All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to this evening's regular school board meeting of Independent School District number 882. It is Monday, May 4th at 5:00 pm. I'd like to note that board member Jeff
Hegley is not present this evening. Now, please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance 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. And we are needing approval of tonight's tenative agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> I'm Melissa Curtis, seconded by Casey Root. All those in favor, please say I. >> I.
>> Opposed, please say no. Motion passes. 50. We are now moving on to citizen comments. We do have one citizen comment signed up for this evening. And so I'm going to read something then invite that person forward. Before we begin public
comment this evening, I'd like to review just a few guidelines. Public comment is an opportunity for community members to share their thoughts with the board. While the board appreciates hearing from our community, this is not a time for board discussion or debates. Speakers are asked to limit comments to matters
related to school district business and to respect the time limit. Please remember that public comment is not the appropriate form for discussing private personnel matters or identifying individual students or staff members by name. Concerns regarding specific employees or students should be directed
to district administration so they can be properly reviewed through established procedures. Additionally, the board cannot respond to or investigate allegations made during public comment. If you have any concerns that requires follow-up, please contact the district office. We appreciate participation and
your support of Monaceel Public Schools. At this time, I'd like to welcome up Mr. Trey Cleven. Mr. Cleven, are you present for your comments? No. Okay. We will then move on. Now, we're looking at approval of our
consent agenda. So moved. >> Second. >> Moved by Melissa Curtis, seconded by Casey Root. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> Opposed, please say no. >> Motion passes. 5. All right. Now on to item number six,
collaborative connections. I will pass it over to Superintendent Eric Olsen to go over the resolution of gifts. Once again, we are so fortunate to have the great support of our community and we have uh five uh donations to bring forward for acceptance tonight. Um Jeff
Arbitson Trucking, $1,000 for our Monaceel fishing team. Northwest Area JC's $2,500 for our boys tennis program. Monaceel American Legion, $750 for our girls girls golf program. and Monaceel
American Legion, $750 for our boys um golf program, Pleasure Land RV, $500 for the Monosella fish team fishing team. So, we thank um all these donors and we bring them forward to uh do right by these programs
and add a little bit to their their spending. Therefore, be it resolved by the Monaceel School Board of District 882 to gratefully accept the following donations. Jeff Arvidson Trucking LLC $1,000 for the Monosel Fishing Team.
Northwest Area JC's 2500 boys tennis. Monosel American Legion 750 girls golf. Monosel American Legion 750 for boys golf. And Pleasurand RV 500 for the Monosel Fishing Team. Second
>> vote by Melissa Curtis by Mark Branson. All those in favor, please say I. I. >> I. Opposed, please say no. >> Motion passes. 5. And meeting after meeting, our community just continues to show up to support our program. So,
thank you to all those that donated. We are now moving on to item number seven, innovation and leadership. I'd like to welcome to the podium our DAC committee director of teaching and learning Loris Stener to go over our DAC presentation.
>> Good evening, Chair Seaman, Superintendent Olsen, and members of the board. I'm joined once again by Josh Canigator, who is a member of our deck, and we are here to um follow up on our last presentation. So, we had two members with uh me last time who were able to share what our district advisory
committee had been up to and then we shared with you that we'd be bringing forward some action steps and recommendations. So, tonight is kind of closing the loop on that. And so, Josh and I will tag team this presentation to kind of review what we shared last time and then share the final recommendations
from the district advisory committee. So, the purpose tonight is to share the recommendations. um we have some action steps and then also to gain board approval to move forward with the planning and implementation of the action steps that we'll share with you tonight. >> By way of review, our hypothesis um when
we started this whole process was that decreased student engagement is contributing to the decline in academic outcomes. Um we started by looking at um those test scores in that data and then started to build off of it from there. We shared with you last time that our
team once we started this hypothesis we really started to think about what can be contributing to decrease academic outcomes and we know that this is a national conversation. This is not a monosel conversation. We understand that our students um need us to think differently and so the team as they
worked through landed on four subcommittees. We shared these with you last time but we had a team thinking about how does mental health contribute to engagement? How does real world connection contribute? How about hands-on learning? And then those trusting two-way relationships with parents. So, this is where the team spent their time researching to dig
deeper to think about um what does the research say and what could Monaceel consider doing in response to our hypothesis. We shared our committee process before, but just as a reminder, we talked through that hypothesis and we looked at it from personal experience and what each of us brought um to that DAC
committee as far as our own children, our children's friends, what we've seen in the school district through our time with our own children. We then identified those four key focus areas for research and we broke down from there. We had an opportunity to do our own research and submit that to the group. We then looked at each other's
