Good evening everyone. As I call to order the regular school board meeting of Independent School District number 882, it is 6:00 p. p.m. on Monday, March 16th. Please stand to say the pledge of
allegiance with me. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. >> Thank you. Now looking for approval of this evening's tenative agenda. So moved. >> Second. Oh, I'd like to note that this evening we are missing board member Jeff Hegley and Mary Bartell, but we still
have a quorum. All right. Moved by Melissa Curtis, seconded by Casey Root. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. Opposed, please say no. >> Motion passes. 4. All right. This evening, I don't believe
we have any citizen comments in the audience. So we will move right on to needing approval of our consent agenda. So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Melissa Curtis, seconded by Casey Root. All those in favor, please say I.
>> I. Oppose, please say no. Motion passes 40. And I just want to say it's pretty exciting um part of the consent agenda was our official new superintendent contract that was part of that. So um exciting stuff for our district moving
forward in this next school year. All right. Now, on to item number six, collaborative connections. I will pass the mic over to Superintendent Eric Olsson to go over the resolution for acceptance of gifts. As always, it's just amazing uh the
community support that we have. And we have two uh more donors coming forth here today. Um, Simons and Lumber uh donated a storage shed and materials valued at $872.38 um for the Monaceel High School intro to construction class. We also have the
Monaceel Chiropractic and Therapy who donated $500 to the Monosel fishing team. I bring forth these gifts here tonight and the resolution will be read. Therefore, be it resolved by the Monaceel School Board number 882 to
gratefully accept the following donations. Uh, Simons and Lumber storage shed materials valued at872 $872.38. Monaceel Chiropractic and Therapy donation for $500. >> Second.
All right. Moved by Casey Root, seconded by Melissa Curtis. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Oppos, please say no. >> Motion passes 40. And as always, every single school board meeting, I'm amazed by the donations by our community that
keeps um the incredible programs that we have going and robustly going in our district. All right, we are moving on to item B. We're going to be going over district advisory committee update. I'm going to bring forward our director of teaching and learning, Laura Stebner,
who's going to introduce the gang she's got with her tonight to present. All right. Well, Chair Seban, Superintendent Olsen, members of the board, we're really excited today to be here to share with you an update on our district advisory committee. Um, not only do I have two presenters who are
going to share a little bit about themselves, we also have some members of the audience. So, if you're on the district advisory committee in the audience, can you wave? And Sandy is our co-f facilitator. So, we have a couple of support members in our audience tonight who are part of our
work together. So, we are going to kick it off and share with you what we've been up to. >> Oh, thank you. So, the purpose of tonight is just to really give a brief update. Our committee is not done with the work. We are in process, but we wanted you to know what we've been
working on. And so, Lindsay could not be here tonight, one of our presenters, but we do have two others who will share a little bit about themselves. Good evening. My name is Josh Canigator. I have two children in the district. Um both came up through the East View uh Pinewood and one is currently at the
middle school, one is at the high school. >> Hi, my name is Uru David and I have one son at the Little Mountain uh elementary school, fourth grade. And this is my first time
being part of the uh DAC committee. Thank you. So, this is I've had the privilege of being on the district advisory committee or what used to be the uh curriculum advisory committee um two times now. Um there have been some changes this time
around and it has been um reimagined just a little bit. Um in the past it used to be a uh a committee where the district would bring presentations and seek feedback. Um, I think the district has taken an amazing step though this
year um to uh actually start bringing problems to that group. Um, instead of trying to use that group to to raise problems and not necessarily getting any farther, um, the district is bringing issues and problems to that group that we're then delving into and seeing what we can do to uh to provide actual
feedback. So as a committee we decided to have an hypothesis and basically we began as a district um to see what can we do about
student engagement. So we realized that um decrease in student engagement uh may contribute to decline in academic outcomes. So even though we have the hypothesis we just don't want to run away with that. We still want to bring
it into our own context and see what can we do about this. How can we solve this big huge problems uh with the resources that we have and by such doing we have to divide ourself into groups and these
groups has different areas of focus to go do some research on. So once we uh identified our hypothesis, which you see here, we really brought that forward to the group and we've been leading this group in a very um collaborative and participant-driven
way. And that's been a a big change like you heard from Josh. And so what we've been doing is first we um looked at this hypothesis from a personal level. Each member of our committee um is a parent, a student, a teacher, an educator. And so we all recognize that student
engagement is a challenge. From there, we identified some key focus areas for research and that was all driven by our team. Our team brainstormed and identified what it was that we wanted to dig into. From there, we identified or we dug into research for each subcommittee. Um, we looked at family
survey data. And now we're at the point where we've developed some confidence statements and action steps. And we're going to talk a little bit more about these pieces, but this gives you just an overview. We've met three times so far. We have one meeting left and we've really dug into pretty deeply multiple
steps in this process that's really been collaborative and driven by our participant team. So, uh, like Laura said, we there's so much we can do in terms of student engagement, but we narrow down to at least just four and the four are mental
health. What we believe about mental health is that there is connection between student mental health and their academic performance and their engagement. And we also discuss the real world connections. So how can what the
student learn in school, how is it even though they might be in fourth grade or 12th grade, how is it applicable in real life? And we also discuss about hands-on learning. Um we know that we do our best in terms of technology but how can we
make that technology becomes interactive as opposed to being monotonous activity where they are using it and then trusting two-way relationship basically how can we collaborate between family teachers and the student that we can
share communications together and that the school or the parent can be confident that everything that they receive from the school is authentic and the school can be confident everything that we receive from the parent are also authentic. >> Once we had our focus areas and did our
research, um we were cognizant of the fact that we're just a representative group. We're supposed to represent the community, but we wanted to make sure that we were still hearing the voices of the community. So we asked the district for data and they brought forward to us the family engagement survey um where we
were able to review that for the various themes um that came out of that the balance of technology and instruction the hands-on and experimental learning um real world and career connections communication with families and opportunity um and arts and enrichment. And when we delve into that or dove into
that, we were seeing a lot of correlary with what we were seeing in the research, what we were coming up with as it um as a group already um as we were moving forward on the problem. And so we were able to incorporate a lot of those pieces into our next steps and as we're starting to put together the
recommendations for this group. So, I wanted both of these gentlemen to reflect just a little bit so you as board members could hear how this experience has been for them. Josh spoke a little bit about how the committee's changed as a member who had been on it before. Um, but each of them is just
going to speak a little bit about their reflections as being part of this reimagined district advisory committee. Like I said, I've had an opportunity to be in this group before and we came in this time around um and we had a problem that was already presented to us. Um we
were shown the data um and started to look at how student engagement um affects the academic success here in the district. Um for a re-imagined committee, I think it speaks a lot um to how much the uh school district
administration here cares about the input of this committee. um the families and the community to take on such a broad um and actually uh vital topic. Um this is not a local issue. It's not a state issue. It's a national issue. It's
an issue that has so many variables and so many different components to it. Um that to with this group and the first time around to rip the band-aid off and say this is what we're going to do and this is what we're going to take on. Um I felt good about as a community member and as a parent um of kids here in this
district. Um I think we've made some great strides in this group. Um and I think we are uh we're not delusional. Um we know that we're not going to solve this problem. Um but we have kept a local focus to it. Um so what will work
here in Monaceel, what will work for our family is what will work for our community. And I think we're going to be able to come back to the board um with some incremental steps and some incremental um recommendations that could really make a difference.
And as I reflected back on the process of the committee and one thing that stood out to me is that my understanding is that this is a new way or a new format if you will of how
we how we do things in the uh district advisory committee. And uh the first time I came here to the meeting and I could not help but see the passion and
the desire from uh Eric Olsson the our superintendent uh about his his mission, his vision, the goal for the school moving forward, how he want things to improve
with passion and zeal. and coming with this idea of new format of the uh RDC group. I think it speak volumes and where his heart is. And so I just want to say officially say thank
you for the direction that you try to steer this committee into. And like Josh said, we are going to bring some recommendations and with the belief that we can work on it incrementally
um so that the school can stand out um you know of all the so many numbers of uh district we have in Minnesota that even though this problem is a big problem, it's a huge problem but we can do something meaningful about it moving
forward. So we are moving towards recommendations. Our final meeting is next Tuesday. We now have 16 solid ideas that we could bring forward. And we recognize that we do not have the capacity to do 16 things. And so our
team is going to be really looking at um what is going to be high impact, what's feasible, what is comes with challenges, what comes with successes, and they're going to be narrowing down. From there, we'll be presenting to you our three to four high impact recommendations around student engagement and what this team is
going to bring forward as action steps that they would recommend to the board. What questions can I answer or our team answer for you all tonight? >> I think it's good to see the collaboration and opportunities for people to get involved in the district
in other ways on there. So, it's great. Um, when you talk about narrow it down from 16 to three or four, that's obviously a positive step in the right direction. so we can tackle some of these. But just maybe as a comment, we want to make sure we don't lose sight of the, you know, 12 or 14 that didn't make the cut and it's a good starting place
for next year for the next round as well. Um, and just refine over time. So, I think it's good. It's great to hear your uh presentation on this. Well, thank you. >> Other comments from the board? >> Well, I got to tell you, number one, thank you Josh and David for being here
and helping present. And then uh the other I see familiar faces in the audience here that are part of this committee. I don't think I've been this excited about this committee in particular. Not this excited since I've been on the board and so this is really
exciting stuff. You guys are doing some really awesome work and I'm proud of the work you've done so far and I'm really looking forward um to seeing some good things come from it. So very excited. Anything else from the board?
All right, thank you for presenting. All right, we'll move on to item C. We're going to go over our middle school STEM lab from the MSBA showcase presentation. So, I'd like to welcome up to the podium, uh, one of our STEM
teachers, Jill Kadrski. And looks like I'll have her introduce the students that are with her this evening. >> Yes, thank you. We are presenting on the MSBA showcase that happened back in January. We were lucky enough to attend. And by we, I mean our great STEM students are going to do an awesome
presentation. Casey Mson, the seventh grade STEM teacher, is at home with a sick child. And Rose Lane, our other presenter, she's at wrestling practice. So, the three students with me today are Olivia, Cohen, and Tyler. Each of these students are going to talk about their experiences on the day of the showcase
and the modules they've been at in the STEM lab. here. First off, are just some pictures of our booth at the showcase. >> My name is Cohen Kaufman. Um, I was at the showcase and one of my memories was getting to see all the different booths
and getting to see different business ideas and concepts. My favorite part about STEM is the hands-on aspect and getting to explore different careers. The stations I have been at are home maintenance fundamentals, energy and power, home maintenance systems, structural engineering, and biomedical
engineering. >> Hi, my name is Olivia and my favorite memory was walking around, seeing the things in the booth, trying the foods that were there, and showing off our lab. My favorite part of STEM is learning all the different job concepts
during each rotation and figuring out which I like the best for the future. The ones that I've been at so far are alternative energy, biomed, energy and power, dentistry, and research and development.
