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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=2m8We3JPPRk

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Let's consider a motion to approve the amended agenda. So moved. Motion by the second by Jill any discussion? Not all those in favor signify by saying I. All in favor same sign. We'll move on. Nobody here for open

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forum I assume. All right, we will do Mustang spirit recognition. Anybody have anything? Anybody have anything? I do. All right. I just wanted to pause and recognize all of the custodial staff and

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buildings and outdoor buildings and grounds staff that are working so hard to prepare the school and the grounds for our students and staff and you know, those are people that people don't see doing the work,

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but I think it's important to recognize them. So I don't know if board members ever see any of the custodians it's worth opportunity to say thank you or or staff or people in the general public that are listening online. So

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Perfect shout out to them. Thank you. Anybody else? Not we'll move on to Rum River special education update. >> Perfect. Thank you. Hi, Tanya Tackett executive director of Rum River and I have Tracy Wells with me as well. >> Tanya you can sit at that table. You can

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sit over there at the special table. But I mean you're okay to sit there at the special table. I don't know if Leo's back in I might have to call him. Okay. If you're okay with that. Yeah, 100%. Okay, perfect. So so I have Tracy Wells director of

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finance and HR with Rum River with me today and then we also have Leo Draveling who is our senior project manager with Nexus. And so next slide. Dan had asked or superintendent Voce had asked

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for us to come in just give a couple of updates. So we're going to do a quick uh new facility project update. Um Leo will be able to walk through a couple of changes that we've had to do. Um and then an audit summary fund balance um Mr. Voce had

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just asked us to um summarize our last audit that we had and then just share a little bit about our current fund balance status. And then finally um how districts are billed, just kind of give you a reminder before the school year starts on how how districts are billed. So, we'll go ahead and get started with

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the Rum River North project. And I will call him see if he can log back on or if um he can kind of go through some things with you. >> Oh, here he is. >> Oh, he's on? >> Yep.

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>> Okay, perfect. Leo, can you hear us? >> Can you Oops. Can you hear us, Leo? I think he your button's on mute, I can see. >> He might not be able to hear us. >> Uh what's that? >> Leo, do you hear us, Leo?

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>> I doubt if he can hear He may not. I'll chat him. >> I'm guessing that's a no. Yeah, I'm thinking that's a no. I'll just give him a >> Yeah. Yeah, I'll just call him. >> Sorry. >> Do you have candy though? Yeah, I'll be >> [laughter] >> Well, that's all that matters. >> He can hear us, too. >> Hi.

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>> Hi. >> Can you hear us? >> I can't hear you on my microphone for some reason. I can hear you so I can hear you now. >> Okay. >> Just have him leave from the online. >> Say what, ma'am?

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>> I'm going to log off. >> Okay. Okay, they would like you just to log off and then you can just go through the phone. >> Okay. Okay, I can I can I can Do you want All right. I I dial in. >> Okay.

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>> All right. All right. >> Okay. He's going to try dialing in, I guess. >> Okay. >> Sorry for the delay. >> Oh, it's fine. >> Is everybody's summer going well? >> Fast. >> Too fast, yeah. >> Crazy. >> Yeah.

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Mhm. So, Anthony, you're going to have to let him in. >> I have to let him in again? >> Yeah, probably. >> Okay. Should pop up again, I think. There he is. >> There he is. Okay. >> Hey, Leo. Candy, do you want to mute, so maybe

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>> Hello. Hello, everyone. Sorry about that. I'm not sure. Sometimes I have problems with Google Meet, and I guess that's the problem here. >> Perfect. Well, thank you, Leo. We are just getting started with um the update with Rum River North. So, if you would

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like to um kind of walk us through those slides, and then we can answer any questions that may come up as um we go through them. >> Did you hear me? Think I can I think I can hear him. >> Do you have to turn your volume up, or or can you >> One of you might have to unmute him.

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>> Uh >> Trash can. Will that work for him? >> Leo, does that work for you? I'm just going to call an emergency final answer. We're just going to do it this way. >> Yep, we can hear you. >> Now we can hear you.

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Okay, so Leo, we were just talking Sorry, we were just talking a little bit. I just did a couple introductions of what we're going to be talking about today. So if you wanted to go ahead and go through the slide regarding what conditions require a remedy with the board.

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>> There there um So so with that I don't have the slide up here with me, but the first one that we had I believe is we ran into wet conditions with all the rain and coming out of the winter

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the ground was really saturated and digging footing you know, we could do that but then once we started to look we had placing the footings with the clay soil holding the water it was just you know, you're playing in mud and we'd make a little bit of

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progress and then it'd rain. Um it just was really hard. So to make some progress we got a hold of Bron our geotech and he made a recommendation which is pretty common is to put river

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rock in the to to over excavate and put river rock in the bottom of the footing and then from that you can place your your footings and then build your foundation wall. So we we did that and that worked really well. Um and it got us pretty far. So

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that was the first step that we took. And then moving forward trying to get the you know, the foundation backfilled we ran again. It just rained every other day and with the clay soil it was just

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really muddy. And so then again, we went to Ron and that's best thing to do. Two options. The first option is to kind of just do it naturally with maybe a smaller building, smaller sites you can get away with it.