research as part of that committee and part of that group. We took that research that we'd found, what we had drawn from that. We compared that to what we saw in the family engagement survey and the family data review. And then we use that to develop confidence
statements and action steps to bring forth to the board tonight. >> So, we have four recommended actions that we're going to talk through tonight. These are actions that the district advisory committee is suggesting Monaceel focus on. And one of the things that I think is so important
to share is that um these are all things that we're building off of the strengths of our school system already and we're looking at how we can leverage and grow the strengths that we have and then also think about how we can um add some new things over a multi-year experience. So
tonight we're going to be sharing four recommendations from the committee. Um and then that just as a reminder that committee not only included parents, Josh spoke to that, but also included district administrators, um teachers and educators, as well as parents and community. So the four recommendations
you'll hear more about tonight are Ammani Milestone Experience and Showcase, promoting activities with student ambassadors, a mental health matters newsletter, and trusting two-way um relationships. Not right. That's not right. That's not right. So our fourth one, we'll get to
that slide has an error on it. That was our fourth subcommittee. So stay tuned. We'll get you there. >> So as we arrived at what we broke down to four, we got 18 possible action steps out of our research and our confidence statements. Obviously 18 steps is too
much to bring to the board and ask you to implement all of those at the same time. So we took those 18 steps that we had and we broke down with one member of each of those subcommittees sitting in a group. uh we talked through what those confidence statements were, what the rationale behind each of those action
steps was, and we looked for overlap and that was our first step to try to whittle that down to something that's a little bit more manageable. We then took that and we walked through various questions that were presented. We looked at what of those action steps were actually feasible. What do we think that
the board might approve? What can this district and this community take on? What would be the efficiency? um what did we anticipate for community support and what might be some anticipated challenges. We walked through each of those action steps trying to figure out
which would have the biggest impact with the least amount of resources. >> So we had two teams doing this. Um and if you saw in the newsletter, you maybe got an opportunity to see some pictures and that was really fun for Superintendent Olsen and myself um and Sandy who is our co-f facilitator who's
here tonight as well. just to see our teams really leaning in, really thinking critically about we have 18 things on the table. How do we um manage to get this down? So each of the two teams then took those 18 after the conversations that they had um about impact and
feasibility, efficiency, support concerns, and each team identified five actions that they thought were the top five. So we had team one had their top five, team two had their top five. From there, we actually had, I think, three of the five were the same across groups.
So then we brought it back to the individual. We wanted each individual member to have an opportunity to vote for what they felt were the top ideas, recognizing that we were really trying to hone in on three to four, not 18. And so we did a little sticker voting
routine and everyone was able to kind of share what they felt would be the way that we should move forward. Um, after we did that, it was really clear what rose to the top. So that was actually really nice. Um we had a couple of things that were close, but in general, um our three top ideas were loud and
clear. We could see that our team was really in alignment on what they wanted to see moving forward. >> The first one that rose to the top and may have even been at the top was to create a Monty Milestone experience and showcase. This isn't meant to replace some of those capstone pieces that are
already out there at various grade levels, but more to build on that and to try and create engagement through the students looking forward to what's coming at the end of the year and then also what's coming potentially that next year. Um the rationale as listed up here
um is uh basically trying to generate that excitement um creating a northstar capstone projects to give students a clear goal to work towards and to celebrate to strengthen pathways um and to also potentially drive some parent and community involvement as well with
showcases at the end of the year. give the students something to look forward to, but also then bring in the community and the parents to give those students an opportunity to showcase what they've done and give younger students a chance to look forward to see what they might get to do in the upcoming years. The goal with these was also to bring in
some of that hands-on learning and hands-on experience that we were seeing in the research and in the surveys um as very uh important to driving engagement. The second recommendation was also just really related to the idea that all of
us know that when kids are engaged in something at school whether that is a sport, an art, an activity, um their engagement goes up. We see that all the time with kids and we know we have amazing opportunities for kids here in Monaceel. So we wanted to have a
recommendation of promoting activities with student ambassadors which actually already happens in some capacities and places and spaces. Um, but we our rationale for really developing a concrete district process that formalized this and creates consistency
was to foster that belonging. So when kids are involved and their um mental health is better, they're more engaged in school, they've got that thing to look forward to. We also know early outreach is so important. The earlier kids know about something that's offered, the more excited they can get