>> And Rose Lane's not here with us today, but I'll share her favorite memory because it's so cute. She says that her favorite memory was explaining what she did to other people because I really enjoyed talking about the class. So, it was super easy to talk about and I think all of you that were there know that she's just so spunky about that.
>> I'm Tyler Herman and my favorite memory was uh like walking around and talking to adults who took me seriously and had me like interested in what I had to say. And my favorite part about STEM would be learning about careers that we have interest in. also all the different
modules especially research and design. I've been in energy and power, flight and drone research and design, home maintenance systems and sports medicine. >> Are there any questions you have for the wonderful students up here?
>> Board. Any questions? >> I'll make a comment. What grade are each of you in? You're in eighth grade and I think you should have no doubt that most if not
all adults uh based on what your experiences are and your ability to speak in front of us will take you seriously. So believe in yourselves. Very nice job. Thank you. >> All right. I can just speak. I was at the MSBA conference and I had the
opportunity to talk to these wonderful students as well as Roselene and um it's just cool to see their passion, how excited they were. They told me what all their favorite things were, what what their favorite um I don't know if you call it the lab, but the area that they were learning on um was and they were
just very passionate and know that they get this type of experience here and Monaceel at our school. It's it's not something you can find at every school. So, it's really unique and I'm proud that we have it here. So, thank you to the teachers that that brought it forward, but then also thank you for the
students that really are the key to making it successful and continue it going and growing. So, thank you for coming and speaking this evening. >> I'll say one more thing, just thank you for adding to it, too. Like, even seeing the different components that have been added since my kids were in middle
school, which is just the years. Um, it's changed so much and it's really cool. So, thank you for doing all of that. >> And I'll just before you go, I just want to just tell you very simply how proud I am of uh the three of you and your teachers are just amazing people. Keep
shining. >> Thank you. >> All right, on to another I'm This evening has just been so great so far. We've got to go through a lot of fun stuff. So this our next item, item D is going to we're going to hear from our Monosel Royal Ambassador. So I'd like to
welcome to the podium Avery Metaf, Lily Montgomery, and Ella Moran. Um hello, I'm Avery Metaf, and like you said, we are the Monaceel Royal Ambassadors. We basically go around to different towns and cities and we represent Monaceel through our volunteer
work and just our our strive to be out in the community. And so today here we have um just a few basics of like why we all decided to be ambassadors. So for me, one of the main reasons I decided to
run was volunteering because before being an ambassador and even being like a candidate for the ambassador program, there were so many events around Monaceel that I did not know existed. And so through this program, I got to go out in the community and help where um
like in events that I didn't know were a thing. And that's uh that ties in with my outreach is I also with not knowing all these events, I wanted to put myself out there and um become a part of these and like even when I'm not an ambassador anymore, I'm still going to go to these
events. And then uh the last reason I decided to run was basically just why not? because there was no good reason for me not to run for this and it was just an amazing program and there was no there was no reason for me not to have
done this and things that I've learned through being an ambassador are definitely leadership um you go out to different towns and different events and you represent Monaceel through what you do and through being an ambassador you
gain so much value both to yourself and for the rest of Monaceel because you're representing them, but you're also gaining um all this confidence and like um strive to be out in the community and that's definitely how I've grown and my
confidence for sure. One of the main things that we get to do as a candidate is public speaking. And so we have to um with a full-blown speech that we have to memorize for our gala um we have to say that speech in front of an entire um
gala group of people. And for sure when I did it for the first time, I was terrified. And then when we had it the second time, I was ready. I was I was so ready to speak in front of people because my confidence from being around all the people in Monaceel had really boosted. And that especially helped my
mental health too. Uh, I got to be around these amazing girls and all of the rest of the people we did our candidacy with and it really just made me so happy to go out in the community and be with all these people and especially like getting to just one of
the main things that we do is um be especially with the little kids and so we get to face paint them all the time and it's super super fun and so getting to basically give back to the community in this day is super super special to me
cuz I really love being around kids and getting to just be with them for a lot of our rain was really really special to me. And so uh some of the pictures I added to mine of my year so far we've got different parades. Uh the one in the bottom corner was our parade in Anoka
was the light up parade. Um on top of that we got to go to a wild game which was really fun. Um dressing up for school that was a big one. We went downtown trick-or-treating. We got to go to the state fair. And it was just overall my reign so far and candidacy on
top of that was super super special. And when I'm not an ambassador, it's going to be something I hold very very close to my heart. And I'm very grateful that I had this opportunity to be an ambassador. Um, okay. So, I'm Lily. I'm another one of your Monosell Royal Ambassadors. Um,
why I decided to run was basically confidence. So, when I was younger, I very much wanted to do this when I was little. Seeing the royalty over the years, being able to blow kisses off the parade route was one of the things I held mind. But as I got older, I looked more towards the confidence part. Mainly
because as somebody in school who doesn't look like other girls my age, I really was wanting to put myself out there and find myself through this experience. And really, I did. I have became more with the community and I
feel like myself as well. Being able to wear the crown has definitely made me smile a lot more, made my home, my mental health go up, and I think that that's just something I can really take away from this. Another thing I actually had was extra time on hand. And I didn't do a lot. I don't do a lot of clubs in
school and not a whole lot of stuff during the summer. So, why not take the time to do the stuff that you can for the community and being able to give back in this way is definitely one of the things that I took away. Um, what
I've learned is the public speaking skills. When as a was talking about the public speaking, when we first talked about the public speaking in our rain, I was definitely nervous. But over the time, I got more comfortable with it. And I think that's very important,
especially if you're out and about going places and talking a lot. And time management, and I know we came in a little bit late today because of the roads, but that's okay. But our time management has been pretty well throughout our rain. We definitely
learned how to show up on time, when to pack up our stuff, when to help clean up, and definitely when it's good to walk away from their events and come back. So that's a good thing to keep in mind as well. And and lastly, I think more important to me is how to wear the crown. Being able to represent
Monisell's stars on the crown is definitely one big thing to me. And just going around spreading love and kindness and sparkle throughout the community is is very big to me too. And I've definitely grown because I've learned how to respond to others with respect
and patience no matter what age because as Avery said, we deal with little kids on the pray routes and face paint. And I think that their reactions to us wearing crowns are very, very surprising, a lot more than you'd think. And most adults
also respect us for being able to wear the crown and show up to so many community events. So I think the respect that we get in the room is very very appreciated. Um working with kids, the face painting, the parade routes, they have so much patience with us. So the
more that we give patience to them, they have patience for us. And the happy attitude that they have is so much fun. And balancing life with these accomplishments like we are teenagers. We have our own lives outside of rain and being able to balance the life that you have and the crown. I think that
it's definitely possible and it's so much fun as well. Um, as you see, we have many photos from my year so far. So, we have taken pictures in sunflower fields, the crowning moments, the Saints game. Um, we have a lot of out of town
events like St. Paul, the state fair. It's just a lot of fun and I really recommend this to anybody who's wanting to give back or even just have a little bit of time extra on their hands and want to have a lot of fun. So, thank you.
