Welcome and good evening. I would like to call the Monday, May 27, 2025 school board meeting to order. Lisa, will you call the role, please? Director Cummings here. T Felton here. Duffy here. Weber here. W. Felton here. Claflin here. And
Hume here. At seven presents at 5:00, six o'clock. Six o'clock. Six o'clock. Thank you. All right. At this time, I'm going to ask all who are able to please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. from Fleet Park. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone who's here with us in the city hall
chambers. It's a full house. That always means it's an exciting night for the school board. Um, but first, we need to approve tonight's agenda and the minutes. I am looking for a motion to approve the regular board meeting agenda for this evening, as well as the minutes
for May 12th work session, May 12th special board meeting, and May 12th stakeholder comments to the board. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Thank you. Thank you. Um the reason we have so many May 12th related things, we uh for
weather reasons cancelled our April business meeting. It was supposed to be all those tornadoes. Nothing happened of it. But in order to kind of keep timely things on track, we did have a special session at our work session on the 12th to make sure the bills got paid and the lights stayed on. Um, if there is any
other discussion or comments about the minutes or the agenda, no. All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries. 70. All right. Now, it's the best part of the evening.
Quality in action. And tonight is jam-packed. Okay. First up, I want to call up uh Terry Bretoy. We're going to introduce our exciting employees. Yes, I am excited to kick off uh honoring the
25-y year employees here tonight. So, uh good evening to Dr. Zambino and South St. Paul School Board. My name is Terry Bretoy, principal of Composion. And I'd like to invite up Brenda Miller. Come on up. Yep. Now is the time. There you go. Yes. Round of applause.
So, Brenda Brenda and I first started teaching together 20ome years ago, right? Yep. um and she has been a special education teacher in the district at Lincoln and at Caposia and she has the greatest like mentor mentee story. So she had uh
taught here in South St. Paul for a number of years and then left and taught in Michigan and when she came back she actually came back as a year one. So she did all the probationary teacher things that a year one teacher does and she was
assigned a mentor and that mentor was her mentee 20 years ago. So they got a chance to give each other the mentor business I guess uh back and forth. But Brenda has been a stellar special educator for a number of years and she is celebrating her 25th year with us. So
I'd like to thank her for her dedication and time to South St. all kids and students over time and just what a pleasure it is to work with her both at Lincoln and Caposia. So speech no I'm she's not a speech. All right, Principal
Marty. Hi there. And I am excited to talk about two really important retirees tonight. So the first person is Leavon Francis and Leavonne can't be here this evening. Um but she shared with me that she has loved her time teaching and adored her years at Lincoln Center. She has said she is blessed to have worked
with so many amazing staff, beautiful families, and best students ever. Besides hearing the words, "You have cancer," retiring from Lincoln was the hardest thing she's done. I know Leavonne. I knew Leavon as a first grade teacher. Um she also taught kindergarten. She was one of the first
people that greeted me every morning. She was always first in the building. Um, and I look forward to connecting with her, seeing her smile, and just her positivity set the day for all of us in the building. Um, Lincoln has missed Leavonne every day these last two years, and we will continue to miss her. We appreciate you, Leavonne, and wish you
all the best. I'd like to invite Kathy Ru up. Kathy Rue is retiring after a 33-year career as a speech therapist for early childhood. She spent 31 years with South St. Paul public schools and most of them
at Lincoln Center. A fun fact about her, which I think is super important, especially if you've been had a chance to tour any of the special ed um programs at Lincoln Center, especially our Sun program, students with the unique needs. Um she had um the privilege to help start what's called communication and integration program,
which is now what our Sun program is today. So, she did that many years ago for us. Um, her plans for retirement include cabin time. Um, her and her husband just bought a new cabin, spending more time with her mom who was in memory care. Now, she can be there not just at night, but during the day
with her, and also with their grandchildren. Um, I want to thank Kathy for her years of service, but also importantly for her joy that you bring to work each day. I've had the opportunity to observe her with her students um that she serves, and it's always evident how much they love
working with you. Um, and she's working with our littlest, you know, three-year-olds, four-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and and she just has them do the most unique things with flashlights and searching around the room for special words that they have to then use the pronunciation that they just learned um to improve their speech. Um, you're always someone I look forward
to seeing every day and working with. I'll miss you. Um, your smile and your generous spirit, and we wish you all the best. Thank you. I'll call up Principal Borg. Hi, I'm gonna have Peggy Palumbo and Bob Peter Fesso come near me while we start.
Um, I also have uh an apology to make in advance. Past couple of years, I've had no retirees. So, um, I've been saving up and I wrote a speech. It's many pages. No, it I mean it's a couple pages, but it's not bad. It's a very large font
because I'm losing my sight. So, I I'm Leah Borg and I'm the principal at South St. Paul Middle School and I would like to um first of all, thank you for letting us speak about the retirees. Um I have the a great honor of presenting
to you two amazing educators who are ending their fantastic careers here in our district. First, I'm going to talk about Peggy. Um I've actually known we're going to get all forced here. Uh uh Peggy came here in 2021 as a
health teacher and while she's only been here in this few this district a few years, she started her career in 1988. She has worked in St. Paul public schools, the East Metro Integration District where I met her, Minneapolis public schools and a few charter schools and finally here at South St. Paul.
Peggy is ending her career here in South St. Paul where her mom Gwen Diamond worked as an occupational Oh my boy about that. I'm sorry. Um, Gwen worked as an occupational therapist and you can still find her
bass relief art installation at Lincoln Center. Um, it honors Gwen and the work she did to improve the lives of all the students she served. Um, Peggy served students of all ages for the past 37 years. She has taught physical education, health, human
sexuality, and social emotional skills. She has led student leadership groups and facilitated students doing amazing work with community and service projects. When I first met Peggy, her son Dan was in my class at Crosswind's arts and science school. He was so cute. Um, their family
had just spent a year in Australia where Peggy had participated in a teacher exchange program. I loved listening to her stories from Australia, learning about her experiences, um, learning the continent, and she was also learning the content of the Australian standards pretty much the day before she taught
them. And as a brand new teacher, I thought that was pretty cool because that's what I was doing here in the United States. In 2003, Peggy became the health teacher at Crosswind's Arts and Science School, and she later served as the IBMP coordinator there. Um, I was a very young teacher at the time because
I'm very young still. And um, I had the opportunity to learn from her. She taught me a few important things. When kids are out of line, tell them. Don't be mean. Don't silently allow them to break the community standards. More importantly, know your
community standards and don't be apologetic for them. And kids, especially middle school kids, need to play talk about their emotions and hear adults be vulnerable. Peggy has mentored countless new teachers and works to collaborate with all staff to provide
wraparound support for her students. When I interviewed Peggy last week while preparing for this moment, I asked her what she would miss the most about being in the classroom. She told me that she would miss the magic moments. Peggy Peggy described these as when kids reach out to each other and collaborate and
help each other, especially when they aren't in the same friend group or haven't worked together before. She has immense gratitude for those moments when the students apply what they learned in the classroom outside of the school walls. Peggy is looking forward to her retirement. She will spend more time with her family, her husband and three
boys, and her new daughter-in-law. She's also looking forward to finding a new way to contribute. She's looking for a position with nonprofit organization. The whole staff and student body at South St. Paul Middle School will miss her. We wish you the best. Um, now I get to talk about Bob. And Bob
Peter Feso is celebrating his retirement this year with not he's not only celebrating an amazing career, we're celebrating his legacy here in South St. Paul where he has served for 35 years. I interviewed Bob last week in preparation and he said um he reminisced about
starting his career in 1987. He sent out over 100 job applications and had one interview. And if you were sending out applications in 1987, you were doing them on a typewriter. And I am old enough to have known what a typewriter is. I I myself learned how to type on a
typewriter. He sent out over a hundred applications. He had one interview. It was an interview in River Falls where the principal had no intention of hiring the young Mr. Peter Fesso. There was an internal candidate and Bob almost gave up on his dream to be a teacher. He had an offer in sales and he could have
easily taken that job and a bigger paycheck, but he decided he would give this teaching thing one more try. I'm so glad he did. He found a job in the on the east side in St. Paul at St. Agnes School before beginning here in 1990. He had
taught high school and middle school and he did a stint in the front office as an administrator before returning to the classroom. along with teaching thousands of students over the decades, probably many of you. Um, his impact is not just on students, but staff too. There is not a
staff member who has walked away from a conversation with Bob without learning something about education or how people learn and form relationships. Bob is a scientist and loves to learn about how people learn. He has incorporated new techniques and brain research into his instructional
techniques and into how he assesses students for understanding. I have been told that when staff are not sure what to do, they ask themselves, "What would Bob do?" There might have been bracelets. Personally, as a new administrator, Bob has been a blessing to me. He has listened to me and
provided guidance. When initiating new systems or programs, Bob has led me I told you it was pages long. I'm sorry. Um, he has led staff in being willing to try something new. The staff listened to him because he has earned their trust. On my hardest day, Bob would appear next
to me in the cafeteria. He would tell me that he was thankful for my leadership. He would tell me to keep going. like now. He is a he is a calm presence and
expert in his field and he is leaving a legacy of rigorous science instruction and compassionate, respectful relationships. This spring I saw a young seventh grader. He was going from class to class and he was wearing a lab coat and I was like, "Oh gosh, where did this kid get this coat?" I stopped him and
asked about his new coat and he responded, "Mr. Peter Fesso himself gave it to me." Every student who has been in Mr. Peter Fessle's class has known love and translated that into more learning. Bob told me that his whole career he has had the support from school leaders to
be innovative. He has always felt that leaders have trusted him to be creative. He is thankful for all the people that he has worked with, all the collaboration and ideas that his co-workers have offered. In retirement, he and his wife are building a house in a house in Arkansas. He will spend time
with his grand his kids and grandkids. There really are not enough words for me to provide an adequate send off for Bob Hudterfest. Just like Bob who always leads with gratitude, all I really can say is thank you. Thank you, Principal Oaki.
Uh, good evening. My name is Chuck Oi and I'm the proud principal of South St. Paul High School. I'd like to thank Leah for two things. Normally, I'm the town crier, so I appreciate that you breaking the ice for me. Uh, and then not following the script. So, anyway, uh, I want to honor a 25-y year employee,
Jolene Mshock, if she would come forward. So, her position is chaos coordinator. It's actually what it says right outside her little cubicle, but she is the administrative assistant to two principles. So, she has the job of keeping two squirrels in line, moving in
the right direction at the same time. So, chaos coordinator. Fun fact, if you don't know Jolene, you have never been to South St. Paul. Really, not only is she the face of everything that happens in the high school and the middle school, but she is
at every home activity, taking tickets, welcoming parents, grandparents, helping people find their way, meeting officials. She is everywhere. Uh, and I have appreciated being able to to work with her these last 10 years and I'm looking forward to five
more. Five more. Okay. Right. Uh, so fun fact, next time you uh see Jolene, say thank you cuz she has to put up with two principles and an entire building and she is the chaos coordinator. So, thank you very much for
everything you do. And I do have uh to honor a retiree, I'm going to ask Chris Weinford to come forward. No crying. Oh, too late. Uh so Chris Fine Fner is a math teacher at the high school, but she's more than a math teacher. I want you guys to understand
that. Uh it's been my pleasure to work with her for the last 10 years, even though 17 years ago I hired her and then left. So I've been uh honored to be able to work with her for the last 10 years. A fun fact for your for everyone to know in the high school we always talk about pilots. We're going to run a pilot. We're going to try this. We're going to
try that. Chris is my official pilot for everything, right? She has never said no to me when I'm say out loud, I'm thinking about and she'll like I'll try it. Uh so I'm going to miss that about her. Uh, and I'm going to miss her always being like, "Yes, we we will give it a try." Okay, we will give it a try.