about it. So how can we be as intentional as possible? maybe even starting in those upper elementary years. What does it look like to see kids who are doing different activities um and start to create that path? We also want to broaden the horizons and show that full spectrum. Um we all know
that we work with children who um are still kind of developing that executive functioning and oftentimes our kids tell us there are things that they didn't even know about even though we know that they've probably had some of those opportunities. but really trying to make sure that we're uh showcasing the whole
spectrum for our kids. Um and then just making sure that there's a reliable process that we follow each and every year so that kids have that opportunity to hear from their the the great kids in Monaceel who are already doing some of these things and again recognizing we've already built some capacity in this area
that we can build on. >> The third recommendation is to create a mental health matters newsletter. As we were going through the research, as we were talking about all of these topics, it was very clear that addressing mental health was at the forefront of almost all of them. Um, as we started to expand
on that and started to walk through what's feasible and what challenges that we might expect, we started discussions about just the stigma that surrounds the topic in general. Um, there it's not a topic that people are easily willing to engage in or even want to engage in. And so, we talked about ways to help address
that to help drive student engagement. And one of those was having the district model that it's okay to talk about it, to have it on the forefront of conversations and doing that through a mental health matters newsletter. Not only putting it out there with conversation topics, but also helping
bridge that gap between school supports and home life, providing resources, discussion topics, and those sorts of things to at least have the conversation in the community and in the district. And then our fourth recommendation really kind of combined two recommendations that the team talked a
lot about. Um and so recommendation four was around refining a framework for digital learning and well-being. And the rationale here was that as our team dug into the research, it was clear that there's research around um screen time and how that affects students engagement
and mental health. There's research around the different ways that screens can be used for learning. um ways that can really promote learning and ways that can hinder learning. And so lots of what was talked about was around making sure that our students and parents understand digital wellness. Um weaving
that into what we're doing with our social and emotional learning at an early age. But coupled with that, there was also conversation around just re-evaluating device introduction and classroom use. Uh it's a best practice in education for us to every 5 to seven
years pause and say what have we been doing? How has that been going? Are there changes that need to be made? We do that with a curriculum review cycle. And so a similar process, we all know that when COVID hit, um, we had a a really big wave of introducing tools
that needed to be introduced in that short term, but taking a pause to say, um, how are things going? What are the best practices? And are there any changes that we need to make? We also um wanted to address the link between that personal electronic device and classroom
engagement. There are things that happen for kids at home that we don't necessarily um aren't necessarily able to control as educators, but we can partner with families and do that education piece. And then just really trying to figure out what's the optimal classroom use. Um looking at guidelines
for technology, ensuring that technology is that purposeful tool. And so the team felt strongly that this one was twofold really. Education for students and families plus pausing and saying, "What have we been doing? How is that working? Is there any need for change?
>> In addition to presenting our process and our recommendations, we also wanted to present the feedback that was gained from the committee after their work was done. Um, specifically how valuable the committee, and I can speak to this because I'm one of responses, um, how valuable we thought the experience was.
Um, of the responses, everybody thought it was either valuable or very valuable. There were no negative responses. In addition, we asked the committee how well they felt that it achieved its purpose. This was a relaunch and a rebranding of the district advisory committee. Um, we did something
completely different that had not been done before. And so when we invited people to the table, we said, "We want you to be engaging in research with us and we want you to help us identify some recommendations how how to move forward." Um, all but one of our participants felt that we were able to accomplish our purpose very well or
somewhat well. Finally, um, as a committee, we were asked to what extent do we feel that the committee's work will lead to meaningful change. This goes back to those questions we we asked ourselves about impact, feasibility, challenges that we might expect. Um and again everything
was very confident here that we believe that the work that we put in um if adopted by the board truly represents a group of parents, administrators and teachers in this district and that that group thinks that these recommendations would be appropriate to move forward with.
>> Um what is important to know too is what's our future vision for the district advisory. So when we did this relaunch, we weren't 100% sure what would happen at the end of the year. Do we continue this process each year of researching a new hypothesis? Does this
team morph into something different? Um, and so we actually asked the team to give us feedback on what they felt would be the best use of of the team moving forward, the way that they could make the most impact. And so we've identified three ways that we will continue our district advisory work into next year.