Hi, I am Ella Moran and I am your third Monosella Royal Ambassador. Um, I wasn't, unlike Lily, I wasn't really aware that we had a program until like last year when I saw um, Aurora and
Claudia post about it. But I decided to run cuz I already had a few friends doing the candidacy and I thought it would be a great opportunity to make even more friends and connections. And I always wanted to be able to volunteer and give back to my community,
but I never really knew how because I was only a teenager. Um, so I saw this as an opportunity to be more involved in my community. And through this, I've learned so much about what goes on for each event. Like, I didn't know how much
work went into every single event. And it has made me appreciate our community a lot more. And I also did it because there was a scholarship opportunity and I thought even if I don't get crowned, it still was a lot of community hours
and volunteer service and that looks great on applications and also is what helped me get into honor society. I've learned so much over these past months. It's almost been a year since I joined candidacy. Um, like Avery and
Lily have already said, the public speaking has gotten a lot better. We had to interview a sponsor, write a speech, and give it two times. One in front of the Chamber of Commerce, and the other one was in front of our sponsors again,
but also other people from neighboring towns who came to support us. Uh, we've gotten better with leadership. I feel more confident when I go to all these events and as ambassadors, we'll have
candidates coming up soon and we I feel a lot more confident being able to guide them and help them through their candidacy the way Lily, Claudia, and Aurora helped us. And I just felt a lot more uh connected to my community. And
I've definitely gotten better at time management. I am balancing school, royalty, honor society, and theater. I had to stop with soccer so I could continue to give myself a little break from all the stuff I have. Uh I've grown
over these past few months with confidence. I used to be when we had our first couple events as Crown, even in Crown after candidacy, I was still a little timid when I was going out to like meet other people, talking to
people. Um but now I go to events and it just feels very natural to meet all these people. Um my communication has gotten better. I can accum I can communicate effectively. Um and it's also very helpful when I have these two
with me because it doesn't feel like I'm trying to like carry all the weight by myself. I have two people to rely on on top of our amazing committee and all of our parents who help out. And I feel like I've just gotten a lot more outgoing. Um, I feel like I've come out
of my shell a little bit more. Even though I have been a little more of an extrovert, it has helped me get more comfortable with being an extrovert. Um, and I love being able to connect and represent Monaceel and meet all the
people from other towns and learn about their communities as well. Uh, with my photos, you see crowning moments, uh, a lot of face painting. I didn't think I'd be face pinning as much as I do now. And just all the little moments that we have
with each other and other communities. Are there any questions? >> What questions do we have for our royal ambassadors? >> I was just going to make a comment on the the public speaking part. That's a skill that's developed over time. It's good to start young with that. You're
doing wonderful, all three of you. Um, so yeah, it's the more you can tackle that and understand it, uh, develop your skills, it'll take you a long way. So, good job. >> I have a question for you. >> Thank you. Uh, very nice job. You, each
of you speak very well in front of a group, which is impressive because each of you talked about the development of your confidence through this experience, implying that you weren't maybe as confident ahead of time. So that's got to feel really good. For those people that don't have an experience like this,
how would you suggest that they work to build their confidence? >> Um, I would just say that like with our candidate experience, we get to do events where you don't have like the requirement of the crown. to like basically in like a lesser way, you
don't have to be like as confident and as outgoing, but as a candidate, you like slowly get to learn more of like the confidence and being around people. And if you're a little shy at first, it's okay because I know that all three of us were definitely very very shy and not as confident as we are. But as we
went on in our candidacy, we definitely like when we got to go out to other towns as candidates and we met all these other people, we realized that like we're not the only ones that are doing this and like there's so many other girls that also feel like like not
confident in this and they continue to go through with it and it just consistently like grows the confidence through it. And so I think that even if you aren't like confident or if you're like a little shy to do um to be an ambassador, candidacy definitely really
really helped because then you grow into this spot of confidence and you get there at the end after going through all of the candidate experiences. I did love hearing the fact of um listening to the past ambassadors and then how you took that toutelage from
them and how you want to pass that forward. I mean really that is a a remarkable um event that our world needs you know more of right giving and and then um making sure that you're opening the ears to to listen so that you can
have the best experience. Awesome job. Great teachable moment for all of us. I have one more for Lily. After going to other towns, what do you think sets Monaceel apart? >> I think each ambassador definitely sets it apart. Um, us three girls, we
definitely have our own flare and we definitely bring different energy to different events. We definitely try to be different than each ambassador. Each one brings a new mood and a new event, like brings a new theme. We definitely like to be talkative and we like to be
out there and open and we definitely love being ourselves and we try to set personalities apart from each event and I think that's what makes each town different because each judge selects different people based on personalities
and stuff and I think that's really key for judging moments because each person is different and they try to showcase that as much as they can. Thank you. >> Okay, I have a quick question. Um, how
long is your Well, I have a couple questions. How long is your reign and do you as current royalty start recruiting people that are younger and what age to kind of fill your spots as you guys
graduate or what does that look like? Um, our reign is normally a year long from the start of Riverfest or the end of Riverfest when we get crowned all the way to the next year when we crown the new girls. Candidacy normally starts
around April. So, we're coming up to the season. Uh, normally when we're trying to get candidates in, we have it we start at age 16. So they can be sophomores like us three were sophomores
when we uh joined. Um we have committee members who will post things on like Facebook, Instagram trying to spread the word. And then us girls will use our connections through uh school to try and find people who we think would like
really like this or we'll reach out to people and we're like, "Hey, I think you should I think you would have a lot of fun doing this." And then we tell other girls who are like maybe not so sure, we always tell them to bring a friend just so they have someone to go with and it feels less scary and that way we can
also bring more girls in to join. Awesome. Love that. All right. And the last question for each one of you before uh you guys can head out is what has been each of your favorite event that you've done so far?
Um, my favorite event, uh, as a candidate was probably the Big Lake Spudfest. So, we got to ride on top of a firet truck and it also uh, introduced us to like how the parades go and all that and it was
really fun. And then my favorite event as a in Crown was the Queen's Weekend in St. Paul for winter carnival and we pretty much spent like the whole weekend with us three and a whole bunch of other girls from towns. We all were in a hotel
together and we did all these other events and we learned about St. Paul and their royalty stuff cuz they have royalty as well. Um, and it was a really great time to connect with all the other girls around the state of Minnesota and
girls in Wisconsin. Um, I think that my favorite event as a candidate was the art in the park day because we got to help um sell uh like make your own like dirty sodas basically. And for me that was super fun
because not only do you get to like have like a fun way like we'd basically have a relay race coming back and forth getting like a soda putting it back on front of the and then um making the line go down and for me that was just like a super fun uh event and day. It was a
really great day to spend. And I think for our rain, one of my favorite things was to go to the state fair because we got to ride in their parade. We got to be in a royalty trolley and so it was really fun getting to see how many people were there. There were so many
and we were just waving down and saying hi to everybody and it's just like, "Oh, I know them. Oh, I know them, too." And then you're just like waving to everybody. And it was a really, really nice day, too. And it was so great to see how everybody in Minnesota just goes to the state fair and how we can
represent Monaceel even in a city that's like an hour away. And so it was really nice. Um, my favorite event as a candidate, I would say it would also be the Spud Spudfest um, parade. Not only was it, you know, a parade and us candidates
were like freaking out because we got to be in one, but actually I had a connection with my family through the thing and they were watching me on the fire truck and we saw each other and we cried as one does. But that was my favorite I think. And then my first
event actually in Crown was my favorite. We got to go to Hopkins and we did a goose chase and we took pictures on an app. Like if you take pictures then it actually happened and it was a lot of fun. And then that was the first ever ball that we went to and I think that
balls are my favorite now and they're great. I love dancing. >> Oh, that's awesome. Well, thank you for coming tonight. Thank you for sharing. I want to hear more sometime maybe in passing about this goose chase. Um, but yeah, we really appreciate you ladies coming out this evening. Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. >> All right. Next is item number seven, innovation and leadership. I'd like to welcome up to the podium our activities director, Gary Raven, to go over our winter sports activities update. >> All right. Well, before the girls go, I
just want to say thank you. you guys are just shining bright and uh how you're representing Monaceel is amazing. So, keep it up and I'm glad you found something that you're really passionate about. So, great job, girls. All right, so winter activities, a quick
wrap up here. Uh first thing I want to say is um I want to really emphasize how hard it is to win a conference championship. There's nine schools in our conference and some of our schools do not win any throughout the entire school year. Um if they win one, they're
extremely proud. Um we're very fortunate to have very strong activities right now at Monaceel High School. Um we won the majority of them in the fall and this winter. There's eight conference activities and Monaceel High School won six out of the eight.
We also added four state championships that I'm going to show you in a little bit, too. So, very proud of that. All right, one act. Ryan Sadell was our adviser this year. We had a varsity and a JV. So, two groups representing one
act. The varsity performed the girl in the white pinn is like an apron. And the JV performed are We Okay. Our varsity missed advancing to the section finals by one one place. They finished fourth at the south subsection competition. I
watched the play. I thought they did an outstanding job this year. First Robotics, Leanne Girtz and Megan Baitman are our adviserss and they have actually turned this into almost a year-long program.
They officially started on January 10th, but they unofficially started uh last summer already. are very excited about how well things went last year and they want to build on that. So, uh, our first official competition is in Becker on March 28th and then in St. Cloud, uh,
the week of the 8th through the 11th. Currently have 16 students participating and, uh, we have four adult mentors and this year we raised enough funds to have a freshman robot and a varsity robot. So now they have two and I know they're
coming to the next school board meeting to present. So first robotics knowledge bowl we started knowledge bowl as a conference last year a conference event. We won it last year and we won it again this year. So I took a little
grief at our last meeting that we're even winning knowledge bowl in the Mississippi 8 conference. So very proud of our program. Courtney Roach is our adviser and our team mainly competes on Saturdays. So, it's a big commitment to be on the knowledge bowl team because
you're gone most weekends. So, our varsity and JV both consistently placed in the top 10 at meets this season. We won the conference championship like I said for the second year. Our top team was Henry Stener, Dawson Blake, Nick Green, and Carl Se.
And uh the varsity team also advanced to regionals for the first time in approximately 5 years to make it that far. And uh the adviser, Miss Roach, wanted me to do a quick shout out here for Dawson, Henry, and Nick because they participated all four years in high
school in our knowledge bowl program and they were our leaders the last couple years. So um they did an amazing job. DECA. All right. DECA state tournament. All right. Our advisor is uh Miss Graberg and the
season just wrapped up on March 3rd. We had 30 students participate in DECA. It's a business club. We had seven students advance to state competition. So it was the students were Lucas Cudi,
Katie Hagen, um Danny PZ Lumis, Sophia Arel, Aubrey Johnson, Payton Leonard, and Anakah Ericson. So they all went down to the cities, represented Monaceel at the state tournament and they stayed a couple nights down there and uh they
had an excellent experience. Math team, right? So, our math team, our adviserss are two math teachers, Miss Shenzer and Mr. Ringo. We had a young team. We had 15 participants this year. We competed
in five meets. Uh we finished third in our division, which includes Elk River, STMA, Anendale, and Big Lake. And Arnave Gupta is a sophomore. He was our top scorer this year on our math team. So,
we will have him back next year. Our dance team, dance team finished third in both high kick and jazz this year in the conference. Um, we competed varsity, JV, and we had B squad jazz with varsity and JV and both high kick and jazz. And we
graduated a strong group last year making it to the state tournament for the first time in school history. Uh, but this year's team continued to impress. We won three of the invites that we went to, and we had another strong season. Girls hockey.