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Where you just let things kind of dry, you know, work the soil, let it dry, maybe backfill a little bit, right? That that's good for like I said, a smaller site. For something of this size you can do all of that and then

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it rains and then you're back at square one. And and so that was the first option. Other option with that is basically just bringing clean sand, which is pretty common practice, right? I've done it

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before. Um and that's what we went with. That option cost about Originally they said it was going to cost like $80,000 and then we capped it we said, "Okay, you know what? Let's see how far $60,000 is going to get us,

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right?" These are big numbers. I'm not not taking that lightly. Like I said, those are big numbers. And so that's why we capped it instead of going the full boat. They were able to do everything for that amount and with that they were able to bring in all

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the backfill. That allowed us to finish the foundation complete. And why is that important? If we would not have done that, we would be in a bad spot right now. We would have been spinning our wheels. Maybe we would be, you know,

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halfway through the foundation and then that would have put us in jeopardy of the overall project schedule. So, it was money well spent. With that we did have an allowance of uh $100,000. You know, look at the site that. We set

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up our at budget time. And then um we also received a credit uh that uh we weren't planning on, but uh we found some EE and we received the credit. So,

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uh in a nutshell, you know, that soil work, it cost us money, but we didn't really have anything out of pocket. I think we had like $1,400 total. Um with that, we're back on schedule and um you know, we're moving full steam ahead. So,

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um that's part of our big canyon. Um what else do I need to explain here not seeing the slides here? >> Um yeah, the last slide talking about big uh bid package number one of budget clarification. You kind of touched on that a little bit. I don't know if you

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want to run through that a little bit more, but other than that, um >> Yeah. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah, so with that, that's pretty straightforward. That's um I think it kind of explained it there, but originally, we didn't have the

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foundation um fully designed, so we didn't know what we were going to need for excavation on that. And so, uh when we brought up the second bid package, we wrote up the work scope for it, uh

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assigned, you know, the values for um the soil that needed to be excavated, you know, footing length, all that kind of information and handed over to our excavator DW. They gave us what those costs would be. They seemed fair, within

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reason. And so, we just included that within the budget and that was always part of the plan. So, um so, that was, you know, work scope that needed to be done. Um we just put the time in at the time that we did the first package. >> So, that's just a brief update where

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we're at with the Rum River North project. Do any um board members have any questions for uh any of us? I know I'll mention a couple of you Leo before they got on before you got on the call um a couple of board members have

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driven past the site and they're excited to um see the progress. Uh it's it's going up fast, so we're excited about that. So. >> And >> No, Yeah, that's probably where I'm going to say it is is um is is um

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with doing that those corrections right the whole thing with where we're at is being able to control the site, being able to control the construction. We're at a spot now where we have full control, right? If it rains a little bit, yeah, that might cause some uh little bit of delays, but um you know,

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we're full steam ahead and uh we're getting the steel set and you know, our next milestone is going to come up 8th to 6th September, but it's really not that far away. Uh we're getting the roof on and getting watertight, so that's kind of that next milestone that we're going to be looking

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for and um after talking with the contractors and looking at it, um I don't see any reason why we can't be be there at that point. >> I was I was just going to mention I see the steel going up and then like just so the board has an

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understanding the the completion expected date is it next spring? >> Uh fall we're >> Next summer. >> Yeah, fall 2027 is when students will be in there. Um Leo, I don't know if you have a more um updated timeline. I think we're

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thinking spring 2027-ish, but um we'll see. You know, hopefully we have a couple extra months that we can just move in and all that stuff, so. >> And yeah, so so with that, right? Um

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yeah, so we're looking at um you know, hopefully next May, right? Um, that's what uh uh we should be coming in at. Um, you know, no no nothing past June. So, uh we're on track for that. We've got it

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on the schedule. Uh it makes sense on paper and that's usually the first check. So, everything makes sense there. Um without the soil corrections, like I said, we would have been spinning our wheels still and that would have put that jeopardy pretty close to it. Um,

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and also with that, you know, going into um winter this year, we're going to need as much done on that site as we can. Um, so that when spring comes, um you know, maybe we have to pour a little bit of sidewalk and put the second lift of asphalt down, but that

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we're not, you know, doing a lot of exterior um next spring. Um, going to try and play it off as much as we can right now so that that makes uh next spring much easier for the site. >> Sounds good.