So we're hoping to keep the team relatively intact and create some opportunities for some new membership. We know that new bringing new ideas to the table is always good, but we also recognize the time and energy that's been put in by our current members. So, our vision for moving forward would be
these teams would continue to help us with um deeper research on the action steps. They started with researching engagement. Now that we have action steps, this team can help us research how to move those action steps from an idea into um actual practice in the district. We also know that this work is
going to take time and it's going to take district teams working together. Um we are not looking to implement four action steps in one year. We're looking to plan carefully and thoughtfully and roll things slowly to think about what are the things that are the most feasible to start small and what are the
things that are going to take more time. But our district advisory can also be a feedback loop for us. So, as teams start to lay out plans, we can bring those forward to the district advisory for feedback um and potentially even collaborating directly with teams. For example, Josh shared about a mental
health u matters newsletter. We have some members of our district advisory who have very deep experience working in mental health fields who might be able to partner directly with us to help create that. When the district advisory started, I was very clear that you guys
aren't responsible for doing this work. you're responsible for bringing those ideas forward. Now that those ideas are are coming to fruition, we can start to leverage the strengths of the team as well because we have a dynamic and incredible group that we worked with.
So tonight we do have an action item and our action item is for the board to authorize the planning and implementation of the district advisory committee's identified action steps as a multi-year district priority. And the reason I say multi-year is um those four
recommendations that you heard tonight all have different amounts of planning and implementation. A Monty Milestone showcase for every grade level will take significant time. We will not be able to implement 12 things in one year. Um something like a newsletter might take
less time. So since we haven't um had the opportunity to get approval from you as the board yet, we haven't started to map those things out. But that would be that next step to identify for each action step what exactly does that implementation and planning look like.
So that's the multi-year component. So we would be happy to answer any questions you have. Um and then we can go back to that action item after we answer any questions or provide any clarifications. >> Great. Board members, are there any questions? >> Uh I just had one well comment then a
question. and the comment is thanks for all the good work you guys are doing involvement it's great to see uh my question is more around the cost structure of implementing some of these are there any cost impacts that we need to be made aware of you know before the board goes forward with approving something um and how are we going to
evaluate that in the future because this is a multi-year incremental uh process and what I want to be careful of is you know say approve yes and then we find out year three is a high cost and we just have to evaluate that So
saying no to year three, I'm just some of you need to be cognizant of as well. So >> yeah, I think that's a really fair question. So some of them would be fairly low cost or no cost. Bringing a team together to say let's take a look at how how we're using devices, evaluate that, research that, potentially bring
in new guidelines, it's going to be a very low cost. Um, if we're thinking about educating families, um, again, probably a pretty low cost. We've got a lot of internal experts. So that particular recommendation, we wouldn't be looking at a high cost. A mental health newsletter, again, is another one
that's not going to really require significant cost. We share those newsletters digitally. Our student ambassador, again, pretty much a costneutral. The only one that could have a cost down the road could be like a Monty Milestone. So if there is a
specific um activity that we want to implement, we certainly don't want to put that burden just drop it on a school. We want to be thinking carefully about the budget. So that particular team would need to be thinking about what are they recommending and then working with our district budget to say
are we able to allocate some specific funds to that. So I think to your question, yes, there is that potential cost for the one recommendation. The other three I don't see having I see those being fairly costneutral. >> I just wanted to jump in and kind of echo um the sentiment about this being a
multi-year district um priority. Um, this means that we are going to bring it back to administration and we're going to bring it back to staff leadership teams, but it's not necessarily um, you know, going to be like DAC driven. It's DAC researched. It's it's DAC uh, being
there to take on any of the implementation that potentially staff recognize that they just don't have the word, you know, the time to implement it. But we're going to be uh thoughtful, mindful to put that plan together and make sure that the voices of the plan
are part of the the process. I too appreciate the work that you did. I know that it's a lot and appreciate the commitment and I like the I like the outcomes. Um, but to clarify the action that we're asking for tonight, um, is it the four
recommendations that you're asking us to vote to implement over a multi-year plan? Is that what we're looking for? >> Yeah. And we're looking and like as we said it set it out tonight, authorize the planning and implementation. Um, the
planning is that first and foremost piece. And so really what I would see as that next step would be for each recommendation we'd start to map out who's our team, what's our timeline, what's our budget. And so those would be the things that would happen next. If there's any significant changes that we
would be looking at um needing additional board approval for, of course, those would come back to the board. So it's authorizing that planning for us to move forward with these as action steps and priorities for our district. Does that help?
