##VIDEO ID:ULDT29Rtnxw## e e e e e e e e e e good evening the regular meeting of the Independent School District 279 School Board is called to order at 6 pm on December 17th 20124 this regular business meeting of the AIO School Board is being conducted in the boardroom of the Educational Service Center the meeting can be monitored electronically by streaming online from the district website an archive recording of the tonight's meeting will also be available on the district website seated in front of you this evening from my left to your right are director Thomas Brooks director Heather Douglas director Tanya Prince myself Jackie mosca Jones director Sarah Mitchell and director Tam McGrady also present in the boardroom is superintendent Dr H and members of the superintendent's cabinet as well as our student School Board Representatives Antoinette Brown for oio Senor um Gavin chabaka for Maple Grove Senor and Naomi Cooper Greer for Park Center Senior okay as you can see we have a very full house here at the ESC this evening we'll be enjoying a performance of fifth graders with Woodland Elementary Schools choir along with many recognitions of our exceptional Scholars and we have a full agenda this is there's extra seating available in the cafeteria and the Forum room with a live stream on the monitors those of you who can please stand for the pledge of pledge of allegiance and for the last time director Douglas will you lead us all right I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you board members are there any additions to the agenda seeing none is there a motion to accept the agenda as presented someone um motion by director Prince and seconded by director Brooks um any discussion all in favor say I I I motion passes 6 to zero and um seven to zero apparently that's awesome um we're so happy to welcome Woodland Elementary's fifth grade choir members board members will be moving to those seats um that have the reserve signs right there and Woodland's vocal music teacher Stephanie drymalski will be um getting getting everyone set and ready for their performance we'd like to get a group photo before you all leave so please don't leave that and then um we will be meeting up here for all the recom rec recognitions after the performance so board members if you'll meet me down there for [Music] are sharing four special songs you guys and we hope you like them and are glad you came [Applause] St song hi my name is is called United sings Joy and smile to our faces hopefully will you now's geted [Music] [Music] tees uses [Music] us won't die United We Sing la la United [Music] inited [Music] by us us musics with us all inside it's the music that everyone it's that uned [Music] singed [Music] World Palm treat palm tree palm tree Tre Shimmy shimy shimy Shimmy Tre Tre Tre [Music] Tre [Music] sh sing United in song Oh United by music [Music] [Music] United We Sing [Applause] sing we got our song called rhyth of the rain we got pel playing the instrument we need your help we're going to make a bra [Applause] listen to the r of the Falling Rain L to the of the rain [Music] [Music] of [Music] of goes the of the [Music] [Music] [Music] of [Music] fall to the ring [Music] the [Music] of of to of to the of the rain to the of the Fall to [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Sun Le and it's going to be in Canon Canon is basically one part one group is singing and then another group joins and we to have three groups and then [Applause] yeah money in your pocket in your OFA you would sing with me a you see [Music] singing shin p [Music] [Music] [Music] Shin [Music] sing sing together Shin in your [Music] [Music] youring my name is Aisha and for our last song We like to send you guys off with a great New Year song from Nigeria called Odun day OD Day means the new year is here and in Nigeria they have big celebrations and parties and they like to wear masks for good luck to bring good luck in the new year [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] all all oh [Music] yeah to [Music] [Applause] one thing so thank you guys so much for coming and listening to our songs we hope you had a great time and enjoyed the songs have a great rest of your night and have a Happy New Year right good Smiles two three [Applause] why don't you wait till they call [Music] you gav I think you're second or third second yeah you can call name just a it's been better I got here for agenda item isog it is aming how many schar recognize evening we'll be doing the we'll be doing them one by one and would like to get a group photo after each recognition coaches when I call your name please step up to the podium and introduce yourself along with your athletes who are able to attend this evening first up we have Park Center Pirates adapted Pi soccer who plays third at [Applause] woohoo all right hello everyone thank you so much for having me um I am the head coach of this awesome adapted Athletics program uh Jonah pretty um I am incredibly proud of all the efforts that these kids have put in over the years um I came on couple years ago postco uh to help rebuild this program and um these kids have been such a big instrumental role and helping us get to the point where we are today um we've had some adversities over the last two three years uh I lost uh my partner in crime my coach uh Josh whren January of 2023 and um you know uh these kids have just worked through so many adversities such as losing Josh and just other things too um just going from learning the skills as far as Sports and just as far as becoming better and better people that's what we're here to do at the end of the day um and I'm just so incredibly proud of each and every single one of these men my fellow coaches uh they've just done a phenomenal job um you know with life sometimes we have to sometimes make adjustments and all that and so yeah we uh had a couple things that we had to make some shifts in uh internally and we we really showed up well at the state tournament to represent our district proudly um and you know we had players switch different positions to uh make things work for the betterment of the team and um we just had that consistent positivity being our number one priority and we had such a great showing at state tournament I'm super incredibly proud of every single one of you you guys be came from boys to more men with state tournament and it's just going to continue to show as we go more and more throughout the year and uh we'll see if we can come back here in 3 months for floor hockey so all right awesome [Applause] job okay okay cool all right thank you uh got my fellow coach helping me out of course uh yeah so first off I'd like to recognize Joshua [Applause] plumber and I'd like to recognize Evan Bartlett B so Obby prad Bennett lisman Caleb plumber kit Williams AI barate student manager Shani prad [Applause] you have my awesome fellow coach Joel lisman helping us out thank you so much Joel um and then yeah just this way we can take a take a photo us tall boys let's uh let's maybe fill the gaps here [Applause] [Applause] right okay next is Maple Grove Senior High School's Libby Baker for her second place finish at state in the 100 yard backstroke coach Natalie stros you're on hello my name is Natalie stros um and for the last four years I've had the pleasure of serving as the head coach for the Maple Grove girls swim and dive team tonight I get to introduce one of our senior captains Libby Bacher Libby has been a member of the team for 5 years only missing the 2020 season due to covid restrictions in that time she has consistently been a top Point earner has been named MVP the last four seasons section 5aa swimmer of the year for the last two years and been a state meet participant all five seasons Libby is a two-time All-American and holds three school records this year at the class 2A state meet she finished second in the 100 backstroke after two years of third place finishes with a time of 5455 just 0.0 8 seconds off of another School record this time puts her in the top 15 of alltime times for the Minnesota State High School league for the h 100 backstroke next year Libby will continue her swimming career attending the University of Missouri congratulations liby thank you for representing Maple gr so well over the years and good luck on everything that comes next than [Applause] Maple Grove senior high school girls tennis plays third at State this year coach Dan herle hardle hardle thank you will you please step up to the microphone [Applause] this is a great event uh because the the students kind of deserve the attention because it takes a great commitment especially in tennis tennis is an individual Sport and it requires hundreds of hours to really be good and Excel as much as we were able to our tennis team was 21 and five uh we made it to State for the fourth consecutive year it is not easy easy to make State four consecutive years in a row especially when wetta is one of our section competitors so I'm very proud of the girls uh it's an awesome team for me to work with I love every one of them we had no drama and our parents were as Fabulous As the girls were it was such a pleasure uh to see them come to the matches and support us we uh when we entered the state tournament this year we were uh seated I think fifth fourth and we got third place beating the third and the fourth seated team in state to win third so I uh come on up a great year great year for us want to introduce our captains Maddie Larson shaki captains for next year Lexi Helmer juny kton W summer Odie summer when summer was a seventh grader I was significantly taller than she was now as a 10th grader look at what happened milie Larson levia [Applause] WTH EA Langan [Applause] Cara [Applause] AO Riley Toms sailor [Applause] manam Lacy blizzard our tennis team thank you thanks for having us that's cool you than all right coach we need them over here for oh they already know what to do like our pictures get taken all the time iot I forgot Scott where's Scott forgot to introduce [Music] Scott thank you congratul [Applause] okay uh Maple Grove Senior High boys soccer finished second place at State this year coach Greg linger please step up to the microphone did I say that right thanks for having us tonight um we represent boys soccer first of all I want to say congratulations to all the other teams represented from the district tonight football soccer swimming and Tennis um it's awesome just to be here and this is our second year back so again we appreciate you having us um I'm coach Justin Turner I'm co-head coach with Greg leninger um I will now announce um our players here that are representing the team tonight we're a little short cuz a lot of our players are already in the club soccer season and some full swing but um we are happy to be here um Owen [Applause] bam ik [Applause] du Solen gavanes [Applause] William stlo Usman [Applause] T Gavin [Applause] shaba coach Greg linger and Coach Muhammad S one last quick thing about this group so this group we've had for uh the past four years these seniors that are leaving um four straight conference Champion championships three straight State appearances um two straight State final appearances and hopefully next year we'll be back and try to get that uh coveted yeah right just got to follow after this guy over here so try to win it all next year but again thanks for having us we appreciate [Applause] it you guys got take a KNE there we go there [Applause] we and last but not least we have the 2024 6A state champions Maple Gro SE High School football coach Adam SP please uh thanks for having us uh I'm Adam spurl I'm our uh MIP gr Crimson football head coach uh tonight we have about 20 some kids with us uh but these young men uh woke up every morning uh we're at 5:50 in the morning workouts uh worked out in the morning before school uh and the part uh that is an impressive number as we finished with the second highest GPA in the 6A football uh we finished with a GPA of 3.42 amongst our 85 players so uh a great number to have uh plus our program sitting with over 200 kids in the program which is the highest we've been in quite a while so a lot to be excited for and uh we had a great season and I'll call all these guys up uh seniors are going to come up first Juniors 2 I would ask that you hold on to the Applause till everybody's done because there's so many of them okay so uh first uh young man we have is Kevin toe okay yeah shake everybody's followed by Carson dult next we have Henry sers Dylan S we have Carson L we have Jack wiel next we have Oliver walth followed by Mike Tracy next we have Alex Jack we have Gabe Hackett we have Dylan voal we have Harry Johnson we have will cira and we have Ethan Barry these are our seniors that are here [Applause] tonight okay it's the same thing uh try to hold it till we're done with all of our Juniors that are with us we have James Engel we have Reed verbout we have Dawson cret we have Carson Krueger we have Shan Monacan we have Luke Nelson we have Lucas soholm we have jadden Hubbert we have Lewis Tyro we have Chris bashat we have Rowan duffing and last but not least Trevor skicki [Applause] all right hey gentlemen do me a favor uh let's make our way back in front some on knees some on uh kneeling down some of you might have to sit make it work though [Music] smile he's like no all right [Applause] thank you all right we have some amazing athletes don't we all right the next agenda item is student School Board uh representative reports some more awesome students all right Antonette will you please share your report please good evening everyone my name is anet brown and I will be representing ASU senior high as we enter into winter break we remind our Scholars that oio is innovative courageous and focused and reflective while also blasting into winter break with the spirit week Monday pajama day Tuesday Jersey day and more speaking of winter break our students Ander Scholars work day and night literally to get our lights hung up around the school for a cozy environment last month U Senior High brought the most students to our districts from our district thanks to our boys hockey team to our salt conference for athletes we cann't help but to take in the message and everything we heard on the bus about doctor's H presentation on holding space space excuse me our winter sports have been off to pretty good start and I can't wait to see them succeed throughout the season our black student union Scholars have worked endlessly to prepare for oio speaks which is also known as our Black History Month celebration in February which will revolve around black love black unity and black Joy our wonderful Orchestra alongside with our choir has been performing to a variety of schools amongst our district we're super excited to see our second trimester go super strong and I would also like to give a special thank you to Jackie Jones Heather dudas Tamira [Applause] Grady thank you uh Naomi will you please share your report okay hello again my name is Naomi Cooper hyen Greer and it is finally the month of December everybody has been anticipating this week of the year teachers have been getting their last few tests in students have been trying to get all their assignments done and many events have been happening before we hit off this year with a bang I would love to start off with our wrestling team which has been killing the competition many of our first second third and fifth place Awards it's been a good Thursday and Saturday for our PC wrestling team as they went to Mickey D's for their outstanding Victory I would love to shine a light on our music department at Park Center as they've traveled from elementary school to the next playing and singing some tunes these kids have never heard of and there were just all over it band Orchestra and choir got an allaround Applause and showing these kids that music classes have a lot of fun and engaging experiences to offer so maybe they'll do it too there has been a lot of fundraising around our School these last couple of weeks tarot card readings hot Cocos for a great price pictures with Santa that you'll have for a lifetime and trust me these pictures have been the highlight of Park Center for many years and I would like to give a big shout out to all the people who make these fundraising activities happen and make them possible lastly I'd like to wrap up my statement with our yearbook team they have been promoting like there's no tomorrow literally they've been coming down to the cafeteria every Wednesday to make sure people are buying their yearbooks every Wednesday say they set up a theme so students can dress up and take pictures last Wednesday was pajama day and tomorrow is ugly sweater so I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of that thank you for having me again that is it thank you and Gavin good evening everyone my name is Gavin Chaba and I'm here to represent Maple Gro Senior High School uh so I'm just going to start with some uh or I guess our one fall sport um kmon football did it um they finally um won the state championship again and brought the second state title back to Maple Grove I would also like to thank the school board for honoring the Crimson soccer team on our season uh thanks for all the support and recognition as winter sports begin here's how we are shaping up boys basketball's off to a strong start the team took down rival Park Center sorry and showed promise against close games uh tough against close games against tough late conference opponents girls basketball has had a fantastic start with one close loss so far and plenty of wins they're one of the top draing teams in the state and they're poised for a deep state tournament run Boys Hockey has been off to a rough start but they look to bounce back against Centennial tonight girls hockey is off to a very strong season and they're looking to secure a win against Rogers later tonight um our most decorated sports program dance won their final Northwest Suburban Conference uh Championship uh competitive cheer will be hosting their Crimson cheer challenge bringing in numerous schools from all over the state uh norx ging has had trouble starting the or getting the season started with limited snow but Elm Creek has