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>> Any questions regarding the road work on our site? >> We're ready for a field trip next spring. >> Yes. We should do a field trip. That'd be fun. So. Great. Well, thank you, Leo. We appreciate your time. >> Well, thank you, everyone. Feel free to

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email me. >> Sounds good. Thanks. >> Okay, so the next uh topic that we have is our our most recent audit. Um as you can see, our audit period and auditor um the period was July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025. Our auditor is Bill

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Lower with L.B. Can uh Carlson, formerly MMKR. And I'll have Tracy kind of run through the results and opinions of that audit. >> Sure. Uh so, we had a clean modified unmodified, sorry, opinion, um

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which is good. Um uh for findings, we um have a special ed audit every year on the federal side. Um everybody has a federal audit typically. You guys may not always have a sped audit. It might be food service or something else, title programs probably.

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We only have sped, so that's what ours is every year. Uh we had no federal sped audit findings, so that was great. Um on the Minnesota side, we had one finding um that was in relation to our local bank. Um they basically switched how our accounts were insured, and they moved

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from private insurance to FDIC insurance, which means we had to get all these sweep accounts. And um they had a couple of hiccups on those sweeps and when they were sweeping over, a couple times it was past the business day, so the statements wouldn't line up. So then anything over 250 technically

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isn't insured by FDIC. Uh so that's what that finding was about. Um our auditors went and spoke with the bank and um helped them go through some things. The The bank, very small local bank in town, they're great. Um so they've got it taken care of now.

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Uh they also have their own insurance that covers over the 250, but it's not the FDIC insurance that they said they were switching to. So that audit um came with that finding. Uh you can go to the next slide. Our unassigned fund balance is right at

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2 and 1/2 million, uh which is 19% of our expenditures. Uh which was up 350,000 over the prior year. Uh we We have a a policy that requires a minimum fund balance uh equal to or more than 15%. So

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we're sitting great there. Uh another thing I just pointed out on the slide was it's For us, it's essential to provide the cash flow needed to meet payroll and benefits and other obligations in a timely manner. We rely heavily and mostly on special ed aid.

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Um little different than most districts, and that's usually at least 18 months behind, so that's why we always have a little bit more just for cash flow. >> Any questions on the audit or fund balance that we're currently at? >> Okay. All right.

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>> The last topic that um um Mr. Shea asked us to talk a little bit about is just how districts are billed um for our services and our setting four programs um just maybe to start refresh your mind >> Well, it's kind of I think I think everyone

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knows how that works. >> be complicated for sure. Yep. >> Give us the easy version. >> I kind of divvied it out into three main categories that people seem to ask about. So, we've got our setting four programs obviously. Our school is the new Rum River North and we have two schools in Cambridge as well that you

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send students to. Uh for setting four services um we receive special education aid for most the expenses there and then any remaining amount is tuition billed by MDE. And so, that's all through the tuition billing system, so it's based on

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your usage at the sites um and that's everybody, member, non-member, it's all the tuition billing system for those unreimbursed special ed costs. So, we get the sped aid up front and then what's left over um so Paul Fearing tells me to say it's about

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75 to 78% that's covered with special ed right now um which obviously that can change. Um so, that leftover amount is tuition billed based on usage to everybody that uses our programs. So, that's how the setting four portion of it works. >> And that's members and and non-members.

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>> Yep. >> They're billed through tuition billing. >> Uh co-ops get their costs covered. So, that's why that uh extra 22% or whatever is not covered of special ed costs MDE bills out through tuition billing. That's the system of all the money going

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back and forth. You get some tuition aid for students that you guys serve, you also get billed through the system as well for sending students away which a lot of them are probably through member river. >> And basically it's the based on the amount of students that you have your

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bill, right? So that can fluctuate. >> Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Um, there are some unreimbursed costs that cannot go through that system and that's if they're not sped eligible. Mostly that's the leases, right? We also have things like utilities

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and some gen ed costs that can't go through that system and that is based on program usage as well and we send a hard bill for that and the major member districts get the majority of that back through lease levy. That's where the our biggest chunk of

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that is the leases on our buildings and that's what we lease levy for. And that'll be the same situation with the new building. So if you're a member, you have access to that. So it doesn't you pay the bill, but then you get it returned through the lease levy. That makes sense?

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>> Mhm. >> All right. The other big part of what we do is contracted services. So we have a lot of staff that are in Mora buildings, OTs, PTs, coordinators, school psychs, vision teachers, DHH, all

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those specialized staff and I'm probably missing a couple. Um, those costs are allocated based on the district's child count within the cooperative. So this is just something that's provided to member districts and that then is put in your SEDRA, it's

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called. So your district Mora reports those costs as contracted services to the Minnesota for specialized costs. So you're now getting about 75 to 78% of that cost back directly to you and so the leftover cost is your out of pocket

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cost there. Um, yeah, I put in here roughly 75%. So that's how our um, contracted services are paid for. I I bill you for them. We do three equal bills throughout the year and then we clean up at year end.