>> Yeah, it helps. I I guess the the only concern I would have is if we thought that, you know, two or three made sense to to take action on tonight instead of all four. >> Is it an all or nothing that you're looking for? >> I think our team is looking to move
forward with all four. Um, but speaking back to Superintendent Olsen's point, not all four necessarily all at once. So, as we think about what I would do is um really try to start to map and say where's our interest from teachers? Are
there teachers who are interested um in serving on a team or a committee? Where's our interest from the district advisory? And then to lay out what that would look like. So, as a team, the team felt that the four recommendations hit different components that we were looking for. The ambassadors really hit
that engagement in school. The mental health hit the family component. the technology ones hit this the research that we saw around devices seem to have a correlation. Um and when we think about the Monty milestones that hit that real handson enriching and so the four
recommendations that you see tonight kind of speak back to the subcommittees um and were selected intentionally because it felt like it hit all of the different lenses we were looking at the hypothesis through.
My other question is when you started talking about the the technology pieces of this and those four areas under your rationale it in the beginning it sounded like we
wanted to enhance how we're using technology and then for a little bit toward the end I was wondering if there was a few that were leaning toward maybe we need to pull back on what we're doing. Can you speak to that a little bit? >> So I'll speak to each of those again. So um technology is woven into our daily
lives. We all carry a smartphone. We know that our students are going to encounter technology in the jobs that they pursue. We also know that it's part of how families communicate. It's very common for families to have um ways to communicate electronically. So that
first bullet is really about wellness. what are healthy habits around technology and building those in for our students um at an early age. So, intentionally building those wellness habits. The second bullet is thinking about we have had devices in our
classroom now for a long time and we've used them in lots of different ways, but we haven't had an opportunity as a district to kind of pause and say what are we seeing as a result of that. So that's that pause point to say how can a broader group beyond the DAC research
best practices in technology use best practices in pencil paper um and really take a look at is the district aligning to best practices. That third bullet point is really more of a parent engagement component. those personal electronic devices aren't our student
Chromebooks, but our team really was able to read quite a bit about how the personal habits you have with your electronic device can impact how you show up as a learner in school. So, that's kind of bleeding into that homeschool connection. And then finally,
through all of that, figuring out what would would we need to refine any guidelines around our use in the classrooms. So, it's kind of trying to come at that technology in multiple ways. When we did our sticker voting, these were two that kind of rose to the
top and the team talked about it seemed like there would be a way to combine them. So, they're hitting different elements. >> All right. And I just want to say I think this is incredible work. I'm so excited to see what happens here in the next couple years. I'm really interested
in the the Monty Milestone experience and the every grade level. That was my question was, you know, who gets to participate in every grade level and I know it's going to take time, but that's incredible and I think will be so amazing for our community as well. Um, banning people together. Um, the
newsletter that's interesting like you know I guess my big question you'll have to go through this when they start actually putting it together is our students going to access it and read it. Is there opportunity giving given to them to be able to do that? That's some of the questions that comes off the top
of my mind when it's difficult enough to get parents to read newsletters. So, um but then also I would love to see like going forward and as this continues to progress um what is the evaluation criteria on the effectiveness of what we
are rolling out. So it would be nice to see some sort of evaluation criteria that the DAC committee does as these items roll out that's progressive just to see the effectiveness or where we have to um adapt or change in order to
be more effective. Yeah, success criteria is also is always very important. So having our DAC have an opportunity to say we had this idea. How would we define success and do we have 15 ideas of what success is or do we have a clear idea? And that really
has to come from our district and school staff as well. Like our school staff has a much deeper understanding of what happens in a school day than our district advisory parents did. So bringing that together to have a clear definition of success, what does it look like and did we meet it would be
essential. And I just think if you you're you know if we build it together it started with a group of passionate we had educators we had you know family members people from many different types of of uh careers but if you build it together you
build it slow and you make it meaningful um and then build those um you know those healthy habits of those items that you want to stick together. Um it's just like the operating levy. I mean, everybody in the school district was part of that process and and what you
what great things you can deliver when you're all part. And I think that's what I think families want. That's what educators want is to is to find those those mares that make us special, but they make us special because they help kids, you know, thrive and get be engaged and be healthy. And I think uh
the committee was definitely on to some stuff here. Instead of just checking a box like this committee by state statute, a lot of districts do by state statute. This is a part of the statute of Minnesota statute. Um we've had it, but we've never had such a group be so
engaged with it and really dig into what can we do to help our kids. And that's the I think the crux of of uh this this committee and it'll be the crux of the planning is what can we do together to go further for the kid for our kids.