Got a fun team to watch this year. A lot of young talent. The program has a bright future. We compete in the competitive Lake Conference. Coach Bean has stepped down after three seasons as our head coach. So, we are currently looking for a new head coach. We're going to be interviewing later this week
um over at St. Michael High School. The team finished seven and 19, but 13 of those 19 losses were against teams ranked in the top 20. So, we play a very tough schedule. Um, and like I said, we were a young team, but fun to watch and
the future is bright for the Riverhawks. Boys hockey continued to do well. Uh, we went undefeated again this year in the conference and we lost in the section final to Cathedral for the third straight year. Um, it was another fun
season of hockey at the Moo Sherid Ice Arena. Our record was 196 and3. Nicholas Nelson was awarded the Mississippi 8 defenseman of the year for the third straight year. He's a junior this year. And Nolan Worm was the Mississippi 8
goalie of the year. He's also a junior. Um, I'm not sure if you were at the game in Elk River. A tough loss. We scored with about eight minutes to go in the game. And then uh Cathedral scored on a power play and then they got an empty net or they scored again with two
minutes to go on an empty net or beat us three to one. It was a tough loss. Uh but like I said, proud of the boys this year. Another fun year. Boys swimming and diving. Went undefeated in the conference. We moved up to class doubleA this season,
which is another level up. Coach Westir was proud of our times at sections, but it's a tough section. We advanced two members to state. Sam Martin uh went to state in the 50 free in the 100yard backstroke and Noah Miller went for
diving. So we had two at the state tournament this winter. Wrestling first year coach Vince Deetsz and his staff brought passion to our program. We had a strong season uh finishing fourth in the Mississippi Conference. We sent
five wrestlers to the state tournament, two boys and three girls. Ethan Fiser went at 172 pounds, and he finished in the top 12. And then Garrett Bower was a state champion for Monaceel High School. Garrett became the ninth all-time state
champion at Monaceel High School. Um the girls, Phoebe Morris placed fourth, Jamie Bale is sixth, and Rosane Verrett took second place. She's pictured on the slide. All three girls earned all state um finishing in the top six
gymnastics. First time ever state champion in gymnastics, undefeated in every competition we participated this year, JV and varsity. Uh we broke the school record multiple times. We'd post school
record and congratulate the girls and then the next time they went out, they did it again. Um, and I want to point out watching them at the sections in Alexandria on the balance beam, the stuff that they do, the back flips and cartwheels and everything they're doing
on the beam and not one fell. We went to the state tournament, not one fell again. They completely dominated under pressure. It was so fun to watch them. All five of our varsity gymnasts advanced in individuals, too. Lauren
Hansen was a state champion in allaround. She also won the state championship on bars. She took third on beam, fourth on the floor, and fourth on vault. Katon Noasi. Um Katon placed
third on bars and fifth in allaround. Alana Beckan, uh, Sienna Zapeda, and Alicia Gru also participated as individuals, and those five participated in all the events for us in the team
rotation as well. So, amazing season for gymnastics. Shout out to our coaches. Lisa Moran is the head coach. Will Then is one of the assistants, Mila Bandis, and Kim Nygard. They did an outstanding
job. Girls basketball just wrapped up on Friday night. So, our winter sports are now done. Finished 27 and five on the season. We won the conference, the section title at home against Elk River in front of a pack gym. It was one of the best events
to be at putting in the end bleachers and just the Monosel pride there was it was just a fun night. Um, first round of state, we lost a heartbreaker to Rochester Mayo by two points at the buzzer. Then we bounced back to win the consolation championship, winning our
next two games at state. Savan Samantha Vo made the all tournament team, which is a huge honor. Um, happy for her. Coach Gian wanted me to include a few other things here. Very proud of the team. We're the first basketball team, boys or girls, to end the season with a
win, winning their last game at state. The senior class, most of them played on varsity for the last four years. They won 104 games, most ever in a four-year span for basketball. The 10 seniors will
graduate and so far five are planning to play in college next year that have already committed to play in college. Our staff, our head coach is uh Craig Gian and we have coach Balder Lenu, Coach Hazelton, and Coach Barker. And it
was just a fun season to be a part of boys basketball. We finished uh the season 22 and six. They had an amazing year, too. We had lost to Becker at home during the regular season. Last conference game, we went into Becker and the guys wanted to
repeat his conference champs. We beat him by 20 points that night. I went over there and uh it's the best defense I've had seen us play all year. So, we beat Becker at Becker. were co- champions with Becker. Then they had an amazing year as well. We advanced to the section
semifinals and we lost to Alexandria and they are going on to the state tournament. Um very good team out of Alex. They're the defending state champs as well and they're very good again this year. We had two seniors, Reese Neban and he's a senior and junior Carson
Dybo. Both joined our 10,000 point club. So super cool. Our boys, four of the five starters are back. We're going to have a strong team again next year. All right, the Coyotes. STMA, it's our adaptive floor hockey team. STMA
oversees the floor hockey team. We oversee the soccer in the fall. Coach Emily Harry was an assistant again this winter after being our head coach in this past fall. Another successful season, just missed out on advancing to the state tournament. and we continue to
see strong participation numbers from Monaceel and St. Michael Albertville in this program. Um, a few years ago we added a JV component. So the first 20 minutes of a game uh the kids that typically wouldn't get in get to play to
get them out there and get them some experience as well. So um it's just been a positive program and a co-op I'm very proud that we're in with STMA and Buffalo. All right. I wanted to point this out. I
just have the slide here for you. Um, if you haven't seen this yet at the high school, it's not quite finished. It's close. We still uh have to put the flooring in, but we've added a state champions display. And one of the things I'm most proud of is to display our
history. So when somebody walks in door one at the high school, this was a trophy case that we gutted and we now put this in and uh people will be able to look back to see all the amazing athletes and teams that we've had at Monaceel that have actually gone on and
won a state championship. And right about the middle of that second row, it started within the last five years. All of those championships and individual champions and five team champions have happened like in the last five years. So
extremely proud of the group of athletes we have right now. Our attendance office took a picture um last week posted on social media. Uh Kelly Lindberg and we had four students that were standing in
front and she said these four have 20 state champions between them. And then we started thinking about it. I'm not sure how many state championships total we have in our high school right now, but it's almost 30. Somewhere in the high 20s. When you look at our swimming
programs now, wrestling, gymnastics, track, uh, track, it's absolutely amazing what's happening right now at our school. And we're just in a era where we are blessed with extremely talented um, student athletes. So, with
that, I'll take any questions that you might have. >> All right, board. What questions or comments? >> It's hard to ask any questions, but I think it deserves a comment and a congratulations. I mean, the activities
department so successful lately, and we're seeing some of our stars move on to the next level, which is I think it's just a time to celebrate and enjoy smelling some roses around here. So, thank you very much, Gary. >> Thank you.
>> Yeah, I just want to echo that. I mean, we have some incredible athletes, no doubt, but there is also some incredible coaches that it takes to coach those incredible athletes. the time, the dedication that they give, and then on top of that, they need an incredible
activities director that supports them and is there for them. And so, you've been that. I know that firsthand as another coach within the district. Um, we are so lucky to have you in our district and doing what you've done for our athletic department. This none of
this could be without you. So, thank you. >> I work with great people. Thank you. Yeah, there is nobody more passionate than uh Mr. Gary Revanick. We are so fortunate to have him as our leader. Um he does what it he does the hard stuff uh to make sure that he has great
coaches. So that's where it starts. And he makes sure that um all the eyes are dotted, tees are crossed, and he just takes care of business. He's here long hours during the week and then on the weekend um you just can't not see the guy here um because he wants to take
care of all of his people and he takes care of them extremely well. Well, it starts with passionate coaches and and adviserss as well as it went through all the activities and we're very fortunate to have just great leadership in our school district and people that want to
do what's best for kids and I'm fortunate to work with them and it's just been a fun fun ride and uh we currently have two positions open that I'd like to share with you. Uh volleyball was just posted this week. head volleyball coach has resigned and
then uh like I said, we're interviewing starting on Thursday for our head girls hockey coach. So, two head positions open at this time. Another thing I'd like to just quick note um is that our activities director, Gary, you've always
said academics first and you work with the students one-on-one often to make sure that they remain eligible to participate in their sports because you know how important that sport is to them, but also the importance of academics and them having to put that
first. And so I also want to say thank you for your work with our district to make sure that always comes first. All right, thank you very much. If we don't have any other questions, we appreciate you coming and giving us an update. All right, we'll move on to item number eight, teaching and learning. First item
on the agenda is our achievement and integration plan. I'd like to welcome up to the podium director of teaching and learning, Laura Stener. All right, I'm excited to be back at the podium. We are going to hear about the district achievement and integration
plan and I'm very excited to share this really important and meaningful work with all of you tonight. Our presentation tonight has a couple of components to it. Our purpose is to uh review the process that was used to develop our plan. I want to share some key data with you that inform the plan.
A big part of the achievement and integration planning process is digging into data and for you as a board to understand some of the key points will be helpful as we look at our goals. We'll also look at the new goals that we're writing in our plan and some of the strategies we'll use to accomplish those goals. And finally, we'll request
your approval to submit our plan to the Minnesota Department of Education. So before we dig into the plan itself, it's always important to ground oursel in what exactly is our achievement and integration plan. Uh this is a plan that is required by the Minnesota Department of Education for districts who
participate in achievement and integration. And the plan does have four required focus areas. And so you'll see as we go through our presentation tonight, our goals are aligned to improving academic outcomes, expanding access to rigorous coursework, increasing graduation success, and
strengthening staff recruitment and retention. And we have goals aligned to each of those key required focus areas. The other thing that I think is so important for you to know is that the achievement and integration plan is really about alignment. Uh this plan as we go through the goals, the goals will
found sound and feel familiar to you because they are about what we're about as Monaceel. It's about high academic outcomes, every kid every day achievement for all. And so when we write this plan, it's never meant to be a standalone plan. It's really meant to complement our work. And so you'll see
literacy goals and priorities. You'll see references to our MTSS uh multi-tered systems of support framework. We have another required plan, comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. And these plans parallel each other so that we can really focus in on what's important to
us. Attendance and engagement has been a huge focus for Monaceel and it continues to be something that we want to build upon because we see it as a great strength. So my hope is as we walk through the presentation tonight, there's a familiarity because it will feel like this is what we are about as a district. um when it comes to high
achievement for all students. So, I cannot say enough about this planning team and I won't read all of the names, but this team was amazing and they worked really hard. Uh Jamie and Eric were on the team. They can attest to the fact that we we really dug in. Uh we took our time. This was a rigorous
process. This was a robust process and it was only by having so many great voices at the table and so many different stakeholders and perspectives that we were able to come up with the the solid plan that you'll see tonight. And so just a huge shout out and thank you to everyone who participated on the
team. Um it really was a pleasure to work with everyone and to engage in this work. Our process was also very thorough and so I want you all to know that we met five different times between January and March. Um those meetings were usually two to three hours. It was really
focused deep work. We needed to dig in and look at our prior plan and we needed to evaluate how did our last plan go. We needed to look at student data and all kinds of data. We needed to look at achievement data, attendance data, representation data, graduation data. So
we dug deeply into that. We also wanted to look at patterns. Where are we seeing patterns? Because that helped us identify focus areas. And then we wanted to do some refinement. Um, when we write a new plan for achievement and integration, often there's great things about our previous plan and we want to
keep that momentum going, but it gives us an opportunity to refine our goals and to make them stronger. Another component that is part of the achievement and integration process is collaboration with the districts in the multi-dis collaborative. And so that was a component of the planning that I did
and I'll speak a little bit more about that later. So this is just some key data that guided our work. And so our our team members can attest to packets upon packets of data, but these were some of the things that really stood out to us as we dug into our data. Um, one was
reading achievement. So we know where our students rank with our reading proficiency. We see them at 62.4% right now, meeting benchmark on FastBridge. But when we looked into different student groups, specifically students experiencing poverty, multilingual learners, and students of color, we saw
lower proficiency rates for those student groups, and sometimes um significantly lower. When we looked at our middle school data in particular, we saw some declines in performance. And that's not new to the board. We've seen that in other presentations as well, but this was another opportunity for us to
really look deeply at the performance of middle school and the different student groups and how they were performing. We also took some time to look at who is engaging in rigorous coursework and we we define rigorous coursework in lots of ways that can be AP and CIS. It can also
be our career pathways. Um we were able to see that for some student groups there was less participation than other student groups which got us curious about access and opportunity. We also looked at graduation data and again although we saw strong graduation overall those same student groups
students experiencing poverty students of color and multilingual learners did have lower graduation rates and that was a key focus area for us. We want to make sure that we are having those high rigorous expectations. By looking at trends we are able to see where can we
make the biggest difference. We know that just like our advisory committee says, we can't take on every single component, but if we're smart, if we attend to the trends and patterns, we can be really strategic in our goals and our strategies. So, our goals did evolve and you're
going to see each of our five goals in depth tonight. The reason they invol evolved is because of this process. First we looked at our previous plan and we were able to see we had a lot of strategies in the previous plan good solid strategies but many many
strategies and a challenge was that some of them were very very broad and didn't necessarily have metrics to measure them consistently. So that was something we identified as a challenge. We also learned from our conversations together, but also from consulting with the Minnesota Department of Education that
focusing on our strategies um and having fewer strategies was actually a benefit to us. If we do fewer things well and can implement well, that leads to a higher success rate. We also learned that really strong data monitoring helps us be more responsive in instruction.
