--------- All righty, we will continue on moving on to the proposed neighborhood school closure and facility consolidation recommendations. Uh Dr. Thomas and Director Powers, you may take it away.
And before we actually before we start, um just want to kind of get the lay of the land here. This is our first crack at this tonight, everybody. And um I would expect tonight to generate as many questions as does answers. Um I can certainly be sensitive to that fact that
the the district is entering kind of uncharted waters. We've been a growing school district for pretty much non-stop since 1952 when Greenwood School opened and um we've sometimes grown really fast,
sometimes not so fast. And so I I can appreciate how this is this is a kind of a shock to the system in Prior Lake Savage. Um the proposed uh um action date for this uh from administration is June 9th. And I'm going to recommend
that we we back that off into the July meeting to make sure that every question that could possibly be thought of between now and then has a chance to be answered and vetted. I don't want somebody, especially at the board table, to come up with a question on June 12th and have the action already have been been taken. So, um, I want to be
deliberate about this, make sure that everybody gets to weigh in and that administration has a chance to to, you know, properly vet the plan they're presenting before us as questions come in and um, things that maybe weren't thought of are brought to the table. So, I just want to kind of lay that
foundation moving forward and and um hopefully we can we can come to a reasonable conclusion here. Jess, uh Chair White, um thank you for saying that. Um the delay, it's the first time I'm hearing that. So, is that something that
is does that timeline is that okay? I I I don't want to rush this either. That's not my point in asking this, but I just I want to make sure timeline is such that and I would what I forgot to add was if a version of this ends up getting approved, if a a school ends up being
closed and and we're required to then redraw boundaries, um I wouldn't want to go past the July date because then at that point the process would begin for the redrawing of boundaries and um that's plenty of time for that work to begin and be concluded um in advance for
so parents parents will know well in advance of of of the following school year um where their their children will end up. So, I don't want to go past July 14th, but I think July 14th gives everyone plenty of time to do what needs to be done, assuming a version of this
proposal ends up being the one that we pass. Dr. Thomas, did you um Yeah, actually I was just going to um share a little context as well and uh I'll just kind of start with uh where Chair White
mentioned uh the July conversation. So I wanted to share with the board and our community. Um this is a very challenging conversation that uh we have to engage in. Um it's not one that I wish we even had to engage in, but nonetheless we're
we're here. Um, and there's multiple factors that have brought us to this conversation from kind of a flat enrollment, some of the state challenges and some of the local revenues. You know, it's it's a perfect combination of things that are leading us to this point. And I think one of our public
commenters um this evening also kind of alluded to it, kind of did a a good brush stroke of what this picture looks like, too. there's there's almost an inevitable situation ahead of us and it's not one that you can continually cut your way out of to to find a resolution and that's the challenge
right now. Um, director France, you had just mentioned um the special session that's going to be occurring on the 19 or that is likely going to occur because I think today was the the day. Um, we don't know what that will actually entail. Um but what we do know is that
there's not going to be any significant funding from any of the proposals that have been discussed um at the at the state capital. So so again I think the revenue stream um that we are trying to address here is a critical one. And uh
and then there's only so many reductions that we can make before we find ourselves kind of cutting so far into our infrastructure um that our ability to deliver quality, you know, really begins to, you know, get compromised and
um we had multiple uh conversations as to how we would want to best approach this. So we we shared a lot of this forecasting and what we may have to engage in as we went to our community with a levy proposal. Um tried to be very upfront with the types of
conversations that we may have to have um should uh we not get additional revenue um with that last referendum. And I also want to be very clear uh cuz you know we've we've gotten our share of emails about this and I just want to put
some conversations that might be swirling out in our community put it into perspective. So I want to first and foremost this conversation is by no means any type of way to retaliate against our community for expressing their perspectives at the ballot box. Um
you've heard me say countless times here at the dis um this is a democratic process by way of a vote and the votes were cast and the outcome is our outcome. Now we will live you know with that reality. So I want to be very clear about that. By no means um do do I uh
want to have this conversation um to punish or to have retribution because I think that's some of the swirl that's been out there. I think it's just the reality of where we're at and and I am going to share facts uh with with the community and with the board and uh and
try to be as direct as possible and I'm very mindful that these facts will elicit a variety of emotions. We have them as staff. I know our students and our families and our staff have those as well. So, um we can empathize with that
and so these are very sensitive topics that we are engaging in. So I'm mindful of how we bring the community along um our staff along etc so that they fully understand you know where we may you know take this conversation in the
future. Um this is all a proposed conversation. Um as an administrative team we do not expect us uh the board to um uh be a rubber stamp in in your levels of authority. We won't come to
this conversation with a blank slate and just start thinkalouds here at a work session. We're going to come to you with some vetted proposals and some recommendations and they're just that. They are recommendations at this time and these are proposals at this time. We
are not um seeking action at this time. And um to Chair White's point about the date, the initial date that we had set was just in context of of some natural sequencing that that currently exists um for how we do budgeting and how we do
staffing and scheduling and all of that. Um that would give ample time to uh you know whatever um conversations may um warrant action from the board should some semblance of this come forward. Um to Sher White's point, we wanted to have
ample time to engage around boundary studies and understand what does that um movement look like so that we can articulate what that would be for incoming families. And that has to be done. I would just say no later than
absolutely around the October time frame, which happens to also coincide with our um timeline to notify MDE of a an intent to close a building because families need to start registering. We start doing kindergarten roundup and all
that kind of stuff as well. So, so I anticipate that um for us to be able to go into July, that June initial conversation point that we had there had some timeline buffer built into that depending on where this would go. So,
that is something that we believe as an administrative team July would be manageable. Um, I think it would allow us to do um our due diligence around boundaries and still be releasing information in a timely manner to our
community. Um, and and and I would say that's probably the outset in terms of a timeline. um once we start getting later, you know, as we start up a school year in in August and all that goes into um opening up a new school year, um it
it becomes very heavy in terms of a load to to manage a lot of that. So, um that I think that's a reasonable request um that we could definitely honor as well. Um, and we had a variety of
conversations internally that led us to where we're at today. So, as the board and our community knows, for the past couple of years, we have been making sizable reductions in our budget. Um, between three and $4 million. And with
our forecast as we've shared and with the bianium at the state level forecasts um to be a5 to $6 million deficit um we know that um our pattern of reducing is something that's not going to change
anytime soon. Um, and I would be the first to say we will always be stewards of our resources, finding ways to be more efficient, finding ways to save additional resources when possible, where possible. Um, and as you've heard
on multiple occasions from our auditors each year, um, we run a very lean system and and so there's not a lot of wiggle room in terms of how much kind of extra or fat is in the system that we can continually trim. Um, and I've
metaphorically talked about we are we are hitting bone and muscle and and that is something that's very real. And um, and I'm not saying that to to scare the community or anything. I'm really just trying to bring the perspective that exists. This is the reality before us
and it has been building this way for um uh several years. And those of you who have been here prior to to me coming, we forecasted this as well. And this is not to blame anyone from the past or you know things of that nature. Just where we're at. This is where we are. how we
move forward um is to find ways that we can tighten things up and we know that's going to be impactful. Um part of our conversation during our our levy campaign was um the the need that we would have to talk about the possible closure of one of our campuses. And as
we looked at that conversation, um you know, there's not a campus anybody wants to close. Uh our schools are great. People love our schools. Our families love our schools. for our kids. Um we as staff and and so we understand that and we have to find some way for
the 26 27th school year to make an additional roughly $4 million in reductions. And I'll tell you we we are taking significant reductions next year in terms of programming and what that experience will be in Prior Lake Savage
area schools. um in terms of what support looks like for our students, what support looks like for our staff, etc. Um we've talked about class sizes. Um all of those are very re real factors as a result of the cuts that we had to make for the 20 that we are proposing to
make for the 2526 school year. Um the subsequent year, I don't know where we're going to find an additional $4 million of again program and service reductions. there's just not that um
amount in our system before we really lose the integrity of what we're trying to do um in support of our students every single day. And um so part of what we've been looking at are are there ways that we can um look at our building
spaces in our buildings themselves to find ways to offset the type of financial reductions we have to make to pull as much away from the program and services reductions and put that more onto our structural structural reductions which is something that I said all along the campaign trail as
well. I'm trying to uh kind of forecast what we would do. you know, we kind of chunked it out into, you know, a a an immediate last December, a midterm last February, and our long-term is the 26 27. So those are kind of like the three phases of our of our reductions that we
could forecast as we're going through this bianium. Um and so for us, we looked at a variety of schools starting with our older campuses in in the district and through our own uh internal analysis as well as
getting some external perspective and and uh um estimates on things uh we've landed on the conversation that we're bringing forward to you today. So there were a variety of scenarios that we looked at um probably about four in total and you are seeing kind of a
three-legged stoolled approach to what we believe would be a good structural balance to where we can find ways to save the resources for the 26 27 year and having uh minimal impact um or less impact on our program and services as we
are doing for the 2526 school year. So, a lot of thought, a lot of painstaking thought um with many folks and uh and there's not going to be a proposal that folks are going to be overjoyed with because all of them are impactful. Um
but we are going to make the best decision um given the resources that we have to address moving forward um with what we understand today. Um, Director Johnson, I and I'll kind of close with this and I'll turn it over to you, Director Powers. Um, you know, you were
talking you were as you had asked a question about um, uh, the the difference in the forecast to the actuals and, you know, why was it far off or whatever. Um, and and again, what we are looking at today,
and I think this kind of gets to answering your question, we have no idea what's going to happen in the legislature, but what we're living today um is a direct result of some of the significant under or unfunded mandates that came in the last session that we
did not know would be a part of our forecast. Um, and so we're living that. Um, so that's that's a big piece of that puzzle that when we made the forecast then we were in session, but we did not know where some of these bills may come
across and and many of them hit um with a pretty heavy price tag on on school systems. um as we for forecast, you know, moving forward, we don't anticipate because there's been a lot of lobbying um to halt the types of uh
under or unfunded mandates that came out of the last session. So, we're feeling better there. But again, what we're suggesting is that we're forecasting it. Okay? Just like we we might forecast rain and so we turn our sprinkler system
off and then the rain doesn't come or we don't expect rain and so we turn our sprinkler system on and the very next morning we get or tonight we get 3 in that dumps down on us. You know forecasts are pretty volatile um and uh you know we we live in a climate that we can kind of trust the forecast and know
the climate but not everything will be 100%. And so today what we're sharing with you, this is what we believe given the data and the information that we are using in terms of enrollment financials, our kind of real estate footprint and
the types of reductions we anticipate we'll have to make um that we believe that we'll arrive at that number um in the best possible way. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Powers um to walk us through
um some of the conversations that we've been having. Thank you, Superintendent Thomas, um Chair White, members of the board. This is going to be a lot of stuff I'm going to be throwing at you. My hope is that we can wait the questions at the very end. Um because some of the questions you're going to
have are going to be answered on the succeeding slides. We talked a little bit about, we've been talking a lot about this. This isn't um new. State funding hasn't kept pace with inflation. Um Dr. Thomas mentioned many
unfunded or underfunded mandates, slower enrollment growth, um declining statewide birth rates. Um this we're not the only district that's struggling with this exact situation. and the referendums. If the referendums
would have passed, we probably could have skated along. They didn't. And this is one way that we can correct that um to properly utilize the spaces we've got and be fiscally responsible with the amount of money that we do get. Talked a little bit about this some
of the cuts we've done in previous years. Current cycle 2425 4 million. next year 4 million 4.1 um these are the cuts that we're talking about for 2627 is this consolidation now before I jump to the
next slide um I'm going to reference a few of the criteria that we were looking at um when we were looking at locations on which one to recommend um in all honesty I didn't look at anything that was built prior than 1990
we've got three buildings that are older Um, there's a lot of things about those buildings that are still great, but they just they aren't newer. The newer buildings are bigger. The newer buildings are slightly better. The things that we put into those buildings
are updated. Um, it's they're just better buildings. So, I only looked at three buildings in particular. Five Hawks, Grainwood, and Westwood. Two of those locations are in the center of the district. One of them is not.
the reboundary around five hawks would create slightly more headaches. It could be done. Um but one of the reasons that I I did not look at and my recommendation to stay away from five hawks for using it for other things u was
honestly the remodeling cost to use any of that space for something else. um for me to remodel that space, to add in walls, to make it secure, to add in things like a boardroom or add in offices. Um that's an open building.
There aren't really walls. That was the way it was designed. Those are temporary walls in there right now. And they serve a great function as a school, but as an office, it's it's a nightmare to remodel. So those are the reasons that I took five hawks off of the conversation
at that point. So then we're looking at the two schools in the center of the district. We're looking at Greenwood and we're looking at Westwood. Now I initially did not consider Greenwood because we have the Spanish immersion program there. And my initial thought was, well, we're not canceling the
program. So I didn't think of closing that particular location. We did come up with an alternative, which is what we're going to propose tonight. So, as we're looking at all of these locations and as all these different factors were coming
in, we realized that there was an obvious choice of Westwood as the one that we would close to being a neighborhood school. It didn't have the Spanish immersion. It's centrally located. It's somewhere easier to reboundry around. We talked a lot about moving old
Delago to Westwood. The Spanish immersion program is one of the things that's a one of our bigger draws in the district. We have a over a hundred students that open enroll specifically for that program. Honestly, I'd like to increase those numbers and I think we can if we
include more prek services and a couple other things. I think that program can grow and Westwood is a location that we can accommodate that growth. One of the things that I recommended early in this process that because of
this I went through the problems in Burnsville. Um in Burnsville we had to close three schools. Those three schools have sat empty for more than five years. Empty. They've been trying to sell two of them
for that entire time. They just now got one of them sold. So for five years those schools have been sitting empty. they've been decaying. Mothballing a school is one of the worst things that you can do. And if you're trying to sell it,
it's not an easy process. So, as I was looking at all of these things, I'm like, okay, how can I best utilize this space if we're not looking at selling a location? Believe me, that is one of the options that we I can discuss, but it's not a recommendation that I would bring
forward. How can I best utilize this space to expand a program if we have a chance to so we can bring in more students or to best serve our community? And one of those things is honestly selling this
building. This building, it's a commercial building. Um it's it's more the the ability to sell this is much higher than it is the ability to sell a school. And honestly I can show you the numbers
selling a school. We could um we get about 40% of the value if we restricted who could buy it. If we said okay I don't want to sell it to another school. We don't want competition to come into the district and buy it and start up a charter school that are going to take more of our students away.
So if we did that, we'd lose 40% of the value of that building right away. So as we're looking at it, this is the most viable option to let go of and realize the the value of this building in our current budget.
Now, the challenge with the the sale of this property is we're there are things that we can spend that money on and there are things we can't. we can spend it on capital expenditures which would help us in other ways in the budget. We wouldn't have to allocate those other capital
monies because this would be helping us to do that. And that's one of the things that I think is a it's a really good potential thing that could help us for many cycles down the road as we're looking at ex moving the district office over to Greenwood.
