on the speaking test. um just not significant
increases but very solid performances for sure. So this has two tables. One at the bottom is 2024 and the top one is 2025 broken out by gender. uh really there's a good solid increase for the speaking
test for Spanish immersion as we saw and otherwise the scores are pretty pretty similar to the previous year for both Chinese immersion and Spanish immersion nothing more than 0.1 or two point differences um already performing at very high levels and surpassing national
targets a collage of pictures from the buildings um they really jumped on it I gave them one day And so they they shared several pictures with me. So just some art back in the background there. Um looking at these results, we
can see this is interpretive reading. And so the targets here for third grade are novice mid and for fifth grade they're novice high. So first of all at Excelsier we can see for third grade they roughly stayed the same. and fifth
grade at Excelsier dropped from 3.9 to 3.3. So last year when I reported on this, I asked Excelsier why they had a drop last year as well, a significant drop. And that was a situation where they had a a long-term substitute
teacher situation, and they know that that impacted actual test day. That wasn't the case this year. Um but I asked them to look at their data and it was so this particular cohort of students has performed lower in other
tests throughout. Um so that's something to look at and we'll see if that group looks like that in sixth grade when they take the stamp at the middle school level. But that was their their a reason. I don't know if it's the only reason that's what they shared. And we
saw a significant increase for Scenic Heights third graders. So these this third grade group outperformed third graders by 0.5 significant amount and fifth graders basically the same as last year. We also see the difference at Excelsier in the number of
students from 89 to 69. And as that number gets lower as we saw in the presentation before it does impact those results differently. Nothing. Yeah. And for interpretive listening again that fifth grade group where at
Excelsier saw pretty significant decrease this time of.7 and scenic heights saw an increase. So it was just kind of across the board on those on that test and I already shared what that could be attributed to. For Spanish
immersion, Clear Springs showed significant gains from one year to the next. So the third graders and fifth graders compared to third graders and fifth graders from a year ago um was a significant difference in performance. Um Deep Haven saw a slight a decrease
for third graders. Um so that'll be important to see as they become fifth graders if if they're still in the yellow as fifth graders. and Groveland saw there's I haven't reached out to them yet as to an explanation there, but
that's a pretty significant decrease from 5.6 to 5.1 that they'll want to take a look at more closely. Now, overall, if we look at fifth graders and their proficiency levels, ranging from intermediate to mid to intermediate high,
um it's still surpassing the national target for fifth grade, but we'd like to see a little bit more consist consistency year-over-year. again. Um, Groan stands out on that one in red for the speaking test where we
saw them their third graders this year were seven below third graders from the previous year. Now, if we had every year, we can see true cohort growth, but it'll be something to look at when they become fifth graders. Um, and then
Minowasha showing significant increases for both third graders and fifth graders, and I had mentioned before surpassing the 5.0 no mark and deep haven.9 increase from 4.1 to 5.0 zero again um well above the national
target at least one sub level um in Clear Springs again showing increases for both third and fifth graders in the listening test and Groveland and Deep Haven showing slight decreases um and Minawasha showing a
pretty solid increase and already performing at a very high level. Um but all of all the all of them intermediate high pretty much across the board for fifth graders and intermediate mid. Um Groven was intermediate high and dropped to intermediate mid for their fifth
graders. But we see the target that's most of the buildings were two sub levels higher than the national target. So this is what this looks like for students around that intermediate mid to high level. So, let's just say intermediate mid. We saw a lot of
students, the average student is intermediate mid um across the board for fifth graders. So, they could be cashiers or sales clerks. So, interacting with people um and giving them proper change. So, that's that's very solid. And then um those that
intermediate high level which we saw u among many students, you can see the the types of careers that they could be in. again a lot of interacting with people like receptionists, tour guides, that sort of a thing. Um, so very very solid
performances uh across the board. I do think there's a couple of buildings that need to look in certain grade levels and then monitor that as those students move to that next grade level and then when they assess them again and that's where that IPA comes in because we do that at
every grade level. So teachers really could be monitoring that as they look at these stamp results. And there's the focuses for the different programs. Any questions on the elementary stamp? Board members.