been doing great to support our skiers um other winter sports underway include Crimson wrestling Crimson gymnastics and boy swim dive um and now for some activity and Club updates all of our music programs have delivered outstanding performances this month showcasing their talent during the winter concert season the orchestra band wi Ensemble jazz band and choir all captivated audience with memorable concerts celebrating the season with exceptional music um Deca members are hard at work preparing for the next month's District competition um NHS just wrapped up their cross fruit Drive which was a tremendous success I myself uh collected donations and was astounded to see um all of what people were bringing an end to their foundations classes um Crimson choir has been spreading holiday chair around Maple Grove uh with their caring uh and even if you're not in Crimson choire you can still join and it's a lot of fun um crafts for a for a cause is a newly launched club which is aimed at connecting the community Through crafting for those in need Maple gr science bowl is officially underway and two students got recognized for AAA Awards so congratulations to junic Kang and Jacob rean for being recognized for their excellence in the academics arts and Athletics as for an update on the phone policy the phone policy has still been going smoothly however a notable complaint many students had was that teachers were turning the phone confiscation into a game with some having competitions for who can collect the most although it's great to make it lighthearted and to have fun with it it is not always in the best interest of the students looking ahead with winter break around the corner the students are powering through final exams and projects and for seniors I know it wrapping up college applications as we head into the holidays things are stressful but light-hearted in the presence of holiday chair thank you for your time nice work um student Representatives review the board meeting packet in advance and are prepared to answer questions from the board members on issues um to seek student input um related to agenda items for this evening's meeting board members do you have any questions for our amazing Scholars sure um a couple our policies tonight uh in are specifically related to students like the cell phone use and the distribution of materials um by school sponsored events so did you have any input on those particular policies tonight okay no problem thank you so the other obvious question um I wanted to at least give you an opportunity to respond on if you want it don't feel um obligated but the book today that we are uh hearing uh later uh the Blu ey I don't know if you had an opportunity to to read it to review anything about it but just wanted to know if you had any comments or feedback from the board today it didn't load um for me I've heard that well a couple of minutes ago that the author of the book was a great author so that's kind of a little a little bit of my feedback on the book Thank you thank you thank you students we appreciate you our next agenda item is the truth and Taxation hearing John morstead Executive Director of Finance and operations will share the information at the conclusion of John's presentation he will call sorry oh did you have something else to say I'm sorry sorry me no okay all right sorry it's all good okay so John will call for public comments um for anyone wishing to comment about the levy after his presentation John okay thank you chair M Gada Jones superintendent H and school board members the presentation to today is part of the annual required truth and Taxation presentation that is part of our annual Levy process the requirements of this presentation are that it be held between November 25th and December 28th unfortunately yes it can happen on December 25th if you really want to be mean um has to start after 6: pm. and can be part of a regular meeting like we're doing today um it must allow for public comment and the district can adopt the final Levy at the same meeting it must include information on the current year budget and the proposed property tax levy tonight's agenda includes background information on school funding our District's current budget the proposed tax levy for taxes payable in 2025 and an opportunity for public comment on that proposed Levy the Minnesota Constitution Article 13 creates a uniform system of public schools and grants limited taxing authority to those schools the state legislature sets a very specific set of rules uh that schools must follow regarding Revenue maximums are established and districts can Levy less but not more unless approved by voters in November as a result our funding is very highly regulated the basic general education formula that governs most of our revenue is um has always lagged inflation since 20 200 uh 2 2003 the state General Ed formula has not kept pace with inflation for fiscal year 2324 an increase of 4% was given at the state legislature or about $275 over the previous year and in fiscal 2425 our current year an increase of 2% or about $143 over the previous year was approved per pupil allowance for the fiscal year 2425 of $ 7,281 would need to increase by another $1,646 or about 18.7% to have kept pace with inflation since the 0203 school year which would have resulted in an allowance of 8 uh 8,645 that amount for oio is is more than $30 million annually another ongoing funding issue is the underfunding of special education in fiscal year 23 the cost of special education was underfunded by $726 million across the state while the state is providing more than they have in previous years we're still looking at a Statewide deficit of more than 455 Million by uh fiscal year 2027 which will force schools to either cut other programs or ask local taxpayers to increase the operating levies to cover the shortfall our district has used both of these strategies to help offset in the past the tax levy is based on many state determined formulas plus voter approved referendums an increase in school taxes does not always correlate to an equal increase in the budget our budget is broken down into individual funds that you see in the list here and it's important to understand that the school district's budget lags the certification of the tax levy by about 6 months so for this presentation we'll be looking at the budget for the current 20242 school year and the 2526 budget um that this Revenue we're talking about will apply to the school board will will actually take action on in June of 2025 school districts um and cities and counties run on different schedules so the district's funds received in 2025 will be Again part of that 2526 school year um which runs from July 1 of 25 to June 30 of 26 while cities and counties run on a calendar year with the matching um levies to go with it so here's a one-page look at our financial results from 2024 I apologize for how small it is but there's a lot of detail here um beginning with our starting fund balances revenues and expenditures and ending fund balances so the gray columns are the year we just completed and then the budget for the current year fiscal year 25 is shown in the blue columns again with revenues expenditures and what we expect our ending fund balances to be this pie chart shows how the revenue from each fund relates to each other the general fund makes up about 78 .3% of all revenue that we receive within the general fund here's a look at the categories um where funding is received state aid is clearly the largest category making up a little over 60% of the funds and property taxes make up about 21% of the revenue switching to expenses again just we'll just focus on the general fund here's a look at our spending by main categories as you can see salaries and benefits make up 84.3% of the budget so you know education is a very labor intensive industry and thus the vast majority of our money is spent on people here's another view of our general fund expenditures by each specific program area so now we'll move into the specifics of our proposed property tax levy um in these four areas every property received a proposed property tax statement like this as an example it contains proposed property taxes compared to last year by each taxing jurisdiction and whether it is voter approved or other for the school district and the time and the place of the meetings available um for truth and Taxation each School District May Levy taxes in over 40 categories maximum Levy amounts as calculated by the Minnesota Department of Education for each category are set by state law or by voter approval the prop property tax process um and key steps in that process are summarized on the next slide any of these steps may be may affect the taxes on any parcel over the on any piece of property but the district really only has control of one of the six steps so in the six steps here I'm not going to read through all of them but it's just real quick it's starting with the city and county assessor determining the market value those legislative formulas your county auditor doing a calculation um the department Department of Ed calculating limits for the school districts the school board setting a levy and then the county auditor Distributing that information via your property tax statements approval of the district's Levy starts in the summer in the Minnesota Department of Ed then sets a preliminary Levy limitation report which outlines the maximum amount each district can Levy with the exception of any voter approved measures our board approved the preliminary levy on September 24th in mid November the county mailed out proposed property tax statements to each resident today is the public hearing on the proposed Levy and the board will be acting later in this meeting on that the proposed payable 2025 tax levy is an increase from the 2024 tax levy of 7,976 or 0.51% changes by Levy category and reasons for major increases and decreases are included in the following slides so again here's here's the uh for transparency here is the full picture but we'll go through kind of the individual pieces um just to make it a little bit easier our voter approved operating Levy increased by about $800,000 this increase is primarily due to an inflation Factor on the levy and the expected increase in enrollment the capital projects or technology Levy increased by about $900,000 this Levy is calculated by multiplying 4.72% of the district's overall net tax capacity uh the reason for the increase is our net tax capacity increased by 6.7% over the previous year so this is pretty much a picture of the value of the district and as it grows that 4.7% grows with it ltfm or long-term facilities maintenance the decrease in the general fund is mostly offset with an increase in our debt service fund but I'm going to do both of them together on the one slide this is due to the issuance of deferred maintenance bonds for the ltfm portion of our building a better future projects we coordinate these levies to try to maintain a level or declining tax rate each year um each year the levy contains prior year adjustments so prior adjustments are a decrease of $1.6 million these are levies that we start by doing estimates on and then as the year wraps up we come back and retroactively um reconcile that information and put either a credit or charge on the next Levy so we're going to move into the community service fund community service School Age Care Levy is increasing by $300,000 in previous years we did not have enough Staffing capacity to support the demand for school age care and this year we've been able to hire enough staff to cover the demand and do not have any families on the wait list okay many factors can cause a change in a tax bill for an individual property um changes in the value of the individual property easily have the biggest impact changes in the total value of all the property within the district and increases or decreases in Levy amounts caused by changes in state funding formulas local needs and costs voter approved referendum and other factors so I want to have a simple way to be able to explain that so the simplest way is imagine a a pi the District's Levy makes up the entire p and each property owner has a small slice of that p as the market value increases your slice of pi as the market value of your home increases your slice of Pi would get a little bit bigger if it decreases your slice gets smaller and if the overall District's value increases your slice gets smaller because there's more pieces to share of that pie so there the more property owners are added that same pie is simply divided more times here's a very simplified example if there are two identical properties both worth $100,000 the district's Levy is $500 in this case each house would pay $250 of the levy the orange house increases in value by 10% to $110,000 and the blue house increases by 25% to $125,000 the if the levy Remains the Same at $500 the orange house would see a decrease of $16 to $235 4 while the blue house would see an increase of that $16 to 266 so the levy still generates the $500 it just distributed differently because of the change in value there were a few important legislative changes to note that affect the pay 25 Levy um providing a tax benefit to homeowners excuse me um the homestead exclusion provided a tax benefit to homeowners by increasing the valuation to between 76 , 517,000 starting this next tax year and also there was an increase in first the first year limit of the a homestead land um from 2.15 million up to 3.5 million so just making larger ranges that that those credits applied to so now we're going to take a four-year comparison look at property values um and school taxes our examples that we're using here are for property in the city of oio amounts are for 2025 um preliminary estimates and final amounts could change slightly our estimates have been prepared by Ellers the district's Municipal financial adviser um please note that that that when taxes we're talking about here are just your school taxes we're not talking about other taxing authorities as there's a number of them on your tax statement typically the county the city and some other taxing durur jurisdictions like the mosquito control district and odd ones like that um we're going to show you two two examples the first example shows no increase in home value over those four years if you're if you your value stayed the same and the second shows what the average increase over four years has been which in this case is 24.1% so here you can see actual and estimated taxes from 2022 through 2025 um please note this is again with no valuation change so the value of your property didn't change um and only accounts for the School portion of that property tax there's a lot of information so let's kind of put it into a graph form here so it's a little bit easier to follow so here's the same information um a $300,000 home is estimated to see a decrease of $39 in their school property taxes if there was no change in property value and a $400,000 home would see a decrease of $44 we do have this graph for some commercial and apartment properties and you just used a million dollar as the um base Factor so commercial property would see a decrease of $9 and an apartment property would see a decrease of 41 now we want to look at those same homes with the assumed value increase over the four years um so again this is with the increase of 24.1% cumulative increase in property value over time we don't have this estimate for commercial and and apartment properties available but in this particular situation both a $300,000 home and a $400,000 home in our district would see a decrease of right around $24 the state does provide a few property tax relief options available to Residents um I'm just going to note the three and if you have uh any interest in these I would recommend that you contact a tax professional to see if you qualify they are the homestead credit refund special property tax refund and also the the senior citizen property tax deferral um the next step in our process is to include public comment and then take board action later um in the levy so I would at this time turn it back to chair moscada Jones to ask for any public comment okay at this time if there's anyone that would like to come up and speak on the taxation now's your chance okay seeing no one uh we will move on move on to our next agenda item all right the next agenda item is a long-term facilities maintenance update presentation information will be Shar by shared by Dale carlstrom director of facilities and operations thank you d y here we are well good evening uh Madam chair board directors and cabinet members I'm here this evening with uh two members of my facilities operations team uh Jeff Arthur's our assistant director of facilities operations and Colin O'Brien our project management coordinator uh this evening we will be reviewing the facilities projects and planning for long-term facility maintenance our outcomes for the presentation are to inform the board regarding construction results from our summer 2024 work construction planning for the summer of 2025 and Financial and operational results for the work that's been completed since the Inception of our revised 10e ltfm in the summer of 20 uh 2017 finally I'm uh I will briefly describe some ltfm projects for the summer of 2025 construction season and the role ltfm plays in our building a better future planning we began our more extensive ltfm efforts in the summer of 2017 with a revised 10-year budget of $241 million our current board approved 10year plan is $287 million this summer was the eighth construction season and we've completed $200 million in renovations and restoration work throughout the school district our original 10-year plan budgeted $25 million through the eight years and uh We've pretty much hit that number I'd like to recognize the team of professionals that help make this plan a reality our facility's operations team led by our assistant director Jeff Arthurs our our facilities operations project manager Colin Brian our health and safety team led by Rachel kler our owner's representative team at IC our mechanical design team at halberg engineering our civil engineers at