Currently, community ed is located at Grawood. There are services that they could expand over there. We can colllocate some of the things um front office wise so that we can have we can share resources better with
community and the district office in one location. Um there are things that we have for our special education department um that we could also expand in that location because we would have some space to do it. So all of those types of things were what I was looking
at when I came up to my recommendation at Grawood. One of the other things that I was looking at on the difference between Grawood and Westwood was there again the cost to remodel it. Westwood, the style of building it is with
the HVAC system we've put into it and a lot of other things. It's designed for larger spaces, classrooms. In order to cut up those classrooms and make offices in that space without significant changes, three out of the
four people in that space are going to be freezing or boiling all the time. They will never be comfortable because the heating and air conditioning system is built on the outside wall and it to adapt it to anything else would cost us a lot of money. So that was one of the
reasons that I did not really want to use Westwood as a location for us to locate services. We could and we could live with it. But the preference grainwood is a situation or a location that I can adapt more easily to those
other services. I mentioned a little bit of this. We've got the declining state birth rates. Um on average, we're losing about 50 students a year. If we use this alignment, we'll be able
the the schools themselves um we'll be using them a little bit more efficiently. We can talk a lot about the programming side of this, but um after conversing with Dr. Edwards and many of the people on the academic side, that's
not my world. Um I have to listen to what they're telling me. Our the best situation is four section grades. There are a lot of our locations where we have three section grades. Um, having a four section grade makes it better for them.
The resources that they're spending are spent and used more efficiently. And that's part of the things that we can look at when we're getting that efficiency when we close a school. Capacity in the schools right
now we're sitting at about 70% capacity for our our number. I can show there's another slide in here that's going to show you where those capacities are per building and what our projected enrollments are. Um, but right now we're sitting at about
70%. We're not utilizing our spaces expansion opportunities at for Lola Delago at Westwood. I mentioned those a little bit earlier. Part of the cost savings that we're looking at um with
this in all honesty comes from me being a contractor for 20 years. I'm probably going to be the one that's going to be guiding the crews to help us so we can remodel that space to try and keep our expenses down and not having contractors come in there. Um I'm probably going to be the one swinging a hammer. So, I'll
be helping um when we get to that point to make sure that we're getting it done correctly and to help us make sure we're saving money. And my staff will be the people that are going to be relocating these res the teachers and whatever they're they need per building. Um my staff will be the ones that are
relocating all of that stuff. Talked a little bit about some of these things. Um, Westwood is projected to have the lowest enrollment for one of our neighborhood schools. And honestly, if we're looking to maximize the money that we have coming
in, um, this is a something that I think uh, we need to do. And I mentioned a little bit about, uh, closing and selling the district office. The intent is not to give the district
admin a a palatial place to go and have offices at. It's to reduce our buildings. Um, if we can sell this one without affecting the kids, I mean, if we're closing a school there, again, it's not sitting open. So, I can relocate the staff that are here
and effectively use another location in some way. Some of these efficiencies will be cutting staff. Um, Director Herman can talk a little bit more about these things, but when we
close the school, we're eliminating a principal position. We're eliminating the custodians that are at that location. We're eliminating the nutrition staff. Um that was one of the reasons that was another small reason um of looking at closing Westwood versus closing
Greenwood. Westwood we've got the early childhood we've got the prek we're already using the nutrition services there. If we just closed part of that we'd still need to staff the nutrition in that location. moving everyone from Lola Lelago over to
Westwood means that this the nutrition staff that may have been at that location. Um those are part of the ones that we would end up letting go or not filling those positions. I in all honesty we have attrition that's reshuffling people around all the time. So these aren't necessarily people that
will be let go at that moment but um those are prepositions that will go away. The only unknown in that is going to be how um like I mentioned, director Herman can talk about how the the teaching staff we would um there's a lot of staff
that would be touched in different ways. As we're looking at some of the costs and what we would get out of that, um I mentioned that my staff will be the ones that'll be moving everyone. We're planning on moving the Minaps group into the high school this summer. Um, if we
go forward with this recommendation, then my staff will be the ones that would move whatever staff need to relocate from Westwood and the staff that would be coming from Grawood and moving over to Westwood Lola Delo Group. Um, the remodeling costs, a good
chunk of those costs um are actually uh having to relocate the IT infrastructure. Now, some of those costs are for things like um the servers for our camera system, which are currently
failing. So, this is a cost that I'm going to have to come up with no matter what. It's just a case of where we install it. Um if they all of a sudden looked at failing this summer, I would have to try and find a way to replace those here and then relocate those to whatever location we would end up with
our IT department going to for that. Estimated sale of the district office between two and a half to $3.5 million. One of the bonuses that we look at here, the lot immediately Rex next door is for sale. Once that work gets
out to the realators, the package deal would be pretty sweet for whoever wanted to come in. They could be able to pick up both sections. This is just breaking it down for the total year. Moving and remodeling expenses, staffing reductions, sale of
the DSC brings us to 3.875 million to 5.725. Transportation costs are unknown at this moment. We could save, we might not. Um, that'll we'll find out after we get done with the rebounding. Uh I suspect that it will be lower uh because we won't be moving the
students from the west side of Prior Lake over to Westwood. We'd be locating them most likely to Jeffers or to Glendale, the two closer locations in discussion. I mean, one of
the things that we would be looking at was how we're going to what space we would use for the school board to meet in. Um, we've got some things that we're talking about um, in that regards that I I'll be able to share more about that later on. We haven't talked to a few of the partners that we really would like
to yet. Um, but there is plenty of space at Grawood to build in a new area to do this. This is a little metrics that we used um, as we're looking at the options that we were talking about. closing low
Westwood, not selling the DSC. Um, it really it missed a lot of things. Um, it's not creating any more building efficiencies really closing Westwood, moving DSC to Westwood.
Um, that was definitely something I initially thought of. But there again, the remodeling cost to make a comfortable space for offices much much higher. Moving the district office to Greenwood pretty much checked all the boxes we were looking
at. As we were looking at uh Dr. Edwards did uh a capacity study this spring. One of the things we were looking at was how many sections could we do of each grade level for kindergarten? It's pretty straightforward. We've pretty much have
a bathroom in every one of those classrooms or a bathroom immediately adjacent to it in the case of Greenwood. And then Dr. Dr. Edwards talked and with every one of the principles to work through what they felt would be a
real a realistic number of sections per school. Those uh numbers in there per classroom, those are the approved um numbers already that are going to be implemented for this coming up school year. And then we're also looking at things
like spaces not included in for this um capacity issue of art, music, PE um media. There's small group spaces. Uh we did look at the large bedrooms and JP's also got u some
prek. These are the capacities versus the projected enrollment in the 2627 school year. We're sitting comfortably with all of those. And if we could continue to grow for a little bit and still be well within those numbers for um those
capacities. and we've talked to the we've been in conversations with both cities and we know there will be families moving into the district and continue to move in. There's new areas being built. Um I'm looking forward to being able to accommodate all of them that come
in. Talked a little bit about open enrollment. Um, we have 1420 students that come into the district, 867 that go out of the district for some reason. Not in there because we don't track them. I've heard Dr. Thomas talk a
little bit about this before is the kids that are homeschooled or the ones that might be in a private religious school. I mean, we have an idea of what those numbers are, but those aren't necessarily included in these numbers. As we're looking at next steps,
um the biggest thing we're going to be looking at is redoing those boundaries for the attendance. And that will honestly take us all of two, possibly three months to complete to make sure that we're doing it in a fair way. I could throw something together in two hours, but
it's not fair and it's not getting community input on any of that stuff or board board input. We need to make sure we make a decision so that we can inform the department of ed by October 15th, I believe, is the date that we found. And then we want to make sure
that we can get all the staffing assignments ready for that next school year because there will be changes. It changes to every school. If we moved ahead with this recommendation, um, first step would
be how we utilize the staff that are at Westwood currently and what locations they might end up going to because many of them would move the locations after they were relocated. Then we'd be looking at the Spanish
immersion program and moving that to Westwood. Once that was complete, um it would just depend on the sale approach for the district office. My staff will be working on making sure that the space over at
Grawood was ready to go for the staff coming in from here. And including in that is going to be the IT infrastructure that we're going to my staff obviously won't be doing that, but um we'll be bringing in some people to help us with that, too. All right. Now, questions. Before
we start, it was suggested to me and I think wisely that maybe we should break this up into little categories so we can kind of stay on each topic. So, if we could start out maybe with questions around the the DSC sale itself, the timing, the process, and keep our
questions just to that, and then we'll move on to maybe the the actual move out of this building and how what that would entail and then get into the to the relocation of students before we talk about um the boundaries. So, are there any questions around the
actual, you know, moving pieces around the sale of this building that anybody would have? Jess, thank you, Director Powers, for that. Um, it's always helpful, you can see the the deck, you know, in our in our board packet, but
it's always helpful to hear your presentation and hear all of the um context behind it. So, appreciate that a lot. Um, in terms of the DSC, so you answered one of my questions. I figured it was licensed um or zoned commercial,
so thank you for that. But do you know if there's So two questions even anecdotally, do you know if there's any interest in this building? You mentioned that the lot next to us I'm trying to get my bearings
this way. Yeah. The woods. Okay. Is also for sale now or will be for sale. It is currently for sale. Okay. Um, is there any interest even anecdotally just like, hey, I'd be interested in, you know, doing something with that building. And then is there
any kind of money that would need to, for lack of a better way to put it, stage it for sale, or would it literally be take it as is, sell it as is, we're not going to do anything to this building to make it
quote unquote more attractive? That's a very good question. Um I'll answer the reverse order. Um so my recommendation would be to whatever um commercial um realer that we discuss with um that
we go off of their recommendation on staging. I have found that their recommendations, they're the ones that sell these things. Their recommendation um is probably going to be correct. Whether that means leaving it with staff in it um so that they can see it as a
functioning building or whether it would be staging of some type. Um that's who I would definitely lean on for that type of a recommendation. Um as far as uh potential um people, no, it's the wider
community um really hasn't even it hasn't gotten into their awareness yet that this is something that could come up. And I specifically did not reach out to anyone to find out if there was going to be any interest um until we went through the
recommendations on this site. Um it just wouldn't have been it would have been a fruitless effort. Director Olstead, I'll just share some conversations I've had over the years with city leaders and I will tell you that they are wanting to attract more
commercial development in the city of Prior Lake. Um so I know there's an interest for this um uh as as a concept. I think our location um being approximate to the strip mall across the
street um and the access points for this building is a very attractive commercial property. It's not tucked away somewhere out remote. Um, and to Director P's uh point, um,
the the land, the woods land, wetland, um, whatever that direction is that way, um, that makes this kind of a property a little bit more attractive because when you look at that building site, um, I
think it truly is wetland. Um, for all we know, some of this portion looked a lot like that when this bowling alley was constructed or sorry, well, this was the bowling alley when that was um created. Um, but I think using this and
then maybe that as parking if it's a larger commercial entity um makes kind of that a good reciprocal sale. Um, that could uh work to the favor of how this gets competitively priced as well. So, those are some of my initial
conversations with some of our key leaders um over the years as and and some recent. Thank you. And the the dollar amount that you had in here uh toward the end, is that a dollar amount where you or we are saying we're going
to we want to sell it for this and we won't go below that or is that a number that Sarin Seron Properties gave you as I think you could get that for this building? Good question. So, oops, we've got an Just a second. Uh I think it's
director. Um, we have our board member. Oh, sure. Zooming in. Can you hear us, Lisa? We cannot hear her. Marcus is there. Oh, now she's gone. Uhoh. Now she's back. There we go. I think we can hear her.
Can you speak, Lisa? So, see if we can hear you. She can't hear us. Don't think I have her muted. She's working at it here. Lisa, can you hear me? Cannot
press one to connect your phone audio to your video. Okay. Can you hear me now? All right. We can hear her. Can you hear us? Yeah, now I can. I I I'm using my phone though to talk to you. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. Okay. Good. I think we're good. Just to
let you know, uh Dr. Powers has finished his presentation and we are currently um asking questions revolving around the sale of the DSC uh as the kind of point one and then we'll work our way down some of the other points that he brought
up. Okay, I will listen. Thank you. Marcus is working on something that might work a little better just in case end up with some feedback. Okay. All right. We'll continue as is with Lisa on her phone and um you had a question you were going to answer I
think regarding the potential price. Is that Oh, sorry. Yes. So Saron um I contacted um I have worked with them a lot and in uh Lakeville. So I just I reached out to them because I knew I could trust their evaluation. They were the ones that did an evaluation of both
this location and uh Grawood and Five Hawks for me. So it's their their numbers that they were estimating for the potential value of the building. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Jessica? Um yeah, just
around um the financials too. I I think you know it's helpful to have that valuation of the building, but um maybe separating out the one-time sale, which I understand can only be spent on capital expenditures versus the annual operating fees. So, can you shed any
light on like anything that comes out of general fund for operational expenses for this building, utilities? Like, do you know the total of that annually approximately or? Um, I don't have the numbers in front of me. If I'm remembering correctly, it's annual expenditures between 30 and
$50,000. And then the um LTFM obviously those items that we had planned would come off the plan, too. So that was like what 800 or something I think. Okay. And director Mason, I would just say to some of the conversations that we've
been having um around the capital expenditures again as as if this building were to be sold, it could be used for capital purposes only. And we could also go through and see any fund one that's being used to supplement our
capital cuz we sometimes have had curriculum as capital um coded in the past too. So what we would look at is ways to offset our fund one um so that we could actually realize that in terms of what we would project to have to
reduce. So that's that's the exercise that we would engage in. Anyone else? Charles, um, it's kind of a applies to both. So, you you mentioned
with this building closing and moving, there would be almost a a share of personnel between say maybe front office staff is what you suggested. Um, would there be
potential loss of personnel there as well? That's a good question and that's yet to be determined. Um, and and how we would we've just barely scratched the services surface of what we could do with a combination of community ed with
district office. Um, that was just one of the things that we realized that we could potentially do and then we could share expenses in that way. But we really hadn't dug into it more than that. Thank you,
Mary. Um, you know, years ago, we actually talked about selling this building during the 2016 2017 uh referendum time also. um and went through a little bit of this process and
uh you know and the same thing came up with the value of the land particularly at that time with the growth of the business businesses that were planning uh to happen around that time and potential the extension of downtown Prior Lake and all that. Um given the
economic times that we are in um and the uncertainty um my question is actually um if the board is in favor of making sure this building gets announced and put on the market as soon as possible.