Go ahead. I would comment that we this is one of the things teaching and learning follows up with building principles as Dr. said, "When we see trend data, uh, those big drops, we we we really dive in on what do we know about these students? What do we know about this group of teachers? Have there
been changes, and how do we good news is we we see signs of people that we've been working on, and we're seeing rebounds, and then now we see some other trends that we have to definitely pay attention to." Great. Thank you very much. All right. Thank
you. All right. Next item on the agenda is uh further review of 202627 calendar. Superintendent Law, it's very important to note at the beginning of this meeting, we talked about this year's calendar and a potential for June 10th,
just 6 weeks away going from half day to no school. This conversation is about the calendar 15 months from now. And it comes back from a schoolboard discussion about a very late Labor Day. and can we look at the exemption that other districts have used to consider an early
start? And tonight, general counsel and HR executive director Angie Flowers is going to give you an update on when she brought that information to the calendar committee, what they said. Miss Flowers, thank you, Superintendent Law. Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the board. And I also have an update from
MDE. We had a very pleasant conversation at 7:30 this morning about this. So, um, as the superintendent said, this is a followup to the most recent study session when the calendar committee was asked to have a discussion about beginning school before Labor Day for
2026, 2027. The committee met and discussed this and they were fully in support of starting before Labor Day. I believe it was unanimous and every hand went up when I posed the question. Um, and of course that's because it allows the
school year to end sooner. um that calendar year is just a bit challenging um with the way that that it's set up with the way that the calendar is for that year. Um so MDE and Minnesota statute allows us to start before Labor
Day when we have over 400,000 in construction and when I spoke to MDE they said we would meet the waiver due to um us having that amount and exceeding it and that's what we're projecting that we will have. So there shouldn't be an issue with that. It's a
very um fast process and I talked through that today. So wouldn't have any concerns with actually doing it. So with that said, I have a new calendar recommendation for you to consider showing a pre-LOR day start. In
addition, you will see that the professional learning day was changed from October 30th to the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. that would be a non- studentent contact day, but the teachers wanted me to make it clear that they are asking for this for 2026
only. Um, and with these changes, school would end on Tuesday, June 8th, instead of Friday, June 11th. In addition, this calendar recommendation allows for a winter break to begin on December 23rd instead of
December 24th, which would make a big difference for lots of families and employees. And we had some really good discussion about that. Lastly, I wanted to share that we discussed having Lunar New Year and Cinco de Mayo as potential observances
in the future. Those observances are being discussed due to our immersion programming and all that we do to celebrate those moments. The recent observances that we added were Yam Kapor and Eid. And when we added those, it was
really to be in alignment with other school districts and we really talked about the impact that fasting has on students. Those of course go into effect um next year. The representative community did
not wish to make a recommendation to add Lunar New Year or Cinco de Mayo for 2026 27 but wanted to keep the conversation going. Um there was concern from that community and others at the table about just extending the school
year out further. So there was discussion about how can if we were to recommend that how could we add those days and perhaps there's you know when the calendar is a bit prettier um we can exchange days in winter break or other
times in the calendar but we did have um some very um candid and um respectful discussion around that topic. With that, those are really the big items that we discussed at our second calendar committee meeting, and
I'm open for questions. Thank you, board members. Dan, um, and I'm the the $400,000 in improvements. I'm assuming that's long-term facilities maintenance, things that we already have planned, not not
predicated on a bonding measure. Yes. Yes. It's generally I believe each year we would have at least that amount substantially more. Yes. So not so much a question as just a a comment is um there's an AMSD
legislative committee meeting tomorrow and of course there's I think it's still on the plate the possibility that the state would move to permanently change the Labor Day requirement for start of school. Um just um thinking about Russia Shana as another major holiday to
consider adding I know for the next two calendar years that falls on a weekend so it's a non-issue but if we are able to um start a little earlier um than we have traditionally that also would open that as a possibility. So definitely
have my eye on that. Yes, we we did discuss that last year along with Dewali. So, we've been talking about um different observances and um having some good discussions. But thank you. Thank you for taking this back to them and it's uh yes, good to see the
enthusiastic support. So, well, particularly I know this committee works very hard. So, anything that they unanimously are behind, I want to I want to Yes. do my best to support as well. And I'd love to give a shout out to our three student representatives. They are
all new this year and they just have been contributing at a very high level and been very engaging. So, thank you. All right. Oh, Megan. Um, I just wanted to clarify we do still have it's not in the packet, but after the
like full page calendar, there is still a list of like observances where people aren't supposed to assign homework or projects and those holidays are already on that list. Correct. Yes. Correct. Yep. It's much more um much more of an exhaustive list with all those dates and
um Matt Ria also does that assessment calendar as you said so teachers and staff know not to assign big projects or testing and to always stay mindful of that. So we always review that as well. Thank you. Great. Any more questions?