Uh, her plans for retirement obviously is to come back and help SSP because the students mean that much to her. And she's got some grandmother duty that she's going to do, right? But I'm going to leave it on this. It's um, a lot of times when retirees when they reach the end of their career, you can almost see
like they maybe they're ready. Maybe they're ready, but not Chris Weinford. No, she's not ready. She She's ready. I'm not ready. How about that? Uh Chris Weinfer won the Civil Silver Apple Award from South St. Paul High School. And the
student who wrote it last year, student who wrote it said, "Miss Weinfford is like a second mom to me. She's always pushed me to do my best and helping me whenever I need it. I didn't like math freshman year. I don't think I was good at it. Miss Wine Fertner changed everything. In her classes, she explains
algebra and geometry in ways I understand. She makes me work hard and never lets me get lazy. Miss Wine Fighter wants everyone to succeed. Now I feel good about math and I get good grades. That's all because Miss Wine
Fertner believes in me. So, thank you. Beautiful. Beautiful. She will be missed. I know there are a couple names that haven't been read. We've got um Heidi Mogulan and
Erica Ryan and they're now celebrating their 25th anniversaries. All right. Well, with that, we congratulate them for their years of service and dedication to the district. and we move on to the rest of the evening. I am such a sympathetic
crier. I apologize. He's gonna follow up. Gearing up. Yeah. All right. Well, after trying it in March, moving our student board rep report to the beginning of the meeting, we decided we really like it, so we're going to do it again. I would like to invite Jackson
Schultz and Amalfak up for their final student school board rep report. Wow. Okay. Lisa for this picture. But they're wild. Oh boy. Yeah. It's all your hard work, right? And yeah, the connections videos. Okay.
All right. Well, for our last last goound, we can highlight the end of the year. So, we already went through our activities, awards, and any banquet that you can imagine. So, just to congratulate people for their work, especially seniors because they dedicate
a lot of time and effort into South St. Paul. So, had to get a shout out to them. Yeah. And uh the educational foundation uh just gave out what, like $600,000 or something like that. I mean, it helps
out a lot of people and it's a great thing for this community to do. Yes. Thank you so much to the Ed Foundation. And then for graduation, so the CLC graduation is on June 10th and then our high school graduation at the secondary is June 12th. And then the photo below
is all the scholarship recipients. So congrats to them. And then just some quick highlights for this year that Jackson and I have been doing. So we had a lot of student voice opportunities to conduct. So we conducted a lot of surveys and focus groups and that's helped us really
improve our culture at South St. Paul. Like for instance, focus groups has help have helped us hire Mr. Booth who has been a huge huge help to our secondary. Like we have had more colleges visit our school this year than the past decade. So literally round of applause for Mr.
Booth even though he's not here. And this year also, the course registration process was a lot easier due to the course registration guide and all of the teachers and staff counselors who helped kids out with registration.
That was very helpful this year. That was a great uh use of resources. And then Packer Pathways. So we've made like the communication for Packer Pathways better. So, in our course guide, like students are better like
they're better educated on the programs that South St. Paul offers and that will lead to more enrollment in those programs. So, we're really excited about that. And of course, our cell phone policy and attendance policy. Although people complain about it, our education is getting better at South St. Paul and
we are a lot more engaged as students. Yeah, we got to go to school to, you know, learn and Yeah. And this year also, we had a new lunchroom. I mean, the carpet is gone, which is it's a great thing. Great
thing. Uh, yeah. And hopefully we can get the mural back pretty soon cuz that was a good that was a positive in the lunchroom. Yes. And then for multicultural night, as someone a part of BO, I'm so blessed to be a part of continuing this annual
event. So, in the next couple years, we'll have multicultural night. So, I'm super excited about that. And then our CDLU soccer tournament has also been like an annual thing. So very thankful for that as well. Yep. And then student council, we just wrapped up our Penny Awards, which was a fundraiser for an
animal shelter in town. And yeah, it was a great event. Uh the juniors won the race. So I mean that's a good that's great for us. Jackson's a junior by the way. And then just a quick reflection. Um, my experience as a student school board
representative, I'm beyond grateful to have this opportunity. What I appreciated, I appreciate that student voices are generally heard when um when decisions are made at South St. Paul. I kind of felt like they weren't when I wasn't in this position, but seeing behind the scenes, I actually realized that yes, our voices are considered.
It's just very hard to like please everybody. And then during meetings, I appreciate the extra clarity and grace that were given to Jackson and I since we were learning so much terminology and acronyms. Like the acronyms were insane. SRO, student resource officer. I had to ingrain that. And then what I learned, I
learned that there is a lot that goes behind the scenes to make our educational journeys possible as students. So, I'm beyond grateful for that. And then ideas for improvement. I just kind of wrote to delegate these responsibilities to more people than just two. And we have three for next
year. So, yeah. Three. Uh, this year I really appreciated the opportunity to speak on behalf of my peers and on behalf of myself. That was a opportunity that I'm very grateful for. And I also appreciated the amazing people that I work with including Amal
and Lisa. And they really helped me share my opinions and organize them in a good way. Uh, I also learned a lot about the process of how this works. It's pretty complicated sometimes, but it was really interesting to learn. And I also
learned how to gather information and organize it into a presentation that is clear and concise. Uh, I had a couple ideas for improvement. Uh, for me, sometimes it was very difficult to make the meetings with my activity schedule because I
usually wouldn't get done with practice until around 5. And that was that would cut into the meeting before this meeting. And it would be great for future student athlete representatives or activity representatives to have work sessions that they could always attend.
Um, and it was also sometimes difficult to decipher the meaning of some of the items on the agenda. And to prevent people from getting confused, it would be nice if there was a summarized version of the agenda. And last but not least, I want to uh thank Lisa for all
of her hard work. Like you carried us when I'll just say thank you both. you were amazing and stepped in and really um this is only our second year doing this program and so it's been wonderful and you've allowed us some grace and learning in this process too and we've
learned some things along the way and so I appreciate you meeting with me every other Wednesday night and kind of getting set and I'm excited to see the where you guys go from here. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. And then finally got to introduce our new reps for next year. So
Finette, Chloe and Monty get up here. [Applause] And they're just going to introduce themselves. Yeah, no pressure. It's okay. In order. Fanette. In order.
Okay. I'm first. All right. My name is Fanette Reo. Um I'm a a junior. I'll be a senior next year and I'm really excited to do this and learn like the process of the school board and how it affects us. And I just went to the meeting at like 5:00. If I'm being real
honest, I had no clue what was going on, but I hope to learn what you guys were talking about and some terminology behind that. It's real. Okay. Um, I'm Chloe. I play softball. I don't know if you can tell. Um, I'm very involved in the school and
a lot of activities and all. And it looks like we have some tough footsteps to fill in for you guys. So, sounds like you did good, but I'm excited to give it a try. Uh my name is Monty Whitaker. I'm also a junior. I do debate and knowledge bowl
and my biggest motivation for doing this was just to make sure that other people's voices were heard. Also with Finette, uh being totally honest, when we were at the work session earlier, I also didn't know what was going on. But also like Finette, I'm also really excited to learn what you guys were talking about and what how we can
contribute our ideas to what you guys were talking about. All right. Thank you guys so much and enjoy the evening. Thank you everybody. Again, I just want to express so much thanks to Amal and Jackson for all the
work they've done for us this year. It has been amazing to see you go from no idea to what's going on at the table to sharing opinions, gathering information for us, and really helping change the course of where our district is headed.
I'm so excited and looking forward to working with you, Finette, Chloe, and Monty. And I'm sure the rest of our board is feeling the same. We're excited about the potential of having three people help bring that voice to us. All
right. All right. The thing that most of you have been waiting for, the big quality and action item, I would like to invite activities and athletics director Brady Krueger up. Thanks, guys. All right. Thank you for inviting
us back uh to share some updates about our spring activity season. Uh first up, I'd like to thank Dr. Zambbrino, uh the school board, uh Mr. Oaki, Miss Borg, uh for their ongoing support of Packer Athletics and Activities um throughout the district and at the secondary building. Um again, this is always a
special opportunity to speak with you and to highlight the incredible work our coaches, adviserss, and students do in these programs. Uh before we begin though, I do want to highlight uh the dedication of our coaches and advisers um for the just the tremendous work they do, the hours that they give up um working with these kids to ensure that
they have positive experiences um and that they really grow and develop um as responsible young uh human beings. Uh without further delay, I'm going to bring up our track coaches. Uh we're going to we're going to go together. We're going to bring up Mr. Spriggle and Mr. Hart.
Hi everyone. Hopefully they get up. Brought a whole crew. Come on, Brady. I need to be by this. All right, I'll go ahead and start. Uh, so I'm really pleased to be here and, uh, talk
about the girls track and field team. Uh it's already been a really fun and successful season and with our section meets tomorrow uh and Friday, we're hoping that uh our the fun continues and uh get some people to the state meet. Uh
so this year, first time in 10 years since 2015, our girls team won the two team section meet and advanced to the uh two team state meet. So uh that was a really fun experience for the team. Uh just everyone coming together and
putting the best team score we could possibly do. And then going to this two team state meet was a great experience. It was a little cold. Uh but uh we saw a lot of great competition there and should help us prepare for uh the meet
tomorrow. Uh last week uh on Thursday we had our conference meet and um it was condensed into one day. Usually it's two days prelims and finals and it was condensed to one day on Thursday and we saw a lot of personal records uh and eight girls uh achieved all conference.
So our girls 4x8 team placed first and ran a season best. Uh that was Brooke, Katie, Audrey, and Ella. Our 4x2 team uh placed first and had a season best time also. And that was uh Annie, Scarlet,
Sarah, and Sophie. And then uh Brooke Feiner um right here took second in the 800 meter dash and ran a personal best. And then Sophie Hart um took second in triple jump and also
broke our school record. So uh some good performances uh just last week. And then I'm going to let our kind of two seniors, uh, Scarlet and Brooke, come on up and just give a highlight of his season, our favorite memory. Yeah,
my name is Brooke and my favorite memory was getting all conference in the 4x8 and open eight and then winning true team and going to True Team State. I'm Scarlet and my favorite memories were also getting all conference this year and then making it to true team state.
Yeah. Great job, girls. Uh, hi. I'm EML Sparkle. I'm the boys uh head track coach. And I would say that it's been such a as every time I come up here, it's always so great. And tonight is especially great. I love getting a chance to listen and hear about the uh the retirees and and the landmarks. If I
think of all the times throughout this 20 23 years of mine that I've called Jolene and asking for help, she definitely has been amazing. And I know that it was super funny. Uh I was I was Lisa's underperforming service student the year that I had Mr. Peter Fesso uh in my favorite class in high school which was ecology when I was a junior.