Is that something we could peel off in June and actually vote just on that as we're getting the rest of where everything else moves fully discussed in July? Uh because by the time we go to bat in July and considering that staff
is out a lot during the summer, um I'm wondering if it wouldn't help us to get it on the market sooner than later. I know we're only buying a month, but a month during the summer in Minnesota is is quite valuable. I can't think that it wouldn't hurt. Um
it's just we're looking at a sale that wouldn't happen for another year or at least an occupancy that probably couldn't happen for another year. Um, so it really would depend on the commercial market, but getting the word out there I think would be a good first start and the sooner we can do that the better. Yeah. Yeah. That's my only concern is
that we're we're quite a bit ahead of the game here. We're talking about, you know, the the school year after next for for builders um builders on the scale that would do something with this. That's a good time frame. Yeah, that's not a bad thing. But it's definitely um
just getting the word out there so that they can start the preparation for their planning and talking with the city. That would be almost ideal because then they could start looking at purchasing and or at least getting the plans and getting a a letter of intent of some type um in
the fall. Um if we had a solution at that point, that would be a wonderful gift for the district. That's also they'd have to get their plans uh approved, certified. they may want mixed use instead of commercial if that were the case. Yeah. Because I the
city is you know obviously looking for expanded affordable housing and given the location also in the location near there there could be that potential possibility particularly with what the state does with the housing uh concerns that are going through right now. I just I just brought that up because it seems
like a natural thing to do and summer's the time they're going to want to see the property and the land if they're going to come by and do surveys and all that. Um my only concern with that is um if we were to vote on that and approve
the sale of the district office before we settled on the second half of the question. Um then we could end up potentially with a situation where we would have to scramble to find a place for the district services. And the biggest question mark is going to be IT
services. that IT infrastructure, depending on where it is, we're gonna have to pull new fiber optic cable to. Um, and that's that's quite a commitment um without um that extra decision of if we're
closing a school and which one we're closing. I understand that we could put a condition though that we wouldn't be vacating the building for some time on the contract, right? Um, and then the other question that I had is exactly about that is pulling the fiber, pulling everything over and the
ability if we transferred a lot of that over to Greenwood given the fact that Greenwood's in the middle of a um residential area. Is that um has that been thought about when we move those? Yeah, that's actually one of the things
that director Mark or Marcus and I have been talking about quite a lot is how we would move their services. Yeah. And that's a like I mentioned, that's a good chunk of our costs for the relocation. And but there's not a we don't know if there's any actual roadblocks to doing
that because of the residential areas, I guess, is my question. I'll call an expert. I know they already have some lines over there, but we're asking for a lot more. Chair White, Dr. Thomas, board directors, good evening. Marcus Mazo,
director of technology. We we're in we have been in contact with New Vera who provides our fiber and they've ensured that we have a 10 gig connection to that site. So, um yeah, we're we're already having those conversations on where the fiber runs would be and what because all
the fiber from all the sites terminates it goes to their central office and terminates here. Okay. So, we would have to terminate to somewhere else. Okay. So, we are in conversations with those companies and making sure that we would have that connectivity. Great. Thank
you. You're welcome. Any other questions surrounding the sale of this building and what it might entail? I'm I'm happy to see that. Oh, sorry, Lisa. I looked down at the wrong time. Go ahead. Here's the test if you
can hear me. Can you hear me? Yes, if we don't if we're all quiet, we can My gosh, as the thunder crashes above me. Okay. Um, so I just have a question. I really apologize for the delay. Um, and I hope I'm not asking a question that's already been asked. So, um, my,
um, my question is when you're thinking about moving DSC, um, I know one of the factors that you guys were considering is where do the board where where do we have a board meeting, right? And um one of the things that I learned recently in just talking
to some other districts is that some districts um partner with their cities like their city council. So whether it's Savage or Prior Lake or Credit River and they they they partner with them to have their board meetings at city hall which I thought was really a great an amazing
solution because it kind of takes it checks that box of we don't have to you know and I don't believe our meetings are timed with um Prior Lake. I know but I don't know about the other ones. So, I I just thought that was a really great solution and I wanted to share that with you as well. And if if we could Can you
hold that thought for just a second? We're because that's point two. So, we're almost there and we'll make that the first question. Not a problem. No, no, that's fine. That's fine. We're almost there. Um any other questions around the sale of the building? Um and
timing, anything like that? Um, I'm maybe not as optimistic about the price point. I I think it would be wise for us to think a clearance of maybe a couple million dollars would be something to to take forward. I'd like to be surprised to the good as opposed
to the bad. Um, so maybe that I don't know that just kind of popped into my head that maybe uh as I'm looking through this, I'm going to be a little negative on the sale price just in case we end up there. Um, but if there's nothing else,
um, we can move on to to Lisa's question regarding the, uh, moving into the to the actual move and what that would mean for everything that we do here, including um, a potential board space. I I did have one other question and I'm sorry, I just thought of it. Is that
okay? Yes. All right. Um, you had mentioned putting conditions on other schools, that sort of thing. uh like if we were to sell another school in part of the analysis. Um given the age of this building and the fact that it used to be a bowling alley and stuff like that, I
wouldn't I not sure I'd be optimistic about somebody taking it as is and actually using it. But if they did, would we put a condition on that to have it be for a specific use? Or could we do that or non-use or non-use, I should
say? Mhm. We we can um I don't the only use I could see this being put to would be a a early childhood or a prek type situation there. I mean it's a commercial building and we've struggled
with a lot of things in this location and it was used as that in the past. Um but we could put that type of restriction on it. I don't even know if that would make much of a difference for this particular building. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, forgot about that. And Dr.
Thomas, you were going to refer to question. Director Atinson, um just to your question, that is something that we have been discussing as a team. So, we're looking at both. What internally would we have to do? There's ample space to be able to easily um like a large multi-purpose room like this. We have
that. it would just be some of the internal IT work, but we are having conversations about um potential partners in our community, namely our cities as you've mentioned. Um and and yes, the caveat of how the timings of the meetings um that's one that's one
thing that we'd have to work through. Um and you know, would it be consistent or would we like rotate cities and that's that's another conversation that we're having as well. um just from an accessibility um that we kind of go the meeting comes to the community so to speak um and sometimes like when we did
our um engagement we took it around you know all the mun municipalities that we served I think that I think that'd be great um if yeah so thank you I'm glad to hear that other questions around the actual move
or how things would look I I do actually one question oh Sorry, I need to raise my hand. Um um there because we're selling a commercial building, we don't have to file anything with the state, right? Because it there it's only if we were to
sell it as far as timing wise, we wouldn't have to file anything with the state or would we? Director Atinson, no, we would not. And it has Well, how what spaces have you looked at um as far as a potential new boardroom? I know that at the end of
my first term, we had met at the lecture room at the high school for a number of years. Um, it was it was a newer, you know, the building was newer at that point. Um, geez, we've met in the libraries. We've met everywhere at different times, but on a permanent basis, I know that that that we have,
you know, we use the lecture hall at the high school um extensively over a long period of time. And I'm just wondering, are you looking at all spaces around the district or or or um you know, just trying to figure out how to do grainwood to make it work? Uh
what is the process you're going through? Because I don't necessarily think we need to um commit a bunch of dollars to a boardroom when we might have a space available already. Chair White, that is a conversation we've had. Um, and I
don't necessarily want to pinhole I'm jumping on top of Dr. Thomas, but I don't want to pinhole a location and um, there are enough feelings about us doing this. Um, but yes, it is a conversation we've had.
Um, the infrastructure to do board meetings to move it around would maybe make the quality of our production a little bit lower. Um but yeah, the one thing I would add uh Chair White is um
the the times in which we are living um demand a level of broadcasting and you know publications of of our of our meetings. And so that's something that we're taking into consideration. um without the kind of restrictions or
like the movement would have having a permanent space would be ideal from from that standpoint. I would also say this room in terms of how it's set up minus the uh your dis here. Um this is a room
that we heavily use as our main learning leaders for all of our principles, executive directors, etc. So, the type of technology that we would put into a a multi-purpose room, every district needs that kind of a space where you can host larger scale events, utilize multiple
screens, etc. for trainings. Um, obviously, this would, you know, this space could be leased out just like any of our school spaces. So, if a community organization or whatever wants to host something because they don't have a facility big enough, they could certainly use that. So, it's not just
for the board, but that's a that's a you are a partner that we're looking at to make sure that we have a space in a facility somewhere. And so, whether that's through any of our city partners or if it's something that we have, as I mentioned, we have two large spaces um
in um Westwood currently that could be retrofitted into a large similar kind of platform like we have today. All right. Thank you. Into Greenwood. Uh, yes. Sorry, Greenwood. Uh, Director Atinson.
Yes. Um, I'm just curious, um, have we done, have you guys done a costbenefit analysis of if you take the DSC and look at moving it into the high school, the middle school, or whatever other buildings that we have, wherever, you know, that kind of
thing. Have you done I would like to hear more about that analysis. Um, just because we've heard some push back about why are we Did we pick Greenwood? And I apologize if I missed that part of the presentation, but I'm really specifically referring to BC staff
moving into a building where we have students and staff currently versus into um uh their own separate administrative building. Sure. Thank you, Director Atinson. Um yeah, one of the areas that we initially explored um was actually
the high school and the space that we were looking at utilizing in the high school is now going to be occupied by Minaps because we can realize a greater savings um there in bringing our students back um into the high school, the Minaps program back into the high school. Um what was shared earlier too
is that um our move from the the current DSC to a different location namely colllocating in a school space was to offset the projected reductions of about $4 million that we would have to make
for that 2627 school year. So selling a school to potentially allow, you know, a a charter or something to buy that and then come in and pull even more kids from us wasn't something that we wanted to do. We wanted if we're going to sell something, we wanted to sell this
commercial space. Um because should we ever need um additional school space um it's it's much easier for us to find commercial space for central services staff than it would be to build a new school for example to the tune of 35 $40
million minimum. So we don't have the capacity um within any of our current locations um kind of in small chunks. um uh I mean we we have capacity I'm sorry across a variety of buildings in small
chunks um not in one central location for centralized support and so to kind of split up the central services um you know a divi a department here a department here and a department there would be highly inefficient and when
families are coming into our central office it's usually for multiple services and then we would have families now running to three or four different campuses to get services service needs met. So centralizing the support services for our our our community and ultimately our
schools is something that um was the bigger priority because we would lose uh money in efficiency and lose customer service value. and um our ability to look at um uh Greenwood as a potential
campus is that um the Westwood building as it's currently constructed has a lot of structural limitations to how we could um manipulate that space into colllocating commercial kind of central
office services along with a school program compared to Greenwood. Um and so Greenwood's um footprint as well as structure is more conducive to putting up um uh temporary supports for um
central office services um and then relocating that program into the current Westwood which what was shared earlier is that it has a high demand of out of district enrollment serving almost like a magnet school deacto magnet school. We would also now have room in that
building to grow and attract even more um enrollment into that program, which obviously enrollment is our bigger our our biggest uh challenge right now. um while also maintaining our ability to colllocate in uh the current Greenwood
to enhance and expand community education as well as we are looking at the expansion or kind of the bringing back of some of our sped programming that we might currently um commission out with our partnership with 280 not 287 Southwest Metro. Um, so I think we
could gain better student support and efficiencies and possibly some cost savings um by doing that as well. So that's why we landed at Greenwood versus um any other campuses. And the only other single spot like I said was the high school which is now going to be um
our mins. I would thank you for that. I just add what about Edgewood? Because when I look at capacity maybe I'm not fully understanding. Sorry understand Edgewood capacity but um
Edgewood looks like it has a lot of room in it for capacity. Um so I was just curious if you can help me understand the Edgewood like as far as capacity. I can answer some of that. Um right now
currently at Edgeweb we've got 200 prek and about 70 um ECF. That numbers vary. They can be as high as 600 total students or kiddos or
at the current level it is about 270ish. Um, so if we're looking at total capacity of that space, I'd say we're probably sitting at about 70% capacity um as we stand right now. Uh, so really it there again we could they've
been not at that location um before. We could split it all around the district. I just wouldn't recommend it because I think we're serving our families better by having that at one location and at Edgewood. Can can I just kind of piggyback off that question? So, the staff in this
building that we're recloating, the number is like 55ish, correct? Is that about right? I just want to make sure I'm clear. That ballpark. Yeah. 55. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I had the same question. We have like a number of buildings that have a lot of capacity
based on last year's financial statement. Edgewood, the high school, the middle schools. Um, you know, I guess my question is, is there any reason why we like absolutely cannot move DSSE staff to another building as
far as like infrastructure or um any just like general reasons like limitations of why they couldn't go into a particular building other than space of course. Um, Director Mason, I guess my question would be in that scenario, are we
looking at closing a school? So, I don't know if we're getting here, but yes, I would be in favor of selling a school personally. Like, I I think that, you know, looking at capacity numbers, we have space for 2,300 students right now and um I think
1,300ish in our elementary schools alone. So, and personally when I look at numbers like by not selling um one of our elementary schools, we're going to be sitting right back at this table in a year making this decision again. We're
not saving enough money. Um we're not, you know, we're keeping a a elementary school open, still paying operating fees and everything else that comes along with keeping a building open um you know, for 56 staff members. like that that doesn't make sense to me and I
don't I don't think we've seen any projections anywhere that shows that we would be growing enough in the next in the foreseeable future to ever fill our elementary schools again. Yeah. And I want to be clear um we're not looking at
a space just for 56 or so um central office staff. We're looking at colllocating services of multiple programs within that campus that we're talking about as well as bringing some programming back. So, it's it's not just
for our staff, right? Um so, we're creating a greater efficiency um as well as potentially bringing some of our um programming that's going out of district um to come back in district and saving on some potential contract costs. So, it
it's Yeah. I just want to make that point. It's not just for the people here. It is about expansion and enhancements of current programming in that current location as well. And we couldn't you couldn't do that in other looking at numbers specifically. There
are space for all of these programs within our buildings. Plenty of space. Um I don't again I just we're going to be right back sitting here making this decision in one year if we don't do anything more right now. Uh, and Director Mason, I will I will share that
you're absolutely right and I think what you're alluding to speaks to a a broader state structural challenge. Um, there's a lot of things that we could be doing um for the 26 27th school year. But if
nothing changes in terms of a bigger conversation that we don't necessarily control at the local, yes, we will be here year after year after year. I would even say and we shared this during the levy campaign that where our operating
levy would go juxtaposed to some of the bigger conversations that are above the local level that the notion that levies carry you for 10 years um given the inflation and the costs and you know everything else they don't have that
longevity as they used to in the past and so I think there's there's two conversations here one is more legislative one is more local, but they they both need to be addressed. But I I guess still like I'm I guess you know even a local levy if we at some point
have a conversation about putting a local why would we go out to our community to levy the community to keep an elementary school building open that we don't have students to fill. Like that doesn't make sense to me. In fact, by the numbers we could close two elementary schools. I know that that's
not what we're asking to do, but um I just like for me that doesn't that's not fiscally responsible, right? We're keeping an elementary school building that we we have no plans to fill in any foreseeable future. Director Mason, if I can address part of that, um selling the
building would solve our budget issue for one season if we could sell it. If um like I mentioned in Burnsville, they've had two buildings for sale for five years or more. Um, I can part of the analysis that Saron Properties did
for me was sales, equivalent sales in the area and what they went for. Um, one of the schools in Burnsville had a potential sale for $3.5 million. That was all. It's an elementary the same
size as one of the ones we're looking at. That would get us one year. Understand? Again, there's operational costs, there's LTFM funding, there's other annual, that's what I'm talking about, the annual fees of keeping an elementary and additional building open
for um administrative staff. Right. That that to me is we're missing the mark. You Yes. Go ahead. I thought you're pointing at Cheryl. Sorry. Thank you. Um Director Mason, you had um mentioned the 20 We have capacity for
2300. you had shared that with me in a in a conversation last week as well. Um, and so I I was, you know, looking through board book trying to figure out where you were getting the $2,300 or the $2300 number. And were you getting that
out of this board book? The financial statement from last year. So, it's actually stale data. I think it's probably even more than that. And so I I met with Director Frederickson to just to try to understand um and the I believe the um the sheet you were
looking at and please Director Frederickson if I am misstating this um please help me out. Um but the the form um that you were looking at was um out of the
audit. It's out of last year's financials. Okay. Um and and it it's not a apples to apples this form with sharing all of where our capacity is at. Okay. So the the 2300 isn't actual. It's
it's more um I think there's a difference between like classrooms right available versus numbers and just capacity numbers. I'm just using capacity numbers. understand that we wouldn't really like on paper, you know, like this is on paper, right?
