independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m on Tuesday April 8th 2025 in room 137 of the Edison Building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of
the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples present at this meeting are school board members Superintendent Kent Pel a non- voting exeicio member and assistant school board clerk Miss Anne Kramer miss Kramer
would you please call the role director Barlo here treasurer Cook here director here clerk here chair Nathan here director White here vice Chairman here at this time we offer the opportunity to
say the pledge of allegiance i pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation indivisibley and justice for all
item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I i any opposed the agenda has been approved the agenda and documents for this meeting are available
online at rochesterchools.org/simly comments to the board it is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our students staff families and schools we welcome communication via email phone call at our community engagement listening sessions and hear during
comments to the board the purpose of comments to the board is to give community members an opportunity to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall within our authority the board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speaker's comments during the meeting but may
follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 p.m on the Monday before the school board meeting to sign up for a time slot the form is available on the RPS website and on these main
page policy 206 and procedure 206A set the time place and manner procedures and restrictions on comments to the board by participating in the public comment period each speaker agrees to abide by this public comment
procedure speakers when your name is called please come to this table if you have written materials for the board please provide them to our assistant school board clerk before your remarks and she will provide them to the board choose a microphone to speak into and be
seated please direct your remarks to the school board you will have three minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed right in front of me please begin your remarks by stating your name speaker one tonight is Amy Nelson our next item is 4.1 information and
outreach National School Librarian Day and National Assistant Principles Week director Marvin April 4th was National School Librarian Day so I'd like to say on behalf of all librarians sh school librarians or in Rochester we call them
uh library media specialists and library media pair professionals really contribute to student success by helping students find materials related to their learning and supporting staff with resources to supplement curriculum and instruction we appreciate all the work
an organization library media specialists and pair of professionals do to keep our library medias centers um an essential district resource and to create welcoming library media centers where students are encouraged to grow and motivated to build their knowledge
we thank them for sparking a lifelong love of reading by connecting our students to books that provide windows into the experience of others tools to be informed citizens and keys to unlocking adventures far beyond their own
world we're also going to recognize tonight Assistant Principles Week which is this week our dedicated Rochester Public Schools assistant principles work tirelessly to bolster teachers motivate students support their principal create
a positive learning community and tackle the many unpredictable challenges that land on their desk thank you for all you do for our students and staff to make the school day run more smoothly item 4.2 are board member updates does any board member have
updates from any committees or any other updates to share director Murphy I think I saw Kate Bruce walk in kate would you come up here please kate is a senior at uh Century High School and she's going to give the board an update on what the student school board has been working on
thanks for coming Kate hi I'm Kate Bruce um like Dr marvin said I'm a senior at Century High School and I am on the student school board and at our most recent March meeting students from Century John Marshall and Mayo high schools met with consultants from the
team that is working on the new strategic plan for our district they really value student voice and feedback so we gave them our opinion on our high school experience and how it could be bettered the students on our student school board have vast experiences so
there's a vast array of opinions on our student school board however we all agree that high school gives students more independence which seems like it might be a purely good thing but it really is a double-edged sword because students need to make the right decisions when given this independence
and most importantly students need to have the resources and information from the district to make the right decisions one of the biggest decisions in a student's life is what they're going to do after high school we feel that information about these
opportunities such as vocational school college work experience and more should start earlier than they normally do which is our junior year of high school we feel that information about these opportunities should begin from our
teachers and counselors as early as middle school and we also feel that a potential program where high school students could mentor and meet with elementary students could spark inspiration in the young kids another aspect of this issue is
that there are so many courses available in Rochester that are very valuable to finding your path in life however many students expressed that they feel it's very hard to find information about these courses and oftentimes will find out about them too late and not be able
to take them we think that all the courses that are available to students should be talked about in classes more in-depth so that no student misses out another thing that came up in our discussions is that we all agree the three high schools in our district are