So, when we're monitoring often, we can respond and then we can um make sure that we're on the right track. And in our previous plan, some of our metrics weren't as frequently measurable as what we'll have this time. We also prioritize high impact strategies. We really
strengthen the systems that we have in place. And we recognize where we don't have systems in place for monitoring and built into our plan time to actually build up the systems we'll need to know that we're on track. So now you're going to see the five goals. There's a lot of text on the
screen, so I'm going to read each goal. Um, we won't talk a lot about each goal in depth because at the end we'll kind of synthesize those. So, our first goal is around reading achievement and fastbridge. This is very similar to a goal that you've seen in the past. Um, our goal states by spring 2029, the
percentage of students in grades 3 through 10 meeting benchmark on the FastBridge reading assessment will increase by 10 percentage points from winter baseline um of 62.4 to 72.4. During this time, the reading proficiency gap between students of
color and students eligible for free and reduced price lunch and their peers will decrease by at least 5 percentage points and the proficiency rates for multilingual learners will increase by 10%. What's different about this goal is it's more specific. Um, our team really
wanted to make sure that we were monitoring groups and we weren't just looking at averaging out a growth we growth uh target. We were looking at growing, closing the gap, and then increasing achievement for all students.
Our strategy here is going to be tier one instruction. And I'll talk more about that as we get into those strategy specific slides. Our second goal is around MCAs. Again, a familiar goal to all of you. We've had an MCA goal as part of achievement and integration in the past. Here we see that we want to
see each graduating cohort increase by five percentage points from our baseline um for students eligible for free and reduced price lunch and students receiving EL services and students of color. Um cohorts was really important to us. And so if you think about the
fact that if we don't look at cohort data, we could have students in let's say third grade for example at 52%. And students in fourth grade at 58% and students in fifth grade at 61%. And when we average those all together, it could
lead us to some conclusions that may not be particularly accurate for each group of students. So, this plan now really has us tracking each cohort and making sure that each cohort is growing those 5%, not that we're averaging because that average
could have us lose sight of a group that might not be growing as well as we want them to be. Goal three is graduation. Again, a required part of our plan and a familiar goal for you. Here, we're looking to see the four-year graduation rate for students eligible for free and reduced price lunch, students receiving
EL services, and students of color increasing from our baseline of 92.8%. 8% overall with those student group um graduation rates increasing by 9 percentage points. So we see a gap for those student groups that are named um and we want to get that uh clo we want
to close that gap so all of our students are closer to the same graduation rate. Um we also want that gap to decrease 5 percentage points. We're really looking at our strategies here focusing on attendance and early intervention and expanding credit recovery and alternative pathways. These were key
strategies in our previous plan and were seen as great strengths but needing some minor tweaks to particularly attend to some of the student groups particularly multilingual learners. >> Goal four is a rigorous coursework. >> Do you want us to save questions for the end?
>> That would be great. >> Uh rigorous coursework and academic success is our fourth goal. And this one was one where we had a lot of conversation. In the past, our goal was around uh student access to rigorous courses, but our team talked about
student academic identity and student readiness. And we know that sometimes when students get to high school, they've already kind of decided what kind of student they are. They've already decided what courses might be for them and which ones might not be. And so, we really wanted to hone in uh
starting in sixth grade. And we wanted to hone in on our students averaging a B letter grade or better in their tier one courses. We saw some student gaps in um how students were performing. And so our goal is around increasing that eight percentage points from our baseline. And
then we also know that accessing a class is not the same as completing a class. And so we wanted to have language in our goal that specifically said we want to track the successful completion of these rigorous courses, not just students accessing them. um are we putting the
supports in place so when students say I want to take on something really rigorous we know that they're finishing that and being successful. This goal is different because it me u measures success in addition to access and it also focuses on removing some barriers.
So if a student is leaving middle school and and struggled with some content that could be a barrier to taking an advanced course later on. So by focusing in on the grade component, uh it allows us to help students feel more confident and ready for those higher level courses.
And then finally, goal five is the re staff recruitment and retention goal. Again, this is our last required component of the uh plan. And we really looked at increasing the percentage of licensed staff from racially and ethnically underrepresented groups by three percentage points over this
three-year goal. Um, Monaceel is committed to diverse perspectives and we know that diversity can mean um racial and ethnically underrepresented. It can mean age. It can mean geography. It can mean experiences in different school districts. And our commitment to having a diverse staff means lots of
perspectives are at the table. And so this goal really aligns with that idea that when we bring multiple perspectives together, we have more viewpoints. Um, in addition, we wanted to think more about retention. So, our previous goal was really recruitment focused, but we thought about u making sure that we're
asking our staff uh how do they feel? What are we doing well around belonging and inclusion? And how could we develop some sort of measurement tool that helps our staff weigh in on things that are going well and things we could do better as far as retention goes. We know it's a great place to work. We want to keep the
staff that we've invested in. And this is an opportunity for staff to say, "Here's what you could maybe add that would make Monaceel an even better place to work in and would allow for an increase in retention." So, it's exciting to think about how we could partner with our staff around that and
make them a living part of this goal. So, we have some key strategies for achievement and integration. There are more strategies than you see here, but for the purposes of tonight, we'll really think about the the main ones. Um, strengthening our tier one literacy instruction is a big component of this
plan and something our team talked a lot about. Monaceel has done a great job building up intervention programming and that's helped a lot of students, but one thing that I'm famous for saying is you can't intervene your way out of a tier one problem. And so if our tier one isn't as strong as it can be, we're not
being as preventative as we can be. And so we talked a lot about how we can focus on that strengthening of tier one, which all students get. Um, we're excited to expand our literacy coaching. We've had reading coaches in the past in elementary. Um, and we've made the decision to be able to expand that up
into secondary. Strengthening data use is an important strategy for us as well as improving and strengthening attendance and intervention. Uh, expanding our credit recovery opportunities. Those are strong, but we can expand. We want to increase our access to advanced coursework and really
thinking about how we can do that with family communications. Here's another parallel you see to our district advisory. When we communicate and we have those trusting relationships, families and students know about those academic pathways and then we're able to have um more communication there. And
then just continuing to recruit high-quality staff, retain staff who come to join us in our district. Um a lot of these strategies go right into existing structures because we already have PLC's, we have multi-tered systems of support and leadership teams. These
are the kinds of strategies that can easily fold into our structures and enhance the good work that we're already doing. Oh, I don't know why this looks like this. Gavin, >> any thoughts? >> Standby. Okay.
>> That is odd. >> I think we're okay, too. >> What was You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go to this one and if we can go back and it'll work, we'll do it. >> Okay.
>> Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. >> So, this slide really is a synthesis. You saw a lot of goals with a lot of words and a lot of strategies. And what this uh slide really shows us is what was the insight or the data and then what changed in the new plan as a result of that data. So when our team saw
reading proficiency gaps, they really said, "We need to think about tier one instruction and we think need to think about instructional coaching." When we noticed the middle school decline, we said, "How can we expand the reading coaching that's working so well at elementary up to secondary?" When we saw
uneven participation in coursework, we said, "How can we make sure that kids are getting access?" And we're tracking the success rate. So if there are some ways that classes are harder or more challenging for students, can we support students and teachers within those classes? When we saw patterns of
attendance for different student groups that were then mirrored in our graduation data, we said strengthening the early intervention for attendance. As soon as we notice a pattern with students, how is our team intervening to make sure that we're getting kids here in school? They can't benefit from our
grade instruction if they're not here. And when we saw that our recruitment was good, but sometimes our retention wasn't where we wanted it to be, we thought about how could we add belonging and inclusion and a measurement system where our staff are part of helping us understand what we're doing well and what we could do better.
