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we're having technical difficulties and that did it turn it off turn it back on again ladies and gentlemen I appreciate your patience with our technical difficulties up here we just had a little problem getting some documents open uh so we're
just at 50:1 um before we start our regular agenda for tonight as you can see up on the boards here in the um boardroom uh we would like to take a moment to come together with our school Community during a really extremely
difficult and sad time uh late last week we received some really shocking and heartbreaking news one of our newest graduates from the class of 2024 um Gina Schaefer she tragically passed away in an accident and Gina was an academic standout she was one of our
valad torians she was beloved pretty much by everyone that knew her um was deeply involved with planning the baloria uh ceremony among her many accomplishments but even more than that she was a really kind and generous person she was involved with our unified
program she was just a very genuine friend to everyone that she met I've heard nothing but positive comments about what a good human being she was um so we would like to um take a moment uh to let you know that there will be more
information coming on a celebration of life uh the family as you can imagine is going through a really tough time trying to plan that sort of thing right now um but we would like to uh take a moment of silence to support and hold the family of Gina schaer close in our hearts
please join us for a moment of silence and thank you for everyone so now as we um gavl in this evening it is 50:03 p.m. on the 5th of August 2024 and this is the regular meeting of the monacello district 882
School Board please uh rise with us uh for the Pledge of Allegiance Al 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 our first order of business is to approve the tentative agenda so moved second moved by Melissa Curtis seconded by Casey root all those in favor of the um tentative agenda becoming our
permanent agenda for the evening please respond by saying I I I any opposed please say no motion passes 60 moving on to our consent agenda we have under that approval of minutes Personnel matters and the recommendation
of an ad hoc committee members received this information in advance and had opportunities um to ask any questions so we do move those together as a consent agenda moved by Jeff hegley second seconded by Melissa Curtis all those in
favor of approving the cons consent agenda as posted please say I I I all those opposed please say no consent agenda passes 60 moving on to number six this is a new resolution for the school
districts this year um calling the general election um the three seats that are up for election on the school board with the general election this year oh I skipped skipped ahead I apologize for
that I scrolled a little too fast on my computer screen we have citizens comments this evening and I desperately apologize for skipping over that that was totally a mistake on my part um the next item on our agenda is Citizens
comments bonacell District 882 uh policy number 206 governs our citizens comments and we have also described the process with a video and guidance on our website we welcome citizens to address the board at each regular meeting school board meetings are conducted under Minnesota
open meeting law statutes open meeting laws are different from a public hearing or an open Forum such as the truth and Taxation there is no back and forth question or answer period or discussion with board members of the content of the citizens comments during open meeting
and no action will be taken by the board however comments from our citizens are very important to the board and speakers are contacted before and after a meeting to provide opportunities for followup and to continue to work on concerns or provide closure for an issue
that's been brought to US citizens comments in the open meeting uh by law must not violate student data privacy or Personnel data privacy each citizen is welcome to address the board for up to three minutes a small digital timer will be displayed on the screens in the boardroom for timekeeping for each
speaker and this evening the board would like to warmly welcome our first Speaker Miss Holly Sunderland to the uh Podium welcome Holly and I do apologize that was not a that was just a total screw up on my
part to skip over that on the agenda hi everyone to begin I'd like to remind the board of the district's motto every kid every day and your pledge that we are dedicated to the education and well-being of the students thank you for
this opportunity to share with you our concerns regarding a district practice that puts at risk the emotional and mental well-being of the district's grade school children unfortunately we've been informed by the district that this is a common practice to transfer children
from one Elementary School to another with the decision based on nothing other than an arbitrarily established borderline with little if any concern for the well-being of the child a case in point that exposes this unconscionable practice is a family we
know that has an 8-year-old child who is being arbitrarily transferred from Little Mountain to Pinewood despite a very direct medical recommendation to leave the child in its current school to avoid potentially serious anxiety issues anxiety and eating disorders due to complex and lifethreatening food
allergies as we understand it the little person has a history of panic attacks triggered by inconsistency in surroundings of abrupt change the district has in its possession a copy of the medical recommendation yet plans to transfer the child to Pinewood
anyway thus leaving his friends teachers and current familiar physical environment notwithstanding apparently the little person has been doing very well within LM his history of panic attacks impeding his ability to learn to feel safe and eat have been mitigated due to due to
the consistency of being at Little Mountain the district is imposing this insensitive and medically discouraged transfer and violation of the interdistrict cooperation agreement signed by the district and the parents of the CH uh the child being placed at risk we have a family friend who is a