I get that. Um but yes, what our current difference it's I mean the 20 the that number um you know just when you make a statement that we have the capacity to close two elementary schools. Um I
mean there's just a lot more to it than that. And so to be fair, um I I just wanted to address um the 2,300 capacity and where that that Yeah.
I mean, if just for our community, it's in last year's financial statement. I assume the numbers are, you know, I asked if we could get an updated from for this year because even like if you look at 201718, we were over capacity numbers in students, right? I mean, not where we want to be, obviously, but um
yeah, I mean, just looking at, you know, we have capacity for 10,800 some odd students and we have 85 8,600. So, that's where the numbers came from. Okay. Do we have any more questions
around the move? I don't know if it's around the move. Well, we can move on. And if somebody wants to come back, that's fine. Move on to the process of of of re relocating the students. Um what what staff reductions that may may
entail? Any any questions around that? Um yes. So on the um obviously if we close Westwood and we reallocate the students to the various
classrooms uh around uh the district um and apparently we're having a thunderstorm here too. Um the um now we have we've we've already talked about um basically increasing the cap on class
sizes and that impact and one of my biggest concerns on that as we reallocate the students from Westwood is our increasing number of sped students and do we have the capacity uh to have that extra learning space at
each one of the other areas and how is that going to be impacted es and I want to include the fact that I think every district in the state of Minnesota has seen that percentage grow and I'm concerned about making sure that we're servicing all students. Thank you
Director Frans. I'll have Director Chuka um respond to that and also Director Chuka from another question that was a asked earlier um around current um centerbased programming and where students may or may not go. Could you speak to that as well? I certainly can.
Um, just to give you kind of a lay of where things are, our re there's there's two types of programming that we do in our district. Resource programming and that's kids that maybe gets a little bit of pull out here and there for for different things. Maybe some reading, some math, some social skills, but the majority of their day really is spent in
the general ed. That enrollment has pretty much stayed flat. Our I mean, we had an increase a couple years ago, but we've kind of stayed pretty steady. where our biggest growth is is in center-based programming. We have increased um just
between this year and or let's say 22 23 to now we had 39 kids compared to 65 at the elementary that require centerbased programming. So that's really where our biggest um growth has been and that's students
with significant or more significant cognitive disabilities, autism, those are our two biggest growing areas right now. Uh we currently have life skills programs, what we call that, that's for more of our cognitively disabled students at Westwood, Red Tail Ridge, Glendale, and Jeff Pond. Um and then our
um communication and interaction kind of disorder um centerbased programming is at Hamilton Ridge and then we have a behavior program at Five Hawks. So this would displace a center-based life skills program. Um and right now all of
our life skills well if I right now it doesn't matter what it is this year. Next year all of them will be at like 16 or 17 students. So we will find what that will look like. I don't think I'm going to be able to answer that until we decide, is that
school closing? What is the reboundering look like? It could look like I just make the programs and those other three bigger or it could be I I take a program and and just move it to another building. I think all of those things would fall into place once we we get
there. But um we have the capacity to do that and um obviously we'll do that with a lot of care, a lot of of thinking of of you know what groups need to stay together, what what can you know we do to continue to meet the needs of the kids. But um to answer the question of
can we do it? Yes. Um and we'll how that will look will depend. Does that answer the question? Um yes. I'm I'm also, you know, wondering if we're projecting out the growth of those programs as the move takes place uh to
make sure that we are not causing more disruption, particularly with students who do not handle disruption. Yep. Well, and I think that's one of the things and maybe um Director Mason, this goes to, you know, when you're saying, well, we have this capacity in these classrooms. It might be that special ed needs some of those classrooms, right? And that
can't be for 27, 30 kids. It might be for 10. So, I think we have to be careful too when you look at what's the overall capacity and how many classes can we cram in there because special ed is going to take up some space and that's not in those those numbers. But I we'll make it work. I I'm confident we
can do that. We we've we've looked at the different spaces and the number of classrooms and and we will we can going down one elementary school. We can do that. Okay. Um I had another question. And I'm not quite sure now is the time to bring it up because I know it's a little
controversial, but Sage Sage is also at Westwood and um I'm sure that's been discussed. I'm just not sure where it is with what we I'll let you answer that, but I know that Director Atinson had a question on special ed. And before I go sit back
down, did that answer all the special education questions? Lisa, sorry. Yeah, go ahead, Lisa. Yeah. No, thank you. That was helpful. I think, you know, some of the feedback we've already received is um these, you
know, the life skills program. Um, you know, is it possible to move it to Edgewood? So, you're literally just moving it from, you know, they're not really moving buildings. They're basically just walking down the hall. And, and I would also say my feedback goes to the Sage program as well. Um, you know, I think there's a lot of
advantages of having Sage in the same building as a Lola Galago school because you get a lot of that crossover of um, special talented and gifted students within the Spanish immersion program. So, I mean, I know Edgewood, I think from what I'm reading from the financial
reports, um, Edgewood has a lot of capacity in it. And so whether it's 70 or whatever the number is, um I I just think looking at keeping those kids as close to their um you know, not making dramatic moves for them would be
beneficial for them as well as like I said, you would fill some of that capacity within Edgewood. So just to repeat the question so I believe your question, director Axin, is it possible just to slide Sage over to Edgewood? I think she was talking about life skills
and life skills. So I'll I'll let others answer the sage question, but what I would say about life skills is then we are removing um all general education peers um from the students um that that are in life skills and and a lot of them spend some time in the general education classroom. So I wouldn't want to take
that. And a school is much more than a building, right? A school is a community and we want to make sure that the students continue to have community. So I I would I would not be in support of that. I I also we do have the legal requirement to make sure that they're in the least restrictive environment and
that is is how can we um maximize time with general education same age peers in special ed. So that's the special ed answer and and I would um and to to the two question to two directors that answer a similar question around Sage and there's some
similarities into that we want our students um who are u not only receiving sped support but also maybe gifted exceptional support to be with peers as well. And so that is something that we're currently looking at. Um, as you all know, with our proposed budget for
next year, we um ha we are looking at a a synergy type model for right now um to see how we can best support our students in their homebased schools and learning from what we what worked well in the past and what where there were some challenges so that we don't repeat that. And that's some conversations that we're
having with the team. But moving forward, um, you know, if this is a conversation moving forward, um, we would have to have a deeper, uh, uh, understanding of that, uh, remaining fifth grade cohort. And that's something that we would have to engage our families around and our staff around,
um, whether or not, um, what we've learned to date around um, kind of the resurgence of that um, across district support for for gifted and talented. um if that would be located into one singular campus or if that would be a
model that we would continue to um expand throughout the district. But that's that's what we're looking at currently. Um Director France, other questions around Oh, director Director Aerson, I have one other question. Sorry. Um I'm trying to lower
my hand as I talk. Okay. The other, you know, it's interesting that you say that, Dr. Thomas, because I look at like Minnetonka where they have their Spanish immersion program within each each grade school, right? And so when you talk about integrating students and not like
separating into their own school, u whether it be the life skills or the stage, I mean, have you thought about the possibility of doing more of a model where you have Spanish immersion in each of the elementary schools? And maybe that's just not simply possible, but but
I I thought it was an interesting idea as we continue to talk about integrating these students with other students. um in a in a school. So, I just wanted to just throw that out there. I've been thinking about Yep. Just going to repeat that back so that uh that it can be picked up. Um yes. Uh the question is,
have we considered or uh discussed whether or not we would keep Spanish immersion kind of in every school um in a similar fashion? We have not um looked at that as a potential model um to have Spanish immersion um within across
multiple campuses. um that model um the the difference in that model compared to your general community school program. It's a it's highly specialized and getting staffing um for that model is very challenging and and unique. Um and
it's also shown in terms of building that language uh rich community to having it in one location versus spreading out. we you you lose some of the richness of of the language acquisition when it's only in a small
pocket. And so, but to answer your question, we've not looked at that or explored that at this time. Okay. Are we ready to move on to any questions surrounding uh the timing and the uh how the changing the boundaries
would work? Jess, can I get a clarifying uh point? Yes, you may. Sorry. When it comes to I was busy writing, so I apologize if I missed something. Good intentions. Can you please repeat Dr.
Thomas the sage? So, you're saying that potentially and and it's not like you said, you want to, you know, talk to the families, talk to talk to the program, but what you could potentially be looking
at is across different schools instead of having everybody in one place. Right. So, so what I what we are currently looking at right now is kind of resurrecting a synergy type model. Yeah,
but not in its old form, but we know that there were some things that didn't work well with that. Um, but there were some things that did work well with that. And so, given what our our FTE, as you all know, next year for that third grade, that individual will be
recreating that model um of support throughout all of our elementary campuses um at the third grade. And what we're going to explore further is um how does that model grow and expand over the course of the year in our learnings to
suggest what would the long-term solution be? Um, so that's what we that's what I was alluding to. And as that progresses, what I was suggesting is that by the time we get to 2627, if this model is in effect, we would have that fifth grade um cohort
remaining. Um, that's going through our our program currently. And that's what I was just saying. Uh, tied back to a question a couple of directors were asking, I guess. um would we keep that last fifth grade, you know, within um
the Spanish immersion campus, if you will, or would that also get um uh redistributed in our synergy type programming? And that's to be determined. Okay. Thank you. And before we move on to Rogers, I did
have one one other question. Do we know um we're talking about the potential expansion of the Spanish version program uh with the additional space that would be that we'd gain by moving? Um do we know for a fact that that the brunt of
any potential growth would be coming from out of district? or would opening up this additional space in district encourage more of our own thereby offsetting any potential revenue increases that that we we may or may not
see. I'm just wondering is is the program the size it is because we're out of room in district or or is it you can kind of get where I'm I uh chair white I hear your question and it it's a little bit of a both end. So, uh, we do we know
that, uh, Lola is a de, uh, high demand program both within our our school district as well as outside of our school district. Um, and certainly we don't want to just reshuffle internally. Um so I think a conversation we would
want to have is you know do do we essentially look at that program as a magnet program um and adjust the parameters for that program so that we look at ways to protect pulling from our own and really recruiting from without
uh from outside and as I understand it and Dr. Edwards could maybe speak to this, but there was a point in time as it was shared with me that we did a lot more active outofd district um targeted recruiting for that program um initially, but that would be something
that we could discuss in terms of Yeah. And I would just pick up there and say that we also uh have added uh kindergarten sections when the demand was there uh with a vision to expand the program uh as recently as a couple of years ago. So this would uh allow us
that opportunity uh to continue that uh and expand as Dr. Thomas pointed out, not only within our existing uh families in within our community, but also uh to uh put forth an effort because when it first launched years ago, there was a
lot of effort to uh go and attract uh people to the to the community, but we have uh not put forth significant effort in that endeavor. And I would just add that um another conversation that we are having is is terms of uh grade ban and
would we look at prek um as well. We know that there is currently out there um in our community markets for um immersion at prek and so we have the ability to have that as another grade band that we currently don't have. Um
but to Dr. Frederick's point, two years ago, I think it was, is when we had to add that additional section because the demand was there. Um, and that was a mixture of both in and out of of district. I just want to make sure we as we move if we move forward with this and if this is where we end up, I don't want
to have us expect all this open enrollment influx and then half the kids come from inside the district, you know, and kind of defeat almost defeating the purpose. So the parameters would definitely I think actually on related to that because there used to be if there if you were over four sections
right 80 kids we would open up a weight list. Have we ever been on a wait list for a little or do we have four sections full this incoming year? Yeah we have had weight lists in the past and again that was uh just a few years ago a couple years ago when we were turning
families away. Okay. uh we said in in an effort to draw additional uh revenue through student enrollment, we did open that fifth uh section of kindergarten. So there's a five section. Director Atinson, thank you. Um when you say there's room
to expand Spanish immersion and make it more of a magnet um make, you know, become like more of a magnet idea. Does that also include like what are your thoughts on having the middle school kiddos being within the elementary building and having it be more like a K
through eight model versus just keeping it the current K through five because I know we've had some challenges um with supporting it in the middle school. So would that make sense then to have it if we have the space in that building? Thank you Director Atinson. So the question um that she's asking is uh have
we ever considered a K8 um model? Um so so a couple of things and there's been some historical research on this with you know a couple of our um Ivy institutions um K8 models um work in very specific um economic contexts and
and demographic contexts um and and specialty context. So that's what they have found. And to your question, uh, when you look at K8s, language immersion programs tend to do fairly well in a K8 model. Um, and the challenge I think for
us right now, um, one, I think we want to just make sure that we have a strong pipeline to populate because there's natural attrition that happens at middle school. When kids say, "Oh, all these elective choices and I think I want to do this instead of that." because of our current scheduling, they're kind of
forced to make some decisions. So, I think twofold, we need to get a greater bench of elementaryaries coming to feed, whether it's a K8 or a separate elementary and middle school, period. And that's what we're attempting to do with this conversation. Um, to your
point, um, there would also have to be some significant infrastructure changes to that building for a K8 cuz it's currently not conducive for middle schoolers. um in terms of its current setup and I think that would be cost
prohibitive right now given our financial situation. I mean just the toilets themselves, you know, um are just a little bit different at elementary. Okay, moving on to boundaries. Any questions surrounding boundaries? When?