more separate than they should be we think that they should interact more because really the only time that the three high schools will come together to share ideas is on our student school board and we all find it extremely valuable but there are only a certain amount of students that can be on our school board and so we think that this
opportunity should be available to many more students most of all we want students to know how important an education is for all not just those who want to go to college thank you any other reports from board members on
committees or director Whitehorn so uh just a reminder for the community and for RPS we have set a date for um the back to school event that we do every year that's going to be this Saturday August
the 16th um from 12 to 4 so I know that we're coordinating with trying to work with the schools and the bands and those this year um every year we've had a larger turnout than the previous year um we're doing record numbers so there's
free food there's backpacks we get a lot of good donations so it's a really good way um for the community and the school to interact um so I just put it out there because we have established the date so we would love to see um the
members of RPS really out there hearing nothing else on updates item 4.3 is our winter sports report superintendent Cout well I I want to thank you Chair Nathan i want to just uh take a moment and I want to thank uh
Lucia Connor Clara Arjent and Kate for raising your voices it is always great to hear from Amy Nelson as a a community leader but you know it's not quite the same and I know you share that you all did a fantastic job of sharing your thoughts your ideas in a clear cogent
way i know I heard them our board heard them we can't answer you while you're up there doing that but I can say this now because if we answer one person we gonna be answering everybody um I also want you to know you don't have to stay for the whole rest of the meeting and we won't be offended if you decide to leave
um but uh we are now turning to something that I am quite excited about we are trying something somewhat different this year which we invite feedback about which is not having all of our student teams at the end of our athletic seasons come down because frankly many of them were on to the next
sport or activity or job and we really struggled so this year we've asked our three activities directors to come down at the end of each season and then we're going to be giving nonathletic activities the spotlight at each board meeting with some brief updates to highlight uh those kinds of
activities um next year we may go back to trying to have uh teams come down but we're trying it this way because it gives us a way uh with our three leaders who lead this work to get a comprehensive overview so um I am excited to have David Perkins from Century High School Brian Irky from John
Marshall and Dan Christopher from Mayo High School give us an overview of how things turned out in our most recent uh season that has ended so I think we have our PowerPoint and if we can bring it up then uh come on up and uh we'll jump in
[Laughter] you dogged me you were here before that was intentional so um our Century Boy swimming dive um a very strong team um one of the strongest programs we have at Century um this was
a um a team that was had a lot of upper classman leadership in that team um they have been multiple big nine champ conference champs um over the course of their careers with that upper classman that group of upper classmen and they
also as a team this year qualified for state uh had a all state um medley relay team that finished seventh and seventh place at state um with these students pictured here Andrew Lynon Grady Barkreed um William Trescowski and Owen
Kelly they also um had a allstate 200 um free relay team that finished fifth comprised of Eli Holmes on Kelly Ever Nord and Andrew Lindon our Century John Marshall girls
hockey team um had their first winning record in over 10 years are very successful um this is a picture of them um during the holiday break where they participated in one of the frozen river classic uh and they do a lot of
community service work and I'm proud to say this is one of the um coolest things that they did this year was raise money for mental health awareness um during one of their games for organization called Sophie Sophie Squad and also raised $1,000 for the vanwald youth
shelter one of the high we had a we had a good winner at JM but uh one of the biggest highlights was our uh section championship for uh boys basketball it had been since 2003 since we've been in the state tournament at JM for uh boys
basketball um and in that time since 2013 we were the section runners up seven times so it was uh it was getting uh a little bit tense when we were up by 22 in the section championship and then
had to had to win right at the end uh but it was a how did you advance right here it was a great experience uh for us the first game was at at Target Center we played Cretton Darren Hall who was the number number one seed and um as you
look this is Cretton's fans in the opposite end but we filled one whole corner of the lower bowl for a 10 10:00 a.m game uh we took seven fan buses up and uh we brought our band so so we had nine total buses take on Minneapolis
that day as well as many students that that drove up so is just a a great experience for not only our school but our our community um here's a shot of our of our kids in that lower bowl um one of the neat
things when we had uh section championship I had students from Mayo and Sentry and many many other um fans that were selling sending well-wishes to finally get a a Rochester team back to the state tournament so it was just a
great experience uh over the course of the tournament Grayson Sawyer scored his thousandth point in our consolation game against Morehead and it was just a a great overall experience for us finished uh consolation runner up sixth place in