Larsson engineering our architectural design teams at w Architects and ATS andr Architects and our environmental consultants and commissioning agents at IA all these professional Partners work together to improve our facilities and share in the facilities operations Department commitment to stewardship of our facilities and our resources I'd like to express my gratitude to these people who make our facilities improvements possible in 2016 IC our owners's representative conducted a systemwide facilities assessment the IC team presented the Deferred maintenance picture to the board and and identified $240 million at that time our team our 10-year plan was $130 million also in 2016 we had over 2,000 outstanding work orders and significant challenges to maintain occupant comfort in our buildings our agent infrastructure was consumed had consumed a lot of our energy dollars and our general fund dollars the board recognized the need and approved our more aggressive approach to bring our facilities access up to the current standards today I'm happy to report that we have uh consistently run under 200 outstanding work orders and our work order turnaround time is under five days the operations team is committed to measuring the effectiveness of our re our re um restoration efforts from the beginning of our 10-year plan we have uh monitored measured and compared and the utility usage to ensure that we are experiencing the desired effects our mechanical improvements are monitored for reliability serviceability occupant comfort and cost we have invested in building automation systems that monitor all the HVAC systems our team is trained to use the building automation tools to react to system issues before they become problems from the beginning of the accelerated 10-year plan we have noticed significant reductions in energy usage to help our team determine if our work is effective we have contracted a contracted a thirdparty energy consultant to assess our energy use and to identify areas of concern this summary chart from the 2024 results shows 43% reduction from the 2015 Baseline in electric use we can we can attribute these savings to ficient lighting modernized HVAC systems and equipment and building automation in a similar way we've experienced significant Savings in heating fuel in 2024 the results show a 23% reduction in natural gas use from the base year now I'll describe the projects that we completed this summer during the 2024 summer construction season we we conducted six major construction projects at Cedar Island Brooklyn middle school northw middle school Edinbrook Fernbrook and Rush Creek during the summer we completed the second phase of the $7.3 million project at Cedar Island Elementary this extensive project marks the completion of res uh of Renovations at the sister schools mer Lake be Oaks Birch Grove and Cedar Island we've done significant renovations to all parts of Cedar island with exception of the media center which will be renovated in the summer of 2025 under the build a better future initiative we will talk about this further when we discuss next Summer's projects pictured here as an example the renovations we've done we replaced all the rest room piping fixtures finishes lighting and HVAC pictured here is an example of the extensive nature of the work at Cedar Island and the remarkable work that is completed in inside of three months during the summer we started the Brooklyn Middle School renovation project with extensive work on the second and the third floor with major Renovations in the media center this is a $22 million project and we have completed 10 million doll of work in Phase One pictured here is a photo of the media center when the demolition was complete and the picture on the right is the New Media Center space a very student friendly welcoming Next Generation learning space the Brooklyn middle classroom Renovations replace ceilings lights finishes casework and me mechanical in addition to the extensive renovations to the student spaces we replaced all the hydronic piping mechanical equipment and both second on both second and third floors moving on to North viw Middle School we had an extensive work done there on the second floor where we did a total gut and remodel to the class classrooms and the media center in addition we did a complete remodel of the art rooms the first on the first floor and restored finishes and casework in the counseling department the total construction on this project is $6.8 million the image on your left shows the extents of the extent of the northw Middle School demolition in the first week of June at that point it was difficult to imagine that we would have um had this space ready for class in August the image on your right shows classroom ready for the first day of school all new interior walls finishes doors ceilings whiteboards monitors and Furniture as with North F's Middle School's classroom the media center was totally gutted and redesigned to reflect the builda better future initia itive to create Next Generation learning spaces next uh Jeff Arthurs will share with you our mechanical restoration efforts throughout the system thank you Dale good evening board memb super intendent H cabinet members and Community as part of the ltfm Deferred maintenance projects we've set out to replace all the mechanical equipment at the seven sister schools Basswood Oakview Weaver Edinbrook Fernbrook Rush Creek and Woodland this Summer's work focused on Rush Creek Edinbrook and Fernbrook where we installed new building temperature controls replaced air handling equipment and replace the building's Heating and Cooling piping um collectively for context we completed um improvements and replacement of over four miles of pipe at those buildings this often work this work is often not seen by occupants but contributes greatly to building Comfort Energy savings and reliability on the left is our new Chiller at Rush Creek being craned onto the roof in mid July and the picture on the right is just a progress photo of Fernbrook Elementary Midsummer all of the ceilings were removed um to access the parts of the mechanical system that were being replaced and the ceilings were put back in as new um as far as districtwide projects each year each year our facilities team completes numerous owner managed projects throughout the district almost every site in the district receives some form of improvement each year and this year was no exception here's a brief sampling of projects completed this summer pavement replacement at North viw and oio Senior High classroom flooring replacement at bur Grove in Palmer Lake gym and cafeteria flooring replacement at Garden City Locker replacement at Oak viiew interior door replacement at Maple Grove Middle School Fernbrook and Edinbrook exterior door replacement at Cedar Island Fair Oaks and oio Senior High Roofing replacement at arborview Brooklyn Middle Maple Grove senior and AIO Senior High baseball Dugout replacement at oio senior high parking lot lighting at North View oalc in the ice arena districtwide tennis court resurfacing and Stadium track replacement at Maple Grove senior high as briefly explained in the previous slide a good portion of our annual budget goes to funding categorical projects our facilities team annually rev reviews prioritizes and the greatest needs for all these categories here are a few brief examples of our accomplishments since 2017 each year we Complete Flooring replacement in two or three buildings 70% of our districtwide flooring has been replaced the typical flooring we have been replacing is roughly 25 years old most of our facilities have been repainted within the last 10 years we Tred to Main maintain an 8 to 10 year cycle of repainting buildings as a general rule of thumb 80% of our student lockers have been fully replaced or repainted Locker life is dependent on use and condition but is expected to last roughly 25 years 90% of the doors in Hardware more than 25 years old has been replaced replacement is based on functionality and condition 75% of our facilities are entirely updated to LED lights the remaining sites are scheduled to be completed over the next 3 years 100% of our exterior lighting has already been updated to LED you may have heard that there's a governmental fluorescent lighting ban going into effect soon it is with our proactive planning and your financial support that we've been able uh to complete these projects and have no concerns meeting this requirement Roofing oio area schools has approximately 3.1 million square fet of roofing covering 31 buildings 575 roof sections with an average age of 18 years high performance builtup roof assemblies with gravel surface are the design standard districtwide we use a combination of preventative maintenance restoration and replacement to achieve the longest life cycle and generate the best possible return on investment existing roof assemblies are restored at 23 to 26 years of their life cycle when restored they will produce an overall average life of more than 40 years this process minimized disruption to the district and is achieving at roughly half uh roughly 40% of the cost of a new roof each year the district assesses roughly 5% the roofing portfolio through restoration or replacement an annual review of problem areas and existing conditions ensures the most critical areas are addressed on a year-over-year basis ongoing preventative maintenance and proactive leak response helps keep the existing roof sections dry and functional through their life cycles Paving our civil engineer partner works with our facility team to establish and maintain a replacement cycle for our pavement and concrete each year we determine the highest priorities and develop an action plan that aligns with our budget parameters after the construction season in the fall we reassess all sites to determine our next round of priorities the cycle continues year after year as you would imagine we have a significant amount of Pavement in the district and for context if you were to take all of our pavement you could make a road from here to St Cloud with our current replacement plan we address roughly 4% each year we expect it to last 30 years with proper maintenance such as crack sealing and seal coating as for our Combined District sidewalks collectively that would extend 20 miles at a 6ot width long enough to go from Woodland Elementary to Rush Creek Elementary and back we are replacing 2 to 3% annually with an expected life cycle of 20 to 30 years thanks Jeff uh the health and safety department is a is an integral part of our uh ltfm planning and we spent approximately $1.8 million um during the fiscal year on a very on a wide variety of areas that ensure our students and staff are safe while in our facility every project that involves our facilities that were constructed prior to 1980 is uh are assessed for uh ESP bestus containing materials by our health safety staff and our environmental Consultants to identify and remove asbest containing materials before we do demolitions in addition our health safety coordinator Rachel Kohler uh was the project manager overseeing the modernization ation of elevators at arborview oio senior oio middle school Park Center Senior High Rachel also has the project management for the replacement of the fire alarm systems at Zanewood and Park Brook elementaries now we'll take a high level look at the ltfm funded projects that will be beginning under or be underway in the spring and summer of 2025 the major projects are Brooklyn Middle School Phase 2 Maple Grove Senior High oio Senior High arborview Elementary or arborview Early Childhood Center and the Seven elementaries with Next Generation learning spaces Brooklyn Middle School will be the phase two this will be the phase two of the Brooklyn middle school project and this will be approximately a $10 million um project and focus on both ltfm and builda bed future funded portions of the total remodel of the first floor pictured here are renderings of the parts of the first floor entrance common areas and the lab settings the ltfm portion of this project ref um refreshes all the mechanical electrical and plumbing um components it will also also cover Restorations of finishes lighting lockers and restrooms this spring will Mark the beginning of the multiphase project at Maple Grove Senior High with ltfm covering over $20 million in mechanical Restorations that will be replacing all the air handling equipment the hend the hydronic piping all the existing classrooms will be receiving new ceilings and Light and some will be receiving more extensive remodeling we will be um providing more details to this project in the coming be builda better future uh presentations after the bid Awards pictured here are renderings of two of the common spaces at Maple Grove Senior High the ltfm funding will be covering the renovations and restoration of all the mechanical equipment that support these beautiful redesigned spaces in addition to Maple grow senior highs project we are Midway through the planning process for the addition and Restorations to AIO Senior High the project will involve a significant amount of long-term facility maintenance mechanical work that will uh round out the work that has been underway since 2018 the osto senior ey project will issue in February and construction will begin in the summer of 2025 throughout the system we will be remodeling all the elementary schools to update the media centers create Mark um maker spaces Flex rooms and outdoor classrooms the ltfm portion of these remodeling efforts is focused on the media center and the existing classroom restoration efforts in the summer of 25 we will start with seven schools Woodland Basswood oakw Rush Creek Palmer Lake fa Oaks and Cedar Island the schools with the same floor plan Basswood Rush Creek Woodland and Oakland o Oak View will uh have a common theme and designed with the same difference with some differences in the layout and colors pictured here are r ings of one of the school's media centers and the maker space fa Oaks Palmer Lake and Cedar Island have a similar layout and will be remove re renovated this summer we are showing some preliminary renderings for the media center and flex spaces we are currently working with the site teams and will have full layouts and color selections by the end of this week at Woodland Basswood opw and Rush Creek we will install the first outdoor classrooms that involve a collaboration with our long-term Phil facility maintenance civil workers work and the build-a better future initiative to create these new learning spaces we will be doing some extensive mechanical Restorations at arborview Elementary uh Early Child Harbor View Early Childhood Center this will involve the replacement of the boiler plant Air Handlers piping air conditioning in addition there will be replacing ceilings lights and refreshing finishes throughout the facility this project will be awarded on tonight's consent agenda as I mentioned at the start of our presentation I'm proud of the work that our facilities team has accomplished in our efforts to be good stewards of our community assets I greatly appreciate the work the school board has committed to and the ltfm objectives and the community support for this important work I'll open it to the board chair for questions board members questions comments no question just a comment um thank you so much for all the work you and all the team does you guys do a remarkable job making sure that our schools are safe and look good for our students so they feel supported in those environments and you do really good investments in Saving the district money long term so I appreciate you very much thank you thank you I would just like to add to that um I've seen the amount of money that has been underspent on all of our projects and I appreciate that um financially and then um as a teacher I'm very excited about all these uh Renovations and as someone who saw um our review Early Childhood Center be built from the Maple Grove City Hall it's um it's exciting that we that um that's going to get updated as well I'm particularly excited about the outdoor classrooms as well so uh you your team works so diligently on making sure that everyone gets um input and um that it's done with um style and grace and financial responsibility so appreciate it thank you continuing to Echo the comments um it's just phenomenal to see these every year the amount of work that goes in in such a short amount of time and the um efficiency and Effectiveness from a financial and an operations perspective and even with our financial presentation tonight when you look at our district the strength of it and and the fact that we're not making cuts and most many many school districts across the state are um is just a continued Testament to how much um thoughtfulness goes into these decisions that continuing to come under budget to develop the efficiency in the heating and electricity savings and it just comes from everywhere so we have such a high excuse me standard of Excellence across all of our departments um that's paired with our instruction and it's just I'm so glad that there's so many commun members that can see this work that's done so thank you so much thank you thanks Dale thank you thanks our next agenda item is um the audience opportunity to address the school board I have 13 cards here um which would be a significant amount of time and so I'm asking that um speakers to be sure to keep it to 3 minutes and if you find that someone else has already made your point you want to make your shorter we'll take that um but you definitely have your 3 minutes if you um feel that you need it um just a few reminders I will be calling people in the order of student parent staff community members and others um when I call your name you can come to the microphone and state your name and the topic and whether or not you're a district resident um make sure that you address the entire board and not an individual um if you have handouts then you can give them to the board's uh secretary Sherry and then um just a reminder that we're all going to listen and not respond back including um clapping or comments um and that this is just simply for us to listen to um what