Thank you very much. Thank you. And I'm sorry. What's our what's our process then for this superintendent? Uh this calendar will come back to the board for approval in a year. We
the official approval will be at the next regular board meeting. Right. We have typically had to update our calendar. Forgive me. We because we went from early release and late start days. We've reapproved the calendar the year before. This calendar has those included
so we can formally approve this finally at the next regular board meeting. Yeah. And after that approval then we'll get the exemption from MD. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now this time for sure. All right. Uh next item is discussion on student
representation on the board. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, this is a conversation that's come up several times this year. We most recently had it at the March study session. In front of you is the proposal that
was aligned to what our Vantage student uh public policy group presented to the board back in November. Uh after discussion and gathering all the thoughts of the board, the proposal you have in front of you is the proposal that we would bring forward
for implementation. I'm happy to uh in brief for the members of the public what our students recommended was that high school teachers would identify a list of students who would be good representatives as student schoolboard
members. That list of students would be presented to the student body for them to elect grade level representatives for grades 10, 11, and 12 in the fall. We'll address grade nine next fall similar to student council. And then those students
would starting in September receive the schoolboard agenda the week of the schoolboard meeting have a brief opportunity to ask questions about that and then identify people to come to the board meeting and sit at the board dis right here or at the table with us at
study sessions and comment on topics as they were interested and informed. And um of course they would not be voting members of the board and um based on their interest and level of understanding they may not have much to comment on or they might have things
that they're interested in. We we are prepared to start the nomination and nomination process soon and election process midmay. Okay. Any
discussion? Camry, just for the sake of since this kind of started before I was on the board, I believe if for the public, could someone help with a little bit of the backstory on this and how this originated? Because if this is new for the board, I believe, well, since I
was not here when it started, if anybody could help for the public. Uh, this did for board members that were elected in 2023. This was a board goal before board members started in 24. This was a board goal. So, I'm trying to
think. Megan, Patrick, yeah, were on the board when this started. So, I mean, there's been board interest in increasing uh student involvement in uh student voice throughout the district's work,
obviously, and we've talked about that many times this year already. And um one of the things we started talking about as a board was investigating what do uh what does student representation uh at the actual
school board look like? There are a number of places nationwide that we've encountered as board members uh certainly superintendent law is aware of as well from his work going to national conferences. there's a wide range of
student involvement on board decisions. Uh and so as we looked at all of those, one of the things we landed on was taking advantage of the public policy strand advantage and having those students actually do some research and
present uh as part of their coursework. Uh if you could increase student representation on the board, what would you do? And we all saw the result of those uh uh of that work in uh a couple of presentations to the board already uh
last fall after they had had that. And so the the actual uh proposal that we're looking at is uh sort of a synthesis of what most of those students all centered on in their their research. So, we had
several different groups of students doing the research, putting together presentations, and uh they landed on um this model. Um a couple things I will say about I think it's it's a very interesting model to me because it does
have uh gets us away from this is just a popularity contest. It's not just, you know, the the popular kid in this grade is going to be the one who becomes the board representative. We're identifying students who may have a particular interest or ability in in being part of
board discussions from their teachers. So, they'll be in a position to help identify that. And then I also think obviously we don't have the ability to have a voting member and that's against state law in Minnesota. we we can't have student board members who vote, but um
uh other places certainly do do that and uh nobody was interested in pursuing that. We're just interested in getting more student voice on those topics. And so um that's how this came about. I don't know if I'm overans answering your
question, but that's sort of the genesis was it's been a board goal for a number of years to investigate and this is the result of handing that to the students. Megan, um I would just add that as long as I've been on the board and prior to coming on
the board, a question that I often got was why we didn't have student board members. And I didn't have an answer. And I remember in the very beginning when I was on the board, I kind of asked like, "Have we looked at this?" You know, uh I get this question a lot and I
don't know how to respond. And I think kind of from there we started thinking about um I know a bunch of us that first year that I was on the board and we went to NSBA and there were just there was a plethora of sessions about student board involvement. And so I think that the
question then arose not what does it look like for us but like what are best practices or how are districts doing this? Do they like it? Um David and I met with some superintendent from four or five other districts in Minnesota. Um
was that two years ago? I've lost all track of time. it was a while ago and we just talked to them about how they did it and if they found it valuable and kind of so I feel like it's been kind of an organic process. Um, I also know that there has been
legislation introduced a few times that hasn't passed yet that would actually require districts to do this and I so part of it I think is getting out ahead of that instead of it being imposed on us and us kind of having to do it and