the state all right uh I think probably one of the most um things I was proud of this year was a lot of our teams overachieved in the winter and uh really tremendous growth and uh you know the culture and
and building that has has been great uh congratulations obviously to JM um we played uh girls basketball Lakeville North as well uh in the civic center and couldn't quite get it done uh two points shy there uh from going to state but uh
we have a good team coming back next year so hopefully uh we can we can take that on uh very proud of our boys swimming team we gave uh Sentry a run for their money uh and uh in sections we came in second we didn't quite close the
gap but uh we we sent some uh relays and individuals to state and the relays uh the 200 medley um Owen Pora Nikil Kaufman Ben Weingarten Neil Taliffson and they came in 12th uh 400 freestyle
Will Leisure Owen Prada Will Bourjen uh Neil Talison came in 15th uh the 200 freestyle Will Leisure uh Neil Talison Nick Gustoson and Nikil Kaufman uh they they were DQed in the finals but they did set a school record at the section
meet um for the 200 freestyle uh individuals 200 freestyle Will Leisure came in 18th uh 50 freestyle Nikil Kaufman 27th um 100 freestyle Will Leisure 11th 100 breaststroke Nikil
Kaufman 21st and uh this was also a school record that he set set at the section meet too so a very good um uh season for our boys swimming uh Scott Dirks was the one head coach of the year
and our assistant Jessica Kemp uh was the one assistant coach of the year um team academic gold award uh 3.75 GPA for them so getting it done in the classroom as well uh wrestling uh had a good season
as well uh we sent uh three female wrestlers to the state tournament uh Tia Vicker Chelsea Rodriguez who came in sixth and Olivia Martinez who came in fifth our boys uh Carter Funk uh Calder
Sheen who came in third and Caleb Lumis who excuse me who came in fourth uh wrestling also had a team academic gold award and this was a program record for them at uh 3.665 so very proud of uh their
accomplishments thank you thank you well thank you for all you do to support those teams to be successful we're really glad to see not just the day-to-day um experience that these students have but the fact that we're sending so many
students to state and that they're they're performing so well is really a testament to the growth that our program is having so thanks for everything thank you so much thank you thank you items 5.1 through 5.8 are our consent agenda would any board member like any
item removed for separate consideration move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say I i any opposed the consent agenda has been approved item 6.1 is our focus topic a
SAC update superintendent Pel thank you Chair Nathan can see uh Amy Ike our executive director of community education and uh community partnerships um and Nate Shaver coming up our youth programs manager for community education um to tee up this discussion as board
members are aware some of our subjects at schoolboard meetings are purely informational and there are times in particular when board members have asked for more information or times when I think it would be good for board members to have more information we have talked about the amazing work that Amy and Nate
and their team did in eliminating waiting lists for our school age child care uh in a really uh strikingly uh brief amount of time but we haven't talked a lot about the content of that programming and so I wanted to loop back
here and give them the floor to give you an overview of some of those things i also just want to say by way of looking ahead to the next several months between now and the end of the school year this will be your last purely informational presentation for quite a while because
you have a very ambitious agenda going forward starting with approving the performance measures and the school improvement process that will guide the next at least three years of our improvement in RPS uh starting next week then moving on to the school calendar the mindsets behaviors and experiences
for student success looking at some important enrollment projections that are forthcoming uh and then of course turning to the budget and so this is I hope uh an enjoyable and informational uh overview that doesn't require you to make a decision because you have lots of those in store in the next several
months so Amy and Nate thanks for your leadership back and relax yes sit back and relax that's exactly what I mean all right well thank you board members superintendent appreciate the opportunity to come and talk with you today um as the superintendent said we
are going to talk with you about the SAC program which some of you may be uh familiar with from having your children or grandchildren or neighbors a part of um but we want to give you a little bit of the background and talk to you a little bit about the process that went
into expanding the program and also where we see some challenges so you can see our topics for the night there and we want to start with just that basic understanding of why school age child care is so important to offer for a
school district uh our parents as you know uh benefit from school age child care in a number of ways but the most important is to have a place a safe and welcoming place for their children
during their work time and this is critical for our local economy it's critical for our students to have a place uh that they feel at home many times they're uh seeing some of their same friends from during the school day
and the sack program um so it benefits the parents also benefits our students certainly it's an economic engine as well in terms of freeing up adults to uh to work in the economy and paying staff that we hire as well
um you also are aware probably of the child care shortage not just in Rochester but across our country uh this is one thing we can do as well to alleviate that pressure on families and certainly we want to make it a warm and
inviting child care environment our students are constantly learning both from each other and from our staff so I'm gonna turn it over to Nate because this is what he does on a daily basis it's much easier talking to 200