That was a fantastic class where we went to go to sidels and test the pH levels of of the soil and we were trusted across uh Southview and and make it back uh on time for next hour and it was it was a really great class and I I really he was a fantastic teacher and he was a super great professional to work with as
well. So our district is is losing a great person. So um for here though we've got other people who are are waiting in the wing. Uh we we've had a lot of good success with our boys this year. Uh two of our bodies that have had the most success have aren't actually here. Uh Adam Miller and uh and Gavin Scaliki, those are our shot two of our
main shot disc guys. They've uh taken first and second a number of times uh in different meets. However, uh they've got a tall task ahead of them there. Our section meet like like Tom said is tomorrow and they've got some other good competition and so uh they can kind of blast them out there. Maybe they can
qualify for state. Um also here uh Jackson, I appreciate Jackson a lot. Jackson does a lot of stuff for us. He triple jumps. He he's done different sprints. Uh but he really captures the epitome of a packer because one time uh Jackson fell over the hurdle in the 300
and and and it hurts and it's not fun to have that happen to you in the middle of a race after you put so much time into it. But uh just like a true Schultz and a true Packer, Jack got up and he just went and finished and you know, you would have never have known that he did it. He just had the task and then did it. So I appreciate that. Uh over here
we have our male honor athlete Brady Biner. Now something that's really great about Brady. I know uh everybody here they're probably at least half the people in the room their favorite movie is Kindergarten Cop Arnold Schwarzenegger. Uh that is a actually how I would look at Brady's time here at South St. Paul because Brady has our our
record uh for track and field and and for football for most volunteer hours of service. Usually at all of our track uh clinics and like youth camps and football things there's kids that are using as a jungle gym. And I think of that scene when Arnold Schwarzenegger just kind of stood up and there's kids
hanging off of him. Uh that is exactly what Brady is. He's always there for all of those kids and I appreciate that. And then up next we have Walton. Walton driv Junior and I would say a best way to look at him is uh he's going to seek to drop uh 32 seconds from his 800 time
tomorrow to qualify for the 800. Uh if in case you are all wondering and didn't know the the Croatian Hall is exactly half a mile from here. So Walton could theoretically run from here to the crow in a minute 59 uh actually minute 58 33
and then he would qualify. So that's that's a g idea of what Walt's trying to do. And so uh overall every single day with these guys is fantastic and they all teach us so much and it's a blessing to be with them. So great. Guys have anything you want to say at all? Thoughts? Something to top the girls?
Yeah, see work. Good. Thanks everyone. Thank you. All right. Uh next I'm going to bring up uh Mr. Mike Casselinda, head coach of our girls softball program. Hi everybody. My name is Mike Castelinda. I'm the head softball coach
here at Saul St. Paul. Um mood's a little somber. We just lost out in our section to Holy Angels 11 to7. So kind of down a little bit, but the season that these kids had was pretty awesome. Our overall record was 10 wins and 12 losses. We finished in fifth place in
the Metro East Conference, which entitles us to two allconerence players and three honorable mention players. Our two allconerence players are Khloe O'Neal and Audrey Madson. One of our allconerence honorable mention was Sydney Thompson, Lily Pacle and uh
Sophie Bibo were the other two. Okay. Uh great group of kids. Work hard every day. They play hurt. They play injured. They play sick. They take IB tests all day long and then they come work out. It's just a really good group. Um so with our loss today, we finished third
in the section. Um let's see here. Academic awards wise as a team we were uh all state gold level which is 3.75 or higher which is awesome very good smart kids intelligent um we had one all state
academic uh Lily Paco which is a 3.75 or higher I think that was pretty much a given she's very intelligent kid um captains wise I apologize I should have introduced them first is Khloe O'Neal Audrey Madson Sydney Thompson um
Girls, you have anything you want to say? No. Okay. Uh, you know what though? The season that we had, we were up and down. We were inconsistent. But you know what? These girls laid a huge foundation for South St. Paul softball. Next year is going to be even better. We lose two
seniors. Two seniors. So, that's all we have. That's South St. Paul softball. Thank you. All right. Well, this is going to be a first for me. Uh, I'm going to ask uh Mr. Duffy to come to the podium to talk
about our boys baseball program. [Music] Uh, hello fellow board members. Uh, I'm here to speak on behalf of my baseball kids. I got them hopefully prepped and ready. Hogar, are you ready to speak a little bit? Hope. Okay. Uh,
but we had a really successful season. We were uh 8 and 12 as a team this year. We missed out on two games uh due to weather at the end of the year. Uh, but we more than doubled our regular season wins from last year and it was really productive. Uh, we started out trying to find our identity a little bit early in
the season and really caught fire. Unfortunately, we stumbled a little bit in sections and had an early exit. Not what we uh wanted, but um seeing the growth out of all the kids throughout the year has been really uh really tremendous. And being able to watch that and be a part of it, uh I'm truly
grateful um going into it. So, we've got two kids playing college baseball. We got here and then we've got Rodic is going to go play juniors in Massachusetts. Landon will attend Kirkwood Community College and Hogar will go attend uh Hamlin and
he'll be able to play uh at CHS just across the bridge of 52. That's their home field. So really great. So I'm going to step aside and let these these gentlemen talk a little bit about about our year and what they experienced.
Um, the year was definitely uh up and down, but overall I think we had just a really awesome group of guys and a group of guys that are going to come back and, you know, after a tough loss, work really hard at practice the next day. And overall, I think in my three years of baseball here, um, it was just the
best group we had like friendship and chemistry-wise. Yeah, I know. I mean, my favorite times of the season was after we win on the bus, just playing great music, having a great time. Nice. Um, I think we started this year with
confidence. We had young we had a lot of uh seniors last year and a lot of young guys this year and only a few seniors this year. So, we had to take the lead on the young guys in the beginning, which is started out rough, but but we started to get a hold of it, and then I think next year they're going
to come out strong and have a good year. Um, I mean, I've played with these guys, but with my season, I think, you know, there could have been many improvements within the team, but you just got to have the right mindset to play baseball.
Really, it's not just throwing the ball and hitting the bat. It's more it's more just a mental battle with yourself and with your team having a having a good attitude going against other people um with the same skill set, better skill set. Just don't be overconfident with
yourself and you'll manage to win any game. Yeah. Uh thank you seniors and we'll be happy to have Gio back next year, but uh they left the program in a better place than they found it. And uh one of the thing it's on the cover of our team handbook. It's uh preparing Packers for the next four years and I have no doubt
that these guys will end up being leaders uh later on in life and continue to grow. Uh so thank you [Applause] guys. All right, next up I'm going to
bring up Coach Reelman of our boys tennis program. Hi, I'm Nina Reelman and this is Cooper Meyer. He's putting on his uh tennis sweatshirt to represent. He's uh pulling double duty today. He's here for knowledgeable and boys tennis. Um we
graduated a number of seniors last year. Uh so this year was kind of an interesting year. We had a few less older kids. Um but that being said, we did have six middle schoolers on our team. Um, five of them were in seventh grade. Um, and then we had seven kids
all together who were new to tennis. So, definitely a very new team. Um, which is pretty exciting. Um, we did win some awards. Uh, we did win the team academic allstate award. Um, we've got some really really smart kids and kids who know how to put like academics first.
Um, that's one of the things we um we kind of pride ourselves in. And then our two seniors this year um won the individual academic all-state Cooper Meyer and Landon Sear. Um it's been pretty fun um getting to see Cooper kind of grow up a little bit. Uh he's been on
the a team since middle school so it's kind of exciting to see some of these new middle schoolers and it's going to be fun like having them in class and kind of seeing them grow up a little bit. Um but yeah, it's been kind of cool seeing him be a leader um both on and off the court. Cooper, would you mind
telling us your your favorite thing about tennis in your time at South St. Paul tennis and then your favorite thing about the season this year? Uh, like Miss Reeseman said, my name is Cooper Meyer. Um, my favorite memory
from this season was just uh I don't want to say being the team nanny, but I kind of did have to be the team nanny this year. We had a lot of middle schoolers and there was there's a lot of growth to be had. Uh, but it was a lot of fun getting to know the younger
guys. You know, I I've never never met them, never talked to them before, so a whole new group of guys that I get to to teach and and even learn some stuff from. So, that was a lot of fun this year. Um, my favorite memory overall, I
think last year, um, my doubles partner and I, Zach Malumbi, we got fourth in individual sections, and that was, uh, definitely, uh, the highlight of my career. That was that was a lot of fun. So, thank you. Yes. Um, while it is
Cooper's last season being a Packer, um, he is playing next year at W Stevens Point, so he's not done with his tennis career quite yet. So, a big round of applause to you. Thank you. All right. Next, I'm going to bring up Mr. Tyler Larose for boys golf.
Good evening. Uh, normally this for the last 38 years, this had been Dave Palmquist coming up here. And I mean, think about how many times that man has spoken in front of uh, this group in this room. And then back in February, he goes, "Hey, do you want to coach golf?" And I'm like, "With you?" And he's like, "No, I'm I'm stepping down. I've been
doing this for 38 years." And I said, I looked at him and said, "Dave, I'm not even 38 years old." like how do you big shoes to fill. Um but here I am as the first year as our boys golf coach and here is Leighton Gossman who will be back up with our uh state participant
knowledge bowl team and we are still going. We have the section tournament tomorrow at Francis Gross Golf Course over in Minneapolis. Uh and we had a really young team too. I think echoing a lot of what uh coach Reelman said with the tennis team and as far as Cooper was the team nanny for the tennis team. I
think Leighton uh would second that for our team. We have a seventh grader and two eighth graders participating tomorrow in our varsity golf team for sections. Uh and I think we romanticize golf a lot. It's a summer sport. It's nice. And then you try to play it in April. And golf is really, really hard.
I think anyone can imagine. It's one of the harder sports to just pick up and try from scratch. Now make it so cold you can't feel your hands, right? make it so wet that the club, we actually had a kid the other day, the club flew out of his hands and went 40 yards into the woods and they spent a good two minutes
trying to track that thing down. Um, but all in all, and Leighton can attest to this, we came out in our first match this year against Two Rivers and we shot a 419, which is not good. Uh, your average score is over a 100. You take your lowest four scores and we
shot a 419. And then uh I just I I took I felt so bad I took the guys to McDonald's and bought a McDonald's and said, "All right, we need to talk about this cuz this can't happen again." And uh to their credit, we went out last week and shot a 344 in the conference championship. We shaved 75 shots off of
our lowest four scores. And I I you know, at the beginning of the year, I said like that would that would be the biggest success for us. Leon, anything you'd like to add about the golf season? Um I mean, no, not really.
it. Uh, it's been fun the past couple years getting out playing golf. I mean, there's the great perk of getting out of school early, so you can't really beat that. Um, but it was fun, especially with uh like Lucas, which he's not here,
and Graham. Um, just hanging out with them and getting to play golf, which is uh the sport that I love. So, uh, it's great time. Yeah, it really is the lifelong sport, right? We say play here for four, play the rest of your life for 40 more years. It's a sport that we want to I'm really excited to see a lot of
these young men on the course this summer and throughout the rest of my golfing career, too. So, thank you everybody for your support and we'll see you next year. All right. Next, I'm going to bring up uh Daisy Medina Quinka and Bridget Contrus to talk about our CDLU program and all the things that they did
this year. Um, good evening board members. My name is Samantha Oliva. I'm one of the leaders of CDLU and a senior. I am one of the two seniors who received a scholarship from the educational foundation. I'm grateful to have
received the $5,000 scholarship from CDLU. Being in this group for the past four years has shaped me in different ways. I've been able to watch the Hispanic community grow more in South St. Paul. Tonight, I'm here with several members of
CDLU. Hello everyone. My name is Rihanna Rivas. Um, also a CDLU leader and a junior here at South St. Paul. I'm so glad to be here today with the group to share with you guys what CDLU has done this past year and what this club means to us. CDLU stands for Kumid de Latinos
Unidos or in other words, Community of Latins United. Our mission with this group is to get students to know more about our different cultures and a way for our students to feel more welcome in the environment that they're in. Good evening board. My
Pardon. Good evening board. My name is Yawani Bonia and I am also a leader of CDLU and a sophomore at the South St. Paul High School. Um, some events that we have planned in the past were the
multicultural day, the soccer tournament, the South St. Paul boys soccer team fundraiser, and during Hispanic Heritage Month, we have hosted the parades throughout the elementary schools. I have experienced a lot of feedback from many of our peers of how
successful our events were and the many different cultures we have represented during these events. With that being said, our club is beneficial not just for the club members but for the South St. Paul community. Uh to show our
care uh for this community, we played bingo with the seniors over at the uh Nan McKay building. And I personally truly love um the experiences I've ex uh seen here
um within our group and within the community. Uh I really love how it's grown over the last year or two and um to see that our lovely community has grown in various different ways has
really uh bring me joy. So I really appreciate that. Good afternoon, board. My name is Sophia Riviaga. I'm a sophomore and also a CDLU leader at the high school. Um, being in CDLU has really taught me how to
mature and has taught me so many skills like social skills like coming up here and talking to you guys. Um, and skills like how to be organized, which will really help in the future. Um, at the beginning of this school
year, I was not organized at all. I was all over the place. But being in this group really, really showed me what a community can do to change you and to shape you. And for that, I really appreciate everybody around me,
especially D, Miss Daisy, and Miss Bridget. And yeah, thank you. That's it. Thank you. Thank you guys for your time. All right. Next up, we're going to bring up Mr. Anderson uh to talk about our
knowledge bowl team. Dr. Zbrino School Board. Uh, thank you for having us here tonight. Uh, first of all, I want to congratulate the the 25-y year teachers and the retirees. They're amazing educators. Um, Amal and Jackson, you know, I think the world of you, too.