retired superintendent of schools having been an elementary school teacher an elementary principal ipal superintendent of schools and later attended law school and became a law professor he has an adult daughter with serious anxiety issues he shared with us that had he
known the potential damage of accepting professional super Advance professional superintendent advancements and the uprooting of his anxiety vulnerable child to new school districts he would have remained where he was and honored her needs rather than his own professional
aspirations he feels his advancements in required relocations had a profound last effect on his daughter's anxiety issues due to his ignorance and now the family and daughter live with the consequences I assume the board is fully aware that the district is currently facing the significant time and expense
of legal action and its attempt to defend this practice policy which is putting the risk putting at risk the well-being of children under its protection to ensure the board has all the pertinent information leading to the pending legal action the family involved
has GA gathered relevant documents and supporting information that will be mailed to each board member in the district superintendent following tonight's meeting thank you all very much for this opportunity to comment on this unfortunate situation that is diametrically opposed to the monacell
school district's philosophy of every kid every day thank you so now moving on to item number six uh as I started to introduce before this is a new procedure that the state is requiring us to have a resolution
calling the school district election usually it was just posted like every other position but we're we're required to have a resolution for that this year can you please uh Gavin pull that up on the big board so that people can see it and
so it resolve School Board of Independent School State necessary for the school dist to hold general election for the purpose of electing three school board members for terms of four years the general election I called and directed to be held in
conjunction with the Statewide general election on Tuesday the 5th day of November 2024 between the hours of 7: a.m. and 800 p.m. the clerk is here by directed to election to be Adra offic of the
school dist at days before the date election and I would like to add that as we scroll down um can you scroll down further Gavin where it says candidate a b and c that does not necessarily mean um that that's how it will look on the
final ballot we have our position uh for board for filing is open now until the 13th of August so we are unable to put the candidate names in there this evening for the purpose of the resolution all candidates who file will be listed as candidates wrin are a
separate situation so we have before us a resolution to call election for school board uh three Schoolboard seats for the general election on November 5th do I hear a second second seconded by Casey root all those in favor please say I I
any opposed please say no motion to call the election is six and zero um and items number seven and eight will'll get through rather quickly to explain what these resolutions are the Minnesota School Board Association in addition to
the school board School administrators Association and school business professionals Association put together a platform to Lobby our legislators every year for things that need to be changed within the school laws that govern
schools and so in order to put things onto that platform for our lobbyists to work with the legislature there has to be a resolution process uh member Casey root and myself are both delegates to the delegate assembly for the Minnesota
Schoolboard Association which is approximately 100 122 122 uh Representatives across the state of Minnesota so we can bring forth resolutions for uh legislation to advocate for things such as additional funding for school boards so the first
resolution we have have um is for the construction materials tax um and so this is a bit difficult to understand but it's easy to read on there um school school boards have the
opportunity to purchase individual items tax exempt but that's not how we fix things we contract with contractors who have to purchase the things to fix something or to build something and they incur the sales tax then the school district has to go back and file a bill
with the legisl legislature to have that reimbursed and I think there was five last year five or six school districts across the state that took that Advantage so this bill um hopes to address that issue of the sales tax for construction materials which for those
districts was over a million dollars last year so I'm going to have uh member hegley read the resolution to fixers process for school purchases of constru exemp from sales tax
second uh motion was for the resolution read by Jeff hegley seconded by Melissa Curtis all those in favor of uh this resolution please say I I any opposed please say no and motion passes 60 and
then we also have uh proposed resolution lifting the long-term facilities cap again if you pull that up on the board Gavin so everyone can read that or you can read it later at your leisure um there's a group of large districts in the Twin Cities that do not have a cap
on what they can spend to fix their building and the whole rest of the state does and we're asking the legislature yet again to lift the cap on long-term facilities maintenance um if we scroll down a bit um many of the buildings
across the state are over 100 years old they obviously need a different level of Maintenance dollars than a brand new building would need um the difference in in those buildings smaller and Rural districts are capped at $380 per pupil
but the alternative facilities districts do not have that cap they're able to raise money through their Levy system in a different way than we can and so for parity and Equity among all of the districts we're asking the legislature
to revisit it that cap of $380 per pupil a resolved msba urges the legislature to eliminate long-term facilities maintenance LT for all districts to District to