you are are wanting the board to hear so we appreciate that um if it's a Personnel concern just a reminder to um take that to the principal and then the follow and then um the appropriate people after that so with that all being said um Natalie Sonic is up first good evening my name is Natalie Sonic I'm a resident at Maple Grove I have a child attending this District I'm here tonight to talk about the lack of transparency by the school district in relation to the library content that our children are currently being exposed osed to without parental knowledge and therefore the need for a book rating system we can all agree that school libraries are an essential resource they serve as a place to seek knowledge imagination and learning offering students access to countless books that support their academic growth however with school libraries containing such a large collection of books comes a critical question how can parents and Guardians know what their children are reading and more importantly can they make informed decisions about what they are exposed to this is where a clear measurable consistent rating system for books and school libraries becomes necessary our schools have been found to contain books with graphic images of oral sex anal sex explicit descriptions of sexual acts and arousal graphic IM imagery of descriptions of how to masturbate information on how to look up porn and encouraging students to pay for porn books that contain sexually violence scenes of rape parents sexually molesting their children impregnating their children stories of describing of use of sex toys and how they can enhance sexual pleasure parents and Guardians need to know what their children are being exposed to they deserve to be shown pages of these books yet this board has created rule after rule to restrict parents just as movies video games and are are rated for Content appropriateness books in school libraries should similarly be categorized based on like sexual explicitness profanity and violence these ratings would provide a clear easily accessible guide for parents and Guardians why is having a book system rating system important first it respects the diverse values and beliefs of families a rating system gives parents the tools they need to make decisions that align with their values without imposing a on-sides fitall approach on the entire School Community secondly by offering a rating system schools can show that they are making a good Faith effort but of offering transparency which this board claims to uphold in value finally a rating system for books is about creating a balance between educational freedom and parental oversight a rating system gives parents the clarity they need to make informed decision about their child's reading material while maintaining a value of a school library as as a safe place for growth parents and not schools need to be the decision makers regarding for what is and what is not appropriate for their children this is not about censorship it's about empowering parents and respect for diverse perspectives thank you thanks Natalie Leon you're up next good evening Leon San District resident and this is my friend Latasha we collaborated on the speech because it's longer than three minutes so I'll do the first part um tonight I'd like to comment on the increased citizen involvement in our district even among folks like myself who no longer have our kids enrolled uh because as we've mentioned before we're all stakeholders in this endeavor uh whether we realize it or not and how this generation turns out will deeply affect all of us in our nation and in this hour of History so as a board you've tolerated well over a 100 of these little public comment speeches over the past two years and I do want to thank you for that that uh especially since three of you are stepping off the board in January and I want to acknowledge um your time commitment and energy you put forth to do what you have um thought was right to do in the simplest form here's what I and hopefully many of us are working and praying and looking for we're looking for grown adults who've been put in positions of power who are in alignment with God's protective posture over young people we take great measures to protect our Scholars physically at our facilities and indeed we should so why not the hearts and Minds is the guarding of a young mind not as vital as the guarding of a young person's physical safety just one litmus test for a district stewardship of hearts and Minds would be what they curate in their school libraries the books we've been challenging lately at the hearings are sexually explicit that's the Common Thread that's the common standard they violate yet because our district has no standards about books the Committees have found ways to circumvent our main concerns and even construe some of our challenges into something that they're really not there's been a handful of other folks coming to public comment casting aspersions on us for the caliber of the decency that we're trying to have the board uphold regarding books and other things one gentleman's comments about HBO has really struck with me and it motivates me the main gist of his comment comment months ago was that it's laughable for people like us to be up in arms about this stuff when the average teen has seen so much worse on HBO Etc how dare we justify pornographic content in our schools by comparing ourselves to a cable network and what some of our students might be exposed to in their own homes during their own free time those ches thank you those personal choices and other people's lack of standards are out of our control obviously but the school board and the school district should not be out of our control we are praying and so eager to find elected officials and high ranking admin who see the scandal in having the school district measured the themselves in any way by HBO we are looking for leaders who are un apologetically holding themselves and this institution to a completely different standard and higher purpose than pedaling pop culture and even slightly resembling its seual chaos at these book challenges we keep hearing that books provide Windows mirrors and sliding glass doors kind of a nod to the concept of books opening readers up to A Whole New World new adventures new P perspectives Etc sounds harmless and lovely and inspiring right it isn't we have no business offering Windows mirrors and sliding glass doors to graphic narrations of child abuse chronicling incest in detail reading the thought process process of a fictional pedophile explaining why he prefers young girls or Windows mirrors and doors to fictional teachers sexually experimenting and um with agreeable students in his own home bestiality experim experimenting with sex toys or teens despising their own biological sex the content I just listed is literal representation of content that is in the handful of books that have already been challenged in this District yet kept in our school libraries wash your hands of this content get some form of standards in place stop putting all of the selection responsibility on one college educated librarian stop revering college degrees as some Elite pedigree that instills ethics and morality and sound judgment because it doesn't this is all so much more than Challenge in a book or two isn't it in indeed again it's about grown adults coming into alignment with God's protective heart over young people's minds and contending with those who refuse to do so accountability and standards are lacking and we need you to raise the bar and here's a quick quote from one of my favorite books from my favorite book it would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall in sin thank you so much okay next up Leila wiser [Music] wiser hi everyone and good evening School Board the community my name is Lala and I am uh a member of this Maple Grove my daughter actually graduated this past um June and um it was brought to my attention last April when I was talking to Julie I've known her for about 12 years now and she just made me aware of certain books within the school library that our kids may have access to I was not aware of this as a parent and I guess my question is really is you know why do we have these books here like what is the real educational purpose of it um can't there be a happy medium or a compromise of another book instead to take its place where it's not so sexual and graphic in nature what's the end goal that we're really trying to achieve and then why these books if we want to teach a lesson or talk about people's differences or experiences why can't we offer a different book instead that's more tasteful in nature why do we have to have something that talks about pornography or how to access it sexual stimulation you know whether it's with a lifetime partner or a one night stand or just sexual arousing by yourself just very sexually explicit in nature some may say well maybe one of these books could just potentially help a child based on their own experiences and circumstances but what about the other kids that maybe a it accidentally was put in their hands you know we may be doing more harm than good on that um you know some some parents may feel that maybe this isn't age appropriate for their kids um maybe they don't want their kids to be exposed to reading something like this or having access to it especially just in the school library the list of questions could go on and it's a fair concern so as a parent when I'm reflecting on this all I'm asking is that one we should know and have some sort of transparency of what books are available for our kids to take out especially when they are ex sexually explicit in nature we should also be made aware when our kids are taking out these kinds of books furthermore we should really just have a say on whether or not we want our individual kids to to take out books like this and also like what is the appropriate age for these books to be taken out you know I was talking 30 seconds remaining okay um I was talking to my boyfriend who is grew up in the urban neighborhood in Minneapolis Public School District a lot of diversity people of color different hardships he has a ninth grader and he he said he would never let his daughter like read something like this like he would want it under his supervision so all I'm just asking for is like where is the transparency and could we Implement processes processes in place for our children because like they're here at the school and we feel like it should be a safe environment thank you thank you uh Nia meller should I start y yeah hello my name is Nia Mueller and I am a former student of Maple Grove Senior High from the perspective of a mother raising a young boy I am deeply concerned about the potential impact of this book rape other sexual violence incest and child abuse is not the first introduction to sex I would want my son exposed to it is erotica and it is literary pornography there are peer research studies recognizing the implications of that col's actions are presented without clear condemnation and the narrative forces readers to linger in his perspective what happens if a pre-teen or teenage boy unprepared to Grapple with this misinterprets colie's violence as an expression of power control or dominance without proper context or guidance this content could desensitize impressionable boys to the gravity and horror of sexual violence and confusion around consent what if a young student acted out what he read or misinterpreted its portrayal would the school district be ready to assume responsibility and address the consequences legally morally and emotionally additionally for young black girls who may already face struggles with self-image and societal rejection this book's betrayal of a little girl who believes her worth comes from having Blue Eyes Only reinforces damaging narratives instead of empowering our daughters to see their beauty and value The Bluest Eye exposes them to piccola's victimization her suffering and ultimately her mental and emotional destruction the Betrayal rather than offering a path to Healing places young black girls into a cycle of self-loathing P's desire for blue eyes reflects a larger societ vital message that blackness in all forms is not beautiful for many young black girls reading about pca's desperate longing to change her appearance may only deepen the feeling that they too are not good enough as they are I too was a young black girl in a predominantly white school the reminder of this narrative is unnecessary and it is harmful instead of helping us to embrace our natural beauty The Bluest Eye teaches us that our appearance our skin color and our features are inherently flawed there is no bright light at the end of the tunnel in this book Black is not beautiful period in a world that already often tells black girls we are less than this book does not offer strength or empowerment that we need to instill in our daughters they should be reading stories that affirm their worth that highlight their resilience and that help them see themselves as powerful and beautiful just as they are instead it might leave them feeling like Picola desperate lost and ultimately destroyed by a beauty standard that is impossible for us to achieve I want to be clear I do not object to discussing these themes of The Bluest Eye themes of race trauma and societal rejection these are important issues especially for young black students who are navigating their identity in a complex World there are ways to explore these topics that uplift Inspire and educate without EXP exposing students to graphic content that can cause confusion or harm thank you Brook Smith Brooke hi my name is Burke Smith I'm a former student of maple gr Senior High and tonight I'm reading you a letter from one of my best friends since elementary school we went to Maple gr together the whole time hello everyone my name is Lexi bushan I graduated from Maple Grove Senior High School in 2018 I'm very upset that there is such graphic material available in the school libraries I believe that providing students with sexually explicit materials desens desensitizes them to the criminal act of rape I was sexually assaulted when I was a sophomore at mapo Grove Middle School and I believe that part of that reason is because my ATT attacker did not believe it was wrong the book being challenged tonight contributes to the rap culture as someone who has been assaulted the book proves to shame young women or men to come forward to prevent them from providing Justice for themselves as a young girl if I would have read this book I would have felt like a failure as the young girl in the book did with bringing my story forward I hope at least I at least inspire some empathy for others as I was one of many victims held back for many years unsharing my story and this is my perspective on what happened to her and multiple friends that I have I have seen what rape does to a woman specifically I've watched it happen to many of my friends whether that be in high school or college it completely ruins their selfworth if one person is take advantage of you what says someone else can't this book book was published in 197 there are so many things that have changed since then please ask yourself this if you were assaulted as a high schooler in 2024 and knew you could end up being the laughing stock of your school would you come forward you can be on Instagram Snapchat Twitter kids making fun of you the fear will never benefit the victim I'm not saying that this book should be banned but I'm saying that there should be a rating system even as a 24-year-old woman I still feel triggered because I've been through these things watching my friends struggle I can't imagine how I would feel reading this still in high school knowing what my friends have gone through and trying to understand this all by myself please consider who you are giving these things to as times have changed and a lot of things are different since 1970 when this book was written thanks thank you Julie Smith hi I'm Julie Smith and I help run two local programs that work to improve the lives of Youth in a world where depression anxiety hopelessness rape and mental health problems are off the charts I believe the book I'm challenging later contributes to these problems we had yet another fatal school shooting yesterday at least three people are dead our children have been desensitized to crime and violence for years by media outlets and video games this is one of the consequences what we allow our children to put in their still maturing Minds affects their behavior we are now in a time where kids are exposed to an extreme amount of sexually explicit materials at younger and younger ages there are consequences to this as well such as our kids having to survive living in a rape culture getting cheated on being normal poror an addiction and not realizing that you are worth so much more than what you can offer sexually I will be challenging a book later tonight due to its violence vulgarity and sexually explicit content in preparing for this night I ever received a ple of support from friends family and community members people care we are a diverse community and that gives us strength we should be working together as partners and stakeholders not adversaries what I'm seeing instead is division and distrust distrust due to an alarming lack of transparency from this District to parents and Guardians I've heard comments that make me believe that some staff District think parents or Guardians are the problem since getting involved in this book review process I have been ignored experienced deceit a lack of accountability from District staff broken rules and witnessed an attempt to silence Community member voices my experience at the building and District level challenges were one-sided committee members were selected by the district to protect the book choices of school librarians re-evaluation committees were not representative of our diverse Community not one Committee Member voted to remove the book being challenged but every person I talked to in our community was shocked angered or very concerned that the district is offering this book to minors re-evaluation committee members acknowledg