kids than words so um just kind of tell talk a little bit about start with the history um schoolage share started with one site i believe that one site was at Sunset Terrace and uh believe it or not just
seven kids were in the program um small little story and all couple of little stories in there as well um I happened to be not in the program but I lived across the street from Sunset Terrace and when it started I went to the uh Sack program it was more open to uh a
lot of kids that could come at any time especially in the summertime so they had lots of activities that they started with so definitely started very small and and as you can see uh you know 44 years later we've grown to a very big capacity uh in the
district and in the community so when we talk about um sack we talk about a couple of major programs that we have we talk about our school year program and we talk about our summer program uh obviously our school year program is going on right now runs in the morning uh from 6:30 until school
starts and then it runs after school until 6 o'clock uh we run on non-school days inclement weather days uh longfellow breaks so long fellow 15 day breaks as well um off there um the bigger one is our summer programming uh
our summer programming has started uh we start planning for that uh in December so actually before Christmas break starts uh I'm already on to uh summer um planning activities field trips uh
believe it or not staffing um March we really get going for staffing so u and April as well um last week was spring break i did about somewhere between 27 and 30 32 interviews last week to get the process started for hiring for
summer uh and just to kind of give you a little um number-wise for hiring for summer last summer we hired about a 100 staff uh we upped our numbers about 300 kids um this summer going about the same um and our retention is starting to get
a little bit better it has taken a few years to get to that and uh we're looking at probably about 3540 staff that we'll be looking at for summer so quite a big change from last summer and that's in addition to the people that's in addition to the people that
are coming back correct um activities so we have a plethora of activities when we're at sack um obviously in the summertime you know people talk about field trips and going places what what you don't hear is behind the scenes of the stuff that
happens at the site um arts and crafts community service projects and I'm going to kind of pause on the community service project and just um say we're working on uh one we're partnering with the new Goldfish swimming school in town and working with them on presentations
and different things that they will come in and share to the younger kids um different garden projects we usually each summer work with uh a garden um program in town where they come in and teach the kids of gardening we will garden for the entire summer what they
grow um we usually get a chance to uh uh enjoy by the end of the summer as well um I did see a gaga ball i know uh gaga ball is the number one thing obviously in the summer which is uh no
surprise uh we do have in the summertime we have a gaga ball day so we have a gaga ball tournament uh which includes staff and kids and the kids get a big kick out of the staff playing go ball as well but as you can see the the activities are endless um lots of things
that are going on during the school the school day but the summer is filled with stuff from 6:30 in the morning until 6 o'clock at night yeah you can go right ahead um staffing so we have a wide range of staffing and
we'll kind of talk about some of the staffing as we get into it but uh high school kids all the way to staff that have retired um and are working with us um something that that is kind of uh interesting is that we are certified through the DHS the Department of Human
Services each year we have uh DHS come down and do uh site visits they will do a site visit in the fall with all of our schools and then they also come in the summer and do site visits in the summertime that's a chance for our my lensure to come down see the entire
program i get rated I get looked at we go through everything with fine tooth comb um happy to say that during those site visits uh for over the past five years we've had very very little uh that we've had to change or do so very proud
of the staff that I have um and the accomplishments we've had because of that um oh no that's okay um resources and partnerships um we work with lots of people um in the
community uh one of those is with the Jeremiah program um uh single women that need uh assistance as they are trying to get their feet on the ground we offer them free care uh for the summer and school year um happy to say that we
actually worked with them just this last week to get them all signed up and ready for summer so that they don't have to worry about uh summer registration as it comes up um in the next couple weeks with that we work with the IT and transition coordinator in the district
and I always try to save some uh specifics um numbers at each site so that if there are kids that are in transition um that we save some spots for them um and it's kind of a soft spot in my heart
too because my adoptive son uh lived out of a car so I know what those families are going through so uh to be able to save some spots to be able to have child care if they need it um to be able to go through that and any IT family gets uh
free care um during that time as well uh kind of the the source of the a little bit of the talk is the sack expansion um we Oh you're on that one i'm sorry see I'm jumping ahead just want to give them a a quick break
to reset also um remind you that a little over a year ago a year and a half ago uh Dr cow gave us that uh stretch goal of 25% growth in the program it corresponded with both the bell time
changes the changes in transportation and then sort of this ongoing need for additional child care so what we thought was um definitely a stretch goal at that point in time uh we took that to heart