repair facilities second resolution read by Jeff hegley seconded by Casey root all those in favor of the resolution please say I hi any opposed please say no motion passes
60 moving on to uh safe and healthy culture we have this evening Tina Burkholder and Laura Wacker Hansen our new director of nutrition services going to give us an update on our food service plan for the district welcome Laura and Tina it's
it's on present mode of Technology uh thank you for having us tonight we're are going to give service update and also talk about lunch prices for next year um so will students have free meals this coming school year and the answer is yes
nothing has changed from legislation this past year last year in 2023 Governor wall signed a free Minnesota free meals Bill Bill and that's still intact students are eligible to receive one reimbursable breakfast meal and one
reimbursable lunch meal each day uh what does a reimbursable meal include and so on here I on the slide I have what's included for elementary and secondary both breakfast and lunch they're pretty close and similar but
there are uh slight differences in portions oh yep I can I want to hover over Laura um what's not included is a carton of milk any snack items or alloc cart items like chips
cookies those sort of things a second entree so if somebody wants a second cheeseburger or a pizza slice so forth that is not included second meal so if somebody is really hungry very has a good mental ISM and and needs that a
second meal would not be covered meals that don't have all those components would not be covered so you got to make sure you have your fruit and veggie portions on there and then any meals served to teachers staff or other adults that aren't in the program so our cooks for example they're in the program they
work in the program they are entitled to free meals so tonight we're asking for approval on our lunch prices our breakfast prices are um good over the summer the state always looks at what the adult minimum price should be so our breakfast price is okay but
our lunch price needs to be increased to $5 and then when you look at the second entree we want that to be about 55% of what the full meal is uh so that changed a little bit as well people sometimes ask should I still
complete a meal benefit application yes uh because families would be entitled to other benefits such as reduce athletic rates um possibly class fees other things that um you could get in the community whether it's through the
community center um or Library um so yes families should comp complete that um and they can apply inter on our Infinite Campus through the parent Port portal but we do um have paper applications that families can complete as
well um and last ly um free meals are only for scheduled school days and when we're in person so if we have a snow day digital day um we would not be able to do fre meals for that and that we still have our policy 534 that talks about um
past negative balances because we're still work with working with families to make sure we have all those past negative meal balances from the prior cleaned up any questions again just looking for approval on the adult meal price and the
second entree price Tina are you able to tell us in an aggregate form how [Music] much oh I think
we're still working on some of it because um for example our some of our seniors if they had a positive balance they gave it to the angel funds and so we're working on cleaning up some of the older debt first and if they had a a free reduced status trying to work on
that first so I think it's around 3,000 yes approved the free meals so we have was did that come down because of the Angel fund uh no people families were just um
cleaning up their outstanding debt and trying to really have good procedures and lines intact where you know if you're just getting a free meal come here but if you want that allart trying to make sure that they have a balance a
positive balance first before selling those chips cookies so on so forth any other discussion from the board yeah is there any further discussion or questions um for Tina yeah I'll ask a
follow question is the 3,000 all from last year some of that older than one year probably older than one year so Mark when the legislature approved the free meals they did not wipe out lunch debt across the day the
the state so it's up to each district to figure out what to do with their lunch debt is it worth it to keep chasing it well I'm not allowed to it's part of the Food Service fund I'm not allowed to forgive it if we do forgive it then we
got to move it to the general fund can you also for the benefit of the audience and anyone watching talk about the angel fund and what that is yep so through the Angel fund whether it's outside donations or internally where families like have seniors that are not
with the district anymore they have $5 $10 instead of us sending a check to the families for for whatever is remaining uh we give it to the angel fund and so the angel fund we're trying I don't know if we've had our procedures quite um
written down but we would like to um look at the oldest debt first the highest debt uh if they're freee and reduced and trying to work our way down and having uh clear procedure so we're not doesn't look like we're playing
favorites but people could donate to that from outside the facility as well so I think people have done that before in the past any other questions for Tina and Laura is going to address us as well I did not have anything prepared I can answer some questions if you would like
I have been deep in the logistics of starting our program off and contracts and all of that stuff so Tina took care of this presentation for today does anyone have any questions for Laura I heard you've been crunching the the milligrams of everything and the
Millie equivalents to make sure we meet all the requirements yes absolutely we've been very busy working on menus and procurement and getting everything set up for the start of the school year when will we be able to see those new menus I am hoping within the next two weeks