How? Yes. Do you have the first question that um I I was fortunate enough to be on the boundary. I I wouldn't call it a committee, I guess, but just when the last time we did it, it was kind of a a
parent rep at Westwood, actually. Um and um it was it was quite the process, quite the education, quite the communication, all of the above, right? So um what would we be thinking in terms of
when that process would begin? Say, say, okay, we go to our July meeting and we make a decision. Um I'm throwing it out there just if it's July. Um, does it start the day after? I mean, what what would be kind of the process
of what's the plan? Sure. I'll start the I'll start the response and then Director Powers and team can jump in. And Director Atinson, just to also keep you uh up to speed. One of our initial conversations tonight was um uh
modifying the conversation to continue through July 14th um not June 9th. And so, um, we're looking at that as kind of our outset date. Um, and that is a good segue to the response to Director
Olstead's, um, question. Um, it, as you know, having been a a parent on that type of a work group or whatever it was called at that time, um, there's a lot of conversation that goes into making boundaries. And um for us, we want to
make sure so we've already been looking at our software pro with our software program ways to begin manipulating boundaries with geocoding and maps and things of that nature. So as director power said we could redistrict or we
reboundary the district within a few hours. Um so so the technology is there to do that. I think the bigger conversation is helping uh bring the community along in that conversation. I would also share feedback both that I've
received here from parents that were on said committee as well as my experience in other districts going through the same process. Unfortunately, um the challenge with those kind of work groups, for lack of a better term I'll call them, um nobody wants their
boundary changed. And so those become very inefficient ways to engage community on a decision that is too emotionally close to them being impartial to seeing the forest. Um so I
think um presenting some boundaries um for discussion is a better model of of I guess engaging if you will with some of the rationale similar to what we've done tonight. We've presented some data for
conversation for discussion. Um but to think of all of this live in the moment at the dis you don't do that. So, I just think that's a little a little misleading for parents that they would actually be able to say, "Yep, do mine." Not to say that there
aren't um families out there who understand that. Um but I think that's a challenge when we're in that space. So I would say if July 14th the board takes action on a uh this type of a proposal
um then we would be spending essentially July through September um at the latest maybe August so that um we could have some time to have some work sessions with the board around some
boundary scenarios um and kind of how we've appach approached it. Um the the different types of ways that we could draw boundaries. Um, and that still gives us ample time to meet that October deadline
both for MDE, but as well as our ability because I know um, Director Herman's team um, from HR is going to have to go through a very heavy lift um, as we also are doing some of the staffing
adjustments based upon said conversations that we're having. So um so yes to your question it would it's already started. We we've already we've already mocked up various different
boundaries with our software of the types of conversations that we're having tonight should any of these come true. So we have a starting point to open up a discussion, but we don't have to have a solidified redrawn
boundaries plan for MD. No, no. The only thing that we have to have ready for October is our intent to close the school program with MDE. Um, and and that's it. All the other decisions that
go into that, that's that's a local conversation. And that's not an MDE conversation. Mary, oh, sorry, Charleston. When should those be done? Yeah, I'm going to defer to Director Powers and Director Herman to just kind of speak to the the loads
that you both will be carrying um with this in terms of your ideal state as we kind of backmap. Yes. Yep. And that's what we ideal is the preferred answer. Not not the latest, not the earliest. The ideal director
Frederickson's group last time spent all of three months doing it. And I really I know it's so it it wasn't necessarily just my group. We had consultants that came in. So I don't want to yeah say that we're capable of
doing it. we had we worked with consultants on the software programs. So, um we can certainly assist with those again, but again, it wouldn't be my team that's making the decisions on what boundaries would look like. I ideally I'd like to have it done before
the end of summer because I want before the end of this summer with the boundary. Yeah. and my presentation, not necessarily the the the community involvement side of it. Like Dr. Thomas was mentioning, I want to make sure I've got a couple of viable
options to provide to the group so that we can say, "Here's what it could look like." A scenario, B scenario, C scenario. Um, I would like to get that done this summer. Boundaries, scenarios. Okay. ABC. Got it. Okay,
cool. Thank you, John. Dr. Johnson, sorry. Members of the board, um for for the HR side of things with staffing, it really is about back mapping between the May 1st, 2026 um target deadline for letting individuals know their tenative assignments. Typically, we start that
process in January. Um and that's with no major changes that are coming forward. Ideally, we would be able to start that in December, November time frame. So, we can really start looking at the known staffing that we have to make movements around those contracts
that are creating any sort of um bumping or reduction in force language. And then there's going to be the unknowns, and that's typically around your classrooms, your um special education staff. Where are they moving to, where those students go? Um how many sections are we reducing as a total district because of the move?
will know more of those really based off of the enrollment. So that is also why it's it's would be beneficial for us to know boundaries by the beginning of the school year or early fall of 2025 so that while we're going into enrollment for kindergarten, individual families
aren't delaying that enrollment because they want to know what what school am I enrolling to? What am what am I going to or open enrollments aren't delayed because of that same rationale. Um so for for me my deadline is still May 1st. It's just the process that it all the
factors that um impact that process creates a little bit more um parameters that we have to look through. It's that would be helpful if um families and staff knew boundaries prior to that so that we could move forward in that in that whole process starting in November, December. that could seek clarification
like early fall, October 1st to October 15th, early fall or September time frame. Director Johnson, members of the board, um, from my individual perspective, sometime in in October
would be beneficial. Okay. Um, but I would I would listen to all the different factors that are impacting that because it's this big huge puzzle that's happening. But um for me I I would assume that enrollment for kindergarten and open enroll families
and IDTs and all the others if they know by October, we should be able to then have that data in November, December to start our our planning for staffing moves from there. One more question. Yes, Director Frederick, sorry, Director Fred Frederickson, excuse me, I'm sorry.
Um enrollment starts October 1st, correct? The official October 1st enrollment is due at the state. That's the official date. You actually have until um I think January 10th to actually finalize it,
but it's they're counting the kids that are actually enrolled on October 1st, but knowing that some of those reports come in, they give you until the beginning of January to actually report them. But the October 1st is the official
Enrollment count. Open enrollment starts when open enrollment can be at any time. Okay. But I mean we uh we start doing the applications for open enrollment for the following year in order to plan for what director Herman just stated as well
as the layout of the school. So, we have to tell we not only have to tell kids about open enrollment, what school they may be in, but also we need to start letting families know as soon as possible what school they're going to be in. And we need to plan for
transportation uh and those costs and get those logistical routes done. So I I I I get the Septe August September scenarios, work through scenarios, have everything trickle into the decisions that have to
occur later on. That makes a lot of sense. And we also have the kindergarten enrollment that I believe is in Janu or December. Yeah. Yeah. So October. So going back to Director Johnson's um question just kind of
collectively midocctober um I would just say maybe end of September no later than probably second week in um October. So the latter two weeks of September to the first two weeks of October I believe is that sweet
spot window for a variety of factors. Director Powers would probably want something a little earlier for the his functions, but I think we could manage through that. Um, so if you just think about that as a target window, which is why we are trying to get this through as
some of the outset because we want to be able to start having some conversations about um what this will entail, but we can't do that and won't spend the time and resources in that until we know this is a direction that the board is authorizing us to go. So knowing that in
July gives us ample time to start building out these scenarios and bringing them forward and then having some discussions on that. So that because there's going to be an eb and flow to that as well in terms of perspectives. You know, we're going to hear from you all. We're going to hear from the community. There's going to be
some aha moments like, "Oh yeah, good point. We'd never thought about that." Or, "Yep, we we've assessed that and we can't do that for these reasons." So that gives us ample time to bring the community along to that final kind of decision window which I think meets a
variety of thresholds for our families as well as all of our internal uh needs. Other questions? Mary? Um I'm going to piggyback on what Director Olstead started to say about the boundary discussions where they were
educational. Um it was also meant about that time. It was also meant to kind of smooth over with the community. And um although they the district ended up in the exact same spot they had actually originally said they were going to be
in, um this time our our our goals are financial uh logistical and based upon um uh real estate property and geocoding and things like that. We we're not really I I wouldn't think that we would want to
spend the time and money to gra to gather community engagement for this. I I not sure it should change the outcome since we our primary goal here is like I said financial and and land. If land is up for sale in certain areas, we need to
consider that for the future and there's a lot of logistical decisions. Um, so I would not be in favor of having large and spending the money to have large community meetings for this. As much as I'm sure the community would want to have their input, I'm not quite sure
it's in our best interest to and cost and time to open that up. Dr. Mason. Yeah. One one more question. Um, when deciding boundaries, are we, and I'm not sure who this question is to, but um, are we working with the transportation company at all to see if
there's any impact uh, with trans transportation costs um, just general transportation and maybe even special ed transportation by like reboundering one way or another? That'll definitely be a part of the conversation once we get to that point. Okay. um when when I have
some scenarios to give to them, I'm already I've already started the conversation that they just need to know what our ideas are going to be for those boundaries and they can come up with the costs. Okay. And and as a Yeah, we'll just leave it there. Sure.
Have one last comment. Um kind of wrapping up, we've we've listened to a lot of information tonight and I appreciate hearing hearing it all. um kind of how you started out the conversation,
Chair White. I really appreciate the sensitivity to um uh not rushing, being able making sure that there's ample time for questions both with the board and the community. And I think um director
Ols, you asked, is that okay to move that up to July? And I think that's really my question for the district team um specifically is given all of the factors that we've
heard tonight between um HR and facilities um does delaying our vote to July um add to challenges in this process.
us. I don't think it would add any challenges that would prevent us from accomplishing what we're trying to accomplish. Again, our our June 9th um was our starting point given how we kind
of backmap things. Um and maybe the distinction between what's the ideal and what's the real. Um, I think the the the June date knowing that there's going to be hiccups, we we always build in that extra buffer. That's just how we operate
as a team. And and so if we get it done, and again, we weren't trying to rush any process. Um, Director France, I think, brings a good point. We're we've we've been talking about not the specifics, but we've been talking about the need to
have this conversation for the past seven months or so. And um now that we're getting to the kind of specifics of what will that actually entail, um I think that that's where we need to kind of now kind of hit the pause button a
little bit, get some let some of these um responses um sink in and get additional perspectives and thoughts um from folks at our input um at uh uh plsas.org. Um, and that's great and we're going to try to flip that forward
as well like we did through throughout the levy campaign. But I think if if the board took action on a type of plan in July, uh, Vice Chair Bolan, I think we'd be fine as a administrative team to still accomplish what we need to um, in
a way that would not feel rushed to us nor the community. Okay. If there's nothing further tonight, um I think we have some time for everybody to dig into this. Uh Director Atinson, you get the last board. Oh gosh, I don't want that. But
um I just have a question. Um I'm just wondering what the board can expect coming out of this. Are we going to see um some different scenarios? Um I know this was your proposal. So my question is is is it are you asking us for for
you for us to give you our proposals so you can go back and look at different scenarios. I know when we did the budget process, you were looking for guidance from the board for the budget and so I was assuming that that same thing would happen in this process is that you'd be
looking for some guidance from the board and I'm wondering if we'll see some different scenarios going into that um possibly that June meeting so that we can make some decisions based on um different scenarios. Director Atinson. Uh so the question is um would are we
seeking um guidance from the board? Um yes that's what our work sessions are for. So if there is something specific um about how we opened up the conversation today that you say Michael we would like to see you know this um
costed out or whatever it might be and that's the will of the entire board then that's what that's what we would do. Mason. Yeah I I was going to ask the same. Thank you, Lisa. Um, I mean, I think that um, we should get the will of the board and our thoughts on how to proceed and if I mean I'm just
reflecting obviously, you know, I've had students at Lola Lago and Westwood and I have family and friends there and so, you know, trying to not make this a personal decision. It has to be a data driven decision. Um, you know, but just looking at everything that was presented, I would really love to see
valuations on Greenwood, Westwood, and Fivehawks actually. Um, I know you mentioned we didn't really look at Five Hawks, but um, that was because of remodeling costs, right? So, if we were looking at closing potentially a school building and selling it, I would love to
um, factor in the valuations of those buildings and the operating costs that we would save by actually moving DSSE staff into an existing space. Um, I think that would really help inform my decision. I think you know just again
datadriven decisions and looking at capacity um we have a lot of capacity across our buildings and I think we can fit our staff into there's probably many options um and and actually you know looking at enrollment for kindergarten I
mean we were just presented with the number tonight and 20% of our kindergarten class is open enrolled right so not only do we have space but a lot of our space is being filled with students outside of of our district, right? There's just nothing,
unfortunately, in our um data that says that we would need an extra elementary building in any sort of foreseeable future. Um I think it's the responsible thing to do, especially if we are going to ask our community for levy dollars coming up. Um we shouldn't have empty
school buildings that we're keeping open. So, are you asking for evaluation of Yeah. on just options on moving DSSE into an existing space if we were to sell an elementary building. I would like to see those numbers. Um I think
that's an important um that's an important piece of this puzzle for me um to you know I think it's another piece that we have to explore and not just settle on moving um the staff into an
empty school building. So, I'm looking for consensus on taking uh having administration um get a evaluation not only on the buildings but on the costs to move to each you're talking about to each one they yeah I mean again
just some options where where else could we put DSC staff what other buildings um and if we were to sell an elementary what what what savings does that get us I think that's a piece of data we're missing kind of right it's helpful to have director France So, you're asking
to look at not only selling the DSSE, but also an elementary school. Correct. Yeah. To save on the operational expense. And and what we heard and what I've seen also in other districts that have done this, not just Burnsville, is that those
elementary schools don't sell very easily. Um, so I I I guess I'm just trying to confirm that we you're asking the board to to put up at least one elementary school do the
analysis of what they would potentially be worth. And I'm I'm not sure. I would ask, is that possible? I've got them. Okay. It's It's possible, but you don't know if it'll sell. It'll just I don't know if it'll sell. Yeah. But I do have
the evaluation. Sarah Properties did the evaluation on two locations. Not Westwood. Um I I did not look at Westwood because it's attached to Edgewood. That is not a building that I would fair enough. Sell in any way, shape, so that's not an option. Great. But I guess just trying to find options.
If there's options to also get rid of an elementary to save us additional costs and move DSC into another existing building, that's what I would like to see. And I realize that we have had buildings in Burnsville not selling, but you know, we're not Burnsville, right? We're a very different city. So, I don't
know. I'm just asking. Is it possible? Um, yeah. If I could ask a clarifying Go ahead. If I could ask a clarifying question. So, you're uh the the information that you're seeking is for
the 2627 school year instead of just selling the having the DS, you know, putting the DSSE up for sale. um doing both the DSSE and uh elementary correct and moving DSSE
into some existing space whether high school, middle school, bridges, Edgewood, I don't know any and I appreciate the I guess after listening to the presentation tonight and and the recommendations
um based on all of that we learned from the team from the team tonight. It's um I don't know how to I don't know how to it's like uh it's two years of work
that or it's it's um I don't even know what the word it's it that's a fast progression I guess. So, we're looking at what what's being um uh brought forward from the team is the selling the
DSSE and you you're looking at what would it be to sell an elementary school by for the 26 27 school year? We'll put it for sale just not move DSSE into an empty school building. Is there other options to move? This is empty. That's what I'm I It's not empty. So there's
there's a little bit of I understand there's community ed in there. I just want to look at this as an option. There's community ed in that building and then we're proposing to move DCSE community because Lola and community ed. Right. So with the assumption Lola moves
to Westwood or any whatever building I my ask is is there an option on the table to close N elementary and DSSE in this proposal so we don't move DSSE to Greenwood and then in a year or two we're still back at you know we have to
move them again right like there's space amongst our buildings for this staff do we just move them somewhere else right out of the gate so then long term we decide what to do with this elementary does Does that make sense? I think that makes sense because of the fact that
even with us selling the DSC, we will be looking at cuts going forward if nothing changes. Right. So, I understand. Yes, I am understanding what you're saying. But when you said moving staff into an empty building, we have no
empty buildings right now. No, assuming that Aloa was in Westwood is what I meant. Yes. Okay. With um I understand what you're saying. Where I where I sit that scenario should be the last straw. Yeah.
Because more than likely, in fact, almost certainly that building will be mothballled and not sold because of the just because of the market for it. But do we know that? That's my question. And so I I I I think
your your future scenario is could be accurate. We may end up closing one anyway. If that's the case, I'd rather close it later rather than sooner. That's my personal opinion. And uh because we the numbers don't look good uh as far as enrollment in the future,
but we we don't know where we can't really tell that at this point. So, I'd rather from where I sit, air on the caution, air on the side of if that's going to happen, let's make that a last resort and not a first one. And I don't disagree. My only concern is that we're
spending 600 some thousand to make the building useful for an administrative staff. So, should we be looking somewhere else to invest that money if that's the end route anyway? Right? Like, it's just an option. I just Well, so then I have this question. Um, if we if if this scenario unfolds and this
building is is sold and DSC is moved uh under this scenario to Greenwood, to me that's a permanent fix. That's not that's that's where you are for the foreseeable future. Whether we sell a building in the future or not, DSC is at Greenwood. No matter what happens, we're
not going to pump 600,000 to a million dollars into a building and then move you guys out three years later. That would be make no sense. So that's kind of why I'm where I'm at because this is of all these scenarios that might be the most permanent one we're talking about. This is a permanent move in my mind just
for to be fiscally responsible. Sure. Right. Director Atinson. Yeah. So I um I I understand Director Mason what you're saying. Um, my concern is that we have, if I'm looking at the I took the capacity numbers from the
financial report as well, and we have like room for 450 students in the middle school and 550 at the high school. So, I just don't I'm really having a hard time investing money into a building to move DSC into a building that we don't know
if we're going to rent or what the plan is. um when we could potentially move community ed to Ed Edgewood and then moving the DSC into the high school and to and or the middle school where they're ingrained with um some you know some we have the sixth largest high
school I believe in the state. So having our staff in that building with those students every day I think would be a really positive thing for our district. And um so I I mean personally I'd like to see another scenario of what does it look like to move the DSC into one of
our buildings. And I think only because it would just be a really positive to have them in our buildings working with our staff. Um that that's where my head is at um as far as that goes. So I would like to see another option for where do
we start by moving DSD. Um, and just so everybody in the audience could hear, uh, Director Aerson is in favor of of exploring other options. Um, whether moving DSC to the high school or another building, uh, that was her preference.