nate especially uh cleared his calendar as much as he could for uh beefing up the staffing the staffing really was the challenge to be able to bring in enough staff and so he's going to talk to you a little bit about the process of going
after that uh the first one is the high school students so when the bell time change happened high school before that happened the high school students got out after elementary and it was easier for us to have those high school students and hire them uh we really
worked to um try to find ways to get uh high school students involved one of those ways was to be able to um give them credit for working um so currently I work with the high school admins and the counselors to go through hours look
at if high school students have met that 350 hours uh to get credit um and it is a weekly thing that I work with those um admins on um or those uh students uh currently 104 students right now um but
as we talked about sports we have lots of those uh students that are in sports so that fluctuates uh here and there so on any given time currently right now about 82 i actually think that's a little less because that was just before uh spring sports started um on that as
well so um I did ask some of the high school students uh why what they had to say why they like to do that and uh I just want to uh talk about Aurora from JM and she said that the environment uh I worked at is the biggest thing that makes uh me so
eager to come back to work uh next summer i had amazing co-workers and children i grew closer to all the people that I worked with over time uh it made me have a consistent sleep schedule uh and there was a lot of responsibility and things to learn but it was also a lot of fun and uh I like what she said
in that the especially the consistent sleep schedule but the responsibility as well because taking care of kids is quite the responsibility uh for a long period of time in the summer positive yep um another one that we worked with uh to
gain more staff was working with the ESPs and those ESPs um while working for us previous than the start of this year was to gain they could get the same salary as what they were getting during the day and that was a big change uh for
us um we did increase the number of ESPs that we had um a huge benefit that I have talked with a lot of them was was to get up to those 40 hours um we did have a lot of ESPs that did get enough hours to get benefits but to have that
to get to 40 hours was a huge thing um off of that so um 55 ESPs 42 of them currently working that also fluctuates on different things um with them stuff
going on home schedules all of that um and one that I just like to talk about is uh Britney from Gage she just talked about that she loves the bonds that she has created uh with her students uh and her co-workers there's a great satisfaction and realization that I've made an impact to the students in
my lives and I feel I'm connected in my family or community and and I kind of took as a community as in she gets to see the students during the school day and after school as well and those students get to see her in both kinds of aspects of the job which is
good [Music] um creative uses of space um space is always a very tough thing especially when we are looking expanding um I have worked with almost all of the admins at each of the sites we've looked at um
adding space at art rooms and music rooms um classrooms i will be uh even say we've done hallways um we've done different activities and different STEM projects where we could use a hallway and have a rotation in a hallway so we've gotten very creative in the use of space that
we can have um and sometimes there's been some challenges um with that but uh through that we've been able to uh make headway and because of being able to so I'm happy to say that Nate achieved this goal and he didn't just
achieve it he blew it out of the water 481 additional students served um through an amazing amount of recruitment of high quality staff and Nate um is committed to interviewing
each one making sure they are uh ready to commit to the kids in the program uh he's cleared our waiting list and was one of the first GOAT award recipients so I don't know if everybody knew
that and it's my job to wrap us up with a few of the challenges one thing I'll just say broadly is that child care across the board faces workforce challenges oftentimes because the wages are on the low end of the wage scale
across many environments and so you do end up with extra turnover in those lower wage jobs i'm very excited to hear Nate talk about the um the improvement in the turnover rate because that's something we always deal with and what
we try and do is make that a positive environment for our workers there are some additional uh space challenges that you might imagine as we expanded into other spaces uh the sack program we actually impacted our own community
programs that were using some of those spaces so even within our department we've got a little negotiating going on but there are lots of other things that call for afterchool space so those are really our two big challenges right now
um I know we've begun talking uh with the superintendent about uh whether or not we're meeting the the need for uh care for uh folks that are underresourced in their families or u might face other barriers so I think
that'll be an ongoing conversation and that's about what we have for you board members any one more questions director Barlo well not so much in the
form of questions but just comment to uh first of all guys are doing excellent work um I wanted to one of the partnerships uh Jeremiah u so important that uh you're
part of that process that will uh interrupt that second generational poverty and uh I'm excited that RPS gets to be part of that and that you guys have u provided the supports uh to be
part of that as well and then also um students in transition it's so easy to not see people or see need and there's an intentionality that I think uh Nate uh a heart as you expressed you
know having that direct experience and and I think that's what we uh need more of just that heart uh everyone is of great value uh no one is disposable and everyone is redeemable if