Thank you for your service. And then I really encourage the school board to use these three students. They're amazing kids. They will really help you us improve the school. So, um, thank you guys. Um, I want to talk a little bit about our knowledge bowl team. We had some things happen this year that we've never had happen in South St. Paul
knowledge bowl history. Uh this year I have four students with me. I have Cooper Meyer, Logan Lamont, Jameson Hammond, and Leighton Gossman. Um and uh when we compete in knowledge bowl uh in the metro region, there's no
AAA. We have to just compete against all the big schools. Um and it's a it's a tall task because where we we have a couple hundred kids in each grade we can choose from. They have 6 7 800 kids a grade they can choose from uh to to fill out their knowledge bowl team. Uh these
kids have uh devoted a ton of time the last four years at least with me uh high school even in junior high knowledge bowl um before that and uh this year they ended up being ranked fourth in the metro region. Um and then eventually at the uh at the region tournament
qualifying for the state tournament. It's our very first time we've ever had a team qualify for the state tournament. So, uh, they did an amazing job. Eventually, we, uh, we went to Craig's and Brainer, um, and competed, uh, against the some of the smartest kids on
the planet. Um, and, uh, ended up finishing 12th in the state, but with, uh, we're talking over hund hundreds of, well, there's a thousand team knowledgeable teams in the state. Um, and, uh, and they ended up finishing 12th in the AAA division. So, absolute
uh, amazing season and an amazing knowledgeable career. I don't know if any of you have any trivia you want to ask them. They'll they'll know the answer. I mean, you can do it. They'll know it. So, uh but anyway, um I want to thank them. Um it's been a uh just an
absolute pleasure to coach coach these gentlemen and uh they've given me a lot of memories that I'll I'll never forget. So, thank you. [Applause]
All right. Next up, I'm bring up Mr. Holen uh to talk about our spring theater programs. All right. I want to thank school board and Dr. Zambrino and uh and Mr. Kger also for uh letting us come here and talk about the spring theater program.
We did two plays this spring. Our high school play was All Quiet on the Western Front uh which we had a it was a a very challenging play because it's uh not just the subject matter but also the approach of the script uh takes a very different approach to some um
storytelling. Those you got to see the play, you know what I'm talking about there. We had 26 actors, 16 backstage crew, and 47 students overall uh working on All Quiet. Uh, and I'm super proud of the the great work the kids did on that show. Uh, and then we also had our
middle school play Ramona Quimby. I'm happen to be wearing that t-shirt today. Uh, the two students behind me were both in Ramona Quimby. 22 actors, 15 backstage crew. And I had six three assistant directors and three student choreog choreographers al all high
school students who were helping with the middle school students to work on on Ramona Quimby. Um both these plays very challenging plays uh to take on. Ramona Quimby is usually done uh play usually done at high school level and All Quiet is frankly usually done in a college
level. Um but our kids are are up to the task for both of these. Um I'm going to let these two students talk real quick, but I just want to say how thankful I am that that that Gio and Issa came out for this play. Uh I've been involved with Ramona Quimby. This is my third time
being involved in this uh with this uh script. uh over my career and it's always a little scary when you approach this play because you have to have some kids who can play third graders. Uh but the third graders are and especially in case of Ramona are are the the lead
actor and so they have to have the the actor mentality of a much older kid than a third grader but they have to be able to play a third grader. Uh and these two kids both did a really great job. Gio was um now I'm going to forget the name because I'm on camera. Howie. Howie.
Yes. Played Howie. Uh Howie Hobart. And then uh Issa was one of our Ramona Quimbies uh title character. Um and they both did a bangup job with that. So uh I'm going to just let you guys talk for real quick about kind of a favorite memory from the play. Let them think
about this for a second. That's a good question. That is a good question. Sorry, I took them on the spot. Um, my favorite memory Oh, okay. Well,
my favorite memory would probably have to be the time that I spent with my fellow uh members of the SE theater and we just had a lot of fun like helping each other out with like
whatever we needed and backstage it could be difficult at sometimes but we always helped each other through it. So yeah. Um um hi, my name is Gio Va and for Mona
Crimby I was Howie as Mr. Holson said. Um, probably one of my favorite um things of Howie and the play itself was getting to just overall be Howie.
Cuz Howie um is like a very nice character. Like when you get a script, I feel like when you get a script and you read and you're like, "Oh, those are my lines. That's my character. Now, how do I be this character?" You have to figure
it out along the way how your character evolves and it forms and it becomes the person that you are doing the play itself. So I love the evolution of Howie and how it turned out. Um I get a smash
in the play. It was fun. And yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So thank you all very much for having us here. And I know we're short on time, so we'll just go on. But thank you very much. Thank you.
All right. Our last program that we're going to bring up tonight is also our newest program. Um, and that is our flag football program. Every year that I've been here, this is my third year, I've always had kids that have said, "Hey, can we start a flag football program?" Uh, and the answer was always no because of funding and some other issues and so
on. This year we had a tremendous opportunity come to us and we were able to start a program and it has been an absolute success. So I'm going to bring up uh Mr. Matt Tigland to talk about our girls flag football program. [Applause]
Hi, my name is Matt Tagglin. Uh I'm a teacher and a coach in the district and I work with Don Niheart on the girls flag football team. Uh this is a really cool moment for everybody involved in this program. Uh it's just very new. I'm sure you've seen some of the things on the Olympics that they've been getting
the flag football stuff started over there. Uh and it's just been like a really great opportunity. So there's 30 teams in the Twin Cities area that have participated in this league. Uh we play every weekend. Uh and yeah, we have had over 50 girls participate through 7th through 12th grade over this season.
We've been playing for two months now and we've been able to cons consistently field a varsity, JV, and B squad team. Uh as someone who has played, coached, watched, and lived football for my entire life, uh it has been an indescribable experience to get to watch that world now being accessed by these
young women in a way that empowers them to compete, work as a team, believe in themselves, and learn all the great lessons the sport of football has to offer. Uh we had a short season, but we had a great weekend sweeping our out of section schedule here at Edinger Field. We are undefeated at home and we are excited to play our playoff game against
North Minneapolis this Sunday and hope to advance to the state tournament the week after. Uh now just a few shout outs for our allconerence and allconerence honorable mentions. Uh senior Alana Searing and junior Micaia Davis for all conference honorable mention. Uh and
Aviana Mugg Goodwin Barez and uh Ava Castillo as honorable mention for the conf or sorry for all conference. Uh all four of them have brought a focus, positivity, and leadership to practice that has managed to transfer to the game field. Alana has anchored our offense as our starting quarterback and taken on
the leadership and pressure that comes with the role uh with a grace and a willingness to try her best. She has thrown a plethora of touchdowns this year and is a lethal running threat with a high quality of athleticism. Our other honorable mention, Micaia Davis, uh has solidified herself as our premier pass
rusher and has had multiple sacks uh in key moments of a lot of games. And Micaia plays with an intensity and love for the game that produces results and inspires her teammates to play harder. Uh for our allconerence selections, Ava Castillo. Ava Castillo is our defensive leader. She has multiple picks, flag
pulls, and a defensive touchdown on the season. Ava is a coach on the field and works hard to encourage her teammates and make sure we play with a high level of communication. Our other all-conference selection, Aviana Mugo Bomares, has spearheaded our offense with a combination of carries and
receptions, as well as an overtime takeover performance where she advanced the ball three plays in a row to score and clinch the game by catching a two-point conversion. I cannot stress how much of a joy it's been to be a part of this team. Our girls bring an exceptional combination of kindness and
competitiveness that has created an uplifting environment day in and day out. Uh, and I just would like to say one of my favorite things as a coach that I've been able to experience, uh, is when we get together to break down in the huddle. I hear so many practices over already. Uh, why can't we keep
going? And as a coach, that's just a huge honor for me to be a part of. So, uh, I am immensely proud of these young pioneers. There are big things ahead for girls flag football at South St. Paul. and we cannot wait to see where it goes. [Applause]
All right, that's all I had for tonight. Thank you for allowing us to be here uh to share some of the highlights from our spring season. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of our athletes and activity participants. Now the room clears out. We have to go
back to our regular agenda items. Thank you for coming. All right. We'll give it a second. [Music] Just impressive to hear over and over again how academics still play such a
role in our students when they are talking about sports. All right, back to the boring stuff. I guess item 3E. I will now highlight the stakeholder comments that were given to the board on May 12th. As a reminder to our
community, there are two ways to make comment to the board. You may either submit an online form or appear before the board in person. If you would like to speak in person, the board has set time aside on the second Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. during our regular extended work session meetings at the
district office. At our stakeholder comments to the board session on Monday, May 12th, we had two individuals attend. Both speakers expressed concerns about the poor condition of the Roosevelt tennis courts. One of the speakers also spoke
to the board about what the district can do to make sure all of our students are academically supported and that collegebound students are given guidance on how to succeed as they navigate the transition between high school and college. I will now turn things over to Vice Chair Claflin for an update on this
evening's work session. Thank you. Uh this evening we did a lot to prepare for the items that will come before the board this evening. Uh we were able to meet our new student school board representatives for the upcoming year and thank our outgoing student
board reps for their service over the past year. uh bringing the student voice to the board really has helped us understand how our work is affecting the daily lives of students and I'm glad to hear that they felt like we listen and
hear uh their feedback to us and that you see those changes come from your participation. Thank you very much for participating in this whole process with us. I know that there's a lot of acronyms and I'm still learning them myself.