So, um, I'd like to kind of get consensus here. Uh, is there consensus to we have some information that director P already has as far as the valuations of the buildings. Does is it the will the board for uh other
scenarios to come before us? I would assume at the June one of the June meetings um or not? Yes, I would love to see everything that you had to get you to this decision. That that's a different ask because that that I could be in favor of
if you show us how you came to this decision. I'm not sure at this point he did any other any other because he mentioned many times, right? you you worked in Burnsville, right? All all of these other things, but I don't see it.
You told us it, but I don't see it. And I'm very much like Director Mason. I I want to see the data behind it. So, is that I have I have no idea any of those other things. It's not I'm not saying I don't believe you because because I do, but I Where's it at?
That's That's it. This is This is one concept. I'm sorry. Everything I think he's asking for the data like the evaluations that we all of the evaluations of the buildings the siron where's where's the second opinion
because I don't think we're only going to take one company's opinion on what the buildings are worth like you said earlier right like that's a maybe it might be but we're we're somebody else so I guess I got to be in
this because we have we have two different things going on here. I think you want information that's already been gathered yes provided to the board. I would love that as opposed to a whole new ask oh I want that too of well but those are two different things. So let's let's keep is is it the will of the
board to director Mason's um question to uh have the administration bring forth um other scenarios that we have been discussing. So I'm just going to go around the table. Jessica, no. Charles, yes. No. No. No. Yes. Lisa, you're a
yes. And I'm a no. So the second question um is it the will of the board to have whatever information you used to come to this recommendation
provided to the board uh for us to peruse look over generate more questions. Can I make a suggestion? Um, I assume that that means that we're going to be sending questions. So, it's not this open-ended provide everything
with everything, not really having any boundaries or understanding with it. So, should it just be that before the June meeting and then of course we're voting on July uh voting in July that before the June meeting that we all send in those detailed questions to make sure
they're and that's where I was going before these questions popped up. I I would think it would be wise at for the questions to come in between now and then if they can be answered before the June meeting. Um that's great. If not, maybe another quick synopsis uh around
whatever some you know maybe the whole board needs to know these questions came in. This is how we answered them. um just kind of an kind of an update as to um where you're at with not only the input but with with questions that have
come from us. Can I just clarify like you just said that we're not looking at other options. This is the only one presented. So what why are we ask because you asked me to Well, it doesn't matter because this is what we're going to do
because shot it down. I I see it as taking this what we've learned tonight, and correct me if I'm wrong, please. Taking what we've learned tonight because I know me, I want to digest this. I'm going to probably have
more questions for Director Powers, for you, Dr. Thomas, for staff to digest. And I I absolutely should do that. Ask the questions. Um that's how I take it. Am I wrong or misunderstanding?
I mean, I I don't personally see I plan on doing that anyway. Yeah, absolutely. But I see it as Director Mason just said, "Hey, why don't we look at another option?" And everyone just said no.
Go ahead. I mean, is that incorrect? I I guess I I did. I said no to another scenario. Other scenarios. Correct. That's what I said. it. You want to stick to this one? I understood. That doesn't mean we can't
ask questions about this. No one No one's saying that. Absolutely. And and and and the board has the board has the right to to take action on any part of this plan, all of it, you know, a quarter. We can do
whatever we want. We can close every building in the district if we want to by a vote. So I think we need to give clear direction to administration. So I that's what I that's why I I I offered the extra time
for input and for questions ahead of the June meeting and at that point I think then then we can really give clear direction moving ahead to the July meeting. I don't I could come up with questions tomorrow that I can't think of tonight. This is a lot of information to
take in. Absolutely. And um I think that there's that there is uh plenty of time for us to absorb this and to um make sure that we are thorough in our examination of this
before we move on to other scenarios. If I could just what I was going to say like I understand what you're saying, Director Johnson. I understand what you're saying, Director Mason, as far as um having another scenario. And I think
where I why I said no um is for another scenario is because this is something that has been being talked about for months like I think uh Dr. Thomas, you
said seven, eight months um that the um these these conversations have been out there um and the district staff and team with their the knowledge that they
have, this is this is their profession. This is what they do all day every day. And um for me, I'm just thinking um if they've been working on this for over,
you know, for the better part of a year, uh coming up with doing all the work to uh bring the board the most efficient, you know, all of, you know, their best case scenario in all of the things that
they know. I think that's where my no comes from. Um I feel like they've um exhausted all of the scenarios and I understand like
um like you saying chair white we could say no to it all. Um I mean respectfully like I this is the first evening we've gotten through this so yes administration has probably been looking at different things for months and I know they have. um that's
great but we got a very high level deck we don't have some of the data that I think you have valuations things like that so um again I just asked for another option for the DSSE staff to move into empty buildings um not empty
sorry unused space in buildings if there are other options I think that that move into Greenwood as you said is a long-term decision that we are making very quickly um that I'm very uncomfortable with and I think our community would be too. And I think we
also need to think about a levy. And if that is where we're going, our community needs to know that we've explored all options. I think presenting one option to the board and us deciding not to explore anything else um is is a bit of
a rash decision. Personally, that's where I'm at. I I would just like to hear other options. And I think my final comment would be I mean there was there was different scenarios in this presentation uh and
and not DSC though just the buildings, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, there was a there was LOL and DSSE do not move. Move DSC to Westwood and close Westwood and move Lo and Westwood and DSC to Greenwood.
Those those were in there. If if you want another scenario with the DSC move, correct? Then then then I think you need to probably ask that in your question and then with the
analysis that's been done. Um then the administration can reply and say, "Okay, this is what we looked at. This is how those numbers ended up." You know, that sort of thing. And then help us digest that before the July meeting to ask additional questions. Um, I understood
wanting to go through with closing DSSE and selling an elementary school as the thing that we said no to um in by July 9th. I think that is a large ask and I don't think that's necessary at this time. But as far as the rubric that is
in here with the decisions that were made and what the qualities of those decisions were, in other words, remodeling supports program growth, uh, additional funding, um, building efficiencies, stuff like that. If you have questions on that, by all means, I think everyone should be sending in
their questions to administration to ask all of those. Um, including those questions about Edgewood that you had that that you've all been asked. Yes. Okay. And if you have any more then we should ask that before July because there is a lot of information here and some things
and now that the community's had a chance to listen to this conversation too, they may be sending in questions also that should be addressed and I think we need to allow that time. Lisa, did you have something? Yeah, I mean for me it it really my my
head is around DSP. We're I'd like to see the costbenefit analysis of how they landed the DSP decision at Edgewood. So if if that information can be provided um to the board um at the next meeting um I mean you know this it cost this
much to move it to high school. Okay, we didn't do it for this reason or whatever you know whatever the however you came to that decision. Um, that's that's definitely where my head is on that. So, understood. It's really hard to make
it's really hard for a board director or board, I think, to make a decision. Um, like I said, when you're given this the one scenario and yeah, so I'm just I'm just a little frustrated with that. So, I apologize for that. Okay, moving forward.
questions in. Um, do your due diligence. Uh, let's wait and see what the community has to say. As Mary said, this is the first time they that they've really heard this deep of a dive on it.
And, um, we will have another discussion, say June 9th or is the 16th or better? Well, we can talk tomorrow about the June 9th maybe. Okay. It'll either be the 9th or the 16th depending on how that study session is shaping up.
and we will continue to move forward. Next item is the uh annual superintendent evaluation. Um if Michael wants just to speak to that quick, we'll just go through a quick process and Sure. Uh Chair White, board directors, uh as we do each year,
um about now is when the end of year link will come to you. So that same rubric that you saw during the midyear um you'll have that Qualrix link and uh you'll have access to the artifacts files for the cumulative accumulation of the year from the fall to the spring and
uh the only difference this time is that there will be those rating rubrics and it's the it's taken directly from MSBA and I would just say that I know the language is more universal. Um, so, uh, that was a kind of a a question. I think
the when some of you were new to this, of one word you were kind of hung up on. I think just if you have questions about the rubric itself, please uh connect with me or Dr. Zumbush. Um, again, I don't want one word to get somebody
stuck. Um and and I and I and I have to do the same thing with all the folks I supervise and and when it says all of the time or all staff or you know that one word might say well is it all or is only 99 out of 100 or you know those are just some of the things that I want to
make sure that if you have questions about that again it's it's it's a direct lift from MSBA rubric um to be applicable to uh each context. So um but yeah, you'll be getting that link um later on tonight from Martha
and then and then that will be open in the calendar here. You'll see that'll be remain open through um the 26th of May and then at that time uh the chair and vice chair uh will coalate that data u Dr. pres will coalate that data for the
board chair and vice chair and then um that information will be shared I think um with me in advance to give comments to and then I think on June 9th um in closed session you all will deliver that
information and then June 16th the board will have their um annual statement. Okay. Okay. I think we should probably take five. Mhm. Um, let's meet back here at 9:30 and
we'll figure out how we're going to move forward here with policy. Part: 2
Oh, that was the bulk of it. Sorry, I didn't know he was gonna call a break. Isn't that great? I know. I apologize for just getting up and Dan, I apologize. I didn't know you were going to call a break. All right. I felt rude then. I'm sorry.
Did she drop maybe for a break or maybe she dropped it? She may have dropped it. Doing up there. This is supposed to rain on my tree. What's the deal? For the next three days cuz I'm trying to
have excavation done in my yard. So, probably rain for a week. It was dry for like two, right? Until we got him there. Well, we needed the rain. It's just that it does come. It comes all at once, doesn't it? I'm okay with
the rain. Can't get really can't get a break here. Besides my muddy mess. I feel like I emailed all these things. I can't remember it. I may have that up. I'm kidding. resurrection. [Music]
in your mailbox. How do you want to spend your summer in them? Was it a good I hear you. We do. I was doing something completely different. Could it have been campaigning?
You did a good job. She's no effort. No. Yeah. The first sound effects. This person gave this she dropped off and said she popped back on in 9:30. cuz she was just going through her phone
anyway. Yeah. While the kids are sitting out there and well, should we order pizza? We're going to go there. That was Friday. like we dare go into close session. Oh, we've gone we've started close
session probably I've probably started close session after 11 before. I mean, that's not saying we want to. I think there's there's an update. Yep. That was our compromise. I think there's an update.
But you want to because I'd like to get out of here before midnight. I'm I was thinking of Oh, you know what? There's I didn't worry about that. The 6 a.m. daughter wake up. No, we Martha, is there something where we can't go into the next day? Like if we go up to
midnight 1201 because that's the next day and we don't even say 1201. I'm talking 10. So we got 11. Can we aim for 11? Let's get the gas. Let's aim for 11. Um do you have any idea how long the
update? They already have the comments on the negotiation. Is it free room? Oh yeah, we'll just contact. Let me just You guys can start. Let me just get to I feel like I have to find
that email too because I I'm I'm at least will come back. Oh, we going here. Well, we're starting without her. She knows where we are. Okay. Uh, I'm going to propose because of everybody's schedule, let's see what we can get done by 10:15. Does that seem
fair? If we can bomb through them, great. If not, really aren't in a tremendous hurry. We'll be close to our goal date regardless because we do have that update uh uh during the close session around negotiations. And if that I want to make sure we're not all
totally dead before we start doing that, we also have to think of people waiting over there. Yes. So, um, let's see what we can do in that 10 to 10:15 range. So, uh, Director Johnson or Director Bullion, either one, you want
to start us out with 2011.1. Yes. Okay. 2011.1, we had a couple comments. Uh, with that, uh, Director Olstead, um, for your comment, will everything go
into the handbook? No, everything won't go directly into the handbook. Procedures will go into the handbook. Um, that was the big long thing that we were going to attempt to go into this meeting, but we
just started, Lisa. We pushed it. Um, I can hear you now. Great. Wow. We just just started on 2011.1. Um, so I hope that answers your question. And this is just going to address the statute itself.
Yes. My only comment, and this is Wow, incredibly loud again. Sorry. Um, my only comment was it was an awful lot to cut and I just wanted to make sure that because we've had to use this policy in the recent past that
our community knows what's going into our board handbook is it was just a lot to it was a lot that got cut. It is a lot of it is directly from statute and and that's why the procedures will go in the handbook and the handbook actually
we all will come together and approve and the handbook will go online. So all of it is going to be completely open to the public. So it will be out there in the open for everyone to see for everything. It's really just a
change of location for just a change of location so that the procedures technically aren't in the policy itself. The only other change that um or major change was from director Mason to change
in the actual purpose statement was uh to change smooth running to seamless efficient and purpose. This policy is to establish and find vacancies unexpected terms of
ensuring efficient and seamless. My communications uh brain thanks you for that word. Didn't love the word. No, I love it. Suggestion. I don't like either one of them. It's really school board. Continuous running of the school board is what you're really after. And I don't
agree with moving the policy and the procedure into the schoolboard handbook. I believe it needs to be in here um not only for more public perview but also because um it should be voted on
separately um and um obviously the statute is vacuous again and um I don't agree with that at all. Matter of fact, I don't think it's a school board procedure per se because it is an exception. Um, and therefore, it needs
to have a policy associated with it that's far more robust and it has the guidelines. Now, if you want to talk about the individual procedures for voting, the individual procedures for that, but the policy has got to be in here and there's nothing. It just says the procedure for this policy, but there
is no policy. uh and the uh statute again leaves it up to us. Um so I don't agree with that at all and I think it's going to cause more problems than than not. Um so the the um the actual um
um the actual policy also includes not just when we consider a vacancy but also um when the vacancy because this is something that has gone through various iterations. Um, and we've had this
situation come up multiple times and that's when a board member um became uh ill for an extended period of time and we needed a policy that was consistent. Uh, it was fair um and it required
notice and a few other things that that went beyond the statute that we wanted to do here. Uh we've also had a policy that of of how we do certain things here uh in in form of policy. Um and before
our policy was non-existent unfortunately because we had a board that would just meet and say okay this is how we're going to do it. Um and that became an issue last time. So I do think we need a lot more in here. Um now the
actual procedure for voting can go into the um into the board handbook but remember that the this the vacancy policy is truly an exception. It is not something that you would want to go to a daily board handbook to follow on a
regular basis. That that is that would be truly an exception. So, I think the other thing is is is the handbook going to be filled with exceptions? Um, or how do you want to define that upfront? But, um, I I don't agree with this. And
matter of fact, I remember speaking with the MSBA about this extensively. I think I think I had three of them on speed dial last year uh during this process, particularly with the legislative changes and a few other things that were going on. Uh, and all they kept saying
is, "You need a policy. you guys don't have a policy. We never formalized a policy. Um and you need one to be in a policy that's that's you know where it normally is with with um with the uh um thing that
the MSBA highly recommends. So I don't agree with moving all of this into a procedure. I also think it also buries it from public view. Um which is pretty important. Um, so that's I I feel very strongly
about that. I have something to say. Go ahead. Um, my recommendation is that Okay. First, I'm wondering if someone can help me. Maybe you can. Director
Johnson, we originally had 2011.1 in our March study session. We we talked about this. We didn't land um I kind of have notes that how what happened in March.