you will uh so so thank you for the work and uh thank you for the data that supports the work keep up the good work dr mccclaclin um thank you for your work and I'm so excited to see this expansion that I it was my son went through the program and it was incredible and having
more and more of those spots is good um and great do you have any sense or is it too early to know if there's going to be waiting lists for summer for summer um I don't anticipate any weight lists um we did 500 contracts at
each of the three summer sites when we raised to 500 last year we did not have a wait list for summer last year um I don't anticipate that however if we get to that point I'll easily be able to hire a few more staff if we need to take some more kids wonderful thank you Dr
marvin two questions um what first of all thank you the program is so so important for this community and for the families um do you anticipate that it's going to continue to grow is the need going to be there so that you'll need more you're
nodding okay and do you h have any I mean when do you Well you're starting to plan already for next fall but any idea by how much crystal ball that is the crystal ball question um I'll honestly I started
planning for next school year also in December so I start looking at what we plan for numbers um I've already sat down to figure out what registration is going to look like um we know school year registration will be in May um will there be weight list yes I believe there
will um I will I've already started to have those conversations about hiring some of those conversations I've already had in the summer interviews that I have had um I have interviewed college students that will be in town staying in Rochester and I've also interviewed um high school students some that will be
in high school next year some that are graduating that will still be in Rochester as well and that'll be kind of working in both ways where we use them for summer and we also get school year being able to create some extra space or extra numbers for that as well thank you
and then the second part of this is you you heard from student school board member that high school kids in that group were interested in working with little kids now that you're employing high school students other than the challenges of the schedules you know because of sports and because they get
out of school later what have you learned about having teenagers working as sort of you're smiling caretakers for little kids good good news bad news good news um I am I'm a firm believer in
hiring high schoolers um since I've taken over this position I continue to hire more high schoolers i think it's great the return for them is we'll get them through high school if they leave for college they'll come back for a few summers if they stay in town at RCTC
we'll get them for a couple of summers as well um I also believe that it's a good thing for them to learn it's good responsibility it's good work ethic um I'll be honest I started working at SAK when I was in high school so I was given that opportunity when I didn't have a
ton of experience so giving those kids a chance and experience is very good and it's really rewarding especially when you go out to the sites and get a chance to see what I like about it also is the training that our SAK staff receive on
deescalation safety uh relationships how to redirect behaviors also directly relates to life right so these are future parents and anything that we can provide that helps
build those skills the other piece is we do end up with a lot of former SAC staff as teachers in the district so there we haven't done a reunion yet but I still think we should at some point because there's a good stock of teachers that went through
as stack employees director White hi i'm glad that we've gotten the weight list down it's wonderful that we've eliminated that i know that was a barrier um for a lot of parents for some time just from a parent perspective um but my big question because it wouldn't be me if I didn't
have a big question is I see that we've done a lot of good things but I also see a long list of challenges so I'm excited to hear that we are being very innovative in how we're using our spaces that we're not just saying "Give me some more money add another building on
here." But with these challenges I would just like to hear what are some of the solutions a lot of the um challenges seem to be centered around dual use of the spaces which I'm glad to hear that we are using you know other spaces and
utilizing them um but to uh Dr marvin's um statement of you know the program increasing and us having more kids this this will probably be an ongoing issue right so what are we looking at for solutions so that we
don't you know end up having to phase things out because of conflict of space some of that is a mindset shift I think to think about the afterchool use of space being you know a continuation it's the same group of kids who were there
during the day and so a mindset shift among the adults in the building to say you know the the whole building should be available for use as much as we can after school sometimes that causes
some irritation type things my things got moved you know my room isn't set up the way I left it things like that we try to avoid major irritations but some of that comes with the territory of using that space so I do think that's
one piece that we will continue to work on the other piece we do partner with the Boys and Girls Club and they were able to secure state funding for three sites and so they are expanding at Riverside Gage and Longfellow under
their grant to try and relieve some of that pressure as well and so um where we can we have worked very closely at Longfellow especially sharing the different spaces we meet on a regular basis and discuss you know how can we
make that work well so it doesn't become a permanent barrier just like I said it's getting very being very creative so uh example fell is a a site and it's a small gym we'll use that gym for four rotations we'll have four