Um, finally, well, not finally, but our regional collaboration component is where we work with other districts in the achievement and integration collaborative around bringing students together. Uh this was an exciting conversation to me for me to be a part of because our conversation um hit on
academic competitions, career exploration and also cultural learning experiences. But we had a great robust conversation around career exploration. How can we bring kids from Monaceel, Becker, St. Cloud, Sock Rabbits to um a manufacturing field trip to a healthc
care field trip and then how can we create spaces for kids to talk about what are you thinking about your future? Um we know future success and future pathways means um working with people outside of Monaceel for some of our students. So giving them opportunities to think about what that can look like
in the context of their future career is just a great engaging way for students to have those rich conversations. So our key improvements as we kind of bring to a close are that focus on tier one instruction. really shoring that up, making that as strong as it can be for
our students, focusing on fewer strategies that are more focused. Um, strengthening some of that monitoring and leadership review of data, having clearer progress indicators and yearly targets so that we really are sure that we're on track and aligning with our
systems that were already in place rather than creating new systems. Our next steps upon board approval will be submitting our plan to the Department of Education and then this plan starts July 1. So we really would begin the implementation process using the
strategies and indicators of progress in the plan. Um one thing I'm really excited about is for our teaching and learning staff to really um project manage this for less lack of a better term. Uh there's a lot in this plan. There's five goals. Each goal has multiple strategies and each strategy
has key indicators of progress. So without that clear ownership um and progress monitoring and really building those systems of measurement and accountability, um it could be easy to get going and not be as mindful of where we're at in achieving our goals. And so it'll be exciting for me to work with
the team around implementing in a way that we're really um intentional about each and every strategy and indicator of progress. Um, our intent is really strengthening instruction. We high academic outcomes, access to opportunity, and student success all
across of our our district is really what our achievement and integration plan is all about. All right, what questions can I answer? >> Any questions? I have a three I think three questions. First of all,
on the regional collaboration, >> um I guess fill me in if this is new or if we're looking to expand when you talk about the St. Cloud element of it and mostly is the idea to get students from
this area opportunities to get into manufacturing type facilities that are based up that direction. Oh, good question. Um, so the intention of the plan is for kids from different districts to come together and to meet each other and to interact. Um, when we
talked about our field trips, we were talking more broadly around that student experience. And so I know when I uh Becker is part of our our collaborative wells, so they had um something set up in that Becker region. St. Cloud had something set up. And so, um, I don't
know that the intention is to move our kids out of the district working in other places, but more the intention of getting kids the opportunity to engage in conversations around careers. Most of our districts were doing awesome, cool field trips and we could easily partner
with another district to say, "Hey, you don't have this field trip. We have this one. How can we share those opportunities to make more opp um access for students to things they wouldn't get if we were just staying within our own district? Does that answer your question?
>> Yeah, I think so. I mean, the main thing really was that it's a bigger community. There's probably more resources up there. So, I don't know if that was the purpose of it or not. >> Yeah. >> I I see the purpose. >> Trying to leverage each other. I think we're really trying to say what what are the good things each district and the collaborative has going on and how can
we partner for the sake of kids. On goal number three with graduation outcomes, >> the 2025 baseline graduation rate 92.8% overall.
Um that included the students eligible for free and reduced lunch, students receiving EL services, and students of color. The goal then is the subgroup graduation rates increase by 9 percentage points.
>> So 92.8 8 is our state reported graduation rate for all of our students. And so we want to um increase that baseline for all students overall. So I should have rewritten that. So it um the
four-year graduation rate students students of color will increase from the baseline. So not all of our student groups that are listed there are at 92.8. For example, our multilingual learners are at 60. Um, and so I
actually am glad you pointed that out because I think what we're including there is our baseline as a district, but each of those student groups that you see are below that. So the 9% would help us get closer to our overall rate, but the wording doesn't reflect
that. >> Okay, then we're on the same page. >> Yep. I will change I'll make sure that that's changed. >> Okay. Thank you for pointing that out. >> Yeah. And then my last um I guess just comment on goal five with the staff recruitment and retention. It it sounds
like a DEI initiative without saying that it's a DEI initiative. And I just think it's really important as a board that we attract the most qualified staff possible regardless of where they fit into the world because our kids need the
highest quality. And I think we're we're doing our best to set Monaceel up to be that destination attraction for families, staff across the board. And so I would just hope that we number one
qualifications and if you fit into some fancy group that makes us more diverse or more inclusive, so be it. That's all I have. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the board?
No, I just want to say I got to be part of this process and I was part of the previous process and I just need to give a shout out to Laura um for just absolutely fantastic work and number one having the right people at the table. Um
you could tell that made a difference and we had some community members part of it as well that participated. um and just robust discussion. This wasn't three meetings that were an hour long. This was significant meeting times really diving into the data and the big
gaps in the data like you had just mentioned our graduation rate is fantastic. So we're at 92.8%. But there are certain groups that we've identified through looking through the data that have considerably lower percentage rate that what can we do to improve that which is really cool. Um
and then just the discussions around how can we improve it and the different ideas that are there that are going to help go into actually I mean this is just the beginning of all the good work that's going to be done which is really exciting. So I'm excited to see where
this is going to go and our growth as a district because of it. So thank you for your hard work. It was amazing. The people on the team were highly engaged and you know you can just set them up for success and they did the work. So, this is an action item. So, we do need
to submit to the state. And so, I would say with the um tweaking of the goal to make sure that the wording is right in goal three, and I'll make sure that that's edited before we send to the state. This would be an action item. >> I I want to second what you said there, Jamie, is um you have a unique ability,
I think, to bring people together and so I I really appreciate that that you bring that to Monaceel. >> Thank you. >> You favorite thing to do. >> Nice. >> Good. All right, this is an action item board. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Melissa Curtis, seconded by
Casey Root. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> I. Opposed, please say no. >> Motion passes 40. Thank you for the presentation. >> Item number B, next on the agenda is family engagement survey results by Superintendent Olsen.
All right. Uh we are going to um as requested by the board, we're going to take a look at uh the family engagement survey results. Um as a reminder, the family uh engagement started with family listening sessions and then we were able to also send out um a survey to to uh
the whole district. Um, and this uh slide here just shows a a really good response rate. Um, 259 families uh representation um across all district schools. Um, and just as a a
thank you to the community, but things like this, they guide the thing the decisions that we make inside school systems. uh participation, also trying to look at making sure that we had um you know a good demographics across the the
district. And we did. We had people from all of our buildings and programs represented um in their responses. Um obviously um anytime you're getting close to 300 responses, that's a good number for a district. Obviously, would
we like to see 4,000? Yes. but um surveys sending out in an email that is pretty typical and and traditional of of um the most that I've seen in our district. Uh grade levels represented. Um I would like to point out that I thought the
secondary um um response to this um survey was one of the highest that I've seen. Um usually it's easier to engage your elementary um families and in this case we were able to um have good representation in fact 40% um in the
grades 9 through 12 which is extremely high in comparison to previous uh surveys that we've done. Then just taking a look at uh programs that families value most and and those are um kind of uh connected to our um
deck presentation. Um but the families really in you can tell value um the hands-on learning support and look at look at we have STEM up there and we had STEM in here today. So, I think there's so um much to be said about um giving
kids opportunities to have their hands on things and that's what they see um that's what families see in their own children and how they um want us to teach them. Um but then just a a good a good um array of knowledge there um
across the board of career education opportunities, advanced academics, arts and music programs, nature-based education, mental health, world languages. Um and then you know once you get past um ELLL services, the the numbers are too small to uh show up in a
in a color there, but we wanted to just uh mention the ones that did get uh a shout out. Um looking at instructional experience, um when you're thinking of child experience, this is kind of how families perceive what happens in school. And so
um what they perceive happens the most is teacher guided instruction. um kind of the old model of teacher professing and the student uh gaining knowledge and um and then that's you know what they think it happens in our
schools. Um but then as you can see they also think that there must be a balance of of other instructional opportunities and that's good. you want people if it would have been just um all one type of instructional uh mode that is probably not a healthy um way to teach. But our
families, it looks like by their responses um they understand that our teachers use a variety and a balance of of of approaches um activities and oper opportunities. And so when you're taking a look at this uh once again, this is kind of cool to
have this tonight because we also had our activities director here tonight. So um I think everything in our family survey, we were asking questions that was very vindictive to what we are trying to accomplish in our schools. We're trying to engage our families, trying to engage our students, and trying to bring them as far as um they
will go. And same thing with activities. uh you're trying to engage your your student athletes, you're trying to um engage your families, and you're trying to bring them as far as you can go. And um as you can see, um our high school programming, the the colors that are
dissatisfied are so small in there, they're not even, you know, um showing up as as a number. They're very very small. Um and then you look at um the numbers of people who are very satisfied and satisfied and um getting close to um
that um that 48%. So uh very good. And then when we look at our middle school sports, this one is I think some things that we can take away as a school board, take away as leaders, um there's there's some connections to the high school
sports. first and foremost 52% are neutral about the same as the high school. Um and I think for me um with middle school activities knowing that we have made a reduction in there in the last couple years and to still see the neutral satisfied and um very satisfied
as high as they are at the middle school. I think that's a positive takeaway. But I also look at the colors green and and uh purple and those two colors also tell me that u we do still have um about the same well we have about 14% about the same as as the
people who are very satisfied we also have on the end the other end of the spectrum. So, it's important to recognize that and to um even though we're running comm um a lot of our sports either through community education or we're making them 712 programs and then we have very few that are just middle school sports like they
used to, it's good to see this data um to help make decisions um at any of those uh levels that are are putting on the activities, whether it be the high school program or or the community ed that we're making sure that we look at this to try to hit a niche and and bring
our satisfaction rate up higher. uh technology and learning. We thought it was important um just kind of um paralleling the work of the DAC. We knew that technology has been on the minds of parents um lately. Technology has been on the minds of instructors uh lately.
Um technology um is on the minds of our families. Um how much is too much? Um what are we doing that's uh that's healthy with technology? What are we doing that could be more healthy? And so um I think this uh technology and
learning um families are generally supportive of technology when it enhances learning rather than just replacing it. However, 30.5% of families believe their child primarily uses technology for passive instructional activities in school. And I think that's
a lot. I mean those are the things that we want to wrestle with as a district. Um, so while a survey like this um was intended to make sure that we um get the input of parents, it's not to just get it and then stop with it. It's to make sure that we are making connections and
we're making improvements. And I think this is one that we can um either clearly define, we can help families um identify some boundaries at home. Um I I know we have some things hidden on the website, but how have we done as teachers of some of that information?
So, I can go find some of this information on our website, but have we done the teaching that goes along with it? And those are the things that we will wrestle with as leaders um to make sure that it comes alive um more prominently for our for our people, for our families.