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Um and yeah, that goes really smoothly. But yeah, you you those are all at special ed staff, so you get that 75% back through the state. >> And part of being part of the cooperative then you have access to those services which no school district

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can afford to have on their own, right? >> Yes, sure. Right, like you might need 0.2 of vision services one year or >> things like that. >> And the other positive of being part of a co-op, let's say you have uh multiple students who are blind or visually impaired move into your district, we

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provide those services at no additional cost. You know, we are we're able to you know, um if you have one or if you have five uh students, so we're able to cover those services for each of our member districts. >> Kind of like an insurance policy. >> Yeah.

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>> As as opposed to where the students at the setting for you pay for by the student. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Uh the other thing I mentioned in here is the federal funds. So, all the member districts have federal funds, but when you're a member of the co-op, those federal funds all go to the co-op. So,

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we get the federal funds. Um we actually a few years ago switched how we paid for things. The way the the special ed formula changed and there was a way to kind of uh manipulate It's not probably a good word, but maximize the value of the special ed aid. >> Legally manipulate. >> Yeah, yes. With a lot of help from Paul

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Faron. Yes. Uh um Um so, we switched that. So, basically now we're we're passing through about 75% of the federal funds back to the member districts, so we don't use a lot of those expenses anymore.

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Um and what that does it allows the the member districts to use that 75% towards tuition bills, so it offsets any tuition bills that you have. So, if you ever pull a report, um you'll be able to see there how much is kind of take like if more than there's $100,000

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towards tuition bills, you you kind of get a discount off your tuition bills at the end of the day that you don't have to pay back. With the state, it's all through the tuition billing system. >> Yeah, that was um an important thing for districts to maximize, like you said,

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some of the expenses and things of that sort. >> Yes. Yeah, that [clears throat] was a really positive change when we went to that. Um and we had that discussion among member districts, so that way of of funding Yep. Any questions? Those are kind of the three big categories there for for

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funding and how the districts pay for our services at the co-op. >> No. >> Clear? Clear. >> Yes, very clear. >> [laughter] >> Clear. >> Clear. Hey, that's I'll take that. >> Yes. >> Yeah, yeah, cuz it is kind of convoluted

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when you are not in enmeshed in it like we are as much, so. So, if there aren't any other questions, we thank you for your time and >> Yeah, thanks for coming. >> Yeah, we appreciate it, so. >> Enjoy the rest of your evening. >> Yes, same as well. Hopefully your technology works great.

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>> Sorry about that. All right. German club trip. >> German club trip. Uh I don't think I need to go sit at the >> Okay. [laughter] >> Um So, um I've known some of you for much longer

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than others. Um this is uh uh this is kind of the the reason I became a language teacher is to be able to like work with students to um really dig into themselves and the world through the lens of at least one

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language. And um so, the students that are able to go on the trip, this is like the um really special thing. A lot A lot of work goes into it, but we went on a successful German trip this summer. It was my This is uh the 10th year that we've had

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an exchange as well. So, we're unique amongst the travel programs at our school that we have an exchange school and a really strong relationship there that I'll share a little bit. So, I have a few pictures just from our trip that we went on in June. It was 17 days long.

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And so, here we can see um uh Wolf who is on the left who has been here several times and I always stay with his family. And on the right you see Nela who started helping us his second this last

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uh 2 years ago. And on the right is Elena who is going to be taking over for Wolf um because he is going to be on a sabbatical for a year. So, so the two ladies on the right are going to be taking the helm. Wolf has been in charge for a while. So, at our exchange school you can see they have all these signs on

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the walls and they have their American flag which Rick Martens who went on the trip with us was seeing how they were just shoving it into a bag at the end of the welcoming potluck and he carefully showed them how we treat the flag. So, um you can go to the next slide. So, um just a little highlight um that the

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students expressed this year um from the trip was the time with the host families. You can see a couple pictures here with me with my host family. We're saving about 2,000 newts up there on the left. Um and here's uh uh World Cup viewing party we were having

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on the right. Um it's just uh kind of different to be with people's homes and doing things like that instead of being a tourist. Next slide. Um here is one of the days we were at school. Um you can see some of uh the Ru boys, Silas and Jonah in the middle are doing

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a little presentation on American sports culture. On the left um is Miss Hacker. She I live with uh that's that's Wolf's wife. Um she's teaching a class to eighth graders about politics. Um a class that we don't have um, at our school and just um,

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just kind of an insight into how very different their school is than ours. And I'll say they're in a very economically prosperous um, area and you can see the technology differences in our buildings. Um, yeah, so anyway, interesting. Um, oh yeah, and there's the the World

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Cup on the right. It was a big deal. >> [clears throat] >> So, Spain has won now, that's over. Um, so here's one final picture from our host family. So, here are some of the boys um, as we were playing mini golf together and then there's my son on the left saying goodbye to his host father

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um, at the train station. Um, uh, Wolf and I always give each other high fives when we see tears that day, so there were lots of high fives, lots of tears. Um, successful exchange um, why I do this whole career I have is right there. So, moving on to the next

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slide. Um, just a few highlights from the rest of our trip. We went up to the north in the German speaking world, so um, this is a museum that is much like Ellis Island except the opposite where is the emigration museum. Um, and so we got to see a lot of um, interesting pieces of

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um, the perspective of where have all of our countrymen gone, right? Our Europeans gone. Most to Ellis Island, some to Australia. Um, and here is uh, Addy Dressler working on the moment. Um, excited.