that this was a dark and hard book to read yet they kept it why as adults we have a responsibility to introduce adult topics when kids are ready for them in order to do that we need to be aware of what our children have access to the district should do the following to improve transparency and communication with parents and Guardians let parents and Guardians know about adult themed books being offered to students by raing books and providing instructions for parents and Guardians to easily review and restrict their child's Library access some parents and Guardians would Define sections of this book as porn state law prohibits the distribution of pornography to minors books that include sexually explicit content should be identified and restricted to students under 18 or 18 and older sorry the district should frequently inform parents and Guardians about opportunities to get involved with the district committees meetings and policy proposal it is time we work together and I hope we can start that tonight thank you Jana Dell hi my name is Jana Dell and uh thank you so much for allowing me to speak and I am speaking on the same subject so we'll try to keep keep it brief for you but uh my husband and I pastor at church here in Maple Grove I am an ordained minister and um we have raised three children two of whom have come through the oio Maple Grove schools we have also been foster parents um we've opened our home to families in need we've taken in young people who are in and out of the Foster system um trying to come out of addiction um setting their lives on a good path we've walked many families through their greatest sorrows and also through their greatest joys in life um I've worked with end Council then taught students for over 25 years and I've worked in seven different Regional Schools middle schools and high schools and I've also worked in three universities so I'm a professional when it comes to students I would say um so uh I'm currently working with student many students from District 279 schools um and I've also worked for a long time with juvenile offenders uh specifically juvenile sex offenders um the one thing in my experience that uh a lot of these young people have in common especially especially regarding juvenile sex offenders is there's almost um they almost exclusively all share an adolescent exposure to sexually explicit materials um I've seen it for years and uh I come from the perspective of trying to pick up the pieces of hurting and broken lives um I have young people all the time that are stepping into adulthood that are trying to to pick up these pieces they're trying to learn how to do sex in a normal and healthy way um when their normal was disruptive did during adolescence uh by something they heard saw or or read um study after study proves without a doubt that a teenage brain with exposure to sexually explicit material it creates synapses or Pathways directly to that Reward Center and they don't have the opportunity to go through the bridge right of the prefrontal cortex for any critical thinking because it's just not ready so just like any teenager it's heading toward the reward in the fastest way possible all right those neurons are always looking for the fastest road once that pathway is paved the behavior becomes natural and Instinct so it's it's exposure to sexually explicit material um it's also that way with material that is violent or risky in nature several studies by National Library of Health the American psychology Association Psychology today 30 seconds remaining yep they warn there's a direct link between exposure to sexually explicit material and dangerous sexual behavior as an emerging adult spe specifically early sexual behavior unprotected sex multiple partners leading to further damage through STI mimicking aggressive behaviors and mental health issues in other words this exposure is having a hugely negative impact on our students adult lives we send our kids to school in the hopes that build Pathways of myelination in their brains that'll give them a good chance at a great adult life the question today is that knowing these materials are hurting them should we proceed thank you Brit good evening I'm Dr Brit stusy and I'm a district resident the district asserts some of its core values to be honored Integrity belonging inclusion and transparency however a systemic breakdown in these core values have been observed lately in June 2022 the school board passed the lgbtqia A+ history and culture resolution with little to no input from the district Community failing at transparency one direct result of that resolution was the rolling out of the districtwide high school advisory lesson in April 2024 not only did the district make the process to view the curriculum arduous it also made it difficult for parents and teachers to opt out of the curriculum it took a legal demand letter being served to The District in March 2024 the district to even approve basic opt out accommodations for teachers and students secondly regarding the core values of inclusion and belonging one of the district's strategic directions is to quote promote inclusive participation of all communities as a district resident I don't feel a sense of belonging and inclusion when the coordinator of digital learning and instructional media District General Council and a Schoolboard member advocated for barring District residents from initiating a re-evaluation challenge under policy 62b one would think the district would be working to strategically move engagement barriers not installing them lastly the district has failed to uphold its has failed in its duty to uphold honor and integrity under the previous version of policy 652b only parents or Guardians were eligible to serve on reevaluation committees and in the chairperson role however the coordinator of digital learning and instructional media knowly selected a district resident to serve as chairperson for three District level challenges in 2023 through 2024 District general counsel failed to verify and enforce Committee Member eligibility moreover District General Council attended two of those challenges and did not remove the ineligible chairperson and restitution to the challengers the district level decision should be overturned and the three challenges books should be eligible for retrial additionally the digital learning coordinator should be prohibited from selecting book reevaluation committee members and a new party should be serving in the facilitator role at the November 2024 District level challenge District General Council was under the impression that the challenge was still following the previous version of policy 652b by this account this dist challenge was in violation of policy as a district Resident was serving as chairperson the willful actions of the district exhibited by the examples mentioned tonight have led to a failure in trust among many parents District residents and some staff members I invite you as a board to recommit to the values you espouse it is your duty to give authentic action to back up your claims of honor and integrity belonging inclusion and transparency and to hold District administration and committees accountable to those values as well thank you for your time Max mAh hello I am District resident Max Maher and my topic today is tolerance so awesome to see the choir today I spent over a decade of my life particip participating in choir where each year I was surrounded by people of different races Creeds cultures sexual orientations so many different backgrounds uh and much of coral repertoire of course is nonsecular and Catholic churches and Cathedrals were often fitting spaces to create beautiful music we sang religious lyrics and shared spaces uh with each other that had sacred rituals symbols and traditions yet throughout my Coral experience I never witnessed anyone disrespect these symbols we understood that even if something wasn't sacred to us it held deep meaning for others and that respect is the foundation of genuine inclusivity next month a new member will join this board who it seems could benefit from this understanding this citizen stood here where I am now displaying a pride flag that she intentionally defaced claiming in bad faith that it somehow excluded and hence discriminated against Max you are you are identifying an individual board member referencing but the topic is toward the board just don't speak about a particular board member the board demanded that this flag be displayed in schools across our district falsely asserting that the district prioritized career voices above all others but that is not what this Flag represents the pride flag stands for support and visibility for lgbtq plus individuals who have historically faced marginalization discrimination and violence it doesn't exclude heterosexual perspectives it celebrates and affirms the diversity and rights of G btq plus people within our shared Community here's what we know from a recent survey on Mental Health which included more than 28,000 young people ages 13 to 24 across the United States nearly two-thirds of lgbtq Youth reported that potential state or local bands on discussing lgbtq topics in schools significantly worsen their mental health and most alarmingly 41% of these youth seriously commit considered suicide in the past year the role of Schoolboard members should be to elevate all student voices not to to mock those that don't align with personal beliefs by superimposing an image onto this flag to distort its values the Citizen's actions went beyond intolerance to outright disrespect and sent a signal that invites Division and emboldens bigotry I call for the board to stay vigilant against such pitiful attacks on the protection support and respect for lgbtq plus students their families and friends and finally since book challenges are a central topic tonight I want to address a trebling detail when asked on their questionnaire whether they had reviewed the blue die in its entirety The Challengers re we're not discussing a specific person okay so on the materials for the form that on the form when asked about blue and its entirety they wrote I didn't have to and lat is there um disclosure of confidential um activi this is online in the board materials it's board materials board materials and also added it's probably a good story so if we were to take these es seriously especially when they reached the school board after passing through two committees that did their homework and unanimously voted to retain the material it's only fair to expect that they that they come from individuals who have fully reviewed the content and are truly qualified to offer such criticism tonight I trust the board will once again uphold its commitment to sound judgment and intellectual Integrity thank you thanks Max um Annie coel good evening my name is Annie and I'm a district resident I'm a mother of two um which and we um my two kids attend private school our family decided private school was a better option for us and it offered our children a moral and spiritual code that was just our choice for me the Pinnacle reason why I chose to enroll our children in private school and not the OST the district school is because of the trust issue that we have I don't trust the district with my children 94% of the children in the 2019 Minnesota student survey reported that they thought it was a good idea to have an SRO at school in the same survey 62% of the students felt comfortable going to their SRO if they had problems or needed help many students viewed their SRO as a trusted adult in October 2023 three Stu three board members failed to support a resolution that would have these that have be asked the state legislature to clarify language in a Statewide School discipline law and allow Pol police officers the police sorry allow police departments to put their officers back in the school oio district students came together to make their voices heard and organize a petition to bring back these SRO you would think it would be unanimous among the board members um yet three board members prioritize their own personal agendas over the safety of of the students under policy 441 section 6 Internet safety also States access to visual depictions that are obscene child pornography or harmful to minors will be blocked or filtered in subsection B harmful to minors is clearly defined with examples presented of harm harmful content if the district can Define content that is harmful to miners in terms of Technology then it should be able to Divine harmful and explicit content in terms of instructional materials and books library books policy standards should be consistently applied not selectively Applied Trust is earned not given this district has failed to earn my trust this district has lost my trust because of safety is it's just not a top priority the district has lost my trust because they failed to remove the instructional materials and books with explicit graphic content my kids attend two schools not because to two schools in the not in the district but not because we 30 seconds remaining it's because we choose and when I asked my kids about this inappropriate conduct or inappropriate material at the school libraries they were just mortified um and it's our job to protect our kids I'm a Coline Survivor I lived in Denver and I can't even imagine not protecting my kids with every being that I have and all of us have the responsibility to protect our kids our our nieces our nephews everything that we can until it's it's going to be too late thank you thank you um Stacy Jones do you two want to come up together or Stacy do you and Michelle want to come up together okay looks like you're together so Stacy and Michelle cogwell hi I'm Stacy Jones I'm a district employee and a district resident I am also the president of the AIO Administrative Professionals Union Local 7343 formerly known as the aes's and I am an administrative assistant at Elm Creek Elementary I am here on behalf of the oio Administrative Professionals regarding support of our current contract negotiation with oio area schools we have been able to come to agreements on some language changes some job title changes and the need for M to resolve some items of interest for fair vacation acral and probation periods however we have not been able to settle on a financial package over the years our group has experienced small wage increases that do not keep up with the rising costs of health insurance some of our group has seen their income dropping instead of rising we have been watching our contract settlements in the district here and are seeing larger wage increases smaller increase to health insurance and retirement contributions that are being doubled does the school district really believe our health is less important than the other oio ISD employees when we consistently see lower contributions to our health insurance compared to others it is hard for us to come to any rationale on the part of the school district except this troubling explanation the oio Administrative Professionals are told told that there just isn't any more money for us we are often told how important we are that we are highly valued but we don't feel that way many of us are the face of our buildings and the Departments that we work in we support all stakeholders we make decisions and solve problems daily dealing with a wide range of situations we are doing all of the administrative assistant work that you would expect and much much more the other duties assigned are endless we are covering the duties of esps when they're absent covering nurse duties so that they can have a lunch break we are scrambling to find coverage for staff and teachers when we have absences with no sub we are navigating students parents and community members concerns often deescalate and finding a solution to their immediate issue often we have a phone at each ear and a walkie in our hands juggling all the issues our value is endless and all we are asking is to be compensated fairly we love our jobs for the most part and we want to continue working for oio area schools thank you for your time you good evening my name is Michelle Cogswell and I am not only a resident um but I am I have lived here since I was in fifth grade um and H I graduated from Park Center um I am also a union negotiator with the oio Administrative Professionals Union Local 7343 and I am an administrative assistant at Northview Middle School I am here on behalf of all oio Administrative Professionals in District 279 I want to not only share with you our desire to negotiate a contract that values our worth and the important role we play in this District but to also impress upon you the small wage increases we have received in the past increases that in no way keep up with the rising costs of health care or even the cost of living our income currently does not compensate for the difference our group pays in insurance premiums using the HSA employee plus1 insurance premium as an example a teacher pays $84 per paycheck for insurance premiums our group pays 117 this is a 39.3% increase in premiums for administrative assistance we as a support staff make significantly less than teachers why are we carrying this burden of higher insurance premiums with lower compensation rates why have we historically been on the low end of all pay increases why were we recently told that there just isn't any more money for us why is this the norm when we provide an an essential service to our entire District Community we work for the fifth largest school district in the state your 2024 financial statements general fund budget Budgy highlights excuse me show actual expenditures were 9.9 million under budget it also highlights within the financial statements that there was a 7.5 increase in salaries and a 7.1 increase in employee benefits from 2023 to 2024 where do we fall in there one of the core values of the district States intrinsic value as each scholar staff member and family are valued and respected for their perspective experience and contributions we as staff members hold intrinsic value and we feel that the district can better support us in order to hold true to the world to their words excuse me 30 seconds remain that we are not only