scramble to look at the best practices, what is done nationwide, what was done in Minnesota, you know, putting it out to public policy to really find what was the best model for us here in Minnetonka if we wanted to do it. Um, so I think
that the original from my point of view originally it was like let's just explore this and see what other people are doing and if they find it useful and then at that at that meeting I remember basically every district saying that they found it valuable and they would
keep doing it. And so I think it's been kind of like an evolving process, but I think it's been part of the conversation from before I was on the board. I can't speak to how long before, but at least for some time. Yeah. And I thanks for reminding me
about the the meeting the two of you had with the superintendent, but that was um what I heard. And I think um it's just important to remember that it wasn't that the board said we are going to have it. It was like, let's study it and see
if it's a good idea or not. And this is where we've landed so far. And I think I would just like to know I mean I I like that it's innovative. I mean I like that we have an idea of doing it a little bit differently like having a bigger group and kind of rotating students. I like
that idea rather than just picking two students for the whole time because then we get a different cross-section of students. But I also would like to know how we know that it's working. I I don't think we have that kind of flushed out a little bit. So that that would be an
important part of it to me to know, you know, are the students getting something out of it and are we getting something out of it? So I don't think we really have that yet. I'd just like to add that into when we're talking about this. At least when I was reading this, I didn't see that part of it. So those are just
my two cents. Yeah, that is listed among the next steps and evaluation plan to be developed for assessing that which is definitely needed. I agree with you on that. Um and I am also thinking as a pragmatic matter. So we've talked about there is space at the deis and there's
space at this table. Um but how might we go about the selection of a staff advisor for the group and where or maybe the better question is where does that fit into the next steps? Um as I've been working with principal
Ericson on this topic, it's a good question. there there uh there's a handful of options. He has um assigned assistant principles to advise different groups and one of them could be a point person for this. We
haven't got that yet. he could be the point person or one of them could be the point person and we're working on a structure where the weeks of board meetings there could be just a quick check-in early in the week um with those people or even because we publish the uh
agenda on Fridays that Friday afternoon there's there could be a chance to work with those students I I one of the things I want to be sensitive to is I when we know who the students are we need to give them the option of which of these works better for you because Monday morning night might not be a
preference or Friday afternoon or those things. So, uh there are some details we're going to um I heard some staff members say they'd never want to hear these phrase. So, bear with me. This is a plane we're going to build. The plane will be built, but we'll be
choosing seats while we're flying on this one. Um, so what we we have we have a plan, but we also want to give, you know, it's hard to include student voice and then ask students what they think, right? So, we need to get those students on board and do a little bit of that work.
Fair enough. But I measurement is key and I think that's something we'll continue to circle back with to the board. I mean, I remain very interested in seeing where this goes. So, I'm What's our next steps here? We would we have something we need to decide upon or we
just continue? We uh this is the direction of the board. We've been moving forward with this. Um uh at at the board's uh wishes, we could just do a very simple nod of approval at the next board meeting on this to read it
in. And I would the only thing I'd modify is that under next steps, this would be revisited again a year from now to make sure the board's committed to it. It's a pilot year, but I would put in the approval language that for the 25 26 school year, we'll be implementing this process. We'll come back, have a
discussion likely at the April work session on how it's gone. Great chance to hear from our students about how it's gone and then move forward from there and if it's working and what's not working for improvement. Yeah, I like that. I'll bring it back for the first
meeting in May for approval. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Now, we have review of policies. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, I I can proudly say that as you review these policies, these are the last of the
policies that were impacted in the 2023 legislative session. I'm optimistic that 2025 will not produce this volume of policy review. Miss Flowers is thrilled about that. Tonight, there are policies directly related to our teaching
learning department and and some some of these policies are only being read because they haven't been reviewed in almost 20 years and we want to put a new time stamp on them. Some are going to be eliminated and some are going to be modified to reflect our current practice. Miss Flowers, thank you.
Superintendent Law. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Tonight, Associate Superintendent Dr. Amy Leoo and I would like to review our recommendations for policies 216, 217, 601, and
603. These changes, as the superintendent stated, are a result of the legislation and also our continued work to prioritize policy updates. Beginning with policy 216, teaching and
learning advisory committee. The updates in this policy really reflect our current practices. If you look, if I could draw your attention to section 3B, there are several sentences referring to the board for this work.
However, this work has been led by the associate superintendent, Dr. Leoo. Dr. ly do and the teaching and learning division update the board annually for all matters reference and you'll see that as we go through the
changes. Section 3C shows how the district advertises for members to join the teaching and learning advisory committee. We no longer use newsletters or newspapers. Thus, that language has been stricken.