We moved it to April April where we approved correct we actually approved keeping 2011.1 Martha. Is that right? I know. Okay. regardless of exactly the
history you this this this policy we had at the March study session and at that study session we had added a we had added a section compensation we also added a section of vacancies um that
wasn't the compensation part got moved to the org meeting policy that has been passed the vacancies Um we it is my belief and we'd have to go back but it is my belief that we actually passed
that policy and that's we were kind of um I know there was an issue. Yes, there was an issue with that and that is why we are here today and my recommendation is that unless there are specific things in our policy such as
the smooth running, I think that we all can agree that that wording is a poor that's poor word choice. Um, but my recommendation is that we um
Uh we keep the the current policy as we approved it uh pending any potential edits that are brought forth tonight. So, um, this this
2011 that we brought forward with just a purpose statement, um, when I'm going back to all of my notes from the March study session, it is my my understanding that we actually passed
2011 in this state in the original state. in the original state less whatever corrections we had from then. So this new
um presentation of 2011.1 it it it would be my recommendation to keep the old un uh along with whatever edits the is the will of the board because I believe we
already we already passed this and by the way if we already passed it then we have to actually go to a board meeting and resend the previous vote and all Is that right? Right. And so that I thought so, but thank you for looking that up. That's what's muddy. And um you know
there has been a extensive amount of doing policy work even outside of this by director Johnson and I. And so um in trying to piece through all of the notes
from March going forward. on that for approval. Yeah, we never did approve it. We never did approve it. I think was this one of the ones we moved just because of time. Correct.
Okay. No, there was an issue because it was all crossed out. I don't I think I think it we've already read it once. So, this basically would be a second study test.
We read it at the April in March at the at the March study session and then it never came back to a regular board meeting. Yeah. Something happened with that one, never approved. There was an issue. Well, my notes state it was the two
issues were um the compensation which we moved to the org policy um the org meeting policy and then the other one was vacancies and it was the
um I have that it was um I had it was included in the big all of them read together for the ones um including the default 203, but I didn't listen to the study session. Okay. My notes state that
the board did not agree on the vacancies whether to we didn't we didn't come to a consensus. Correct. But we had two options on there, right? We had two versions on there. Two, but the one of
the links didn't open. Oh, I thought it I didn't have that problem, but okay. Oh, well, I couldn't open one of the links. to one of the options. Um, but that I think and again this is one board member's extensive notes trying to go
back to what where we were at. It's just this pol this I would agree this is not a policy. It's just giving a purpose and then stating that the whole procedures in a handbook. Lisa, you had a question or a comment. Oh yeah. So, my memory
serves me that um we we talked about this policy, but we talked about it is there's the law, which is what's stated in the policy, and then there's the procedure, and my understanding is we were going to come back and look at a procedure that we would put in the
handbook. And so, to me, this policy reflects that, but I'm wondering where's the procedure? Like, when are we going to re actually review the procedure? So, that was that was my recollection of it. That sounds that sounds about right. I mean it that that recollection sounds
sounds right. But the procedure um I think the the different um districts and how they've proposed I think we had a few options uh presented. Um and my question is and
my recommendation after spending all this time on it is that our 2011 remains and then if the procedures change. Yeah, please go ahead. So, all we have actually done
is 2011.1. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not. All we have done is actually voted to remove 2011.1. We did vote on that. We voted to remove it. I didn't think we voted to remove it. We did. I'm looking at
the schoolboard summary from April 14th, 2025. Okay, that's we're going to put it in procedure. We do not have a 2011.1 currently. Currently, is that correct? I'm looking at I'm looking at the email
from Martha right now. Okay. So, okay. Okay. If we if we voted to remove 2011.1 because uh now I I do have MSBA pulled up. MSBA does not have a model
policy for vacancies. Correct. The the it's up to each U board member as long as you satisfy the minimum of the statute. And I highly recommend that we do have one. And believe me, I got that lecture from them repeatedly uh that we put it in policy, right? Which is why we
went with this and then established that our procedure would then be in the handbook. Thank you. Um I'm not in favor of that. I'll repeat that. So whatever is decided that I'm definitely not in favor of of that. Um
it there's minimal transparency. Um a lot of different things like I stated before. So then I don't have a preference as long as we have our procedure written at some point. I kind of agree with you, Jessica, but I'm I am a little concerned about what you you
said, Mary, about different scenarios surrounding maybe an illness or a temporary type of thing that because we had to do that on the fly. Um, it was right before you came on board where we had a board member that had a serious illness and couldn't make it to a lot of
stuff. So, I I just and we had to go through that manually. Um, and then again at that time we got the lecture from MSBA saying, "Where's your policy? Where's your policy?" And every one of those are covered under Minnesota statute 123b.09.
Yeah. And it's under one Minnesota statute. And our procedures would cover every one of those, which is why I put multiple examples under there so that we would all have ample time for everyone to look at it. they could call Director Bullion, myself, tell us what you liked,
what you didn't like, so that we could then hopefully come up with one that everyone would be able to be very happy with. Again, you're talking about four years. Correct. Yep. So that we could put in the handbook, which is why we referenced it in letter A, so that would wouldn't be hidden. If anybody saw board
vacancy, right, there it is. Oh, cool. I'm going to go into the board handbook. They could click the board handbook and scroll down or control F. And then we're doing hyperlinks, right? So handbook, I would assume, might be highlighted. And it's also in cross references. So we're
going to highlight it there, too. Boom. It goes directly to board vacancy. There it is. And we have even the whole policy plus the application. It's all going to be there. Like that is the intent to have everything there. So it is completely laid out and it's
thoughtless. And guess what we do every single year? we come back and we look at the whole board handbook again. So the question remains since we voted and our our minutes state that we voted to remove policy 2011.1 we did. So is this
a moot discussion for tonight? Well then if we voted to remove it now we've got it sitting in here. So this is a study session. No I know but I'm saying is we voted to remove it. If that's the case, I remember choosing there was you gave
scenarios in the in the initial one. I chose the second one, I think it was, and sent that back in. Um, and then whatever happened, the board, majority board, if they voted to remove
2011.1, where why is it back in here? Because we never voted to actually put something back in. You said we're going to replace it. It was moved. Lisa, have to rewatch it. Go ahead, Lisa. Yeah, everybody needs to look at the minutes. We voted on 2011, not 2011.1.
So, April 16th, I looked at the minutes. April 14th, I'm sorry. If you look at the minutes, we voted on 2011, not 2011.1. 2011.1 schoolboard vacancies removal of policy.
So, is that the Yes. So this is a new policy policy have a first read though on March 24th. [Laughter] Good lord. Second and final reading. Removal of policy. Can I Yes, you may
interject. Sorry. Yes. Since Okay. Since there are some questions March, April, September, December, can we can we table this one
and bring it back and just get clarity on what we did and when? I and I confess I I thought it sounded familiar when I was reading it for this meeting in particular, but I wasn't
sure. Maybe I got to trust my gut um in that scenario, but maybe Can Can we move to just get clarity so we don't have to take the time tonight and then just bring it back? Okay. Is that okay with everybody? I'm good with that.
All right. 203.5 is next on the list. I I'll make just really quick. Obviously, we're going to remove the default notes. Um the Minnesota Commissioner blah blah blah blah blah
that's in there obviously. Um, and I was fine with this. Um, but and this is just me. Whenever I've read F on this one, it's been really confusing. It's kind of
like I know that we no longer print them out and they've always been they've been electronic for some time, but the way we edited this a while ago um has always kind of bugged me. at least one copy of printed materials including electronic communications relating to the agenda
items in the meeting prepared or distributed by or at the direction of the school board or its employees and and then I is distributed at the meeting to all members of the governing body. What is distributed at the meeting? Because we used to do paper copies and
we don't and it's just and then two distributed before the meeting. It's just the can't we just say we make it available to all members electronically and there's one printed copy at the front or is this statutory cuz I I
didn't I I know that the legislature used to have this too and it's and they changed this. They drastically removed this because they now do electronic voting. Everything is electronic. They don't hand out anything printed. They just need to make sure it's available.
So the whole this whole paragraph um is is been um has always confused me and it was in an original policy a while ago. Um and I know that we talked about it like four years ago and made some
changes. So um that basically talked about the electronic communications and maybe it's just me but when I read that it's like if somebody were to hold this what did it say? Well, I can I can confirm on the statutory part.
Um, but if not, I can make it read just like it does for open and closed meetings because that's very 99% of it is statutory, but basically read that the first part and then we h because we
do statutoily have to provide at least one copy to the public, right? Just like what Martha does. And I can make it read exactly like that. And then and then electronic everything from the letter I distributed down could
be deleted. Well, and the the opening sentence I know we're we already mentioned the the statute that looks like a for excuse my saying, but it looks like a lawyer vomited on that first run on
sentence. Correct. So, if there's a way we can make that concise and a little bit more accurate, um I just don't want a member of the community saying, "Wait a minute. I'm sitting in here and I didn't get a paper copy and we're not killing a tree for everybody." So, um
So, do you have a suggestion of how it could read? Yeah, I do it exactly what Director Johnson just said and just say this is what we do. Um one copy made available to the public. Everyone else gets an electronic communication. It's distributed
uh um it's available by meeting time which is what we're required to do and for everyone else it's available to all members and we already stated above that it's available uh when the final copy is printed and when um and 7 days prior
when the agenda is ready. So and then just scratch everything from I down yeah one I guess. Are you okay with that? Yep. Sound good? I I hope that you got this right. I did.
I did. Thank you. Is there any um support to change Friday at 4 p.m. to Friday at noon under uh D up two letters. My only
comment with that that I sent in was um if we are going to state a time that we need to send questions in, I would like a stated time that the agenda will be avail the supporting documents will be available to us within you know give us 48 hours before that and with you know maybe the caveat that if something's
late then we reserve the right to ask the question late. I'm just trying I'm just wondering if and I think I've said this to a number of you if you'd have a better chance getting your question answered um actually pretty quickly as opposed to getting in late on Friday. Maybe the
person that Dr. Thomas needs to ask is already gone and it might be something as very simple and um I I I think I don't know I I just think it might help us be more efficient. It takes a little pre I mean it is Friday afternoon. you guys all understand
Friday afternoons. Um I'm just wondering if that gives us a better chance of the goal which is to get the question answered quicker or or and then even even that I mean you know Michael's getting ready to leave and he gets an email at 5 to 4 and how
does he deal with that? So I just I'm just trying to make a give give the administration a little little wiggle room but it's two-way street as long as that you know stuff's out to us in time. um then then I think this might help. I'm I'm just throwing it out there. So I
I mean here's the thing. There's always going to be stuff that's a last minute change. We and usually in the agenda they'll say TBD, that sort of thing. So you'll know in advance or we get a notice from Martha that says, "Okay, this was just updated, corrected."
there's and when we send in our questions also sometimes we I know I have pointed out typos and things um and so there's an update we get the notice from board book or she forces it out that sort of thing. Uh so I'm fine with
that. I I'm I don't care if it's noon or 4 p.m. Let's say if you're if you have a ton of questions you haven't gotten them out by noon on Friday or even looked at them then you're you're probably not doing it till 3:30 p.m. anyways. I understand. Um I don't know if it makes that much of a difference for
administration where they get it at noon or 4 just because I'm sure a lot of work happens over the weekend and first thing Monday morning no matter what. But um if it if it if it helps better, I I don't I don't want somebody to say, "Well, I'm sorry I didn't hand in any questions
because I don't it wasn't final." Um that's not fair. Um um and and that's that's life. That's that's going to happen. So, I don't want If it doesn't help, then drop it if it's But if it helps administration for noon, I'm fine with that, too. I'm fine either
way. Whatever. But I would agree with Director Mason's comments. Yeah. If I'm doing my things, it's Thursday night because I work Friday, right? So, it's, you know, I can have Friday at 9:00 a.m. if you want that, too. Whatever. But, Right. Right. As long as I have everything to be able to look at it at night. So, and your suggestion was, you
know, 48 hours prior to the deadline to get questions in. Um, and so, you know, typically it's Thursday at noon is when board book is finalized by. And so, that's not quite the 48 hours.