>> This is good work. All right, board. This is an action item. >> So moved. >> Second by Melissa Curtis, seconded by Casey Root. All those in favor, please say I. >> I. Opposed, please say no. Motion
passes. 50. Thank you for your presentation. >> All right, we're moving on to the in my opinion the coolest part of this meeting. Um is our staff appreciation week. Teacher appreciation week is here. Um so I'm just going to say a couple
words on it and I'm so excited that we have a room full of staff right now. um because I'm speaking directly to you guys. So again, this is absolutely my favorite part of this evening's meeting and um getting to see all of your faces here tonight is awesome um to give you
this recognition. So we'd like to just pause and recognize the hard work that's happening within our schools within the district. Um as a board, we often spend time focused on budgets, policies. We
were talking lots about policies this evening before this meeting and outcomes um which we were just talking about now, but behind all of that are the people who make it all come to life for us in our schools every single day. And that
is our entire staff. On a personal note, as a parent in the district, I've seen firsthand the impact that our staff has had on my own children. Even my 20-year-old son still pulls experiences that he had throughout his even his high
school career and had amazing mentors and people that he got to work with that made a huge impact on his life. Um, but not just academically. This is a way that they've been supported and encouraged and truly known for who they are and what they bring to this world.
And that kind of care makes a lasting difference. And I know all of you and many of you in this room have done that even with my own children. From our teachers to our counselors to our social workers, our specialists, our support staff, each plays an important role in
helping our students feel safe, feel supported and able to succeed. We know this work takes patience. I know it takes professionalism, resilience on many days, especially this time of year, huh? the ending of the
school year and a deep commitment to students every single day. We are incredibly fortunate in Monaceel to have the staff who show up for our students and our community in the way that all of you do. On behalf of our entire board, we'd like to thank you for everything
that you do, for the difference you make every single day. It does not go unnoticed and is absolutely truly appreciated from the board. So, thank you. Board members, anybody else want to say anything?
All right, we will now move on to item eight, safe and healthy culture. Item eight is preliminary budget presentation. I'd like to bring up to the podium director of business services, Tina Burkeolder. All right. Good evening, board members.
Uh, so tonight we're going to start taking a look at next year's budget. Only a couple funds to review. Um, I asked my controller, "What do you think? Are we a third way done?" She said, "No, a fourth way done." It's like, "Not really." U, so we still have a long ways
to go um with our general fund and our our capital projects fund with our hail claim. Uh so just taking a look at our budget timeline. Right now we're in May where we're developing the budget and kind of putting a lot of things together. Um these are a list of all our funds
that we manage. We have our general fund that also h includes the special ed cooperative fund and our capital outlay fund. So all three of those funds combined are considered the general fund when the state looks at our financial information. Our community service fund
also includes the hockey arena fund, our food service fund, our oped trust fund, debt service, and internal service. There's a building construction fund, but we don't have that open right now. Um we would if we had a capital bond uh that was voter approved.
So, first we'll take a look at our special revenue funds, the food service fund, community service, and our hockey arena fund. Starting with food service, um our overall fund balance is going down a 100,000. The majority of that is
being uh intentional on that. We're we have a 100,000 for kitchen improvements. Um this fund is utilized for food preparation and service, meal applications and accountability, but also kitchen equipment and maintenance. About two or three years ago,
legislation approved where schools could now use fund two funds for cafeteria tables. We weren't able to do that previously. Um it was always a battle, a competing need with our capital uh operating capital budget. So once that
was approved, we um immediately upgraded two cafeterias worth of tables to help with our custodians um prevent any work comp issues um and get those um updated. But we need to focus back on the kitchen
improvements and focus on I think Little Mountain is our next um kitchen model to look at. The revenue coming in is the majority is f state and federal revenue. Meals are free to students, but based on where
their status is, if they're qualified under free or reduced, that will depend how much revenue we get from the state or federal government. So, we use a similar percentage on the number of students qualified under those categories. Um we did project a little
bit less of meals being served just because we will see or we are anticipating to see lower enrollment especially at our high school. So that is the revenue side of the food service fund. On the expense side um not quite as
labor intense as our general fund. Um we do produce a product a meal for our students. Uh so half of that is our food costs and milk and about 35% is people.