Uh most of our discussions this evening were around some HR uh items that will come up later tonight and how we will move through those and some of the upcoming social calendar items that we
have um a senior social ice cream social later in June. Caposia days, all the graduations, all the celebrations at the end of the school year, and uh quite a busy calendar for all of our students,
teachers, uh mentors, parents, and board members at the end of the school year. Thank you. All right, Dr. Zambino, would you like to give the superintendence update? Yes. I don't know that I can keep up with the just incredible night we're we're having here tonight, but I
will do my best. Um, just like what an amazing night this always is. These are long, but well worth it to celebrate our kids. I do want to uh give a shout out to Amal and Jackson and thank you for your service as our board reps. Um, I think we were pretty honest that we
still didn't really know what we were doing over here. And so, I appreciate you going in and just kind of going on that journey with us and you've really helped to raise the bar on what it means to be a student rep and and elevating student voice. So, thank you for that. And we're so excited to welcome Khloe, Finette, and Monty to the new role. Some
I know they had to duck out. Uh many of them have lots going on. I heard diploma program and all these different things they're working on. So, um you know, I always say on their worst night, our kids are the best. And so, tonight I think proves that. But also our staff. I mean, Leah, thanks for choking us all up
over there. Um but we really there are some some legends stepping away this year. And so it's great that we are able to pause and really honor and celebrate our incredible staff. Um, and then just, you know, what I love is just how well-rounded our kids are and all the experiences they get, whether it's
activities, athletics, and then always with that focus on academics. So very, uh, I always say I'm the very proud superintendent and tonight is one of those nights that really reinforces that. Um, so thank you to everyone for making that happen. I'll jump into my update here and try to keep it as brief as I can since I know we got a long
night. Um, we've been sharing some information around a brand refresh. And so, um, want to be really clear, we are not trying to rebrand our district. We love being Packers. We love our colors. Those are the things that are who we are. Um, but as we're going to land our strategic plan here tonight, it is a
perfect opportunity, a great time to talk about uh what is our brand and do just a refresh again, like are our visuals meeting our needs? Are they ADA compliant? something I didn't realize, there are very specific colors that we're supposed to use uh that are approved or not use ones that aren't
approved. So, there's a lot of things that that go into it. Uh but as is always the case, anytime we're moving something big, we engage with our stakeholders. And so, we did listen to staff, families, community members, you know, to identify what makes South St. Paul Public Schools, you know, the
amazing place it is. Uh so we can continue to do those things. And then also, you know, an opportunity to bring in some outside eyes to help us with that. So, um, CEL is a Minnesota based communications firm that really works with a lot of school districts and, um, I shared this before as we were doing
some of this work, but it was pretty fun. We did look at a number of firms for cost, for product, uh, and actually Dette and Lisa outperformed a lot of them. So, we moved past some of those, but CEL was a great partner in the end for us. So, we're excited to bring forward some of their materials that they've come up with. And again,
nothing's decided. We're going to it's an iterative process and we'll continue to engage with our stakeholders. So stay tuned and uh hopefully we'll see some exciting things come out of that work. I just like keep asking myself, what am I missing? Because we're like right here at the end of the school year. It's amazing uh how fast they go.
But we had the great uh scholarship banquet last week and Amal here got three scholarships worth $22,000. The total of $65,000 for our kids. So amazing some of the things we get to do as the year is winding down. Uh but two important
graduation ceremonies coming up. Uh each unique and each awesome. So if you have the opportunity to attend both, I would highly recommend it. We'll be celebrating our CLC students on Tuesday the 10th at 6 in the high school auditorium or the secondary building auditorium. And then we'll uh be down on
Editor Field with the sun shining, a nice cool breeze on June 12th at 7. I hope I didn't jinx us. I'm going to knock on wood, but um really I I when I was hired three years ago, I was told just how amazing that ceremony is and having gotten to sit there three times
so far. It is incredible every time and uh it's an honor to get to celebrate our kids in that event. So, looking forward to that and appreciate our partners at Town Square for always um you know, putting our things on public access and sharing that out for the world to see. So, thank you to them. Uh as we approach
summer, it is that time for summer learning. So, I always try to remind people when we get to summer, you're in your next grade. So, we we put a a pin in this school year. So, anytime we're talking about summer learning or summer opportunities, that's for the grade the child is going into. So, for our
incoming kindergarteners, they'll have uh K camp. And KAM is that opportunity to uh come in and get into the school. Uh get a sense of what it feels like to be in the building. Um follow kind of a mini version their schedule, practice getting lunch, those kinds of things. And so a great opportunity that's very
well attended. I highly recommend that. It's a great experience for parents and kids alike. And and then for our summer learning academy, that again is grades one through five next year. So we'll be offering really fun hands-on STEMbased learning activities, lots of time to
enjoy summer, too. We want to make it fun and engaging, which I think we want to do year round, and we work real hard to do that. Uh busing is available and students do receive breakfast and lunch and so that's great to keep them in that in that routine and to keep them well fed. So we're excited to offer that. And
then packer preview is for our uh fifth graders coming into sixth grade. So again, similar to that K camp, a chance to get into the building, mess around with the locker when it's low stakes, those kinds of things and and get to know some of the staff and get their way around the building. I am excited though. We've done a lot of work around
our transitions this year. So, uh, hopefully people are feeling that around how are we supporting our our elementary learners as they're making their transition, uh, into the secondary building. We heard from our our students today about some of the intentionality we're doing around helping kids make choices while they're at the secondary.
So, a lot of uh, time, effort, and energy being put into that. And then there's a middle school summer learning academy for seventh and eighth graders. Again, hands-on, really fun chance to explore interests and and be engaged and stay learning. So registration is currently open and will remain open
through uh Friday the 30th. So coming up here pretty quick. Uh so please get on there and get yourself or your child registered. And then pleased to share that we are partnering again with Open Door to offer free meals for kids. And so um we're going to have that going on
on our sites this summer. So it's for ages students in the community ages 1 to 18. No registration, no IDs are required. Uh just show up and enjoy. So meals will be served every Monday to Friday from June 23rd through July 24th. And they'll be um they're offering also
mobile lunchbox sites. So visiting parks around South St. Paul, bringing the food right to the kids. So appreciate uh trying to get to where the kids are. Uh and then also available for families this summer, the department uh US Department of Agriculture is offering sun bucks. So they can uh families who
qualify can receive $120 per child to spend on groceries throughout the summer. Um so anyone who receives educational benefits during the year automatically is enrolled in that program and we really hope people take advantage. Uh have that information on our website at the headline section. Uh
we never ever want anybody to go hungry and I know that's something we work really hard on. I've shared many times how many meals we serve. It's almost a half a million meals that we serve between breakfast and lunch just in the school year and then you add in summer on top. So, um, please keep, uh, keep the kids coming and let's keep them
wellfed and keep them engaged in learning. It's a couple, uh, fun things that are going around. So, our middle schoolers got a chance to go as part of the pathway exploration to visit Inenver Hills Community College, and I love the partnership we have there. We do a lot of concurrent enrollment and our
students who uh take classes that are in partnership between our high school and inenver hills get college credit and then they're automatically enrolled at the college so they can continue right on after. Uh but our students got to learn about different programs and post-secary options we did here. Uh some of the great things happening again at
the high school with Mr. Booth and some of the opportunities we're trying to create for kids. But this is the second year the kids have gotten to to do that. And that's a help in part in large part to our SSP educational foundation for helping with transportation. Something they've really helped out a lot with this year. So, thank you to the foundation for
that. And you know, we talked about some things that um are impacted by weather. We were very nervous that our field day was going to or track meet was going to get rained on and we had actually beautiful nice it was a little breezy but nice cool weather for the kids to run and compete. And man, they were like
exhausted, dripping sweat. And I got to watch some of the fourth graders and fifth graders. And what I love is how much they uh support each other and cheer each other on. And then our older students from the secondary also help and run those events. So neat opportunity for our kids to to pay it forward as we expect all of our Packers
to do. Just some upcoming dates. We have uh Junth is coming up. So that will be a district holiday. um our PTA meetings. We got Caposia on the 3rd, Lincoln Center on the 9th, and then I mentioned the summer learning academy beginning right around the corner on the
23rd. And then some fun activities. We got choir concert on the 29th. I mentioned the graduations coming up. And then that Packer preview, we do that in two sessions. I should have mentioned that earlier. One runs June 23rd to 26th. That's session one. And then July 7th to 10th would be session two. And
then the middle school summer learning academy begins on July 7th. I can't believe we're talking about dates in July. Um and then just a quick update on budget. We've had um we've shared some information. This has been a uniquely challenging budget season with a lot of
unknowns. Um it's always a challenging situation in schools because we need to land our budgets and really do our budget planning while the legislative session is still underway. I want to uh give a shout out and thank you to everyone who has supported our our messaging around compensatory aid.
That's the funding that we were sharing with everybody. That's still up in the air a little bit, but we're we're cautiously optimistic that that's going to come through. So, just wanted to give a a quick touch point on our budget because we will be landing that here in June. Um, so our process usually starts really actually in the fall. So, a lot
of us are already in that phase in in the fall. U, but then we start to bring that forward to the board and and have conversations throughout the fall and in the winter with the ultimate plan to approve the budget at our final meeting in June. And so, like I said, right now we have this unknown on compensatory
aid. I I do want to give um credit to our school board for your courage and letting us um take that chance and um um hedging our chances with the with our fund balance. And so what I mean by that is right now if compensatory aid is not
fixed, we would lose um about a million and a half going into next year, which means we would have to reduce that amount next year and we would lose that amount out of our fund balance. Uh but if we have to make that reduction next year, you can figure inflation and all those things on there like I had shared
with somebody. It's about the equivalent of had we not passed our referendum. So it's very high stakes for us. U but some some of the big factors driving our budget every year um is uh we always do what we call right sizing or aligning our enrollment to the number of students we have. We have really great board
approved class size targets that put us regionally very competitive, very low class sizes compared to others. uh we've been able to maintain those uh but we are seeing um a decline in enrollment which is really largely attributed to lower birth rates and so what you'll see is the incoming kindergarten group is
smaller than our graduating seniors and so this trend has been in place for several years and it's continuing um but we know we're starting to see the housing market turn and more families moving in so I'm again cautiously optimistic that we might be seeing that that plateau and then we can start talking about maybe when we're growing
in enrollment operating costs unfortunately continue to grow. We all know about inflationary pressures. We all feel that at home. That's no different for the school. So, everything costs more. And of course, because of that, our employees, you know, need to cover the cost of living. And so, we've
made some some good um adjustments to salaries and benefits. That's 80% of our budget goes right into our people. Um and so, you know, we do have to cover those costs. And then the state funding challenge as I mentioned the reduction in compensatory funding if it's not fixed uh will be a significant issue for
us. But we're going to continue to uh share the positive message about we're getting results with those dollars. We've seen achievement on the rise here uh for the entire time I've been here and I think we're going to see that continue again this year. So very proud of that. I give all that credit to our
building leaders and our our teachers and staff in the front lines. Um but you know those those are some of the challenges we face. If we don't have those funds, we won't be able to have as many staff. And so compensatory funding, we um we have some flexibility as a board and as an administration to hold
some of that. Centrally, we do not. We put 100% of those dollars directly into our schools where our kids are. So if those dollars go away, it's on the backs of our children. So we're we're again very excited to hear the the final news on that. We've had some costly state mandates around unemployment insurance
and some other things that we're still learning about that we're going to have to pay for those bills and then just ongoing funding gaps where we see um we're appreciative that there was um tying our funding to inflation that is actually being discussed about going away. So we finally got that after
fighting for that for about 20 plus years and that's at risk now of going away because the state's budget is a challenge. So, those are our realities, but no matter what the situation is, uh, we will be Packer strong and we will get through it and we will continue to do great things for our kids and we're going to focus our dollars on our
students as much as as possible. So, I mentioned the compensatory funding. Uh, paid family leave is one that um is new. We have to contribute to that cost as well as employees. That amount is about $135,000. Uh, but if somebody uses that and we have to backfill the position,
there'll be some additional cost. So, that's a little bit unknown. And then unemployment insurance uh for summer for hourly employees in the summer is a new expense. The state did come in and pass a bill. They funded that at $100 million, which is great. So that'll hopefully help avoid us having to uh
fund that out of our general fund. So overall, when we started the budget conversation, we talked about a target of $2.25 million. The bulk of that being in our compensatory aid or our compensatory funding. We're hoping that just gets washed out and then we're
uh left with the 750,000 back to those things increasing costs and and um funding issues that we're facing. Uh but we do have some uh great things that we were able to find. And so in terms of aligning to enrollment, we only had to offset that by
$310,000, which uh meant small, but of course if you're impacted by that, and I have been in the past, I know it's not small to the individual. Uh but overall, thankfully not a huge number. Uh the number that I saw for all of the metropolitan school districts was
somewhere between $240 and $280 million in budget reductions. So we are in a very good spot financially as long as that compensatory aid is fixed. Uh we did have some creativity around career and teched. So we were able to generate $140,000 in new revenue. So Amy Winter
and Chuck Ochi, Principal OI and the teachers there to get them accredited helped offset 140,000. And then we did some reallocation and uh Dr. Birkhart and her team and others worked to do some reallocating and offset another 300,000. So really um the actual
reduction that we're having to feel is 310,000. So I feel like we're in a great spot financially as it sits today with hope that we've passed that compensatory aid fix. I'm happy to answer any questions that might be just keep hoping that at the state
capital everything goes smoothly. Yes, we and I want to commend our board. I know uh Director Cummings set up some meetings. I know others have been championing hard and Kim Ann and I were at the cap and I've been down there multiple times and so um I can safely say that our school board, our staff,
our administration has done everything we know to do to get this message across. Um so if it doesn't come through I hope our community knows that there's really not one stone left unturned and trying to uh support our staff and our students. So thank you.