Moving on to section 3D that now reflects the proposed members of the com that proposed members of the committee are selected by the superintendent or his designate which again is associate superintendent Dr. do
keeping her busy. Um, and under public reporting, you'll notice the word suggestions was changed to feedback because that's what occurs at the annual meeting. You'll see that we changed world's best workforce
to comprehensive assess assessment and civic readiness. That was a legislative change, so we needed to change that as well to be in alignment. Also, in addition to feedback to the board, we added district administration. Lastly, the updates
reflect that the committee previews reports and they may include parent and student surveys with suggestions provided to the board. Thank you. Questions? Questions on anyone? All
right, let's keep going. All right, thank you. Policy 217, measures of success. We do recommend suns setting this policy. It's covered thoroughly and policy 618 um which is assessment of
student achievement and that policy was reviewed in detail last May. So, we feel that it would be redundant and 618 does a good job of covering it. So we'd like to propose suns setting that policy. We also reviewed policy 601
district curriculum instruction and assessment. It again reflects our current practices and it's compliant in its current state. Therefore we did not have any recommended changes. We have several policies in the 600s that touch
on these same topics. The policy is about establishing curriculum, instruction, and advancement parameters, including advanced learning and overall student success. In addition, as you look through the policy, you'll note that it
lays out specific definitions regarding student performance goals and professional development. So, we are not recommending any changes for that policy. One of the assumptions our communities get when they look at policies is when they have an old data on them, it looks
like something that is old practice. And and so I we you will see more of these coming only if we have existing policy that we still follow and it still works for us just to get rid of that perception that we've let these things lapse and and haven't considered them.
Thank you. And lastly, policy 603, instructional and curricular program review and improvement. Again, no recommended changes to this policy either as it also reflects current practice covering the topic of materials
differentiation, current instructional review and improvement process along with program improvement cycle and curriculum development. Any questions? None for me. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. And this will be brought back to the the
regular board meeting. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next item up is the review of proposed Diamond Club District Partnership. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, one of the exceptional things about Minnitankka
is our generous community willing to invest in our students and our facilities. Tonight, you're going to get a chance to hear about a group that has made a significant investment already in our high school campus with a beautiful facility and intends to make another upgrade to that
facility. Leading this conversation is executive director of finance and operations, Mr. Bourgeois. This is the fun of uh at the table instead of at the podium. So, I got to get fired up here. Um, actually, we
um Oops. First of all, I got to connect Yeah. No, we're still stuck at the gate. Okay, here we go. Hopefully, it's worth the wait. Okay. Um, thank you. We uh uh
talked about this a little bit last week as we were looking at having to repair the uh the Veterans Field retaining wall and uh so this actually focuses on the potential kind of making lemonade out of a lemon situation and taking advantage of improvement of of an improvement
opportunity. Mr. Verso, I think your microphone is on and it's capturing everything you say on the screen. I'm not sure if that's a problem, but I just pointed out gonna turn it off. Let me turn it off. I think your microphone has to be on. I think it's something on your computer,
but it'll be fine. Uh, let's see. Sound We're getting close caption as a bonus tonight. How's this? No, it's still doing it. Interesting. Well, it's going on the record then, I guess. Oh, well. Um, so you get every um and ah and
everything. So away we go. Yeah. Okay. So, um, again, we know it's minor settling in late fall of 2024 and checked again in the spring to see if it was just minor and stable or if more issues had developed and they had. So last April 10th, you approved us
issuing some bonds estimated for an estimated 1.3 million cost of replacement with large block construction similar to what we have at the Anderson Plaza and the Minnatonka High School front retaining wall and fixing some of the additional drainage issues. So the opportunity is um to make
lemonade out of the lemons because with a large block we're going to have a wider twice as wide. uh we're just going to come up with one big wall instead of a stepped wall and it will allow us to uh have a wider plaza up there. So it'll be uh much more uh just a nicer venue.