Any questions on food service fund? All right, we'll continue on with our community service fund. This has many different components in it. It has our community ed programming, our ECF, early childhood family education, school
readiness or preschool and adult basic ed. So overall this fund balance is increasing 150,000. The majority of that is under our magic adventures program. Uh staffing costs are estimated to be lower next year with higher utilization
of high school workers and also more accurate allocation of staffing costs to our school age care levy revenue coming in to support students with high needs. Uh so on the revenue side, the majority of the revenue coming in is local fee
revenue, whether it's our community ed programs or magic adventures or preschool. Um with some the remaining come from state, federal, and property tax levy. This fund is a little more labor intense like our general fund. Uh so about 78%
of the budget is staff costs. Any questions on community ed? All right. Our hockey arena fund. Um many assumptions were made while developing this fund as our ice arena manager was out. So we didn't really have a good indication of what he wanted
to do for ice rates. Um but he is coming back within the next week. Uh so we'll make some final tweaks on that. Um, but in this budget we it is it shows a break even budget, but in here we're anticipating a 10,000 shortfall that the
youth hockey association would have to settle up with uh based on our current agree agreement. On the revenue side, it's all other local revenue coming in with the ice time and advertising costs. No state, federal, or levy revenue come into this
fund. And on the expense side, not as quite labor intense. Um just 42% is attributed for staff costs. And then with our purchase services, we have utilities and repairs and maintenance.
Any questions on the hockey fund? All right. Our other funds, our debt service fund. This is our mortgage account where we uh pay for all our bonds. Right now, we have one bond that was approved in 2015
by the voters, and that bond uh will continue on till 2040. And then we also have three long-term facility maintenance bonds in this account to to manage as well. And those will expire somewhere between 2031 and 2034.
So the largest source of revenue coming coming into this fund is our property tax revenue with a little bit offset with state aid and interest revenue. And then all the expenses for this fund are bond principal and interest payments
and related bond fees. Any questions on debt service? All right. with internal service. This is our self-insured fund where we manage our dental insurance program. This will be our 10th year with under a
self-insured model. Um pretty close to break even in our assumptions. We thought we would have similar dental rates for next year as this year and similar enrollment, but we did add about 2% in our claims activity for next year. So hopefully people are still going to
the dentist, getting those prevent and maintenance checks in and keeping our mouse healthy. The revenue in this fund is premiums that are collected whether it's from the employer or the employee with a little
bit of interest money. And on the expense side, it is uh the dental claims and the admin fees to health partners that manage our uh dental plan. Any questions on internal service?
All right, the last fund that we'll talk about tonight is our OPED trust fund. This is has an irrevocable trust for our other postemployment benefits. So, within this fund, like I mentioned a couple weeks ago, we have to recognize
all the retiree costs, whether it's paid out of this fund or whether we pay it out of our oped tax levy for those contracts that have the sunset clause. All of those OPED costs have to be recognized in this fund.
So, our trust will dip down approximately 53,000 by the end of the that school year based on the retirey estimates that don't have the sunset language. The revenue coming in are all the contributions whether it's the district
paid or employee paid depending on the contract language with a little bit of interest revenue that it makes. And on the expense side, it's all the retirey costs towards the health or dental plans. All right, final spot for questions. I'm not asking for approval tonight. I'll
come back to you in June with the general fund and then the the second meeting in June will be the board approval for all the funds. Any questions for Director Burke Holder? I know that I've heard before from people there like even when we were
talking about the referendum and people were asking about school finances a question on like say we have money in our food service fund. Could that go and help pay for let's say a roofing project
that we need to get done? >> Nope. Um it was a big stretch for the legislators two or three years ago to allow us to do cafeteria tables and I think the next year they even clarified
further that um construction projects could be part of the food fund as well. Um, so previously we could buy ovens, we could buy uh steamers, but technically if we had to update an outlet because it
didn't have the right whatever voltage, if you will, um that had to be paid by the general fund. So they have now allowed schools to have all the associated construction costs with a kitchen remodel to be approved with the
food fund. They're very strict on uh what we can pay out of that fund. >> Not comingling like if it's got to be if it's a specific fund, it can't go for something else. It only has to go for that specific item. >> Yes. And technically probably with the
flooring. Um I know at Pinewood Dish Room, we had to update some of the tiles. I think it was kind of coming up. Um that had to be under our long-term facility maintenance plan. It couldn't be under the food fund. All right. Any other questions from the
board or comments? All right. Thank you for your presentation. >> All right. Next, we have first reading of policies. Help me welcome up to the podium director of human resources Rob Danaker.