All right. Next up, I am looking for a motion to approve the consent items on tonight's agenda, which include the financial claims, bills payable, and staffing as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Thank you. Any discussion?
All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. 70. We now move on to section five of the agenda, district policy. District policies play a critical role in the governance work of the school board. All district policies are available on our
website under the about us tab located within the schoolboard section under SSPPS policies this evening. We have a series of policies on our agenda for final review. Some of these policies were initially reviewed by the uh board policy committee on April 9th. The rest
were initially reviewed by the board policy committee on May 6th. They all had their second consideration by the full board on May 12th at the special meeting and are now on their third and final reading. They are 506 student discipline, 617 early admission, 620
credit for learning, 624 online instruction, 404 employment background checks, 406 public and private personnel data, 408 subpoena of a school district employee, 410 family and medical leave act 413 harassment and violence. At this
time, I am seeking a motion to approve the policies listed on our agenda this evening. So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? I just uh um Madame Chair, I guess I
just wanted to thank again uh our staff. One of the things that have happened in the last um uh set of months is that um Joel and others are regularly talking about policies at the meet and confers
and so really trying to solicit um uh feedback from frontline employees who know um that are implementing many of these policies that are putting them into action and that is extremely helpful and I just wanted um again from
the board that that is appreciated. Um, and also if there are district employees that are listening, whether it's through their bargaining unit or whether it's um through the policy committee, that um we do want to hear your feedback as these policies are being developed. Um, and um
we are asking for your feedback as well. And so that is that is something that's happening right now and wanted to thank um the work in trying to um get that feedback. So, thank you, Director Cummings. Any other discussion? Are those in favor? Please
say I. I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. Are they review? 70. It pass. I'm losing my mind. All right. 7:30 almost. Okay. Business items. We have 10 business items this
evening. Uh, first item is the approval for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the MHSL membership resolution. Do I have a motion to approve? Some moved. Thank you. All right. And I will take
that one. And we Okay. I handed We let Mr. Kriger go since he's puts in many, many late nights and this is a pretty straightforward one. So, this is just our annual resolution to be participants in the Minnesota State High School League. Yes. Any questions or discussion?
All right. Lisa, will you please call roll? Is there a resolution? Director Cummings, yes. T Felton, yes. Duffy, yes. Weber, yes. W. Felton, yep. Claflin, yes. And human, yes. That's seven yays. All right. Resolution
carries. Thank you. All right. Next item. I'm looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the 2025 2023 strategic plan. Do I have a motion? So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. All right. I would like to
invite you again to introduce who our strategic plan uh committee members are tonight to present to us. Yeah. Well, I'm so appreciative of them coming uh tonight after we had to punt. We were promised it was going to be the storm of 20 years. So, we we kicked the can and
the storm separated right before it made it to the metro. But, I I am very appreciative of our committee members who are here. Um really, it's been a long time coming. you know, as I came in, it was after the pandemic. We had lots of needs, lots of
work to do, um turnover with some key leadership positions. We just weren't ready to really dive that deep uh that deeply into being able to do a strategic plan. We did some great work. We know we did the core values with our city. Um we had a lot of conversation with our staff and students about what they're hoping
for out of the district, but this is really a big night tonight. I think a culmination of a lot of great thought generation, thought partnership. We sought extensive feedback uh in the leadup to this. I was very clear this is not my strategic plan. This is our strategic plan. And so we listened to
students, we listened to staff, we listened to families. We had copious amounts of data. And then we brought it to the steering committee to say, "Okay, help us make sense of what we're hearing." And so what you're going to see tonight is the final product that is the result of hours and hours of work
from many, many people. I want to thank Lisa for helping to organize that. Uh we have a couple of parents with us. Well, staff and parent, I guess we have we straddle a little bit here. So, Zach and Janelle are here as parents. Jane's here as a parent and staff. And then two of our principles who are on that. We also
have Dr. Burkheart who's was on the committee. And I think that's everybody who's here who's on the committee. Yes. So, um we're going to walk through a few slides and just kind of share what that process looked like, sounded like, and then where we're going with it. Um I will share, you know, it's it's kind of like someone's like, "What's the point
of doing that?" you know, kind of like when a plane takes off, it doesn't have no clue where it's going. So, the strategic plan is our goal. This is where we're trying to go. We got a lot of work to work on the plane to get us there. That'll come later, and I'll talk a little bit more about that after the presentation. So, let's jump into the
slide deck. I can't remember who was up first. All right. So I will um do you want me to start with I don't remember who had which slide start. I'll start us off. I already did but I'll I'll start us again. So what you see on the slide is the folks who are on the steering committee. Again uh we worked
very hard to have a representative group of um staff and families that were uh participating in that. Uh we did have an outside facilitator Tina Posnas Posnansky with student education helped us with that process. But you can see from the list we have uh parents, city
council, staff, I mean such a high level of investment uh in this process. So just a shout out and thank you to everyone who I won't read all the names in the interest of time but thank you to everyone who participated and thank you to everyone who provided feedback to give this group I think. Yeah. Good. All right. That's
Zach. We got it. Thank you Dr. Zamino and thank you board. Uh so before we dive into the details of our strategic priorities, it's important to take a step back and ask why a strategic plan. Why now? This plan is more than a document. It's a shared vision of what
we want South St. Paul public schools to become over the next 5 years. It gives us a clear destination helping us look beyond day-to-day operations to chart a bold long-term course. First, the strategic plan serves as a touchstone, a consistent point of reference that reminds us of our
collective why. It anchors us in purpose and gives us a way to rally around a common direction, especially during times of change or uncertainty. Second, it allows us to align our values and commitments with measurable outcomes. This ensures that we're not just stating ideals, we're
turning them into action. every priority, every initiative in this plan has a clear connection to the outcomes we want to achieve for our students and our community. And third, it's about communicating priorities effectively. When everyone from students and staff to
families and community leaders understands what matters most and why, we're able to galvanize action. We can make decisions more effectively and allocate resources more strategically, knowing we're all pulling in the same direction. So this strategic plan isn't just a
roadmap. It's a commitment. A commitment to excellence, to equity, and to a stronger future for every learner in South St. Paul. Thank you, Zach. All right. Hi board. I'm Jane Cornell, parent and um teacher at the high
school. So um how we kind of went through all this was we first we had Dr. Zambbrino kind of covered it with the engagement of district leadership and making sure that we had kind of this overall process. We sent out surveys. We
had people come in. Um we engage the focus groups. So that was more of the gather and analyze. Then with our group, we moved into that aim forward. So we were reviewing the input. We were reviewing the data and we were kind of looking for that common goal. What what
priorities, what goals, what outcomes did we want? And then we and that was over a process of multiple meetings um both in person and online. And then we reviewed and we revised. We had all kinds of we had posters hanging up going through different ideas, things that we
kind of liked and we would go back and forth with what what wording we liked, what letters we were using, things like that. So you'll kind of see how that all comes together. Um and then obviously we came to you um the board for our presentation and then our approval. So,
we're in the finalization part of our strategic plan. Thanks, Jane. Hi, I'm Janelle Rose and I have two kids that are at Lincoln Center. So, I'm deeply invested in what happens with South St. Paul. Um so, um
as um she had mentioned um from the process, the raw data comes from the focus groups. So, there were um 24 focus groups. There were 138 participants. And so what was um there was an invitation in the beginning of the school year to
have voices be heard uh from everyone from the community. And so there were different opportunities to come and share your opinions um for and give responses to the set questions that were in place. So um that was in the beginning of uh September. So not only
did I participate along with other families and other community members, but then we took the raw data um that was given. So the responses were were provided and people provided their feedback and there were people transcribing while we were in you know in the different sessions and it was one
thing where um you also had the people transcribing confirming the responses that you had. So it wasn't just going off of what summarizing what you said is making sure that the wording is what you wanted um if you needed to go back and revise or get your thoughts out. And so it wasn't a rushed process. It was
something where they really wanted to make sure that they understood what was being said. What is it that you wanted to convey? So, it was um made sure that before leaving that you got your ideas and your thought process out and it was confirmed um and it was on the screen
for you to see. Um and so um and if there's any tweaks that need to be done before the session was done, then that was made there. So, a lot of people left feeling um that they were heard um and it was seen and you were able to see what it is that you were thinking and what it was what was written and the raw
data from those things the the qualitative data from those experiences is what we were using um in those different sessions. So, um the process that we're talking about with the posters and the conversations and deciphering what is being said, it is looking at the trends of the responses
that the community had. So it wasn't just one particular group of people that was saying a certain response is looking at all the data. And so I think one of the things that our responsibility um being part of this committee is making sure that no response was left out through the process. Everything was um
carried through. So making sure to to remind and reinforce and to make sure that the responses that everyone had was carried through um with intention as we were going through the process. So yeah. Thanks, Janelle.
Hi, I'm Leah Borg. I'm the principal at the middle school. This is not a manuscript. It's just the slideshow. Um, so we came up with a mission and we really were trying to get it down to less than five words. And I I really love the words that we chose. Engage, educate, and empower. Uh, and that
really covers the continuum of when somebody enters our district a very young age to when they are leaving the district. maybe as as Jean Zender says, you know, from birth to earth when when they're a senior citizen and and um you know, have been in the community for a
long time. Um and then the next thing that we have is vision. Now the vision is um oftentimes I see it the most in emails. It's usually in the signature of the email and it's really reminding us like where are we going and what are we doing? And it says nurturing an inclusive packer community of lifelong
learners. And because our learners start when they're very young, as soon as you're born, you're starting to learn things all the way through the rest of your life. Um, that's what our school district is meant to support. So, thank you. And then our strategic plan has three pillars or three things that are
going to hold up the work that we're doing. Um, and it's sort of like the categories that all of our action steps are going to fall into. And so, we're going to be talking about Packer performance, Packer Pride, and then the Packer promise. What do we promise that we will deliver for all of the citizens
of South St. Paul School District? Thanks, Leah. Let's go right to questions, shall we? Hi, I'm Terry Bretoy, principal at Caposia Education Center. Hi, I'm Candace Burkard. I'm the director of student services.
And um I have to tell you, so this being the 30th year I've been in the district, I've been through quite a few strategic plans. And what you've heard already tonight is parts of this strategic plan that have already started and been taking place for the past three years. And I'm going to try to highlight some
of those things in these three pillars. Okay. First and foremost, we start with performance. We want this to be a place where not only kids who are born here in South St. Paul and grow up in South St. Paul, they can not only just grow, and you heard the growth tonight, the
academic growth, you heard the personal growth that we offer kids, but that also leads to achievement. And we want to achieve. We want this to be a place where families can look at South St. Paul and put their kids in our schools and they can achieve academically. Okay?