Uh and the the the part about is about the retaining wall is that it has to happen with or without restroom concession facility donation by the Minnotonka Diamond Club. The Diamond Club though has a real proven track record as a solid district
partner. Back on April 28th, the Diamond Club entered into an operating and use agreement with the district for the construction and operation of Veterans Field and Legacy Field. It was a $4 million total project. The DI district issued bonds and constructed the facilities and bonds were paid off in 15
years. In 2021, the Diamond Club took responsibility for paying off 90% of that and they paid off $3,600,000 in principal value and all the associated interest. Of course, uh they built an annual revenue stream from advertising, concessions, field
rental, and fundraisers to make the annual payment to pay off their portion. They never missed a payment, not even during the Great Recession. So, uh that revenue stream is actually still ongoing. And so now they they have not had a had to make any payments since 2021. So they have a
revenue uh stream that has been building up uh a little bit of a a cache so to speak. But based on their performance uh the operating agreement was actually amended on June uh 4th of 2021 and extended through 2037. So, per the original agreement,
advertising and field revenues are to be used to enhance district ball fields that we work uh with the Diamond Club uh in a partnership uh arrangement to to try to better things with the do the dollars that are being collected. Just a little bit of history of of what they
did. Uh this is a picture of the Minnotonka High School baseball and softball fields in 2006 just prior to construction. You can see it was just kind of a big sloped area uh around the baseball diamonds and there were only there were two softball fields and um
one one facing directly into the other. So with with the baseball field up it was a really short field for the one softball field and the way down at the bottom of the screen of course is the uh the JV um baseball field. So uh veterans and legacy fields in 2007 after
construction. So, you can see the uh uh actually the three uh uh baseball or softball fields that are kind of in a pin wheel uh format right around the the southwest corner of the of the double football field/B baseball field and all
the uh um the dugouts and the the grandstand that was built. Uh the uh there's also a fourth softball field in the far uh southwest corner. And so, an amazing improvement for the time. And that $4 million investment today would probably be be cost about $10 million to
build. So it was actually made at a really good time. But if you kind of notice on the on the very upper right, there was just most of the grass slope was still there. There were tennis courts at the top of the hill at the time and a long sidewalk going down to the lower level, but it was just a big grass field and there was a a small
three-foot retaining wall and that actually uh washed out in 20 uh in 2013. Uh but it it was the three- foot high uh wall was holding back the slope with a vertical elevation of about 25 ft. So that's just a closeup of the area that
where we're having to work on the improvements. Uh in after that in 2014 when the uh small wall re uh washed out, we uh at that time the big block units weren't really well known. I don't even know if they were even started at the
time, but they've really taken off uh in use since then. But it was still small block construction and uh the with a vertical elevation of 25 ft. We built two tiers because of having one large small block wall that high would be be
be some issues uh with that. In fact, if you actually drive down Highway 62 on both sides of the road, they have a lot of retaining walls and all the small block retaining walls are are stepped back for the same reason. So, but it it was an improvement. created a kind of a narrow viewing plaza along the left
field line. Uh so at that time we made some lemons out of lemonade. So with this situation, the potential restroom concession uh facility, some general information, the footprint of of it would be about the same footprint as the Anderson stadium and softball fields restroom building.
Uh the restrooms would be the same size as the restrooms at about 200 square feet each, which is much better than two portables uh that they've been using for since 2006. the concession area of about 400 square feet, same size as the Einer uh Anderson uh restroom area, lobby
area. So, it's about three times the size of the current Veterans Field concession stand, which is only 13 uh three square feet. And if you've ever worked in it, uh you can fit three people in there, but you have to kind of go in, you have to conga line in and conga line out because there's a a
counter and stuff behind them, and it's like just one one chair width practically. So, it's uh it's really just um now if it Doctor Who would think it was a large TARDIS foam booth, but um it's not much bigger than that. So, and
again, this is the um uh for the sake of the of of reference. This is the conceptual uh view of what it will look like uh when finished in terms of the retaining wall. And we have a conceptual we're we're still finishing up the design, but conceptual view of this the
footprint of the of the restroom and concession stand. And we have a sample of uh label there inspiration. So, but it'll be something very similar to that. Uh although it probably will probably have a different roof on the on the thing and um but it's going to be very similar in that and more more glass walk
up uh windows in that venue. And it will actually have um some it'll have cooling and heating in it. So, uh, because it gets pretty warm in that concession stand, especially with the summer sun beating in. And this is just a sample, uh, or but this is this is the footprint
pretty much. Uh, we, uh, uh, we'll have the, uh, on the left hand side, we'll have the windows, uh, a couple of concession windows on that kind of corner, which is a natural flow from from the grandstand. And, uh, so serving area and everything in the front. And
then, uh, a lot more storage than they have now in the back. And we're going to have a back door with a uh with a uh um a ramp so they can just unload quickly and and take dollies full of of material in of well material food and and drink.