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We even saw a phone book from Mora uh, from Canadian County. It was like, where did people go? And that was very interesting. From like 2007. Not very interesting or but um, here we are on the North Sea. Um, the scientific portion of our trip here

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was getting to know about the these worms. You can see here Marcus holding the little the only worm in the world that has a mouth with a jaws. Um, and on the right picture you can see Lisa Hudina, she's the teacher from Hinckley High School who um we have a

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tradition of uh traveling together. We've become good friends over the years. Um yeah, it's the the tidal flats there are the the largest area when um the the tide goes out um and has just miles and miles of the um

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the mud surface there. So, it's a really special place. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it was special to visit. Um also up there in the north, we got to see some really interesting things. Um on the on the right here is the Evergiven, which is a sister ship of the Evergiven, which was stuck in the Suez Canal

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uh 4 years ago, if you recall. Just some really amazing things to learn about um really the transportation in our world. Like uh the six huge ships that were there that day take more fuel than all of the um personal driving vehicles that

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we drive in 1 year. So, just these six boats in 1 year. So, more more fuel than all of our cars on the planet. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. So, it was really It was good to be part of that. Um next slide. We also um

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when we were in Hamburg, here's a highlight. We went to go see a show. It's kind of like their um New York with Broadway shows. So, we saw Back to the Future Musical. It was great. Um everyone got dressed up. Next page. Um on the way back from

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uh the musical that night, uh you can see Emma Ixtel carrying a bunch of bottles. Any idea why? >> Refills. Or the the return bottles. >> For our student. Okay. So, Dakota, thank you. Yeah, so the students really got into recycling um

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especially cuz you get money back. So, you know, that was a fan. They also fell in love with that grocery store. I don't think they go to grocery stores that often apparently in the US. They're like, "You can buy pretzels for 20 cents." And I'm like, "Yes, children." Um next slide. >> [laughter]

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>> Life lessons. >> So, this statue on the left just just came out of nowhere. Um it's called the the Fighter Spirit um by Aaron Sperlock. I had taken a ex- um field trip this year with students to the MIA in the cities, and

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this statue is standing in front of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Um and uh so I had done some reading on it and as we went to this exhibit, um that was the first thing we saw. And when we were in Kiel, a city I've never been to, we turned around the corner and my students were like like Jeremy Kunkel

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was the one that was like, "Wait a minute. We've seen that statue." So, yeah, so apparently this one in Germany is a copy and we have the original. Um it's a very interesting moment. Um you can see a picnic we're having. It got um

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um quite hot towards the end of our trip. Um this is the end of our beautiful cool weather. Next slide. Um as we entered Berlin, uh just uh just the inundation of history. I'd like to share with you a little bit. Um has

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anyone seen a stumbling stone up on the top? So, Scott Knowles to quote Knowles, um you know, as you're walking up many places around the world, if you see one of these underfoot, you might notice that it's a memory of someone who is um uh passed due to the Holocaust um

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that used to live at that address. Um so you you stumble over these things constantly. Um my students on the bottom left are on Bebel Platz. This is the place where there was the first book burning um in 1933. Um in uh uh

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Nazi Germany. Um and so you again stumble and see, "Oh, beneath here are all these empty shelves that could have been filled with the books that the students burned that night." Um on the right we see um the evidence of where a flight tunnel was um under the Berlin

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Wall. So, just the the things just simply that you stumble across underfoot. Uh I just wanted to give you one small highlight. The students really enjoyed being in Berlin. Next slide. We're almost done. Um I did not take a lot of pictures of the concentration camp, Ravensbruck. Um

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this is where Corrie ten Boom spent some time. Um it's a women's uh concentration camp and it was very eye-opening and disturbing to be there. Um we had a lot of good discussions. Next slide. Um some fun things uh with the

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uh trip to the north, it's kind of like in the US when you travel to the east, there's just a lot more public transportation, a lot more people. And so, you know, we had everyone got to know how to use public transportation really well. A skill that you can transfer maybe to the eastern part of the United States. Um here we are doing the high ropes

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course. Um you can see Mason Schultz uh Amy. It was so fun that day with them. And and my son Torsten, so look at us working so that they can have fun. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Uh next slide. Um uh just I have I think I have two pictures of food here. Everyone is

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interested in food, so here's a typical breakfast that we had. Um it's kind of sandwiches and yogurts type things, cucumbers. Um the next slide, I wonder if you can figure out what it is. I believe it's been in the news a little bit this summer. I've never seen this kind of

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dressing um this you know, ready at a hostel before. Uh so, on the left you have French style dressing apparently. And on the right, American dressing. What what could that be? >> Ranch. >> It was essentially a watered-down ranch,

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yeah. Which I've never seen in Europe before, so we got kind of excited. Great. Um and then so the last slide is just our group here from um Mora. We had adults and students and we had a great time and worked really hard and learned a lot of things. So, thank you for your

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support. Um and uh we do hope to continue uh the exchange um and it continued traveling in the future. So, this is a little insight. Thanks for listening. >> Yeah. >> Thank you.