Challenging. Yeah. That's not the that's not quite the 48 hours. So, um, you know, I guess if if if if the if board boards now and in the future understand that, you know, a question at 3:30 is probably going to be answered Monday
morning sometime or afternoon. It all depends. I'm just trying to, like I said, this doesn't help. This is, you know, this is going to require a little bit of give and take. is helpful to you. I mean, if it's helpful for you to have them earlier, I would say I would Yeah. I mean, earlier is good. But what we've
also done as a practice because it just seems to go this way is we get the questions and we're like, okay, we'll we'll incorporate that or address those Monday at that because many of you have asked the same questions that you've already emailed in. And so, you know,
that way we can just share it all out for everybody. So, the whole Okay. Um, so I think and I think that's that's fair push and again there's some data we just won't get um with this deadline based upon data that we don't control tax information etc. But I I think
that's a fair push either way. If we are submitting something you know on Tuesday then we have really until Monday you know to to ask a question wherever you know and many times board book does have partial on Monday for sure and I review
what I can right yeah so I think that we just have to figure out what the will of the board is is changing it to noon or leaving it at 4. I'm I'm fine with whatever the will I
I'm fine, too. So, we got three indecisive people out of seven. Okay, I'll drop We could we memorialize maybe the noon in the policy and ask that that you try and push the staff to go instead
of Thursday at noon you go close of business Wednesday before we say maybe memorialize that in policy and see how that works. Say say that one more time directly. So, so we will memorialize
noon in policy for us for staff to help and then you ask staff to try and finalize board book Wednesday instead of half a day for half a day ultimately
and then you know give and take from from both sides so that we can just just try and try and work it and then Sounds good to me. See how it works and then if we need to we can we can memorialize it later on if it works. Okay. Does that
work? Yeah, sounds good. And then um Director France, you suggested to remove the note. The Minnesota Commissioner of Administration has issued an opinion that the government entity is limited to acting only on the matter specifically included
in the notice of a special meeting. Well, first of all, we have nothing else in here on a special meeting. And second of all, the special meeting is covered in statute below and that's an exception. So um so that was more or less like anformational note put into the template, wasn't it? And we can remove that. Okay. I just wanted to make
sure I add your removing is the best. I clarifi Sorry. Oh, go ahead, Jess. I think it's quick. Um that same section in D. Um the middle sentence that says questions raised during meetings that were not previously disclosed to the super and chair do not require a
response in the meeting. Um I guess I don't remember I I don't I don't know what all my questions are before a meeting and that's fine. Yeah. So So that's what I'm saying. Do we take
that sentence out? Okay. So go ahead. Um the the reasoning behind that verbiage is um of course board members always have
questions that arise at the table and that's that's we're not trying to stop those questions. It's just if if an if the uh district staff doesn't have an answer just like they often will then respond in an email or whatever. So just
giving them the grace that they aren't required to at the meeting have an answer for. So So should that say require an answer instead of a response because they're going to respond to your question that they don't have an answer? Yeah, right. I guess that's my point. Yeah. Yeah. Um I think that's what you
meant. Yes. Require an answer. I I don't really know if there's really It just says how it's written. It looks like you're not allowed to ask questions during the meeting. No. And that's how it's that's how I read it though. I know that's not what you're saying. Help us
help us. So I think it just yeah I think what you're do not require a response by staff in the meeting or something like that or I don't know what the suggestion would be especially in the follow you know after
the comma and should not hold board action as described in the agenda. It is definitely not to limit uh discussion at the table. Um it's the the goal behind it is to offer the district staff the
ability to not have an answer and to I mean get to when they can. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then also not halt. There's an important piece of that is to say that if I like if somebody sends in let's say all these questions at a you know on Monday morning for instance and says if
I don't get this answer back I'm not going to vote on this or or asking for a whole bunch of documentation that's going to be a pain to get out. That's what it's there to kind of say to staff, well, a it's not a reason not to vote on it if you didn't
get your question in on time and and you can always ask and I think it does need to be softened a bit to say you you should be able to ask and I if I'm not mistaken, I think that what's happened in the past too is when a lot of questions like that come in, sometimes
they do modify the materials in the board book so that they're automatically reflective if like three people have the respons I didn't want to skip you. Yeah. So in our last policy um director Olstead we did have the just the word
that said should not limit discussion. So basically you could basically after the comma where it says require a response in the meeting should not limit discussion and should not halt board action. So I agree. I read it the same way with the
same concerns you did. Um but I think we could fix it by just adding should not limit discussion. So after meeting comma should not li limit discussion and should not halt halt board action. I don't think that
was the way it was stated um before and I think there was a specific reason why it was stated. So is was this a direct quote from 2035.113? I think it was a cut and paste. Right. I have it. We I think just
in order to keep moving with time, do we understand the intent? Are we okay? Is everyone okay if we play with the play? Yeah, please. Is that okay with everyone? Okay, welcome. I have one other question. I I sent in about two I about a Yep. I just want to understand
why the one part was crossed out. Oh, so go back to a under procedures. Yep. Yep. So why was that crossed out? Oh, uh, under A, so we use the same language consistent with, uh, the
approved policy 202 section 4.A.2. And that wouldn't that wouldn't um if the if it's the will of the board, that parenthesy would not remain. But that um the verbiage in a comes directly
from that policy. Okay, now I understand that. Thank you. I think the part that's missing though is that if you read the next sentence um the intent of that procedure is that that all board members we do have input
in the agenda because um you know I'll call chair white and say hey we missed something or you know we all add because this is our meeting and so all board members do provide input and then it's the schoolboard chair in conjunction with the superintendent to develop,
prepare and arrange the meeting. And then I think another key word is for the tentative schoolboard meeting agenda because the meeting agenda is not final until we get to the meeting when we all vote to approve the agenda. So I understand what you're saying, but I think for the intent of what this policy
is, there's a piece of the intent that's missing, which is what's crossed out. So, I actually support uncrossing out what you crossed out in a because I think it's an important piece of the the policy. I kind of think it's a duplicate
um because that happens anyways when we send out the agenda and then everyone can ask questions on it. Um anyways, because the agenda is part agenda is released seven days in advance and then all questions and everything like that
on the agenda as well as the content are now by noon or whatever on Friday. So I do think that's duplication and I do agree with you Director Atinson. I do agree with what you said and
um I don't believe that um the crossing out of that of those the crossing out as proposed in the board book um I don't think that changes anything. Um
the it is the it is consistent you know consistent across policy the agenda for meetings. Yes, all you know all board members have input via you know their relationship with the chair and superintendent
um in make you know I don't think that I don't know I hear what you're saying and I don't disagree with you I don't I don't think that my personal opinion again just one is that it doesn't make it not so so
where can you show me policy where does it say that board members can have input into the into the developing the board agenda so um in this policy and that is the right of that is the authority and the right of every board member yeah so going to letter B and that is consistent
those are not board members though that's the community um letter B says if you are a community member you can place an item on the agenda persons yeah I understood that as like B and he kind of felt like it contradict with E too, Lisa. Like I was
It reads weird. Maybe we need to say community if that's what that was intended. I was just confused. So B is not specific to community. It's not. No, it's not. And that is straight from MSBA model policy. And that is what you commented that you liked that language
that you like the language of B. That was your comment that you like the language of MSBA's model policy. that persons wishing to place an item on the agenda must make a request to the school board chair and superintendent. So whether that's a board member or a
community member wanting to uh have something discussed at an upcoming board meeting, the person making the request is encouraged to state the blah blah blah. Okay. Um yeah, a board member wouldn't state their name, their address. Right. Right. But and I hear what I hear what you're
saying, but this is that that letter B is straight from MSBA model policy. And what I felt like and again this I think we've had conversations about that. Director Johnson, I I think uh Chair White, we also did um we have been
running into at our study sessions when we have the um the agenda item for future agenda items that is an actual agenda item. Uh we've been that's been
um you know in most recent history it's kind of been going off the rails. We've been having a lot of time spent almost having discussions on items and to alleviate that. This policy for bringing
things to the agenda could help alleviate that. Um I felt like it contradicted with E was my comment too. I thought it was that's E is more is is based on Robert's rules. So and that's
the other thing. So, and here's how Robert's rules reads, right? But like they don't work together. Well, Robert's rules actually not only reads that way, but Robert's rules also talks about as we have in other stuff I think if it's coming up here is that board members
have to be prepared for the discussion, right? Um and um and then there's the other thing about proper notice and not and in an informal board meeting not going off of the agenda. So, uh, one of the things that's been talked about in
the past, and I know we allude to this, but we don't actually do it, and I put it in my notes also when I sent it in, is that the boards often, and I agree with this practice that say that once the agenda is finalized, you can remove
something off the agenda, but you can't add to it. Um, because then you got a community who doesn't have proper notice. you can't hold board members accountable for actually getting questions in on an agenda they weren't
familiar with um and and also being prepared. So that was kind of done with our board operating norms that said you had to be prepared and therefore there was no surprises. But again, sometimes we have to remove stuff off of an agenda because
something isn't available like we did the um Native American uh parent committee and they were not able to come to the meeting. So, we made an adjustment to the agenda at that time. But that was something that was put into
the original norms and kind of we never really changed this historically but that was the assumption that we would never add to the agenda at the time of the agenda. So to try to move thing because I was and maybe you weren't here Lisa when I trying to finish up policy
to the extent we could by 10:15 because we do have a do have a close we do have a closed sessions we we're trying to get to and I don't want I want to be respectful of everybody having to get up. So I'm wondering if specific to this um you you add this language in a to be consistent with the policy referenced.
Yeah. Is the old language necessarily inconsistent? or is it just slightly different? I mean, what what I think it adds two. I'm just wondering, as I read these the two sentences on top of a and then the crossed out part, I'm thinking, what's
the big deal with what we had if it's not word for word with 2024 A.2? Does it really matter? Is it close enough? Well, I think does that alleviate the concerns of um you know some members about making sure that the
board as mentioned is yes, we all have an opportunity to make our input known. I'm just wondering if we Yeah. Does that did that change even need to be made in you know I I understand exactly what you're saying and this is the the
challenge that director Johnson and I have have been entrusted with that it was the will of the board to go with MSBA model policy as the base and so what we've been trying to bring forward is marrying as best we
can what we've had to what and then you know we've we've approved some changes and so we're trying to not only do consistency across I hear and so we we are tasked with bringing forward as best
we can what we've brought forward and then it is up to the rest of us as a team as a all seven of us to okay uh ho how should it read and and I to be fair We didn't say use MSBA model policy. We
said to compare it and and for you guys to start with it. We never said to eliminate what almost 40 years of of building these up to match the way that we've been doing board meetings either.
Uh because there's a reason behind everything. Even you know when Chair White when you were on the board prior to this there are reasons you put things in there because of you know MSBA doesn't tell you half the things you should do. Uh they basically say here's
the minimum the rest is up to you guys. That's why so many that's why so many school districts look so unique and different as long as you're not violating statute. So I just want to make that clear. Um so then I guess cuz I want to be respectful time. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, we aren't going to get there tonight. That's fine. Is there consensus on a to leave the addition and leave uh what's presented here? Is anybody have a problem with I know Lisa does a problem with A as presented.
I'm fine with A is presented as well as B and I like the way B reads also. So that's I like the way A and B is presented. M char the same. Jess, I'm fine. Okay, it looks like we have
consensus to leave that as presented. And um if there's nothing else on 203.5 unfortunately um I think we need to move on to uh the future agenda topics quick and then move to close session. Just before
anybody has future agenda topics, I'd like to run something by everyone, maybe alleviate some confusion uh and some ability to kind of think ahead. Um would it be uh agreeable to the board um if
instead of having future agenda topics presented at 10:18 at night at a study session uh to have them emailed to me and actually put on the agenda ahead of time so people know, okay, Director Atinson had, you know, topic X that
she's wanting on the agenda. So instead of trying to make a snap judgement on whether or not it's warranted, you have a little bit of time to at least bounce it around in your head so that when we come to that, we I can just tip tick them off. You know, Amy wanted this on the agenda, consensus, yes, no, and and
would that make this a little more efficient? I like that because it also allows you to try to figure out what the question or ask is instead of trying to drill down into that live in the meeting. That way you can you can
negotiate that with the individuals sent you there to kind of get it down succinctly instead of doing it with everybody here and then read them off and then and then figure out what people agreed to to be on the agenda. So I like that idea a lot. Is that cool with everybody? So tonight
we'll we'll take suggestions and then moving. Does that need to be memorialized or did we just say we're going to do it that way? Actually what what director Bullion just said is that's following B. She's absolutely right. Okay, perfect. I got already in there. We can we can memorialize it in
the handbook. Oh, that would be greatly appreciated. We would do that. Memorialize it moving forward. So, for tonight, uh, anybody have any future topics that they would like to bring to the for future um, study sessions. Um, I just have a question. Sure.
We had talked about the dashboard for accountability of um where we're at from proficiencies um that type of thing. When will we when are we going to see that? Because I thought that was going to be done by the end of the school year. Yeah. So, I have a tenative draft of that in one of my
artifact folders, and we'll be sharing more about that and kind of getting a better understanding of what other things we should include in it on the 16th of June so that we can finalize everything and kind of launch that for next year. Great. I look forward to
seeing that. Thank you. I would like to discuss um uh survey data that's being presented if others agree. um just the content and how it's presented and specifically
we've just survived data in general. Yeah. As it as we take them. Right. Because there's been several that go out. I think they're heavily redacted. Do they need to be like just stuff like that? Okay. Uh is there any
will to discuss how we are presented with survey information? Yes. You are in favor of that? Absolutely. So, a discussion as to the rationale. I want to make sure I'm getting this right. Um, you want admin to say to tell us this is
why we present the information the way we present it. Yeah, you're looking for just the or you're looking for board to maybe ask for more information than we're getting or less redacted information. Which one are you look asking for? I think the ask is can we is
there a reason why we just can't get full data results and what is the reasoning for the heavily redacted survey um and also trying to save your admin time like it seems like a lot of time spent on redacting surveys that okay so
we have a yes and a yes I would say yes if like the redactions are based by based on I mean statute statuto toily what is are they because we're board members absolutely data
privacy it absolutely every everything districts are not getting are getting full results uh Lisa no sorry it's hard to chime in this um other districts I know for a fact are getting full survey results we are the board of directors we are um there's no
reason to redact data um I understand if it's a student name or something like that I think that's the conversation that maybe you're looking for Jessica. I think maybe consistency of what to expect from the from um as the board receiving data, what to expect um because I I think there's been some
inconsistencies in our district is what I'd like to understand. Um and how do we save them time? Like do we need to redact everything we're redacting? Like I went and read the CPM one and the word math is redacted. Like they're heavily redacted. So I don't just discussion
around what needs to happen. How do we I I support the discussion. Well, if if math was redacted, you shouldn't have seen it. So, well, you can only assume. Oh, you can assume the word. You can assume a lot of the words. What happens when you assume? Well, like making assumptions is that's why we shouldn't
redact. So, you're Are you good, Amy, or no? Yes. I I think that um the is it a board discussion or is it a question that you can just ask administration? That's my question. like well I guess I'm curious to do others
care like is it help I mean like in my experience and it's only two a little over two years but in my experience the amount of information that the district is offering to the board is more than in past so offering all of the you know
giving all of the survey results I mean typically the the the district would bring forward whatever you know information that they bring to a meeting. I I think that it's Am I misspeaking, Dr. Thomas?
This is like the discussion I guess we want to have, right? Do we need Right. And I'm just my the whole redaction thing is it's it's statutoily driven and and uh speaking that other district board get
uh all you know unredacted information. I don't know that to be true. I I mean you're telling me that you have But I don't know that to be true. And if that is true, are they giving information that they shouldn't be giving? Because
um that's the discussion I wanted to have a discussion. Is that a discussion? I don't think it is. I think it's I think it's I think that maybe that's an individual discussion um with the administration to make sure everyone understands or you I understand. Uh, but
if if there's a question of why something's redacted and you have a specific question on a line item or something, then I I I think that that would be an individual administrator uh question. There's a few of us asking it,
too. And and furthermore, um to be fair, um the re I don't we've it historically never had anyone ask for every single comment either. We've kind of um trusted
administration to synthesize it so we understood the pattern. So you're not cherry-picking stuff out because the concept of the survey is to understand where the survey takers as a whole where they're leaning and and the and the
synergy between the statements not the cherrypicking of certain words or statements out of that. Um because there's thousands of them. Um, so if the issue is I mean I can explain why now but I think that's not the purpose of this is well well I'm trying to figure
out why the question of why anyone would want to see that amount of data 6 10,000 lines of data sometimes that's my that's my question and this is discussion this is the discussion okay can I just add
context I was watching a farmington board meeting I think this might be relevant and they got a copy of all their stakeholder survey results in a PDF format totally unredacted and then the board is able to go into that PDF and put in a search term of iPads and
then they can see that there's 25 people 25 comments that support iPads. There's 50 C comments that so it's really a very much of an efficiency for a board to be able to evaluate the data. I know that other districts, I do not want to name them, but I know three off the top of my
head that get stakeholder survey comments on redacted. And I think, you know, Dr. Thomas, you said it best. You said I think at our last meeting to the teacher comments, we read them all. And so, I think it's I mean, this is I think the discussion we want to have. So, I think we're getting too far in the
weeds, but when I when I watched the last um Farmington board meeting, I it really like hit home that yeah, as a board, we should be we should have access to those comments and be able to read them. Yep. Yeah. Okay. I'm I'm think we're I think I'm I'm actually in favor of it. I think uh we'll I'll put I
will write it down and put it on a a future uh agenda. Anyone else for Thank you. Okay. All right. Uh I got to move to close session first or not? Sorry. Okay. Now, well, it
doesn't matter. No. Um, I will now entertain a motion to enter into closed session for the purpose of discussing uh negotiation strategy with uh PLSEA. Is there a motion on the table? So by
director Johnson, second by director France. All in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries 70. There'll be inflow session