Um and uh uh that will be much more uh effective and and a lot easier than you know shleing it all the way around through the gate and everything and a little bit you know just a few at a time. So, and then restrooms uh a set of restrooms on both
sides. So, the estimated cost is 900,000 to a million. Uh that's the range. And uh but so the the commitment in the proposed agreement in that's in the board packet, it's an amendment to the existing agreement they have with us. uh and it just specifies payment terms and
uh all other components of the original agreement of course are still in full force but uh they have the ability to give us a $500,000 cash donation in August of 25. Actually they have it in the bank right now. They uh provided their their statements to us and then uh
$150,000 donation in August of 26, 150,000 in August 27. another 150 in August of 28 or the remainder depending on where the you know where the bids come in. So um and then a 50,0001 in August 2029 if necessary or a remainder
but they do have a strong record of being a trusted reliable partner and again the majority of the funds are already in hand. They have to they'd like to keep some operating capital uh in place but worse comes to worse they have the ability actually to to um they
have uh the next two payments basically already lined up. So, uh, we'll be able to basically work with them and and, uh, basically they'll cover this whole thing in basically, you know, three years and a few months. So, um, or well, well,
four years and a few months, but, uh, I, you know, again, depending on where the bids come in, uh, it could be it could be sooner than that. So, a tenative timeline if uh we approve this uh agreement at the next board meeting would be um again, we went over this
last time, but the current plaza is fenced off to keep pedestrians off of the area where we've had really significant sinking and uh you authorized the uh the bond sale. And so, we're actually working on the construction design right now. And we're
going to be um if if you agree to to move ahead with the diamond club, we would bring that to you in May. um for uh to contract with them for their donations for the restroom concession facility. And then uh it'll take July, August to go through the approval process with the city of Minnitonka and
the watershed district. Um part of this is since we're going from two tiers to one big one, we're actually taking out the area that's gravel which is pvious and replacing it with impervious. So we actually have to put a a little storm water tank underneath the parking lot to
hold the storm water. So, uh, and then, uh, hopefully that the the goal is to have bids accepted in August and then September through December, uh, retaining wall demolition and construction and October through January. Hopefully hopefully by December the the walls are up, but the inter
interior finishing would take through December and into January. Uh, and also constructing plumbing, portable water, wastewater, natural gas, and but that would allow it to be open for use for the uh, in spring for the baseball season. So that's the proposal. We have
with us Kyle Hikampamp in the audience and Charlie Cannon U. Charlie's former board member um from representing the Diamond Club. If you have any questions for them, they would be glad to answer them. So one question that could come from the
public, what's going to happen to the current concession stand? That that structure will stay. The current concession stand is actually two stories and uh so the top is the the press box which is still staying in operation and uh the the they have a need for for
they're going to use the the lower the phone booth concession state. They're going to use it for storage of various materials. They don't really have much storage and in fact if you actually go in there uh during the offseason the thing is just packed full of stuff. So it'll basically just function as a small storage unit for them. So, we're not
tearing that down. It's it's staying in place. Board members, uh, Megan, um, so to start with, I just this seems like a no-brainer in a lot of ways to me because it's improving the facility for both our athletes and in terms of
sanitation, but also like other organizations do use the facility. Like I know twins camp is held there every year. So, things like that. uh it'll make it a more attractive facility. Um my question was uh I from what I could tell I don't think that there is any
overlap if we were to move forward on the bonding for the facilities and that construction. None of that these things wouldn't conflict with each other at all. Right. Are you talking about a potential building bond? Yeah. Uh correct. uh the you the the repair
repair and replace or the replacement of the uh failing cons or the failing uh retaining wall is being done with long-term facility maintenance money which we have anyway every year and we're utilizing those funds to do that. Um well, I take it back. We're actually
issuing a bond for that, but that bond is going to be paid for out of Don't ask me where my brain went there. um the the uh the bond is going to be paid for out of operating capital funds, which we get anyway. And and so we can do that regardless of whether the
board would say we're going to run a a building bond issue for some of the other projects from the that the facility task force identified or if we don't run it, we still are able to do that. And it does not conflict with I mean there's no there were no actually
other particular plans for the Veterans Field area out of the facilities task force in the potential $85 million worth of bonds. Great. Um I don't have a question. I want to since we have some Diamond Club members here I want to thank them for
their partnership. Uh, I think this is going to, as Megan already pointed out, improve a facility that is, it's a great place to watch baseball and it will be even better place to watch baseball. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All
right. Next up, we have review of fiscal year 26 fees. Superintendent Law. Mr. Chair, members of the board, our final item tonight is part of our uh long-term financial stability. As you remember, way back in November, we had a whole
list of things that we're going to bring forward to uh address our budget deficit for the fiscal year 26. One of those items was adjusting fees in order to generate revenue. Tonight, executive director of finance and operations, Mr.