respected but valued thank you for your time thank you that was our last speaker our next agenda item is the superintendent report Dr H thank you good evening chair mosquita Jones and the Schoolboard members I want to take a moment to reflect on incredible work happening across our aera schools and Express gratitude for everyone who makes her District a place of excellence and belonging so a regular part of our superintendent report is to share points of pride in our district by sharing our points of Pride we're taking time to recognize and celebrate the scholars staff and community members who are contributing to the accomplishment of our mission so I have members of our district cabinet here to assist and sharing some of those examples from the last month in the area of achieving dreams first trimester students at ail Middle School participated in colors of community the first of three murals to be created by students as part of a mural project funded by a grant from The District 279 Foundation the mural explored students relation relationships with their surroundings through collaborative art and was spearheaded by art teacher Gretchen Aban in partnership with Indian education specialist Jill Lindell and artist in re residence Kevin clover in the area of contributing to community the AIO education center recently launched a new storybook Trail on the grounds of the school the trail which wraps around the grounds lets visitors see a new page of a book at each station in the area of lifelong learning November was Native American Heritage Month a time to celebrate the rich and diverse cultures and histories as well as the essential contributions of native people in the over 90 tribal Nations represented in AIO area schools on November 18th and 19th the American Indian education department hosted several events in the the Indian education cultural resource center at northw Middle School featuring beating club lacrosse practice and a drum and dance circle Garden City Elementary School recently celebrated M New Year presenter Hal vain shared information about the holiday with groups of students all day November 25th and 26th including the tradition of walking under a rope to wash away any bad energy before receiving good energy for the new year and the tradition of ball tossing among groups of young people at M New Year to make new connections third graders at Rice Lake Elementary recently had the opportunity to make fried bread with principal Diane Bagley the students learned about the importance of fried bread in Native American culture and experienced what went into making the bread Nicole prasa a forensic scientist at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension visited Brooklyn Middle Steam School on December 5th to share information about her career path and the science behind forensics prasa taught the students about latent prints and the techniques used to lift fingerprints from different objects and under different conditions in the area of mission driven employees Amy Patton counselor at Basswood Elementary School was recently awarded the University of Minnesota College of Education and human development distinguished alumni award this award honors alumni who have brought distinction to their professions and communities and makes a positive difference in the lives of children youth families schools and organizations each day Paton assist scholars in a variety of ways greeting them in the morning and working with students both one-on-one and in small groups all right at this time we like to recognize this evening's business at this meeting the last board me member meeting for Heather Douglas Tamar Grady and Jackie mosquito Jones we'd like to say a simple thank you that is surely not enough to say that to each of you for your exemplary service on behalf of the scholars staff and families of IST 279 osel area schools few people in our world would be able to sit in this seat as our school board members do so I hope you understand that thank you for going above and beyond and taking the hits when you took the hits and helping our babies when you helped our babies and our Scholars the photos will be showing from each of these I'm sorry incredible humans are from their earlier days in campaigning for their respective seats for school board so M Mrs he Heather Douglas first ran and was elected in 2016 and was reelected in 2020 she served as a clerk and a Treasurer next we have Jackie mosquito Jones who first ran and was elected for a two-year term in 2018 reelected in 2020 and has served as Vice chair and chair and then we have Tamar Grady who ran for a four-year term in 2020 and has served as a clerk so Heather Jackie and Tamara thank you for your dedication your leadership and your service to oo area schools Community it's been a privilege to work alongside you it's only been a year and a half I don't know if that's good or bad for you but as we navigated both challenges and opportunities um and you always did it with a share commitment to our students to our staff and our community uh together we made significant progress in investing our mission of our district providing excellent education for our babies or our Scholars to achieve their dreams your passion your thoughtful decision making unwavering focus and what is best for our Scholars have left a lasting impact on our district and I thank you on behalf of our entire Community I thank you for your time your effort your contributions your fight your passion I thank you like I said it's not easy to sit up here uh and I wish you the very best as you move forward your legacy will continue to inspire the important work that we need to do as we move forward so before we ask head Jackie and Tamara for a few words I'd like to ask if Thomas uh Tanya or Sarah would like to say anything yeah I'd like to say something um I just would like to wish Heather Jackie and Tamar the best of luck in your next um Endeavors I know this service involves much sacrifice and these roles of serving are not for the faint of heart I would also like to extend a word of appreciation to your families it's a sacrifice for them as well and Heather I just would like to thank you for modeling true servant leadership you have continually been others focused always keeping the well-being of our students at the center of every single decision you've made over eight years that's a long time thank you for courageously serving our entire district with your consistent character you are a woman of Integrity compassion and you have been proven trustworthy you will be greatly missed well well done good and faithful servant thank you so um it's been a pleasure to serve with three of you on this board and um Heather you predate me so it's been wonderful to be able to learn from your wisdom and your experience um you've always dug in um you've just me a wealth of knowledge um I've always appreciated the rigor that you've brought to the role um and the way that you've been able to um really ask fair and tough questions um so I really appreciated that that um character that you brought to our board and to the service and really you and all um Tamara and Jackie as well I know that you'll continue to serve um you served before being on this board in various Community um service um places or on um committees or um with your children um in different capacities so um I know that you'll continue to do that and I'm sure we'll see you in different places um after your board service and Jackie I just always have appreciated the way that you lead um with your heart and with empathy um and again bringing fairness um to for everybody and really having a mind to serve the entire district and Tamar I appreciate the passion um that you've brought um and uh just the the clear focus and the desire to drive um change so thank you um I Echo a lot of what uh everyone has has already said um director Douglas you have a long-standing history um in our district um and a pride for our district that um you display um every time that you're here um you have a very clear passion for education and bringing out the best in all of our scholar um we have had an opportunity to collaborate within my time on the board um and even though we didn't always agree um in this board room um you were always respectful to me within my time on the board um and I always appreciated that um I will also Echo what uh director Prince said that especially in work sessions you asked some of the best questions um and so uh but all that said I do want to say thank you for your service and um I really hope that you enjoy that extra family time that you're about to get after this meeting um director greedy um your uh energy and passion um in our district uh I would say is unmatched um on this board uh we have had an opportunity to collaborate as well on some shared priorities um going back to the start of this board when we actually both started together um and it has been an honor working with you and learning from you um you have shown up um every single meeting every single month for lgbtq Scholars and as um an ally um to the community um and as a member of the community on this board um I just want to say thank you for um your allyship um being grounded in action and not just words um and uh beyond that um your with us starting together in this board your uh friendship with this time mentorship um and just colleagueship um if I'm making up for word um has been uh very much needed uh Within These last four years so uh thank you as well for your service um and uh chair mosquito Jones um I uh talk a lot about our district um when I'm out and about um and I I don't know if it's just me but I have the sense of pride in our district and um particularly our district leadership um and how we um have always remained focused on our mission and have always been able to find a way to move forward um and you don't always see that in the media uh when you see um other school districts in the local international news um and I think a lot of that is attributed to your leadership as share um and I want to thank you for taking on uh that extra responsibility on the board um as chair particularly juggling so many other things in life um you you um also have an unmatched um care um and passion for Education um and even more specific uh Educators and our Scholars um and with that uh we all know that you brought a very unique perspective to this board that was very much needed um as an actual educator that's in the classroom every single day um it too has been um an honor um working with you and watching your journey as a board member um and as a leader in our district um and um um I will I'll miss this board as it is and um I'll remain excited for what's to come starting next month but thank you all for your service you thank you then if you want comments Heather and then Jackie then Tamara first I I'll go um I wanted to prepare something but um life gets in the way of that sometimes um I have lived in the oio school district Community since 1978 when um we had uh pretty much the lookout and um in Maple Grove and we um all congregated in Brooklyn Park around um the big mall and um I've seen it grow a lot and change a lot and it has been um one of my life's greatest honors to serve on this school board um to advocate for students and um families and teachers and all the all the people here who are Educators regardless of what their title is um it has been an honor to serve with this board um I have appreciated every single person's perspective on this board and that um it has been um truly eye openening and and um an honor and super stressful and amazing and um exhausting and I am speaking the truth from my heart as I see it and I am will continue to advocate for students um in many different ways particularly with my own um students who are amazing human beings I have kids with special needs and kids from um many different countries and kids from many different backgrounds and they have um experienced Things That No little human being should have to experience in their lifetime and um it is an honor to learn from them and from all of you thank you Tam did you have something you want to say yeah go ahead you were first okay um well first of all I'm really terrible at Goodbye so um this is just a see you later I will be around still I still live here I still have kids in the district um but I will just be here in a different capacity but I really I want to say thank you to each of you for all of your comments um I don't know what I was expecting but I wasn't expecting this uh moment of recognition um so I just want to say I really appreciate it and um some of you have been here as long as I have many of you have come after I started so for those of you that have been with me the whole time I have truly enjoyed growing with you and growing um the district and those of you that have come along you've been a part of that growth and it's been really beautiful to see the district really just Blossom and um come together um one thing that I would I I reflect back on is how a lot of times we come to the table with uh common goal but a different Pathway to get there and so it's been really incredible to see us come together and collaborate both as board members um and collaborating with our cabinet and the rest of the staff in the district our community members um to move the very important goals of the district forward um although sometimes that process has been a little rocky like you know we don't always agree on how to get there um but I think the one truest Factor the entire time I've been on the board is has um been a deep commitment to the Excellence of our district and um serving our students in the best way possible and it's been really great to be a part of the process um even through some of those challenges and um I am really excited to see what you guys do next and um it it's going to be hard to walk away so don't be surprised if you see me pop in and out um or in your inbox with a few of those questions for those work sessions where I cannot ask them but um I I really appreciate the opportunity to been um of service to oio and um I it could not have been a better experience so thank you I want to say thank you to our community for giving me this opportunity to serve our district I am honored and humbled by the experience I want to say thank you to our teachers who show up every day to teach and support and motivate as parents we know is not always easy to motivate our students you are essential in providing a quality education for our students to our esps who build relationship with students you truly are the GL glue that holds our school communities together to our administrators who lead our schools to meet our mission thank you for your commitment to centering student voice in your leadership and to our students for steadfastly unleashing your Brilliance into the world I am grateful for all of you thank you all right so a few final notes and reminders for tonight there will be no school from December 23rd through January 3rd so parents and they tell you that they're being honest about that um we hope that you all enjoy your winter break and get some family time of relaxation uh December 31st is our first Lottery deadline for our magnet schools here in O Area School District January 15th is priority application deadline for any any in District transfers so if you want to learn any more about these School options just visit District 279 uh.org enroll and then the fun stuff join us at District 279 foundation on Friday February 7th at 5:30 p.m. at Edinburgh Golf Course for a night out benefiting our District 279 Foundation grant program and the theme is Western so you can start shopping over the break now so thank you and that concludes tonight's superintendance report thank you Dr H our next agenda item is Schoolboard reports director Brooks do you have a report no reports director Douglas I do not have any reports director Prince uh yes so Deek met um and the group continued uh their work to dive into some of our um stakeholder survey results and um begin to identify what are the key topics that they want to work on for um eventual board recommendations and then uh the 279 Foundation met I believe since the last time we had a board report um has been quite a bit of time like really um uh reviewing the Investments uh for the foundation and um some of the um various um contributions that had been made in the past and some of the parameters around that so um that was a really meaty 279 Foundation meeting but also um really solid to see the depth of um rigor and Analysis um and preserving um the foundation ensuring that there's dollars for years to come awesome Dr mitell yes we had our EAC committee meeting last night and one of the main things we spent time examining the building capacity calculation process and how that's going to help as one of the factors that will guide the boundary change process that's coming up so that was helpful and I just I really appreciated uh one of the breakout rooms I was in there there was just a good variety amongst committee members for example I had was in a breakout room with a District parent of students at multiple schools um represented a District staff and an elementary teacher in our district who also had multiple kids in our district so I just think it's helpful when we have those balanced committees and hear all those voices director Grady I don't have anything but thank you okay at this time I do have a couple of reports um we had our last Northwest Suburban integration School District uh meeting uh for the year and we looked at um the last round of magnet um magnet program enrollments and you just heard that December 31st is um a deadline for one of those magnet um applications I encourage you if you have children to think about um whether one of these magnet programs is a good um place for you we um I we have several amazing magnet programs in our district the elementary level we have Birch Grove and um Weaver Lake stem school and the amazing um Zan wood Steam School which is um highly underrated in my personal opinion it's if you've ever gone to any of their steam events that it's amazing and the amount of people that they have from the community that come