wonderful any other uh conversation about the food service program um from the rest of the board okay um so we have before us a uh res or uh we have to approve the meal prices for 2425 as presented um there are some
slight increases on the adult meals and the Entre so moved moved by Jamie seen seconded by Casey root all those in favor of approving the lunch prices as presented please say I I I any opposed
please say no and motion passes 60 and then I believe Tina Burkholder is going to remain at the podium and give us an employee health insurance update thank you Laura for coming yes so my second update is on employee insurance
so um we have a state statute that regulates this process state statute for 71. 6161 subdivision 8 uh So within this statute we have to do a RFP every two years um our last cycle is actually
three three years because we got to lock um three years of a a 0% cap um so we're very fortunate for that also we have to send this to three carriers and one of it has to be peep um which is the Public Employee insurance plan I believe we have to
publish this uh 21 days before bid opening in our paper and open it in front of the largest bargaining group so within our timeline this is how it applied to us and on May 16th we put it in our paper June 10th was our first
initial bid um bids were due and then we opened them on the 11th with our insurance committee which included our largest bargaining grp group July 8th was the best and final bids were due and we opened those on July 9th um and then throughout since then
through July 31st just getting feedback from our insurance committee members and meeting with them to see uh which plans would work best for the budget and employees and the administr administrative team wrote the rationale
or basically me on the selection and then presenting to the board tonight and then our renewal is actually October 1st our plan year goes from October 1 to September 30th we have a plan year that's different than the calendar year uh so our insurance committee
members that were present myself Rob dencker Amy stach Zack Harry Julie Laro uh for the clerical group and then the teachers that were present as well during those Insurance committee meetings our admin team uh comprised of superintendent myself and Director of
Human Resources also within this um process you cannot decrease the value of any insurance plan it has to have the same benefit you know out of pocket you know thresholds deductibles that sort of thing if we do
change it then we have to have approval from the group so in our process we um stated that what our plans were and made sure no benefit decreases within the process our initial biders Health Partners who is our current provider
Blue Cross Blue Shield who we had many many years prior to Health Partners Meda United healthc Care and Peep so with the best and final bids we looked at Health Partners where their
proposal had an overall 12% increase there were some differences between the plans but overall it was a 12% increase with a year two cap of 12% Blue Cross Blue Shield overall was 11.41 % and then year two rate cap of
12% medicia overall 7.5% again uh there might be some changes within the different plans and then a year two cap of 133% and a wellness credit of 150,000 so the insurance committee recommended
Meda where we have a 7.5% overall increase for this coming year and then the second plan year of a maximum 133% so that's the max hope we there's a chance we could get something lower but uh you never know but 13% is our cap and
then um that 150,000 Wellness credit we'll have to find out more about that once uh this gets more solidified um and then here's our rationale talking about the process and the statutes when the bid openings were
and then our final selection of Meda uh moving forward so our next step at the district office is to make sure we get all the enrollment open enrollment materials uh gathered having a good transition plan so that people can decide do they still
want to stay with their plan or um change things change to a different plan um because with our uh something new this coming year we do have a a cap on single Insurance of $975 per month um so
our Viva plan wouldn't be 100% covered and so um we just want to make sure employees are aware of that if they decide um if they want to stick with that or um change to something else any questions on the process and plans yeah go ahead I was going to say
Tina am I correct that all of our employees in the district no matter what their job is have the same health insurance and the same contributions at this point in time if there are if we have contracts that are not settled they have Frozen based on what's in their
last contract so the um the custodians group has the same access to this uh health insurance that the teachers group does as an example so I just wanted to make sure that was clear I just the the 150,000 Wellness
credit uh can you just review that one more time to explain what that where that's I don't know exactly what it means but um it's something we'll want to dig into so I don't know if it's um having access to certain services or
what that entails we they didn't once we solidify with them then we'll yeah because I didn't recall seeing that in the in the meetings that we were in with overviews where where we went through yep it was in the Powerpoints so was okay it was by the rate caps a lot in there too yes there was a
lot so one October is when the new health insurance with medic will come into effect this is not an action item for the board the decisions already been made uh by the insurance insance committee so it's one October is when everyone will be transferring to the new Medica plan is that our open enrollment
process is normally mid August to mid-september that people have time to look at the plans um in the past we've had videos that people can listen to at home with a spouse because insurance is not everybody's wheelhouse so it helps
to have a second set of ear sometimes on what's being offered and knowing the details and so the .5 is much better than what was anticipated on there so yep the hit of process did what um I
think it was intended it it tightened the belts of everybody we didn't deserve a 7.5% our claim history even after the process spiked up a little bit so um we are fortunate to to get that 7 and a