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Do you have any questions? >> I feel like you skimmed over the worms a bit too quickly. [laughter] >> So, I should like to like send you a picture. It's a >> Do they bite? >> No. No. Um but what's interesting is that they, because they have these jaws, like what they do is they're usually

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under the sand, and um what what you see above the mud is what looks like a sort of a perhaps an animal itself, or like a tubular sand formation that they're underground, and this is what's coming

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out as they're processing, much like every worm that is processing just by taking in soil and >> Yeah. >> uh having a go, but because they have this jaw, it's a much larger amount, and it's a very strange-looking creature. Yeah, a lot of interesting

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uh um crustaceans that don't live other places in the world. >> Thank you for that. >> Thank you for sharing that information. >> Need a chaperone for next time. >> [laughter] >> Well, you can see I'm starting to have more adults who want to travel, so let me know.

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>> Well, we'll talk. >> Thank you, everyone. I appreciate what you do in this room to make this kind of thing. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, man. >> Thanks for taking the time, Amanda. Special trip. >> All right. We'll move on to the 2026

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Minnesota legislative session summary. >> Yeah. Is it okay if I sit here? >> Yeah, you can. Okay. >> So, yeah, I wanted to give the board uh a brief

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um summary of the legislative session this uh 20 uh actually, I have a mistake there. 2026 legislative summary. Um so, if we go to the next slides, um just remind you of our mission, vision.

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The next slide after the vision is a picture of our sixth graders at uh at the Minnesota State uh Rotunda. They do a sixth grade trip, so I thought that was pretty interesting. So, a quick summary of who represents us

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here in Mora. Uh we have three representatives. Nathan Nelson, uh he lives in Hinckley. He's the main has a a large portion of our school district. Ron Kresha, who is now retired. He was the chair of

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the co-chair of the education committee. Um and he I think he I think he was in education, too, so he'll be missed. And Representative Isaac Schultz, I think is closer towards the Ogilvie area, but has a slice of Mora as well. And then our

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state senator is represent or Senator Jason Rarick, who probably most of you know. He's been there for a while, and um I personally, my I think I've been able to to have a good rapport with these legislators. They're

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willing to meet. Jill, I know you go down there as well. They're willing, and Dakota's gone, Amy's gone. Uh they're willing to meet with people, and they want to listen and hear what it's like in Mora or what other what other towns that they represent. So, I think they do hear us, and they do

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advocate for us. Um and so, that's that's something that's um I think important. The next slide, um you know, it wasn't a funding year. Um I know I've given you updates on, you

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know, the surplus that was there is shrinking. Um what was interesting is the house was a tie, so a lot of things that moved through the Senate didn't necessarily move through the house. Um, and um, that's not a good or bad

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thing, it's just a thing. Uh, the state Senate or the state budget uh, in FY27 had about $660 million to spend. Um, and they they are predicting closer to a

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$300 reduction in spending the the next year, which um, is important for schools because the next year is a funding year where we get our funds from and and of course we'll have to make decisions and

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we'll have to respond based on what the legislature does for schools. And so, um, this year uh, this 2026 it was 30 about 32 million in one-time funding spread across several areas. Um, so I'll go

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through those quickly. Um, 32 million sounds like a lot, but um, go ahead Candy, you can go to the next one. Um, so compensatory uh, revenue, that was uh, something that

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a lot of schools were hit with. Um, some of our local schools were hit harder than we were. Um, we Mora had an adjusted decrease even though they put more money into it. Um, we had a decrease of about $35,000.

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Um, I just put our number next to it. We get about $1.46 million in compensatory funds. Um, which need to be spent on certain items. Um, they passed an anonymous threat reporting system, so districts are

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required to adopt this anonymous threat reporting system for reporting things like uh a possible violent threat on school or um bullying or um mental health issues, things like that.

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So, it is a good thing. The state does have a couple systems that districts can use at no cost, um but they did provide grants, $4 million for all the 300 schools in the state of Minnesota. So, that probably won't go

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very far. For behavioral mental health grants, um again, these are grants that you have to apply for, 12.5 million. Um Jill, maybe you know more about this. It's through the Department of Human uh Services and uh there's services

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provided to students, um and they provide some support staff professional development. What I understood is it has to be in conjunction with a county. So, I think you have to apply together to gain some of those.