Um I think it's good um we're on our second year of school time changes and to make sure that we have a question about transportation um is important. Um I think it would be a real miss um step if we didn't. Um knowing how last fall
it was it was challenging um as a board you guys had to really um dive back at me and and make sure that I um worked with the bus company uh to improve bus times that were um significantly over an hour last year. And so um we have as you
can see um a a a solid um rating right now. Um I've only had one email complaint on transportation this whole school year. Um and so that is like very you know significant amount of time back in my day where back last September and
October um you know I mean there wasn't a day that I wasn't having three to five you know so it was it was challenging to get over in um that hurdle of making that change but I think the the change is really good for kids. It's good for um I from what I see in the school
system, it's it's really good for our kids and and I'm proud of our kids um have um adapted to that change. Uh we got a couple of the top fives coming up here in the next couple slides, but um you know what's most
important to you is Monaceel. Um these are the top five most common responses. Mark asked this of our ambassadors earlier. You know what makes Monaceel um Monaceel? Um, and these are the things that are most important to our families. But smaller, manageable class sizes was
the most mentioned. Retaining and supporting quality teachers and staff definitely a theme throughout every presentation. But those um those connections to our adults are um they are the most important thing that we have in a school system. Um and we all
want to be at a organization that has student safety, well-being, and mental health as as um a priority. um then strong academic preparation for the future and then support for diverse learning needs. Um I know that during our ANI um Laura was asked a question
about you know diverse and I think diversity is um it's uh explained a lot of different ways but I think the most important way is to really look at the diverse needs of our learners and they are different for us to think that we can do the exact same thing um for every
child. Um we I mean any of us that are parents we would understand that you got to do a little bit different things for each child and and every child learns just a little bit different. They need a little bit um different things and that is our job as a school system to figure
that out whether it's in activities, athletics uh or academics. Uh we have to give people what they need to be successful. That's our that's our job. um how families want to engage. Um this
to me it's it was interesting. I think you know we know that the DAC is is working on that two-way trusting relationship. Um but when it we look at some of the ways to accomplish that that you would think are um a little bit more prevalent like small group work um and
uh in-person um types of community meetings. Um those aren't always the largest ways that people want to be connected to schools. I think they always sound good, but they do take extra work and and I think we recognize that. I don't think as a school system we should ever abandon um off those
offerings because it is important to pull different types of people in to do different uh things. Um and that to me is is what just really showcases a healthy two-way relationship is to um keep adding and and looking at ways to
get people in. Um and then in um you can see though I'm really proud that the newsletter uh was you know we just started that uh a few years back. Um we do communications to the whole community not just with operating levy but we do
um a mailing in July. So we're trying to connect with the community whether it's um through the superintendent office or whether it's through our um community education office. We're trying to make those those uh connections through mailings and and uh the different
offerings that we provide the community. Um and then just like that open-ended top five uh common themes of what they want the district leadership to know about the family experience. And once again um you can see the adult the
adults in our school are really the most important people. appreciation for teachers, the positive experiences that they've had throughout the system. Um, number one, um, concerns about class sizes and teacher support, number two. um kids. I was just talking with Melissa
Curtis not too long ago who I was a daycare. But just the things that we see with kids um the kids and the changes that we've seen over time, they're real and and how are we going to as a school system continue um or increase our support for um our people who um are
working want to you know working on the front lines with those increased needs. Um concerns about technology and screen time. And so once again, we've seen some of that same um even in open-ended questions, we're seeing some of those
same concerns about um technology and maybe how we're using it um and um or maybe how we should teach about um using it um I think is also um captured in that comment there. But um strong opinions about the nature-based program.
So while we have four classes out there um and the amount of people that could you know provide feedback to us is you know around just a little over a 100 students um in comparison to you know 3,900 students who are in the district. um you
know that is a it's a small sample size but it did come up a lot as a very important um part of our district um especially considering that um the number of of students in the program and then special education and support
services. Um once again making that connection to students and their needs um and knowing that those needs have increased um it's important to make sure that that's a continued conversation at the leadership and board level. And then some important just context to
like everything that uh we set out to do through the family listening sessions and um the survey. But we were in the midst of um 680,000 budget realignment. Um it was important to get the feelings
and the perspectives of parents. Um and as a district all along through this process um we want to make sure that um people hear this over and over again but we are um as a board as a district we are trying to value um low class sizes
and value our uh student programming and those are the things that we're trying to um retain um even through a 680 uh budget realignment. Um unfortunately we are on the heels of a $2 million reduction last year. So that uh um
process um is is always challenging but it is was even a little bit more challenging this year. Uh reductions were even planned after the operating levy passed. This is my second presentation in the row that I'm saying that out loud over and over again so people don't think that um something
funny is going on that was part of the campaign. We knew that um our budget was in a state that we would have to make that realignment effort in order to um take that new money and and try make it the full 10 years. Um it's not showing that we're going to make it the 10
years. So we have to be mindful every year at how we do business. Um once again, some positions will be reduced, but the district will prioritize class size and student programming and staff timeline. Um, as
always per uh school board um policy, we always try to get through our challenging conversations of anybody whether they're non-tenured, whether they're tenured, um whether they're being cut for performance or cut through a budget realignment. Um we have um
those conversations prior to the first meeting in April. Um it it aligns well this year where we'll have those conversations um that last week of of March. Um and then um on that same day, we do need to make um we need to make a
lot of district level communication known um so that uh people know what program and program programs um have been reduced um in order and what um different uh places in the district where the positions have been reduced at. And we will be able to make that um
right before spring break uh goes on session that Friday, I should say. Yeah, just uh it's a good opportunity to be able to bring forth the survey so that um it's not just something that we do, but it becomes a part of who we are.
>> Any questions from the board? >> Just want to say thank you. It's uh just another example of how we collect data, use data. We don't make decisions on a whim. There's a lot of thought, a lot of process reviews that go into all this. So, we're trying to run this district efficiently, make sure everything is
done, you know, correctly, and then keep the students at the heart of what we're doing. Um, so yeah, it's just thanks for this. There's there's a lot that goes into this, so just wanted to reflect that. >> A lot of good information. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I
>> think the the excuse me, I think the uh comments around technology are really interesting and it is useful to have people fill out a survey. I honestly don't know how much weight the 259
responses out of up to 4,000 >> potential responses should carry, but I do think it's pretty loud and clear that um you know, looking at one of the last slides here, is there anything else you'd like the district leaders to know about your family's experience or your hopes for the future of our schools? And
number three is the concerns about technology and screen time. And then there was the 30% that had concerns that that was passive use on the technology devices. I just think it's good to keep talking
about that. Um so many questions to answer as we go into the next few years and think about what learning looks like and how we're going to spend uh precious dollars. So I appreciate that uh feedback very much. That's a great uh
connection and one thing that I'm very proud of in this district is we're almost always just a little bit ahead of the curve and I think you'll see some um trends and some recommendations coming forth from the deck around uh technology. Um so you give those you know like what we did during which you
were on that committee. Um, and I think it's important to um know that as a district we were recognizing that and and trying to get some of the engagement problems in front of our people and then researching it um is something that uh we're going to be very proud of and the
district will be set I think in um good standing to look at some of those recommendations and be able to uh make more improvements. So great connection Mark. I just want to say the theme tonight really is working with our community,
working with our students, working with our staff and really figuring out um like Mark had alluded to what does the future look like here for Monaceel and so this type of data really helps guide us in what direction we're going and especially working with the groups that
we are is fantastic. So thank you. All right, we are now moving on to item nine, safe and healthy culture. I'd like to welcome to the podium director of business services, Tina Burke, to go over the right technical center long-term facility maintenance
resolution for school year 2728. >> All right, good evening. As Jamie mentioned, we have a resolution for long-term facility maintenance revenue for the right tech center. they don't have a property tax levy or land to levy long-term facility maintenance revenue.
So, they passed that along to all their participating districts uh based on their size and they would need all school districts to approve this resolution. Uh I believe it's the same as what was done in the past. Um they have some roof
needs that they're really going to focus on in the next couple years as you can see in one of the handouts. Um, and there was other uh the allocation over the 10 years. How you can see kind of the es and flows of the long-term facility maintenance
revenue as well as the resolution or are there any questions? This is an action item. This is is this yearly that we do this? That's >> okay. questions on the resolution. Is it all
one, two, three, four, or is it just a >> It's probably just what's in all caps as what needs to be read. >> Well, the Yeah. >> get resolved. So that's before you
And I can't remember there was a >> Yeah. No, there was a different ag board agenda topic where it talked about, you know, it was a lengthy one. I wasn't the presenter, but one of you asked, "Do we have to read all of it or what?" And I I
can't remember who presented, but >> it was Jeff, but he's out. So >> no, like you just say like motion to approve the the presented resolution. Yeah.
>> Okay. >> So do we have a motion? >> Motion to approve the resolution as presented. >> Second. Moved by Casey Root, seconded by Melissa Curtis. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Oppose, please say no. Motion passes
for zero. >> Thank you. >> All right. Now we'll move on to item B. We will pass the podium over to Director of Human Resources Rob Daner to go over the administrative assistance 202527 master agreement.