different rotations going on to four different activities so we can have small groups in different areas we can still use outside and use the art room so that's five spaces that we can use so we're not necessarily using it as a gym but we're using it as four areas so
we're trying to be very creative with whatever space we have as we expand that we'll continue to those talks and conversations will continue um I think Director Whitehorn it's a fantastic question and they gave a a
very positive answer i also made clear that it's not optional your classroom is not yours when you're not there and the the the that room in the school is not the schools if we need to serve kids because we have a child care crisis we have one of the highest rates of working
families uh in the country in Minnesota and Rochester's at the top of Minnesota so I just said this is not a nice to have this is a mustave and I I think that Amy's put it very correctly there's a mindset shift and we do have to mitigate it i know I was a teacher i didn't want people I was high school but
I didn't want people messing up my classroom but the reality is we have to serve uh working families and and just to amplify a bit what Amy referred to the discussion that she and I native have begun is that you saw in the in the PowerPoint there's a county funding
stream that we've been able to utilize and not exhaust in recent years to cover the cost of low-income families in SAC what I'd like to do is also look at the economics of the model so that we can potentially uh make it available to more low-income families internally from our
own resources because it's great content and we really want to make sure that our families who are also working families but who wouldn't be able to afford the fees directly can still take access so we're going to be looking at that we are doing that now the Jeremiah program is one example but we are doing that for
families now i'm excited about uh trying to make sure we can increase um the soio economic diversity of the families that have a chance to utilize this programming but we'll keep you up to date on that effort that we're we're looking at in the planning stage for next year and beyond
can I just add one thing to I think the word that hasn't come up yet is the convenience of it that having your child at the same place where you drop them off in child care is worth every dollar your transition right and I also think this is a great example
of um you know this this challenge for child care was partially as you said caused by decisions we had to make for our bell times and transportation um but you all have really demonstrated how to
marshall the resources that we have in the district and then reach out to the community and involve them in different ways as partners to solve this because it really is a community issue that you know we could choose not to offer sack
um but we do because we know it improves our students experience our families experience and I guess the one question I have and I think This is always a hard one is what do you know about the people who don't enroll is it because it's a
cost issue um you know is there some way to know if there's something that you're offering that isn't attracting i mean we're filling our weight list right we don't have unlimited space but what is it that we could do that might attract those people we're not attracting well
we did talk about some specific outreach to families who would um potentially be in that lower to lower middle income to see if the fees are a barrier um we also know that child care
is the whole uh spectrum from family members caring siblings caring neighbors family friend and neighbor is what we call that group and then other centers of course so without doing quite a bit
more data gathering from our families I don't know that we know the answer to that question about where they are if they're not at staff dr white I will add to that that I I do know a small barrier is hope is constantly transportation um that's it's
just a big thing that's that's I mean there's the financial part and there there's transportation like she said it's nice that the kids are at the location but you know there's not as far as I to my understanding there's not a transportation to sack in the morning
you know so that is a barrier for parents so even parents that could benefit from the SAC program I know are just not able you know if you work on the other side of town um I mean yes it's a convenience but you know having been a mom of very small kids you know
it's a big ask if you have to you know sometimes you have to make those sacrifices and you know have the older kids put the younger kids on the bus because even though sack will be nice you know getting multiple kids up at 6:00 in the morning and all these different things so that you can drop kids off get to your job transportation
is a big issue um you know considering that you know lower income families if they have a car may only have one vehicle um if there are multiple working adults in the house that is also a barrier if they have a vehicle um and child care is an additional barrier um
for transportation so I do know that some people pass up on child care even when they qualify because that's great that they're going to pay for the child care but how am I going to get the kids to the child care um and another thing I've also heard is you know we base a
lot of things around that 9 to5 work schedule and that's not everybody's um work schedule and I know we can't accommodate everybody but I do know that those are barriers for why some families that could use utilize a program like this just may not be able because either
their schedule doesn't fit or their transportation doesn't fit and I know we can't um accommodate every need um but I mean I think that's a bigger much bigger issue um when we talk about the child care needs in our in our community but I
do think that SAC is doing a wonderful job within what they have but I do know they're they're doing a a piece of the puzzle but when we talk about what's needed for our community for our parents and child care we get into a little bit of a wider you open up a Pandora's