We want to support staff with excellence. We have done so much professional development over the past two years, really deep professional development that we're already seeing payoff in the classroom. Um, expanded opportunities for students and for
staff. Okay. Um, but I love that performance is first because we are academic institutions and we want to provide a rigorous uh academic experience for kids and be diverse in what we offer as well.
I can just keep rolling if you want me to. Okay. Um, I love this next one too. Packer pride. And and what this says to me first of all is uh one very important action that took place with the the school district and the city. And when
families consider South St. Paul, we want them to think prideful. We want them to think respectful resilience. I grew up in this town. Grit and that hard hat and lunch pale work ethic. That means a lot to
many of us. And it should mean a lot to our kids and our families, too. Working with integrity, working together, and making sure that there is equity or everybody sees a place for themselves in our schools. I think what the city and the school district did
together was brilliant, and that can help guide us forward to having community and school pride. Um, I said I wasn't going to talk every every point, but I really want to. But anyways, you see it in front of you. I do want to touch on the Packer promise
and I think this is important too. This one what it says to me is we're going to do what we said we were going to do and we're going to be transparent about it. You heard about all the stakeholder groups that have been held already. Those things have been held for the past two years like straight from fourth
grade students to parents to community members. Um we want to make sure that people know that we have an engagement loop and a communication loop that we want to hear from you. Your word matters and this is what it means in action and
not just once. It has to be part of what we do all the time. We want to make sure that we communicate those things to you every step of the way. And we want to foster belonging. And again, as a person who h uh bleeds packer maroon, okay, we
talk a lot about the Packer pride, but there are a lot of families who want to come and live here and raise their family who don't have generation after generation who have been here. And that has to be a place for them, too. Okay? And so, we can all have that new Packer
pride, too. Keep I think Brian had said, honoring tradition and embracing today. And that's the new version of who we want to be. Okay. So, like I said, I have been through many a strategic plan
and lots of times it falls apart at this piece. We stop with momentum and the really hard work comes now because it's the action plans that follow and every person, every teacher that came through these doors plays a part. Every family
member that comes through these doors plays a part. you play a part by holding us accountable, too. But I'm really excited that we can name it and that we have a map moving forward. Okay. So, it's been really good working with these people. I don't know how many sessions
we had together. A lot right late at night, but it's all worth it because there's some real hope for what we want the new South St. Paul version to be. Anything else? No, I think Principal Bretoy really summed it up. Um, this morning I sent a
text message to some of my team members and said we have 14 more days to show kids that they are loved and they belong in South St. Paul. And I really feel like that's encapsulated in the strategic plan. Um, so we really just appreciate you listening to our
feedback. Uh, you taking in the words of our our strategic committee uh, planning committee and we're open to any questions you may have. First, I want to say thank you to you guys coming tonight. not only have you put in like months of work on this, but I think our predicted time for when you
present was over an hour ago. So, thank you so much for sticking it out and being here um to the public. They did present all of this um at our work session back in April. Feels like a long time ago. Um so, we have been able to
ask questions, but I do open it up to the board if you have any questions or discussion on this topic. Uh I would like to thank all of you for your very deep and thoughtful work on this because it has enabled us to use
the strategic plan framework that you've prepared and use that to set up our evaluation for the superintendent for the coming years and also for the evaluation of the board. So we will evaluate ourselves on the same uh
structure based on the strategic plan. We support that work. Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much for coming, staying. Uh, Director Cummings. Well, I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to comment. Um, the
opportunity to approve and live into a new strategic plan is a really important moment for our schools, uh, for this board and for our community. Um, as a newer member of the board, before approving this document, it was important for me to try and find out
what the community was saying um, as this document was developed. So, I reached out to some of the strategic planning committee members to get their perspectives and, um, have put down a few thoughts. Um, as this document was put in front of me at a previous meeting, I asked if this was a feel-good
document and I learned uh and that came back in in many of the conversations that I had. I learned in detail from these stakeholders that this is not simply a feel-good document and rather it lays out a challenging and positive vision for our future together. So, I'll
focus on two major themes that I heard. Um the first of which is improving achievement and developing opportunities for South St. Paul's learners. So South St. Paul city council member Tom Seabourg was part of the strategic planning committee and he said
that we need high achieving schools because we need to make a case to our residents and residents in other communities to choose South St. Paul. We want them to pick our schools um but also pick this community to live, work,
raise a family, start a business, and be civically involved in the community now and for generations to come. Another member of the strategic planning committee, uh principal Terry Bretoy, uh spoke passionately about the work currently going on in our schools
on student achievement and the road ahead. He talked about the strides made in performance in the past couple of years and appreciated that the strategic direction of the school district would continue to support that work. He noted that for students and staff, seeing um
student achievement improve is the biggest motivator to keep improving. Um and the work by our teachers, students, parents, and administrators has gotten results. And through initiatives, as I know you talked about talent development and
enrichment, we are on the path to see greater improvements to student achievement. Um, so I wholeheartedly endorse the focus on student achievement in this document and I'm confident we will continue to see improved results for our students. Uh when I spoke to our board
chair um Kim Hume on this topic, she noted that members to the strategic planning committee talked about the need to continue to work on retaining staff uh recruiting staff that reflect the student body and to ensure our facilities support the learning that we
are pri prioritizing in this document. The second major focus that came from my discussions with members of the strategic planning committee was creating stronger and resilient connections with the community and promoting Packer pride. When I asked what it means to be a Packer, some of
the folks who have been in the community for generations, as principal Bretoy said, used words like hard work and grit and resilience and bonded. Some of the folks who have been part of our community for a generation or less
said words like good schools, secret hard to figure out how to be a part of it. I will never forget the comment made by a strategic planning committee member Janelle Rose when she said, "People don't want to feel lost in a community
they have been in for so long." That really stuck with me, especially for new people coming into our community. Yet, when I asked one of the people whose family had been here for multiple generations, they said with so many new people coming in, they
didn't know um if they felt like they still had a place here. How is it that so many people feel as though they don't have a place here? Yet, it illuminates why this strategic focus is so important. To
build Packer Pride, to welcome all into a feeling this community needs their gifts and talents. To be intentional about moving beyond our small circles. To listen better, to communicate consistently, clearly, and
respectfully. Our school has a large role in creating a sense of place in our community and welcoming people in all people. and I am glad it is a large part of the strategic plan. I've heard from a couple members of the strategic planning committee in
my outreach that we need to work on restoring trust between educators and our schools and that we need to do some long-term relationship building with our within our community. I am confident that this plan will put necessary focus on that.
When listening to the voices of students about this plan, they said they felt supported by caring, approachable teachers who created self-welcoming class um safe, welcoming classrooms. They appreciated academic opportunities, inclusive environments, activities, and
enrichment and safe and welcoming environments. But they also wanted to lift up opportunities for growth, including unbalanced class size, facility improvements, staff diversity, consistency in policy enforcement, and greater transparency around
opportunities and resources. So, committee member Janelle Rose, who's here today, um challenged my initial question around whether this was a feel-good document, but I wanted to say clearly that this is a document that I do feel good
about. And more importantly, it will challenge us and ask us to do the hard work. I took time to ask many questions about this document because after this board approves the document, it is not a document of the strategic planning
committee. Um, it is the strategic plan for our whole school and community. Whether you're a student, parent, staff member, educator, learner, alumni, taxpayer, administrator, or these lowly schoolboard
members. So, I'm so appreciative of your work. Thank you. Um, your work mattered and it was transparent. It was thorough. It reflected our community. It was positive and it, yes, it's very challenging work.
And so with that, I will be a yes vote tonight. And I appreciate the work of this team. Thank you, Director Cummings. Any other discussion, comment? All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.
Opposed? We accept the 2025 2030 strategic plan 70. Chair human, if I may. Obviously, lots of work still to come, right? which is so thank you. You guys did an amazing job of articulating the conversations. Um some of the things we'll be working
on beginning right on the heels of this will be uh developing what we're going to what will be called scorecards. And so we're going to be very transparent about how we're going to deliver and how we're going to measure that, how and when we're going to report back. And so, um, super exciting, but it is really
just, uh, getting us out of the gate, so to speak, on some of the great work that is to come, even though we've already been underway with so many great things. So, thank you for your support, and thank you to the committee and everybody who participated in that process. It means a lot. All right.
Now, I am looking for a motion for the approval of the acceptance of gifts resolution. Do I have a motion? Yes. Does it take? Second. Thank you. I would like to invite finance director Ray Chthup Raathth to share um what to
Nation is before us this evening. Good evening madam chair, madam vice chair. Once again my name is Raj Cha. I'm the finance director here. Um I just want to take um time to acknowledge um our donor one who wanted to be anonymous here. Um
I'm speaking with gratitude here. the acceptance of gift. Uh we had a monetary gift of approximately $12,000 that is earmarked for our um girls high school flight football team. This here is you know filled with gratitude. We have an amazing community here. Um we have
donors that is willing to invest and contribute to our growing community here. So I want to take time to acknowledge that. Um, another part of our donation was actually a value in kind of approximately 17 chairs that was donated from Eco Water Systems here. And
the purpose of this is cuz we we do have some aging chairs out there. This is just for replacement of those and it was uh designated to our secondary sites. So, I just want to take the time to to thank you with gratitude and also seek approval with gratitude tonight. Thank
you. Thank you. Any other discussion, comments? a thank you to those donators. Yeah. Yes. I think uh seeing the pride of our girls flag football team and the work that that donation has been wonderful put towards is very exciting. Um if
there's no further discussion, I'll ask Lisa to call roll. Director Weber, yes. W Felton, yes. Claflin, yes. Cummings, yes. T Felton, yes. Duffy, yes. And Chair Humeman, yes. That's seven y. All right. Resolution carries 70. Thank you,
Ra. And thank you to uh donors to our district. I guess you're still up, right? Yes. I am now looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the resolution approving Intermediate School District 917's long-term facility maintenance
program budget and authorizing the inclusion of a proportionate share of those projects in the district's allocation of long-term facility maintenance revenue. Do I have a motion to approve? So move. Second. Thank you.
Back to you, Ra. Madam chair, my madam vice chair, members of the board, once again, thank you for allowing me here on the podium here to um talk about tonight's action requested agenda for approval. I just want to preface that this is an annual process here. We are
part of consortium of approximately nine members district that makes up the consortiums here for intermediate 917. Part of this process, annual process is for 917 to have access to long-term facility maintenance revenue. Um, in
order for that to happen, intermediate 917, uh, members such as us would need to get approval from the full board here. So, intermediate 917 can access this part of revenue. Um the purpose of the revenue is for intermediate 917 to access the
funding in order to maintain some of the deferred maintenance within the buildings for um intermediate 917. Now our portion of this is that the total budget for 2627 for intermediate 917 LTFM was approximately
$421,000. Um last year it was 25 um 202526 budget was approximately $255,000 and South St. Paul share of that budget is approximately 17,594 compared to the previous levy for South St. Paul which was
$11,318. Again, uh with this approval here, it will allow intermediate 917 to access the funding um for the deferred maintenance program. In uh in summary, our share is approximately
17,594, which is um it's a fraction of a percentage to our total uh levy tax base of $15.2 million. Um, the biggest driver of this year was according to appendix A, there was a roofing project that was
driving this year for an immediate 917 of approximately $250,000 compared to last year's budget of zero. So, this was driving up that cost. I would stand for questions. Any questions or comment? Well, as the
South representative on the 917 board um which has representatives from all nine um member districts, I would like to thank you for helping us raise the roof literally on um one of our buildings um for district
917 which serves um a variety of students um all almost all who have some sort of special education um need. Um so that is why we join in this consortium with other districts in order to serve some of the um hardest to serve students
who need the most individual attention. And so districts join together to be able to provide the highest quality of service when you might only have one student in this district or four students in this district around. Um and those buildings have deferred maintenance just like all school
district buildings do. Um and as a part of the consortium, we are only paying a very very small percentage um of the project as a whole. Thank you, Director Weber. Uh any further discussion? No further discussion. Lisa,
will you please call the role? Director Weber, yes. W. Felton, yes. Claflin, yes. Cummings, yes. T Felton, yes. Duffy, yes. And Chair Humeman, yes. That's seven yays. Resolution passes 70. Thank you. Yeah. And I will get this back to 917 with signatures. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. All right. I am looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the resolution relating to the non-renewal of limited contract long-term substitute teachers. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Thank you. I invite
human resources director Joel Mat. Thank you. In compliance with Minnesota statutes, we're required to terminate the teaching contracts of the district's long-term limited contract substitute teachers at the end of each school year. A long-term substitute, by definition, is one who worked all or part of the school year replacing a specific teacher
who has return rights to his or her position. The contracts of the long-term substitutes must be terminated at the end of the school year. Failure to terminate these contracts could result in the district allocating two teachers in each affected position as the regular teachers exercise their right to return from leave. attached is a resolution to
non-renew the teaching contracts for the district's long-term limited contract substitute teachers. Any questions or comments? All right. If there's no discussion, Lisa, will we please call the role? Director W. Felton, yes. Claflin, yes. Cummings, yes. T Felton,
yes. Duffy, yes. Weber, yes. And Chair Hume, yes. That's seven yays. Resolution carries 70. I'm now looking for a motion for the South St. Paul school board to approve the continuing teacher contracts as presented for 202526.