half% any questions from the rest of the board Ina regarding health insurance okay thank you Tina now we'd like to welcome Mr Rob Daner for to the podium Director of Human Resources and our policy chair for
first reading of policies welcome Rob Cher zth members of the board superintendent Olsson uh so we have two policies for first read tonight uh the first one is policy 611 on homeschooling uh the purpose of this policy is recognize and provide guidelines in accordance with state law for parents
who wish to have their children receive education homeschool that is an alternative to an accredited public or private school um our current policy on uh homeschool for policy 611 is word for word uh what is in current msba
recommended draft policy um the reason we approached it tonight uh as a policy committee was um director fashing our director of teaching and learning um has developed a process and procedure document uh that
um helps to inform this policy and so what the policy committee decided to do was add a line under article two of this draft policy uh that states our District's home school process and procedural expectations are outlined in a document located on the district website and then that is hyperlinked as
well so people uh would be able to easily access that process and proced your document so functionally no significant change to this policy um as as it was revised uh other than to add that additional information questions from the board for
Rob on policy 611 for homeschooling discussion okay thank you uh policy 613 right policy 613 this is graduation requirements the purpose of this policy to set forth requirements for graduation from the monell public school district
as the board uh recalls this policy has been sitting in first read for a little bit of time we had a first read initially a couple months back and then had to uh table um this progressing to Second read because we had some additional revisions to make um signif
of significance this year is the high school transitioning from a semester calendar to a trimester calendar and that informs the bulk of the changes that are in this recommended um uh this revised draft as it were uh specifically around graduation credit requirements um
and so what the high school administration has done is to uh again make the transition um from the semester to the trimester model include the relevant references within the graduation requirements so for instance um you know it articulates that for the
next uh four years of graduating students from monacella high school each will have a different number of credits required for graduation because of the transition to trimester and the amount of time they've spent in a trimester system um and so this will take again four full years to cycle through um to
where we get back to a pretty well- grounded and and relatively constant uh graduation uh credit requirement model um and so that is kind of the bulk of it from the 30,000 foot level from getting close to ground level there are some uh
modifications that are being recommended uh specific to in some cases uh change in state statute for instance the requirement that the high school teach uh and educate students on a course personal finance for instance um so those are some of the recommended uh changes as
well any questions for Rob on policy 613 this is just first read so we're not approving tonight any questions we we talked in policy committee quite a bit about the confusion moving from trimesters or
semesters to trimesters and that that's going to be a learning process for everyone probably for more than a year um as we move into that and it it was reassuring to hear that the High School principles have spent quite a bit of time addressing that and coming up with
informative measures for parents and what so we all look forward to hearing more and then we're moving into the high school handbook um this evening as well yes and so the last piece of the agenda for tonight is the approval of the building handbook for the high school um
and so again this was uh slightly delayed because of some of the revisions uh that um were reflective of the change to the trimester model um also of note the policy committee did have extended conversation around uh various different areas of the proposed handbook uh one of
them um is specifically regarding the high school um parking policy and the collection of fees for uh high school parking um that is actually um it's not only included in the high school handbook but it's also uh the heart of policy 527 and so so the policy
committee um basically agreed came to a common understanding that there would be further conversation regarding policy 527 specifically to those fees at the high school parking uh for High School parking privileges um and the um that would be covered at a a work session to
come as a starting point correct any discussion regarding the high school head book board members specific well what they are obligated to do is provide the students with the
understanding that uh the expectation that they have read and understood the handbook exists it's kind of a uh an annual acknowledgement as it were uh for what we do on the employee side and so um principes typically do the same with their students and then um they collected acknowledgement to um to
reflect the same any further discussion or questions on the high school handbook from the board okay so we need to take an action this evening to approve the high school handbook moved by Jeff hegley to approve
the high school handbook as written second seconded by Casey root um all those in favor of approving the high school handbook as written and presented please say I I I any opposed please say no High School handbook is approved
thank you Mr Daner um just as a reminder we approved the other Elementary and Middle School handbooks at a different meeting so this one was just a little bit off cycle so is there any additional uh comments or new business from board members this
evening finding nothing else uh to discuss and our agenda is complete we will move to adjourn at 5:39 p.m. we are adjourned thank you people e e