box concerns of why Any other questions comments or accolades for this great team board members thank you thank you very much i think the next time we have people come speak to us who have been goat award winners i
think we need to require that they bring their goat profession is there an actual goat well it's a 3D printed goat made 3D printed goat i think you should give them a real goat a real goat okay
i like it uh it shouldn't be no all right um our next item is a prep for action these are the policy committee recommendations from the March 28th meeting the policy committee met on
March 28th and we proposed the following recommendations to the school board this is the first of two briefings on these policies and then they will be on the consent agenda on May 6th and we will now provide a summary of the policies starting with director work so
we have um nine policies and two procedures to brief tonight msba policy 507.5 school resource officers is a new policy that's required by state statute the purpose of this policy is to
establish the contractual duties and training requirements of a school resource officer the changes in MSBA policy model policy 512 school sponsored student publications and activities removes
language that conflicted with Minnesota statutes 121A 180 the proposed deletion in the policy reduces potential confusion when implementing the student journalism law that was enacted in
2024 so the purpose of this policy is to protect student rights to free speech in production of school sponsored media and activities while at the same time balancing the school district's role in supervising student publications and the
operation of public schools the changes in MSBA model policy 519 interview of students by outside agencies reflect the changes in statute concerning the interviews conducted under the maltreatment of minors act the
purpose of this policy is to establish the procedures for access to students by authorized individuals during the school day policy 613 uh graduation requirements uh delineates the requirements for
graduation from our school district uh the model policy changes include uh the students state graduation requirements targeted instruction plans consistent with Minnesota statutes um and credits that have to be successfully completed for graduation from Rochester public
schools and then policy uh 613.1R uh establishes criteria for participation in graduation ceremonies uh again this is just our school district policy two titles are updated language from Minnesota legislation
passed in 2023 regarding American India regalia etc at the graduation ceremonies also included the procedure currently labeled as 625BB temporarily outlines the guidelines for use of therapy dogs within the Rochester public schools to
provide social and emotional support for students this is a new procedure and it will be renamed 625B um and will replace the current procedure 625B after school board approval uh policy 631.1R shared time co-curricular and
extracurricular programs is to define parameters in accordance with state and federal regulations for student participation in shared time co-curricular and extracurricular activities governed by the Minnesota State High School League and RPS the definition of independent provider
activity from the independent provider agreement language has been added to this RPS only policy policy 901 community educations there are no MSBA model policy or cabinet changes to this policy the purpose is to convey to employees and
the general public the important role of community education within the school district then policy 902 um is the use of school district facilities and equipment uh provides guidelines for community use of district facilities and equipment there aren't any changes uh to
this policy however the procedure that accompanies this which is 902A um has been updated to reflect current requirements and practices and board members you may note that in
this uh summary handout policy 560 is listed but it is not in the resolution and that's because we still have some modifications to make to 5660 so that will be brought in the later uh agenda item any
questions comments thank you policy committee members we will return to this at our next regular meeting and then one more time on the consent agenda on May 6th item 8.1 is an action item the
schoolboard response to the APAC letter at the February 18th meeting the board received a letter of non-concurrence from the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee on March 25th we review the first draft of the school board's response to the letter of non-concurrence an updated draft is
available in tonight's agenda item the draft letter was slightly updated for clarification but there have been no changes to the substance of any of the commitments made in the first draft letter so the resolution that we will uh ask for motion and second and then have discussion be it resolved that the
school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby approve the response letter to the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee APAC regarding the letter of non-concurrency received by the district on March 19th 2024 move approval second
it has been moved and seconded any discussion questions hearing none all those in favor of the resolution say I i opposed the resolution has been approved other business 9.1 is our ABCD the
current version of the ABCD is available in the agenda item and it does include the recent updates that we've talked about at previous meetings um are there any agenda items a board member would like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda hearing none our upcoming meeting
dates are April 15th at 5:30 a study session april 22nd at 5:30 a regular meeting may 6th at 5:30 a regular meeting and I believe we have confirmed that we are adding a study session on May 13th at 5:30 uh so that will be a
study session and then May 20th at 5:30 a regular meeting and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 6:43 p.m can we just sit here for a couple more hours