and help um students students learn about science technology engineering arts and math is phenomenal um and then we have our Steam and IB programs as well as our um program at oio for um health careers um and then um we had our final 287 board meeting for this um calendar year and we had an amazing report from the care and treatment program which is a k through three program that students who um have difficulties um succeeding in typical School environments um have very intensive therapy and treatment includes um therapy in the classroom individual therapy and family therapy and we got to see research um that when families uh got opportunities of more of that family therapy and family involvement in the program their students had a much higher success um in integrating back to the typical school program and in fact many um schools have said uh your kids are doing better than most of the uh typical kids so it's an amazing program it costs a lot of money um Wilder Foundation is uh funding a great chunk of it and I just encourage you to continue to advocate for education and for programs comes to help our kids across um across the state and um I just also want to add uh not as necessarily report but um I want to thank Dr Kim Hile for her service um and I think it's one of the best things we ever did was hire you and um I would be remiss ified and say how amazing you are and how your um leadership in and working on the culture and climate in this district and particularly giving students much more of a voice than we've seen in the past so thank you so much for that okay the next agenda item is the consent agenda board members are consent agenda items this evening include meeting minutes and financial reports for September 24 uh fiscal year 25 budget adjustment extended educational trips Personnel items construction bid approvals and we have 25 grants requiring approval as well there are staff that put in a lot of time for those grants so I want to say thank you to those staff are there any items that you would like to remove for separate consideration board members hearing none is there a motion to accept the consent agenda as printed so Mo motion by director Douglas is there a second second second by director Brooks um any discussion um all in favor say I I I'll oppose say nay motion passes six to zero our first action item tonight is the 2024 payable 2025 Levy limit certification Mr mored uh thank you chair mcada Jones so this is just a follow-up from the truth and Taxation hearing earlier um this evening so we are recommending the school board approve the 2024 payable 2025 Levy in the amount of 142 mil 285,000 7871 thank you board members is there a motion to certify the 2024 payable 2025 Levy limitation as presented with the proposed payable 2025 tax levy increase from 2024 of $75,900 51% so so moved all right we'll go with a motion by director prince and a second by director Mitchell any discussion once again thank you for your presentation all in favor say I I I'll oppose say nay motion passes six to zero moving right along it's still the John show our next action item is the 2025 legisl legislative platform John come on you're going to miss this um yes thank you very much um okay so annually we uh update the district's legislative priorities and bring that to our December meeting for the board to officially approve um there's a lot of information on this sheet I'm just going to go over the four main priorities there's also some demographic information on mission on the back that I would encourage you to look over but I'm going to focus on the four uh yellow highlighted areas so um before I jump into those just kind of a quick grounding of of what we expect from the legislature this year as we're preparing for this um there is a surplus that we're going into for the next bium it's not quite what we expected but uh it's still a surplus so we are appreciative of that I think there's about $616 million a uh available as a surplus however the following banum and the legislator is always looking at a few of them out is is currently showing around A5 billion doll potential deficit so um being very cautious in what we as a district are asking for and also very thankful for what the legislature um provides but also knowing that they're um trying to think long term um and and make sure that the state is uh is healthy much like our district is so um that'll be the direction these will be the directions that we're going to be looking forward to um advocating for in this following year so starting with funding um provide stable and predictable funding um almost always we will ask for some form of increase to the general education formula uh currently in state law uh we follow the Consumer Price Index um between a range so today the range is between two and 3% whatever the Consumer Price Index is that's what the school districts get um we are asking for an additional 2% for fiscal year 26 and 27 and also that the range be increased from to 2 to 4% from the 2 to three in current law just to provide a little bit better flexibility should inflation move in that direction again next item is to fully fund the summer unemployment insurance um this was funded in 2023 with a one-time pot of money that has lasted at least through uh the first few years it will last which should run um expire um sometime next summer is the anticipated um date of that so to be able to fund that long term would be greatly appreciated uh hold the district level compensatory funding har lless at the fiscal year 2025 our current Year's level going forward uh the legislature changed some of their calculations in this and has um so we haven't seen what the new calculation looks like so being able to hold that harmless just kind of again helps keep stability for districts increase the local optional Revenue to $974 per pupil in link to the basic formula today that revenue is $724 per pupil and has never increased um it's just a flat number so it doesn't doesn't move and every year we lose purchasing power to inflation in that category um link all categorical fundings to inflationary increase in the general education formula again there are a number of items where we just get a flat dollar amount per pupil that have not changed um I've been in school Finance for about 13 years and I I know the one that always gets me is gifted and talented has been $13 every year that I can find and I've looked back further and it's still $13 it's never changed so the value of that is obviously ly very little compared to what it used to be uh and then our final area in the um funding is fully fund the special education and English language learner cross subsidies these are both areas where funding doesn't cover the required expenditures and so we have to dip into the general fund to make up the difference because these are are programs that we are required and are critical that we fully fund no matter what so we have to make sacrifices in other areas next made category is enhancing school safety and support for mental health by increasing the safe schools funding to $108 per pupil to support our current needs for Scholars and staff and expand the allowable uses of long-term facility maintenance funding to include cyber security and Technology infrastructure hardware and the modification of buildings to enhance Safety and Security our next category is address the workforce shortage while this has been improving if there is still a definite shortage um so expanding programs and incentives to attract and develop and retain teachers of color and remove barriers and provide incentives to address the shortage of teachers Education Service professionals and all other staff and our final C category of reduced mandates um we're requesting the legislature to fully fund or repeal all existing unfunded mandates refrain from adding any new mandates and also review and potentially repeal any OB solete requirements that happen to be in current law um at this point we would ask the board to approve the legislative platform and I'm happy to answer any questions okay is there a motion to approve the 2025 legislative platform I'll move move by director Brooks is there a second second director Douglas um is there any discussion or questions for John again we discussed this at the work session last week um all in favor say I I I all oppos say nay motion passes 6 to zero thank you happy to announce that the next action item is the recommendation for approval of the agreement on the terms and condition of employment between the Independent School District 279 school board and school nutrition Association July 1st 2024 to June 30th 2026 information will be shared by Ivan short Lind Executive Director of Human Resources Ivon thanks uh chair mosita Jones so uh the uh School Board of course has the materials uh including the redlined um contract and so I'll provide a summary um overview of the changes to this contract so this involves a um employee group that consists of about 125 employees compris of managers assistant managers and nutrition assistants um the agreement um uh the agreement uh um the contract that was agreed to include some rates of pay changes career increment um increases and a uniform changes to a uniform allowance and uh with regard to rates of pay um starting in year one um nutrition assistance um will be increased to $9 per hour and then year two that will go up to $20 per hour there were um there was also a collapse of our pay grid from five steps to three steps and then some other changes um increases um by step and position uh to the pay grid career increment um sort of pay differentials were added at 5 10 and 20 year increments and then the uniform allowance was changed from uh by biannual to or Bal to annual with respect to benefits in terms of the employer contributions in year one there's a 5% increase to the uh in the employer contribution for the value plan and HSA plans and in year two a 3% increase to those plans the um High plan is close to en new enrollments um across the board the salary investment um outlined above is consistent with the financial parameters established by the school board for the 24 through 2026 contract negotiation cycle the 2-year agreement results in a 7.22 total package increase and the total Financial investment is$ 365,000 279 school board and the school nutrition Association for the period of July 1st 2024 to June 30th 20126 so motion by director Mitchell is there a second second second by director Grady uh is there any [Music] discussion um again I want to say thank you to our uh nutritionist Specialists um you do a very important job for our district um many of our students it's the only food they get during the day is the food that we provide and it's an important um thing and also many of the students may have their warmest um experience in interacting with our nutrition Specialists um speaking as my daughter who got to work for the uh nutrition um department for a little while here um it it's we have some really amazing people um is there any other discussion or otherwise all in favor say I I I'll oppos say nay motion passes six to zero we have um several policies on the agenda that are up for second reading this evening General councel Amy Moore will share the information and will'll take action on each individual policy thank you so the policies have been published since our last meeting uh no changes have been made uh policy 403 discipline suspension and dismissal of school district employees uh the change remains that we've just added some clarification about uh District employees uh will abide by procedures and inlo handbooks and some um uh just little minor uh word uh clarifications and then with the procedure similarly very minor uh updates to the procedure okay is there a motion to approve the second reading of policy 403 discipline suspension ion and dismissal of School District employees with proposed edits so moved uh motion by director Prince I will second it um any discussion all in favor say I I I'll oppos say nay motion passes six to zero um the next policy 421 policy 421 gives to District Personnel uh we just added clarification regarding the promotional or public relations nature with a resale value of $5 or less so just putting that clarification in of what is considered insignificant value and that the superintendent has the discretion to determine what the what value is insignificant uh that's to the policy and procedure uh uh just added budget managers thank you is there a motion to approve the second reading of policy 421 gifts to District personnel with proposed edits so so move by um director um Brooks and a second by director Douglas any discussion all in favor say I I I'll oppose say nay motion passes 6 to zero policy 443 policy 443 tutoring of students uh reference we referenced the Minnesota rle uh specifically and just clarified uh primary job duties uh is what we're focusing on and other minor changes okay I will make a motion to approve the second reading of policy 443 tutoring of students with proposed edits is there a second second second by director greedy um any discussion all in favor say I I I'll oppose say nay motion passes 6 to zero policy 435 qualification of licensed Personnel for this one you'll see that we focused on uh rather than trying to describe what fol would need just saying qualifications required to hold a licensed position thank you is there a motion to approve the second rating of policy 435 qualification of personnel with proposed edits so moved all right moved by director Prince is there a second second second by director Mitchell any discussion all in favor say I I I motion passes 6 to Z policy 448 Workers Compensation Insurance we are proposing repeal of the policy and procedure uh it's a one sentence statute that just says we will uh follow the statute related to workers compensation we have this information in our um employee handbook and would like folks to kind of be directed there this is the one sentence policy so absolutely thank you is there a motion to approve the repeal of policy 448 workers compensation so okay is there a second second second director Grady um any discussion all in favor say I I I'll oppose say nay motion passes 6 to zero policy 505 student cell phone and technology so for the cell phone policy we updated um sentence regarding encouraging students not to bring their cell phones or other electronic devices we included um the addition of smart watches and earbuds and airpods as examples of personal uh devices and then included that the school board directs the superintendent district Administration to establish rules and procedures um my update on the procedures is I have received and continually to reive some feedback um from our student groups and other staff groups um I have not been able to incorporate that yet into two uh procedures so that is what I will be doing over break and going back out to the same groups um last time mentioned DPAC and making sure like groups like that is included as well um still with the intention of making sure we hear that people see it uh and that there is time to ramp up to implementation for fall of 2025 with those procedures for that consistency across all schools thank you and just a reminder that we're voting on the policy and not the procedure that can always be amended by operation uh Administration is there a motion to approve the second reading of policy 505 student cell phone and Technology with proposed edits moved um motion by director Brooks is there a second second second by director Prince is there any discussion yes okay um I understand the concern about cell phones and there's a lot of reason to be concerned about them however I'm concerned that it's a one-sized policy that may not even serve the most um and I'm speaking from my experience as a mother of a student in middle school that was bullied by a teacher and students in their Middle School sixth grade year um they also needed headphones to block out the racism and the homophobia and the transphobia that they heard in in hallways um they let me know when food was being thrown at the table of gay kids in middle school um so we used that connection with a cell phone to get updates throughout the day to problem problem solve um the situations that were happening to support them in finding more help um it was a way of measuring and recording what was going on and um quite honestly that connection that we had throughout the day really helped them stay in school much longer than they would have otherwise and um the reason I'm voting no on this is because I think parents have the right to keep that connection throughout the day with their young children so that they know that their child is safe and supported in school thank you any other discussion yeah so while we don't pass the procedures we do discuss them pretty extensively in the policy committee and um I really appreciate how much feedback has already gone into the process is continuing to go into the process I was hopeful that we could be able to get these procedures rolled out yet this year because there's such a high demand for them and we're seeing um the success and I want to be able to see that success that we're seeing in the schools that have implemented it in all of our other schools so that it that um we can have that benefit everywhere and I know that um there'll still be opportunity for each site to um make some choices before the end of this school year too so um I appreciate it that going to the Committees for input I think that's really important on policy work to have deac and to have um as much uh voice from parents and Community stakeholders as possible and and the um educator community and administrators as well so I feel like this has been really solid excellent work uh led by um uh led by general counsel so I appreciate that and um for uh for clarity there the procedures allow um a lot of uh opportunity still for communication uh on devices outside of the classroom so um there is that flexibility um so I think the procedures um in and they do differentiate by different uh level as well so I'm looking forward to when the public can see those procedures to ensure they've got accurate uh information about this policy