Paul Bourgeois is going to share with you our proposal to adjust those fees. Mr. Bourgeois. Uh, thank you, Stu. Uh, Superintendent Law and, uh, members of the board. Um, I'm pulling this out because I just realized that one page got dropped off of a PDS PDF in the
translation process here. But um we're looking at at uh uh moving forward with uh fees and and really for the first time ever we're looking at doing um doing things from doing fees from across
the board. Um the uh um what we're looking at is is we talked last spring or last fall about a 10% increase in in some of the major fees, but also it with the the impact of inflation and materials and other things
that we have for some class fees. And then also just the costs of uh of what it takes to run the clubs and you know the high inflation. I mean, we had the 9% inflation in 2022 by itself, and we pretty much held all the fle fees flat during that time. And so, this is
actually proposing to actually move all of them up about uh at the 10% rate. There's several of them that are are uh fees that are are a little bit more than that related to uh they're noted in in the packet uh where the uh manager of
the program uh indicated we have a couple of new ones and we have uh particularly uh instrument rental which is actually those are fees that don't go to the district. They actually go to a company that we utilize to rent the the uh instruments from. So, uh, there's,
you know, increases there. Uh, the the net result of these, I'm just going to scroll down to the bottom of this PDF, but the net result of them, uh, would be, uh, about $252,000 in fees. These are these are
the major, uh, categories. Elementary fees would go up a combined uh, $34,000, which is 12%. But what happened is is the uh the music rental aspect of things actually is what we is kind of bringing that up a little bit more. Uh middle school fees would actually go up
8%. Uh there's there's several that uh they recommended holding flat. So so they're in there at flat, but high school fees would go up again at 12% again related more towards rentals. Uh and then all other fees for the high school uh tickets, all that uh would
basically go up about 10%. And and then uh bus fees, first time in in since they were instituted in 2006 that we would actually uh raise bus fees and uh we actually look like we're collecting a little bit more in fiscal year 25 because we have more people riding the
bus, which is a good thing. But the actual fee itself would go up from uh $100 to $110, which is actually about 32 cents per trip, 64 cents per day. So, it's still a good deal. Um, Tonka online fees would go up uh in uh 10% across the
board. A iPad insurance and iPad insurance, it hasn't been raised in I didn't look back when the last time it was raised, but it hasn't been raised in in in a number of years. I think well since well before co um so the the combined impact um on the
uh uh primarily on the general fund tonka online fees of course are uh in the general fund iPad insurance is in the capital projects fund but it just covers those costs. So basically about 236,000 of of these fees would primarily impact activities that take place within
the general operating fund. Uh and um uh you know we've over the years we've tried to hold them down as much as we we can. Uh this is you know the largest we're going through the largest budget reduction since really 2006 um in the
district and u so that that's kind of where we're at in in terms of some of the ones where uh we have a at the high school we have a new activity for business uh professionals of America uh and that was recommended by Ted Scholes to be $88. It's a brand new fee. Um,
robotics, the material costs are have increased significantly. And so that one has it an an increase of from $80 to $120. There's a lot of a lot of materials involved in that. So, uh, to the fact that they can we can self-fund it out of fees. It'll be less of a
general fund impact uh, uh, to support that club. And then uh we have again at the uh middle schools the uh the ones that are a little bit outliers from the 10% are again are the the musical instrument rental and those have not gone up for quite a number of years. And
then um at the elementary schools uh band band and and uh orchestra uh going up uh more a little more than 10%. And then also uh children's choir the cost with
the uh of the teachers is significantly higher than $50 can cover. So at $75 it will cover for grades four and five. And then we've never had a fee for uh choir at grade three. Uh but they have uh people who are basically instructing
that. And so per and Kurt Carpenter is the manager of that and he recommended a fee of $50 per student for grade three choir. All right. Any questions from the board? Dan, I would just say for process because this is a fee increase when this
comes back to the board, there's a public hearing similar to all other financial adjustments and then the board would approve it and that would be at the next board meeting. Dan, not a question but a comment. I mean, Paul, you and the finance committee have been working on this a lot and there's been a lot of discussion
obviously about the operating challenges that we're facing and that the idea of increasing fees as a way to increase revenue to decrease the amount of contractions we have to make has has come up quite a lot. And I think this
strikes the the right balance between increasing that revenue in in a small way that we can and being mindful of all the fees that parents and families have to pay and respecting their home budgets as well.
Thank you. Yeah, I was going to point out a similar thing and you know things like the bus fees not having been increased since is this right? 2006. So yes, that's when they're first implemented. So obviously if we could have kept inflation at the levels of
2006, we'd be very happy today about the state of our budget. And uh we don't have that power. So we have to do what we can. Um I'm wondering as we're talking about some of these increases,
uh I can't recall if it's in here, but maybe you can just tell me. Are there opportunities for students or families who might be burdened by fees to seek scholarships or assistance for some of these fees? Thinking about the large
increases and orchestra and other places that might have an impact on students ability to take advantage of all of the opportunities we have to offer. Yes, we have angel funds and also fee wavers. Okay. And so that that remains part of
the overall practice here today. Sure. Any other discussion? I guess we'll take this bring this back to the board meeting. All right, that concludes our agenda for the study session today. We
will adjourn to a close session. Happy belated birthday to Paul. Yes, happy birthday. I'm Medicare eligible. Yay.