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>> I'm not in mental health and behavior. I'm in aging disability. >> Ah, got you. Got you. Got you. >> Yeah, yeah. Close, but yeah. No. >> So, you know how those grants work though. They're they're really specific and and things of that sort. So, um pension

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provision, so reemployment if somebody retires and the district reemploys, the district you know, before this passed, didn't have to contribute to TRA. So, it was a you know, like 9% on uh on a salary. So, now the employee and the employer have

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to pay into that and I suppose the rationale is it supports the retirement fund for for everyone else. So, um the next slide is READ Act. You know, that was implemented or passed through legislature a couple of sessions ago and

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we've been doing the the training for the literacy training for all of our elementary staff and now it's moving through the high school. They just made some adjustments like >> [clears throat] >> I I think the interesting one for you to know is like everyone in grade four and

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above, if they're not meeting grade level reading targets, then they have to take another test screener test to make sure that they don't have you know, or screens for dyslexia or some of those other things. And the cost really is not picked up by the state.

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So, we're paying an extra cost to do another test um on students who aren't meeting I mean, obviously it's important that we try to find those students um and try to uh intervene and try to help them read.

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So, um it's something that we started last year. Um so, we're we're definitely on it. Health insurance data survey, this is another one I think the board should have a level of awareness. Um they're requiring all districts to complete a survey on all of our health

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insurance. One of the uh things that that was brought to the legislature was to provide a statewide health insurance for educational employees. Um and um

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you know, what I think what the the legislature's want to do legislators want to do is find out like how is that actually going to how much is that going to cost and how will that impact all the districts and all the employees. So,

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um we are required to provide the data uh confidential data and then they'll figure out a feasibility study for statewide insurance for all. Um I think for Mora, you know, every district has their own health insurance, gets their own

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um goes out for bids and things like that. And so, um there's possibility that we're paying this amount at some point and if they go to a statewide we those costs might increase. So, of course that's the whole feasibility study. So,

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that that's kind of interesting. The last thing I think is the most important thing that you should know. I gave everyone and we talked a little bit about this at a board meeting before, but I gave you three handouts.

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The one is this green one that's more of a public thing. There's going to be a constitutional amendment on the November election for everyone to state in the state to vote on. So, whenever they change the state constitution

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they need to have a majority of people pass those. And really what this funding is is it's based on this permanent school fund which so happened to be started back in when our state became a a state in 1858.

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So, it goes back that far and really what the state did is get this trust fund started when it sold public property or it got mining rights, sold mining rights, forestry rights, all those sort of things and over time it's

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built. And so, schools do get about 2 and 1/2% of that fund annually. And so, what the what the constitutional amendment will do is change that and increase it to 4 and 1/2% and they'll use kind of like a

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3-year average to manage the trust fund. And so, the important thing is that it provides additional funding for every school district in the state without raising taxes,

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property tax, income tax, or any other tax because it's coming directly from this fund. Um the other nice thing is that each school district gets to decide how that money is spent, you know, so like you know, a

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lot of times the the state will give us funds, but then you need to spend it on this. So, um it's it's going to be a statewide statewide thing through the uh Minnesota School Board Association along with all

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the other associations and you can see there's you know, something on talking points that, you know, if somebody asks you about it, at least you have some background information on it. Um you can always direct them towards me. This is a

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good thing that I think uh we'll send out to um or we'll make available to people if they're interested in learning more about it. Um and the last document I wasn't necessarily going to give you this, but then I thought, well, this

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kind of goes deeper into like how did it how did it get formulated, how was the fund set up, um what's the constitutional amendment about, um and it goes a little deeper, so I thought, well, I think you might be interested in reviewing that and at

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least getting it uh some more information on that. So, um you should be able to hear a lot of information coming up. So, here's how it affects Mora. Um it goes based on your enrollment, so

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currently we get $111,785 or about $68 a student. If it passes, we'll get about $45,000 more, which is $28 more per student. So, um it's not huge, but it's not small. It's

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important. Um every we know as board members every dollar matters and uh whenever we can get funding without raising uh uh, sales tax or income tax or property tax, um, that's a huge win for for everyone.

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So. Um, yeah, just basically um, some of the things that I already talked about. One of the things that I think is important for messaging to people if they ask you if if somebody doesn't vote yes or no,

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it's it's a no vote. So, if they don't fill it in, it's a no vote. So, um, And there's some things that schools can do. So, we can distribute neutral materials. We can provide factual information.