anything else okay um all in favor say I I all oppose say nay nay motion passes 5 to one policy 512 schools sponsored student Publications and activities uh so this is in response to legislation requiring districts to have a policy regarding uh students rights to free speech when they are producing School sponsored uh Publications and activities uh provides uh definitions on what that means and guidelines for what those rights are but also still the responsibility um of the school staff to make sure that um it's being handled responsibly thank you m is there a motion to approve the second reading of new policy 512 schools to sponsored student Publications and activities second motion by director Brooks and I will second it is there any discussion sure um I'll uh add some discussion this is uh another this is a new policy but I really uh like in this particular policy um especially because it's pertaining to free speech um and the um and materials in our buildings so I do think that this has done a fantastic job of being really clear under the guidelines um particularly um in spelling out the meaning and definitions of things um so uh for example obscenity um um being def being defamatory profane or harassing so um in maximizing the opportunity of free speech of materials this still um has really nice clear guidelines when we have strong guidelines it actually maximizes the opportunity for everybody to participate fairly and understand um what the parameters are um so there's not confusion um and it provides uh really great transparency so I really appreciate the work um again uh led by General councel in getting input from others on this one thank you any other discussion all in favor say I I I'll motion passes 6 to Z the next action item is policy 652 instructional material section and re-evaluation appeal under policy and procedure 652 when there is an appeal to the board related to a challenge of a book in one of our district media centers the board considers the merits of the appeal this means the board would board will consider whether the district level committee's decision to maintain the book was reasonable and in appropriate as part of our work to do this board members received a copy of the book to read and review and information from the district level committee which has been summarized and posted with tonight's agenda now I'll turn it over to General councel Moore thank you um I will provide a short summary and then uh Julie Smith has asked to speak for five minutes uh but not take questions um so the um Challenger Julie Smith uh is appealing this um and the board pursuant to uh policy and procedure will consider the appeal based on the merits of that appeal um the board will consider whether the district level committee's decision to maintain the book was reasonable and appropriate um since our last appeal we have finalized updates to both the policy and procedures um this challenge had started prior to those changes during those changes and now after the changes um so as you've heard some of the process has not been uh perfect um we are still kind of refining and reflecting on how it's operating I will actually be meeting with some members of the community you heard from tonight on Thursday um as well as other folks that I get emails from so taking that all in trying to make the process um as best as we can uh but tonight you're just focusing on the book and the merits of that appeal um you have received uh all the documentation that's been published um our policy has you know the uh guidelines for what is you know the standard of what we're looking at you know that it supports a book supports and enriches the curriculum meets high standards in literacy artistic and aesthetic quality it's appropriate to the subject area for the age emotional development and ability level learning styles social emotional and intellectual intellectual development of students incorporates accurate and authentic factual content exhibits High degree of potential user appeal and interest represents differing viewpoints on controversial issues provides a Global Perspective and promotes diversity demonstrates physical format appearance and durability intended for the use um you know students has do have a First Amendment right uh to a have access to materials uh in our libraries that uh follow those guidelines so at this time Julie if you'd like to go up to the podium so a quick question before I start am I able to respond to being called out earlier or not we ask that you focus on the book and the merits of the appeal okay well then I'll just state that I did in fact read the book so hold just St with that and then I did um I had Sherry distribute some handouts so you guys could understand why I feel the way I do and then there was one parent who wrote something but was not able to speak tonight so that letter is there as well so if you give those a glance it'd be great okay okay my challenge of The Bluest Eye one of the most challenged books in history is on the grounds of the book being violent sexually explicit vulgar obscene and containing Gra language it violates policy 652 and is harmful to miners well I recognize that The Bluest Eye is written by a critically acclaimed author and many believe this book has an extremely high amount of literary merit the fact is the book is not appropriate for miners it is extremely sexually explicit it details violent incest normalizes pedophilia and blames children in abuse cases it contains at least 28 obscene sections and is better suited for the college level not in a high school like Library where about 96% of the students are minors words have power and could cause damage and irreparable harm sorry page 149 perola lost her balance and was about to caring to the floor charie raised his hand to her hips to save her from falling he put his head down and nibbled at the back of her leg his mouth trembled at the firm sweetness of the flesh he closed his eyes letting his fingers dig deep into her waist the rigidness of her shocked body The Silence of her stunned throat was better than Pauline's easy laughter had been the confused mixture of his memories of Pauline and doing the Wild and forbidden thing excited him and a bolt of Desire ran down his genitals giving it l and softening the lips of his anus surrounding all of this lust was a border of politeness he wanted to F her tenderly but the tenderness would not hold the tightness of her vagina was more than he could bear his soul seemed to slip down to his guts and fly out into her and the gigantic thrust he made into her then provoked the only sound she made a hollow air in the back of her throat removing himself from her was so painful to him he cut it short and snatched his genitals out of the Dry Harbor of her vagina she appeared to have fainted charie stood up and could see only her grayish panties so sad and Limp around her ankles again the hatred mixed with tenderness so when the child regained Consciousness she was lying on the kitchen floor under a heavy quilt trying to connect the pain between her legs with the face of her mother looming over her this was the account of a little girl getting raped into unconsciousness by her father this is hard to read as adults how does the school expect our youth to process it in a way that aderes to our mission this book could easily trigger past trauma in the isolation of reading page 204 the Damage Done was total she spent her days her tendril sap green days walking up and down up and down her head jerking to the beat of the drummer so distant only she could hear elbows bent hands on shoulders she flailed her arms like a bird in an eternal grotesque feudal effort to fly Pro providing hope has been a prior argument for retaining the book perola not only gets raped by her dad she gets pregnant loses the baby her dad dies and she goes crazy no one helps there is no hope there are other books that present these heavy topics without the graphic scenes yet offer hope this book normalizes and decriminalizes pedophilia beastiality did not occur to him and sodomy was quite out of the question for he did not experience sustained directions and could not endure the thought of somebody else's his attentions therefore gradually settled on those humans whose bodies were least offensive children he further limited his interest to little girls they were usually manageable and frequently seductive his sexuality was anything but LD his patronage of little girls smacked of innocence and was associated in his mind with cleanliness page 181 do you know that when I touched their sturdy little tits and bit them just a little I felt I was being friendly I gave them mints money and they need I ice cream with their legs open while I played with them it was like a party and there wasn't nastiness there wasn't any filth and charie loved her I'm sure he did he at any rate was the one who loved her enough to touch her envelope her give something of himself to her the book victim blames anyway if she didn't love him she sure did let him do it to her a lot this book could easily harm an abused child to keep silent and not get to the deserved help that they need to endure long-term abuse we know our mission this book does not meet that standard what does this book offer that it got into our library literary merit should not be the only standard that trumps the protection of miners from obscene and harmful content this challenge is about one thing sexually explicit materials being offered to miners without parental knowledge I know The Bluest Eye and other books like it will not be removed so I'm asking the school to be transparent and responsible at what they offer our students a principal and others told me that if you want change to happen you have to come to the board so I want the school board to per form a committee to do the following identify and Implement a rubric system for library books to ensure the safety of our students label books that are rated for a mature audience only and inform parents or Guardians when those books are checked out both chairs of my previous book challenges and almost all of the board members have previously stated they would be in support of such a system to me I'm requesting the board votes to form a committee to form the system I and others here tonight discussed let's protect our children and Achieve our mission thank you for your time thank you um so at this point I am asking if there's a motion to reverse the decision of the district level committee so moved motion by director Mitchell is there a second I'll second there's a second uh by director Grady all right at this point we will entertain discussion yeah I'll go first and I spoke with um sector or general Council Mo to make sure that my comments um were legally appropriate but based on this policy I do not find the material in this book to be age appropriate especially when we're considering the high school can have 14y olds teenagers especially minors this book is not appropriate for the emotional development and the maturity level of all students again especially as young as 14 years old in all minors due to specifically I'm specifically focusing on the sexually graphic sexually violent content that was included incest rape and sex with minors any other discussion um sure I'm reading a statement on behalf of Cynthia Wilson the president of the Minneapolis NAACP and its membership they State their strong support of the decision by the oio school district instructional material re-evaluation committee to retain The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison in the Maple Grove Senior High Library this pivotal piece of historical literature offers critical insights into the effects of racism and Prejudice in society while serving as an essential part of our lation our nation's literary Heritage attempts to censor books like The Bluest Eye deny students the opportunity to learn and engage on issues from multiple perspectives when it comes to racial history in America such acts of denial perpetuate systemic INE qualities in education disproportionately impacting black students we commend the committee for prioritizing equity and inclusion and urge the oio school board to uphold its decision the NAACP remains committed to ensuring that all students have access to a well-rounded and inclusive education from diverse perspectives thank you any other discussion so this is really tough um I I think it's really important that when we deliberate that we are um we don't allow uh outside groups to participate or have Sway in the work that we do even if they are good or meaningful groups that's been a pattern that's been evident in this board prior to tonight um but we just passed a policy talking about the distribution of materials in our schools um that outlined uh pretty specific definitions about what obscenity to minors are um and objectively speaking those passages um would not meet that criteria that we just passed in another policy tonight however those particular parameters are not explicitly spelled out in our existing um policy regarding Library materials so that doesn't apply um in at this point in time the policy committee has continue to work um together to continue to evolve our policy um um to be fair and specific um and we have multiple elements of that including the literary literary elements um and and maturity levels and there those are actually at at odds in this book um at the same time it's been in our system for 20 years and for 20 years we've said that while we have these standards um this book um has remained in our system so it's really it's this is really um tough because we don't have the clarity of guidelines that we have looked at in in in in the very other instance this very evening that was passed by all board members um so uh this is just a tough one I really do think we need to keep working our policy regardless of the outcome tonight on the vote else um yeah so I'll I'll be quick um I feel like I've said um so many of these things in previous challenges but um I think context matters um particularly when you look at the uh story in its entirety uh the blui um and its entirety tackles ro road issues that may of us experienced from a young age um I'd say often unspoken uh but trying to navigate trauma um Injustice our identity and how we fit into this world um I'm fully aware that this book will not resonate with all um and acknowledge not everyone has as in- depth of a struggle of identity and selfworth um but this book reflects the lived experiences of uh so many of our students families and community members both in morison's time and today um acknowledging the challenges and Trauma one can experience in the real world either through non-fiction or fiction based on reality as part of one's Journey uh students in our schools are navigating questions about their value in society the impacts of beauty standards and the effects of trauma in their lives in communities um denying access to this book um and others like it risk minimizing the lived experiences some to prop up the experiences of others I'd like to Hope um that um as we strive for excellence in this District that we are teaching Scholars to think critically about the world around them um and a comprehend complex text Beyond focusing on um a handful of passages or sentences that um touch on topics that some would rather ignore um so for me I would will be voting to support um the committee's decision um but I do um as always um just want to um thank Julie for bringing this forward um and respecting the process and seeing it through so I just have one brief comment I would just encourage um Dr H and the staff in our district to really consider and evaluate um a rating system um to provide further transparency for books and um potentially limit the use of the book challenge process um by creating a greater depth of transparency [Music] um I guess I'm the last one to go here so um during my tenure as a board chair um we have allowed people to speak um on these topics and quote um other organizations um in a decision so I just want to say that the Precedence is there for that um I also um want to say that I read the entire thing I wish I had read it at an earlier age based on experiences that I had personally to know that I was not alone um and that um it was really a powerful book for me and um I know I'm not 17 or 16 or even 14 but I do know that at those ages I was reading uh books with um similar material and I was able to process it and I can't speak for everyone's children um but um that's why we need to um make sure that we figure out what's best for our each individual children I'm not against a um rating system I think it's fair um to think about that I also know that it takes a lot on the system to be able to develop something like that I will be uh voting um nay on reversing the district decision and I want to remind our board members as we do the roll call vote that an i means that you are reversing the district's decision and a nay means that you are keeping the district decision Sherry would you take the V director Brooks n director Douglas nay director Prince nay director moscada Jones nay director Mitchell I director Grady nay six nay and one I I'm sorry five tired multiplying right so with that the um District level committee um the decision of the district level committee stands the final action item is approval of the gifts to the district is there a motion to approve the gifts to The District in the amount of$ 55,56 and 48 cents so moved moved by director Douglas is there a second second second by director um Brooks um is there any discussion a big thank you from all of us um all in favor say I I I all oppos say nay motion passes 6 to Z at this time the board will take a brief recess and then reconvene in the Forum room for a closed session the session will be closed pursuant to Minnesota statute 13 d03 for labor negotiations with a aes's esps kid stop instructors RNs and LPNs and overall Financial parameters I would like to make a motion to Res recess the regular meeting for 10 minutes and then reconvene in the foreign room for a closed session is there a second second second by director Mitchells um all in favor say I I I I'll say n motion passes 6 to zero e