Chair Steven, members of the board, Superintendent Olsen. So, um, first presentation I have for you this evening is a summary of our collective bargaining agreement with our administrative assistance for the contract years 2025 through 2027. This
is for board action this evening. Uh we reached a tenative agreement with our administrative assistants on Tuesday, February 17th, 2026, and they voted to ratify just this evening. So it was on the board agenda, not hyperl until we had that uh thumbs up from the
union. Uh the essentials of the 2-year agreement are as follows. So in year one, uh we have a increase on all cells of 0.9% retroactive to July 1st, 2025. There is no increase in group insurance in year 1. Uh likewise there's no
increase in uh longevity scale in year one as well. In year two which begins July 1st of this year 2026 there is an increase on step four of 2.5% in year two. Um and we also have a roll up of the remaining steps and equalization of the percentage between those steps and
approximately 3% roll up um beginning in year two. Um fundamentally this is roughly equivalent to the other 0.9 and 1.0% 0% uh settlements we've had recently. Uh that 2.5% is offset then by a reduction of four days for every
member of the unit. I shouldn't say every member every position within the unit. Uh bringing that year 2 uh cost down to the district. Um in terms of insurance in year two, there's increase of $30 per month on both single and family, similar to other um agreements
we've brought forward. And there is no increase in longevity in year two. In terms of language items, um there's uh minor clarification regarding um there's a language cleanup regarding employees
hired prior to January 5th 15th annually. In terms of rates of pay, um we uh added retroactive language to this contract. We've done that in previous contracts over the last uh two to three years as well. So retroactive
pays uh those who are eligible or those who are currently employed or those who retired in good standing during the contract period. Um on personal leave uh we increased the number of personal leave days eligible for annual rollover. We did not increase the number of personal leave days but increase the um
number eligible for rollover. Uh we amended the jury duty section to match um updated language and create um clarity and efficiency both for the employee and also our payroll department. In terms of school closings, uh there was uh clarification in terms
of the expectation report. We changed the language to as soon as practicable on dates of weather related closure. And then we also added per the unit's request a work from home option um but only with supervisor pre-approval on
dates of weather related closure. So um that's a potential a potential work from home option there. In terms of holidays, um we increase the number of paid holidays from 9 or 11. Remember, this is a unit that has um division between uh
the length of duty year for uh employees in different positions. So, some had nine holidays, some had 11. We moved that to 10 or 12 to be consistent with our other year- round non-certified um or uh units. Um, in terms of retirey insurance
benefits, we uh in agreement with the unit, we sunset the existing retiree insurance benefit language and added a HRA option for all employees hired after September 1st, 2025. It's a little bit of a unique date, but we did have a member of the unit that was hired in
August of 2025, and we wanted to be all inclusive on that. Um, in terms of deferred matching contribution, we cleaned up some language and aligned the uh deadline to enroll annually um to align with our annual group insurance open enrollment deadline similar to what
we have done recently with other groups uh that had open contracts. And then finally, miscellaneous. Uh I mentioned the the distinction between employees within the unit. Uh previously, we've referred to them as 12-month or 10-month. Um and we've modified that
through not only the reduction of days but also just a wider consideration of what that calendar or duty year means. And so um they've gone to 256 256 day or 216 day employees. And those 216 they could be spread around all 12 months of
the year depending on uh when their supervisor and they um how they craft mutually craft that schedule together. We amended all referenced in the contract from salary to wage since these are hourly uh hourly paid employees who are paid uh for time worked over the
course of each pay period. We also amended all references to the supervisor to uh to change we changed that to superintendent or designate just for consistency. And finally, just representing um the unit and also the the official title of the unit per the bureau uh bureau of mediation services,
we amended all references to the unit employees to be administrative assistant. The total package value over the two years of the agreement is 6.27 uh% and that's based on the MSBA costing model. Are there any questions on the tenative agreement for the administrative assistance being brought
forward tonight for action? >> I just have a general question. We've had a couple of these come forward in the past few months and I believe we only have one group outstanding thus far right now. Is that correct? >> We have two groups outstanding. Yep. So in this um in this negotiating cycle we
had six units. Um at this point we have settled with all of them. Um the board has approved um three of those six. Uh this would be the fourth tonight. And then the two that had the board has not yet had the chance to approve would be um Education Minnesota Monosel, our
certified teachers. and also our pair of professionals or education support specialists. >> Uh thanks to the committee for the good work here. Seems like great results. Just a couple of clarifying questions on number
three. Increases number of personal leave days eligible for annual rollover. What was it and what is it now? >> It went from um it ba it's so there's there's some nuance in the contract. is based also on years of service to the
district and so it ranges from uh 3 to 5 to now four to six. >> Okay. And then is there too much uh wiggle room with the policy of supervisor pre-approval on the
work from home option? What does pre-approval look like? Is that the day before or five minutes before I'm supposed to be at work? Well, so I mean weather is relatively um changeable. And so the idea is that uh simply put that before
an employee um determines that they're going to work from home, it's not their determination. They have to request that from the supervisor and receive approval to do so. And so for instance, um there was one weather event earlier this year where we had um frozen roads, right? And
so, um, realistically, there was a message that went out from the superintendent's office in the morning that said we'd have a delayed start if, um, you know, in this case, an admin assistant didn't believe it was safe to travel, which for most people it wasn't, which is why we delayed school. Um, they
they are part of a unit that by contract has to report in a timely fashion, right? And so in that in that scenario, they would be able to reach out to a supervisor and say, "I'd like to work from home until it's, you know, safe to travel and uh get that pre-approval before doing so." So the expectation is
that, you know, uh come the start of their workday, more succinctly, by the start of their workday, um the supervisor should know whether they should expect their admin assistant to be there or not. Does that help? >> It helps. I was just curious if it if it's going to work because thinking
about the the the other side of it. So, if if I'm asking for approval to of you and you're running around busy with a bunch of stuff and don't get back to me until after I'm supposed to report, but you were going to approve it, then it just gets a little bit tricky. And so,
that's why I was asking about that language. >> Yeah. No, that's a good point. And I think it assumes the best uh way to um communicate with your supervisor and so hopefully that's something that the administrative assistants and their supervisors have navigated previously such that on a weather related event, it's not the first time that they're trying to Sure.
>> Reach each other with urgency. >> Okay. Thanks, Rob. >> Any other questions? An action item. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Casey Root, seconded by Mark
Branson. All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed, please say no. Motion passes 4. Thank you, Director Daner. And if you'd like to just stay right up there, you can go right into the second reading of policies. All right. Thank you, Chair Seban. So, we have uh several
policies for second read this evening. Uh these policies uh brought that I'm bringing forward tonight went through first read at our last board session. Um the first u first five of these are uh brought forward as part of our uh
three-year review cycle. Um and many of these uh five have not been touched in several years. Um there were minor changes to each of them um in because in their intervening years um there's been minor uh word smithing and things like that recommended by MSBA but really no
substantive changes on these first five. The first one is policy number 101 legal status of the school district. A primary principle of this nation is that the public welfare demands an educated informed citizenry. The power to provide for public education is a state function vested in the state legislature and delegated to local school districts. The
purpose of this policy is to clarify the legal status of the school district. Again, no substantive changes on 101. Any questions on that one at all? Okay. Moving forward to policy 103, complaints, students, employees, parents, other persons. The purpose of
this policy is as follows. The school district takes seriously all concerns or complaints by students, employees, parents, or other persons. If a specific complaint procedure is provided within any other policy of the school district, this specific procedure shall be followed in reference by uh to such a complaint. If a specific complaint
procedure is not provided, the purpose of this policy is to provide a procedure that may be used. Um again, no substitute changes um from this policy. The last time the board reviewed it was 2013. So, some minor um rearrangement of
terms and and definitions. Any questions? >> Moving forward to policy 401, equal employment opportunity. The purpose of this policy is to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants for school district
employment and for all other district employees. Um the last time the board reviewed this was 2018 and so very timely that we took a look at it. The really only major um change is that we identified that the director of human resources is the person uh responsible
for fielding questions regarding this policy. Any questions on 401? Okay, moving to 402, disability non-discrimination policy. The purpose of this policy is to provide a fair employment setting for all persons and to comply with state and federal law. Um
the last time the board uh reviewed this policy was 2016. So again timely that we took a look at it and once again uh the major uh amendment that we made was identifying the director of human resources and contact information for that individual within the body of the
policy. Any questions on 402. Okay. 403 discipline suspension and dismissal of school district employees. The purpose of this policy is to achieve effective operation of the school district's programs through the cooperation of all employees under a system of policies and rules applied
fairly and uniformly. Um last time the board took a a look at this one was 2017. Um but no major changes to this policy in the intervening years, just some minor markups and um edits and deletions.
>> Okay. And the final policy for this evening was not brought uh to the committee based on our review cycle, but rather um some interest in in uh looking at the language of policy 904, distribution of materials on school district property by non-school persons. The purpose of this policy is to provide
for distribution of materials appropriate to the school setting by non- staff and non- students on school district property in a reasonable time, place, and manner which does not disrupt the educational program nor interfere with the educational objectives of the school district. In this case, the
committee reviewed a proposal to add some language under section 4 guidelines. And uh the by taking action tonight, the board would approve an addition to section 4 guidelines number seven, which reads as follows. Um
material uh I should read the entire intro. The request for distribution of materials will be reviewed by the administration on a case-byase basis. However, distribution of the following materials is always prohibited. materials prohibited that and then the addition here is number seven. Um that constitutes materials intended to
advocate for or against a candidate for public office, political party or ballot question. Prohibited materials include but are not not limited to flyers, brochures, pamphlets, campaign signs, banners, electronic or digital campaign materials, petitions intended to influence electoral outcomes, and any
other materials that promote or oppose a political campaign candidate, political organization, or ballot initiative. We have reviewed this with our legal support and they feel that we would be in good standing uh in terms of protecting ourselves against a first amendment claim um if we did adopt that language. So we think we're in good
place on that. >> Any questions? >> Is is that number seven then does that only apply to up on letter A it talks about non-school persons and organizations or are we referring to staff students?
>> Yeah. So this this section uh under number four guidelines and then section B that's uh with regard to um school district um operations uh school district um uh events um the regular
student day etc. This would not apply to people who rented our facilities for their own purposes. So we would not have jurisdiction or control over you know the contents of their meetings or what was distributed uh within their meetings. But um for instance, examples would be um if we held a DAC meeting,
right, and there was somebody who was distributing distributing uh political materials at that meeting or during the student day for instance at the high school at lunchtime, right? Uh or uh a girls basketball game um in the um at the high school on a Friday night. This
would preclude the dissemination of those materials during those events. And is it only materials or under the the last couple of lines it kind of grabs, you know, any other materials that promote
or oppose candidate organization? Are we talking about shirts that would support a candidate or a a politician? >> It's a great example because it it depends on if the shirt's being worn. Frankly, if the shirt is being
distributed, if would fall under the policy. If it's being worn, it would not because that would be something that uh more directly applies to First Amendment uh freedom of speech. >> Okay, makes sense. Thanks. >> Any other questions?
>> All right, this is an action item. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Casey Root, seconded by Mark Branson. All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed, please say no. Motion passes 40. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
>> That brings us to adjournment at 8:02 p.m. on March 16th. Our next regular school board meeting will be April 6, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. Hope to see you all there. Thanks for joining.