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We can encourage voter turnout. Um, uh, we can answer questions. We can't advocate for voting yes on this. So. So, I believe Oh. Next, in in the uh,

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front window, uh, we have the next session coming up. There's going to be a turnover of 43 43 new legislators. We'll have a new governor. Um, the state budget, like I mentioned, is forecasting a deficit. Um, on that

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educational issues that we should all be aware of is that $250 million that's um, in the current future budget is if if special education blue ribbon commission can't find $250 million in savings,

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they'll reduce funding for schools uh, through special ed programs like ASIS or the cross subsidy. Um, compensatory, they have a task force trying to make some recommendation. Unemployment insurance for hourly people

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in the summer, uh, the state has been paying for that for the past, I want to say two or three years. If if the state doesn't pay for that and keeps the program, that would be a $250 million uh um um or thousand, I should say, thousand

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dollar uh cut or uh impact to our budget. Statewide health insurance, again, we don't know what that would mean. Um so I guess the bottom line in the future, a lot is going to depend on, you know,

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what that forecast is, how much money the state has to allocate towards schools. Um and uh hopefully we're not looking at a deficit of or the state isn't um looking at that big of a deficit, so.

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Finally, that's it. >> Any questions? >> We'll hope for the best. >> Yeah. >> All right. We'll move on. Uh is there a request to remove any items from the consent agenda? Not, I'll look for a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> So moved.

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>> Motion by Dakota, is there a second? >> Second. >> Second by Ken. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, say aye. >> Aye. >> Aye. Opposed, same sign. That That consent agenda passes. Um we have the budget calendar to review. I think we can all read that on our own.

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Nothing to act on this month. Uh move on to consider approval of the resolution accepting gifts and donations. Uh we have one this month from Blaze Credit Union, $850 for employee appreciation program. So we'll look for a motion to >> So moved.

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>> Motion by Scott. >> Second. >> Second by Jill. This is a resolution, so we'll have to do a roll call vote. Ken. >> Aye. >> Jill. >> Aye. >> Amy. >> Aye. >> Matt is aye. Dakota. >> Aye. >> Scott. >> Aye. >> That passes 6-0. All right. We will go

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on to B, consider [clears throat] approval of the substitute pay rates for 2026-2027. It's a slight increase. >> Yep, a $5 increase to um teacher subs and then the um

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other subs are um based on uh contract um starting wages, so um all the increases are showed on there. >> All right, thanks for that information. Uh look for a motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Motion by Scott, we have a second.

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>> Second. >> Second by Jill. All those in favor signify by saying aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed, same sign. All right, passes 6-0. >> Uh >> Move on to consider approval of employee appreciation and recognition events for 2026-2027.

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>> It's an annual thing that the board um can approve those recognition events. There's no nothing new added this year. >> Okay. >> I'll make a motion to approve employee appreciation recognition. >> Motion by Jaime. >> I'll second. >> Second by Ken. All those in favor

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signify by saying aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed, same sign. That passes. >> Uh >> Consider approval purchase property at 1200 North Industrial Road, Mora, Minnesota. Look for a motion to approve that. >> So moved.

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>> I'll second. >> Motion by Dakota, second by Scott. Any discussion on that? I think we'll have probably more discussion on this in the future, but um it's a good opportunity for the school. >> Well, um >> All those in favor signify by saying aye. >> Aye. >> Opposed, same sign.

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That passes 6-0. Um move on to 12 single read policies that received legislative changes per MSBA. >> You want to talk about that? Yeah, go for it. >> So, annually there's uh policies that we

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review. That's the first annual ones. Um and then uh on the second set are legislative changes, which most of which are very minor. And so, policy 208 allows the board to accept all these

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policies in one reading. Dakota, myself, and Scott went through and Candy went through all the policies and made those those changes. So, yeah. So, that's that. >> All right. Thanks for that information.

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So, we'll look for a motion to approve these summary policies. >> So moved. >> Motion by Scott. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor signify by saying aye. >> Aye. >> All those the same sign. All right. We'll move on.

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Board reports and administrative updates. We don't have any staff reports other than the other than the superintendent. Any board member reports? Uh anything? >> Nothing. >> Any highlights from yours? >> Yeah, I I would just say, you know, in

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June we had our um elementary staff get trained on the new um literacy program curriculum program. So, um which which is part of the Read Act, by the way. They have to be a certain

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curriculum. And so, Darcy and Randy spent a lot of time working with the staff piloting different programs. And one was selected. So, I heard I went over there and watched a little bit of the training. I didn't stay the whole time cuz if I think it was a part of 2 days

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of the training. Thankfully, the weather was rainy. So, it was a good day to do the training. And I heard the trainer was outstanding. So, that was really received well. So, in grades K through 6, there will be

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a new literacy curriculum mixed into some of the the same curriculum that we've used over time and I'm sure the board will get an update from Darcy and Randy on on the progress of that. So Yeah. >> Thank you.

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The upcoming dates here for November, you can read that all on your own. Back to school, doesn't seem like it should be right around the corner, but here we are. >> Yeah. >> Um was there any board correspondence to be sent around? Nothing this month.

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Uh any other board business? All right, nobody here for open forum, so um we'll move on to item 19, adjourn to close session meeting superintendent year-end evaluation per Minnesota state statute

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13D.05 subdivision 3A. >> I'll make a motion that we do that. >> Okay, we have a motion to move second by Ken. All those in favor of moving to a close session, signify by saying aye. >> Aye.