Thank you, Chair Seven, members of the board, Superintendent Olsen. Um, as the the public knows because we do this um every month, talk a little bit about the policy committee and the work that they do. So, policy committee meets monthly to review a set of policies that is u
undergoing uh typically revision or review. Um and so tonight was no different and we spent some time before the board meeting as a committee going through um seven different policies, five of which are going to first read tonight. The two that aren't are um uh
not going for first read for different reasons. We have a draft policy 908 that we continue to work on. We presented it uh at last month's meeting as a first read. It's called outside organization supporting school district programming. And uh that the purpose of this proposed
policy is to um guide the intersection of the work between the district and outside organizations that support school district programs. We continue to work on that draft policy and we hope to bring a um bring it back in June for a first read and then a second read at the
second meeting in June. Um policy 419 the committee reviewed tonight as well. It was simply a review basis. there were no changes um in that policy and so it was a review only brought forward by our work in our three-year review cycle process. So the five policies that are
coming for first read tonight, the first of those is policy 411, employment procedures. The purpose of this policy is to outline the school district's employment procedures including recruiting, posting, selecting and hiring of employees. Interestingly, this um this does not have a partner in MSBA
model policy land. um this is local to um our school district and so the um the revisions that were being proposed in this first read really have to do with updating the policy to reflect um current operations and current practices within the district. Any questions on
411 moving on to 412. Uh that's expense reimbursement. The purpose of this policy is to identify school district business expenses that involved initial payment by an employee and qualify for reimbursement from the school district and to specify the manner by which the
employee seeks reimbursement. So those reimbursements could be for things ranging from mileage to uh uh costs incurred in professional development activities everything like that. Um there were um some minor um adjustments
in this policy based on the time between the board's last visit on this which was back in 2013. Um and then more recently uh the district has updated our reimbursement process which is housed in our smart system. Um we've aligned for
instance um with the government accounting agency to um determine for instance the reimburseable expenses for meals and different zip codes and so really trying to be sensitive to that. Any questions on 412. Okay, moving on. Uh the next one is um
policy 416 drug alcohol and cannabis testing. the per uh the school board recognized the significant problems created by drug, alcohol and cannabis use in society in general and the public schools in particular. The school board further recognized the important contribution that uh public schools have
in shaping the youth of today into the adults of tomorrow. This is a 24page uh long policy and the board uh the policy committee reviewed it this evening. Um one because of our three-year review cycle, but also there
was one typo um in the last MSBA uh model policy version of this on page 18 and it that typo is it was missing one number and so uh that correction has been made. Any questions on 416?
All right. Uh, the next is 417, chemical use and abuse. The purpose of this policy is as follows. The school board recognized that chemical use and abuse constitutes a grave threat to the physical and mental well-being of students and employees and significantly impedes the learning process. Chemical use and abuse also creates significant
problems for society in general. The school board believes that the public school has a role in the education, intervention, and prevention of chemical use and abu abuse. Almost got into my Canadian accent there. The purpose of this policy is to assist the school district in its goal to prevent chemical
use and abuse by providing procedures for education and intervention. Um again brought forward because of our three-year review cycle. Uh there were minor changes um in this policy in the intervening years um from the MSBA. Any
questions on 417? Okay. And the final policy for uh initial read tonight is 418 drug-free workplace, drug-free school. The purpose of this policy is to maintain a safe and healthful environment for employees and students by prohibiting the use of alcohol toxic substances, medical
cannabis, non- intoxicating cannabonoids, edible cannabonoid products, and controlled substances without a phys physician's prescription. Um there was one minor change uh brought forward from MSBA um recommendation um
under the exceptions clause and just um calls out where to find um basically the through line on the exception. Any questions on 418? All right. Once again, Chair Steven, this is for first read tonight. No action necessary.
>> Awesome. Thank you. All right. And that brings us to 5:51 p.m. as we adjourn this regular school board meeting. It will be followed by a work session where the board members will meet back here after a little break
at 6:00 sharp. We will get started. Thank you for all of those that came this evening and thank you for all you do for our school district.