So moved. Thank you. Second. Yay. Joel. Thank you again. This is a super exciting time for us as we approach the end of the school year. We have many probationary teachers that have finished their probationary periods with the school district. Anywhere from three years as a probationary teacher to one
year if they've had three years of experience in another school district. And so as part of the annual staffing process, administration identifies the probationary teachers to retain and those who will be granted tenure for the upcoming school year. As a result, the attached document reflects probationary teachers who are recommended to be
retained and probationary teachers who would be granted tenure for the 202526 school year. Administration is recommending the approval of retaining the listed probationary staff and providing tenure to the listed staff. Any questions or comments? All those in
favor, please say I. I opposed. Motion carries 70. All right. I'm looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the resolution relating to the non-renewal of probationary non-instructional staff. Do I have a
motion? So moved. Thank you. A second. Second. Thank you. Back to you, Joel. Great. Thanks. Each year, we must consider the release of non a number of probationary non-instructional staff for various reasons including student-driven scheduling, changes in enrollment,
budget reductions, curriculum changes, and performance issues. Attached is a resolution to terminate the employment of a number of probationary non-instructional staff. This resolution terminates employment for those listed at the end of the current 24-25 school year with non-renewal for the 2526
school year. Any questions or comments? All right, Lisa, will you please call the role? Director Claflin, yes. Cummings, yes. T Felton, yes. Dovey, yes. Weber, yes. W. Felton, yes. And
Chair Hume, yes. At seven yays. Resolution carries 70. I am looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the resolution to place individuals within the office and professional employee group on layoff due to position
elimination. Do I have a motion? Some moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Back to you, Joel. Thank you. On February 24th, 2025, the school board approved a resolution discontinuing and reducing positions. One office and professional employee position at the
secondary building is being proposed for elimination in an effort to provide broader services to all students in the district through a restructure of the position and services provided. Attached is a resolution to place an office and professional employee on layoff due to the elimination of the current position.
Any questions or comments? All right, Lisa, will you please call the role? Director T. Felton, yes. Duffy, yes. Weber, yes. W. Felton, yes. Claflin, yes. yes. And human, yes. That's seven yays. Resolution carries
70. Thank you. Okay. Now, the second half of that, I'm looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the resolution to recall Kristen Rodenberg office and professional employee from layoff. Do I have a motion to approve?
So moved. Second. Thank you. All right, last time. Joel. Great. Well, this is the great news from the last resolution. Thank you for approving the layoff. Now we get to recall that same employee back to a different position in the school district, one that is a broader position that helps better serve the students of the schools district. So on May 27th,
today 2025, the school board approved a resolution to place one office and professional employee on layoff due to the elimination and restructure of a position attached as a resolution to recall that office and professional employee that was on layoff to an equivalent position within the office and professional employee group for the 2526 school year.
Any questions? All right, Lisa, will you please call the role? Director Duffy, yes. D uh Weber, yes. Wfelton, yes. Claflin, yes. Cummings, yes. T Felton, yes. Humeman, yes. At
seven yays, yay. Resolution carries 70. The shortest layoff. Thank you so much. Thanks, Joel. All right. I am looking for a motion for the South St. Paul School Board to approve the South Suburban Adult Basic Education Consortium agreement between South St.
Paul Public Schools Special School District number six, Invergroveve Heights Independent School District 199, and West St. Paul Menota Heights Egan Independent School District 197 for the time period July 1st 2025 to June 30th
2026. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Thank you. Second. Thank you. I'd like to invite our executive director of educational services, Amy Winter, up. Well, she's coming up. I I think just
because it's it's late. It's been this is just an an um we haven't always done this in the past but we are moving uh to have this be an annual process to just renew our partnership in the tri district and so um it's really a formality at this point and then longer term I think we'll have some
conversation about you know what's working not but we're all pretty excited to remain in that tri- district partnership I think Amy was in the zone back there so these are one of those moments where they tell me ahead of time you know just push this true. And I'm like, "Yep, got
it." And then I'm like, "Oh, wait, that's this moment." So, this is kind of a formality that we do from year to year. And the purpose of this agreement is just to provide cooperative efforts for adult basic education services. And this includes, uh, adult basic education, our
GED preparation, English as a second language, um, and other services that are tied to that. Um, this will uh commence on July 1st, 2025 and then terminate on June 30th, 2026.
Any questions or discussion? I'll just put in a shout out to them. They're an unseen group often because they're tucked in there at um Central Square, wherever they're doing their thing. Um but they they are believers and people and so if you want to get excited go and spend some time in those classrooms with
adult learners who are committed to that you know lifelong learning. So just a shout out. It falls in the community at umbrella. Y I will also shout out that uh Gan and I were chatting and one of the big excitements coming out of our um AB GED program is we did have 12
graduates this year. You took my thing. Sorry. We're just we're super excited about that. And sometimes they don't get the limelight because they're not graduating at the end of a school year. They graduate throughout the year. So it's a big deal. All right. Any further
discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Opposed. Carry 70. Yay. All right, we're reaching the end. I am going to ask each of the school board directors to report on where they have
passion or committee updates or if you're ready to call it because we're in our third hour of this meeting. I completely understand. Uh Director Weber, I'm going to start with you. Um I just want to wish everyone a great summer. I'm so excited to go to
graduation um here coming up. It's always um such a fun event um to just see the pride um in both the students at our CLC and the students um at the high school graduation. Um and for our GED
graduates, um it's just such an exciting and exciting time of year. Um and have a great summer and use all of those good community ed resources and other things. Director Cummings, just wanted to say briefly um amplify
what Superintendent Zambino said about the compensatory aid and how South St. Paul advocated. Um so I wanted to say thank you to our superintendent um to directors Hume and Claflin and Weber who were down at the capital at various
moments um and all who engaged in conversations uh about this. So wanted to thank um Lisa and Amal and Jackson for their work in marshalling the efforts of hundreds of students in
making that work. It mattered and I can tell you that South St. Paul was on the forefront of this in the state and um and if this comes through it um I think um South St. Paul can can clearly say that we were leading on this effort and
so uh just a thank you to everyone involved. Thank you. Uh, Director Felton. Um, just a little reminder, actually, a little plug for the South St. Paul Open fall Super Breakfast, which will be at Tanucci's in Newport. That will be on
Sunday, October 26th. There is no Vikings game, so there's no reason not to attend. Uh, $70 per ticket. You'll get food and beverage, plus you can play games of chance. And it's either 9 to 12 or 10 to 1. So, be on the lookout for
the exact time. But, uh, Sunday, October 26th is the Iowa Gopher game weekend, though. Oh, it is the Iowa Gopher game weekend, though. They're at They're at They're in Iowa City. So, here we go. All right. Vice Terlin,
thank you. Uh, a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the elementary school track meet and I was really excited to cheer those kids on and I have to say that they really exemplified
aspects of the strategic plan that we [Music] identified that Mr. Tom Moore started the elementary school track meet uh a long time ago. He was my gym teacher in elementary school. So a long time ago.
And one of the principles of the track meet is it's not school versus school. We all cheer for each other. We are all one school and do your best. You're out there trying to do your best. So this
track meet was a challenge for kids. they had that opportunity to try something new, focus on their growth, uh try something that was really hard, really scary. You didn't have to be the fastest kid on the track or throw the shot put the farthest or jump the
highest or the furthest. You just had to focus on doing your best. And I really love that message. Coming from something that's sort of competitive the rest of the time. When you get up into high school, you can still do these sports becomes a little more competitive, but
it's still about doing your best, working on personal achievement and really having that sense of belonging where your friends, your classmates are all going to cheer for you and support you. And we really welcome everybody to try. Um, I really
enjoyed hearing tonight that there were kids going out for sports that they had never done before. School is a place to try something new, take a risk. Thank you. Thanks, Director Duffy.
Uh, I can confirm that there's a lot of passion in that elementary school track meet after competing in it. Um, but yeah, just all the athletics and uh uh seeing some of my former teachers retiring today, it really they have a
special place in my heart and I know a lot of my classmates would have loved to be here, especially one in particular. He just graduated law school and Miss Weinfernner was a a really big advocate for him and uh how he's grown up. So, I know uh I'll have to send the clip to
him today. uh he's out in California and UCLA. So, uh but thank you to all the teachers and all the time they put in. Jolene uh runs that school. I call her my work mom when I'm subbing. So, uh congratulations to her and everyone else who reached that 25 year mark. That's a
big deal. Director Felton. Yes. I want to put out a a major thank you and congratulations of course at the beginning of this month as as I attended the athletic and activities awards ceremony which was
held at at in the high school. So congratulations to all of our great students. Of course many of them were here earlier as you seen them on TV with with their sports. That was great. And also a big thank you to our education foundation who presented the
scholarships to our graduating seniors. As you know, we presented over $600,000 to our students. So, I thank and congratulate them and our kids for doing such a great job and getting those
scholarships. We're very proud of them as they attend on to their plans after they graduate here in our high school. And of course, a very personal thank you and congratulations to our 25-y
year staff members that earned that award being with our district for that many years. That is so good. Congratulations to them. And of course, thank you. Congratulations to the retirees, which I truly understand is
they have dedicated a lot of time to our students, our community. So, we thank them very, very much. And as you know, as we look forward to the month of June, which is next week, with our graduation ceremonies, they're
always so fun to attend as we honor, congratulate our students as they graduate from from our schools. So, it is such a nice thing to work. And I also personally thank Amal and Jackson for
being with our board this year. It was so wonderful having you here. I would congratulate you and of course I wish you the best in your future. Thank you very very much. And of course,
look forward to our new three board members, Bennett, Chloe, and Monty, as we will have have them with us next year. So that for the next school year, I should say. Yes. So that that is so
wonderful and congratulations to them. Thank you. Thank you, Director Filton. Well, Amy Winter kind of stole the thing that I wanted to celebrate. Our adult basic education program has had 12 graduates who have earned their GED or high school equivalency. I think that's
awesome. It's the season of graduation and yeah, we don't necessarily think about them, but it's huge. It's an accomplishment and I'm going to make our plug for adult basic education, especially since it was on our agenda tonight. Um, we share that program with
Ingrove Heights and West St. Paul, but the work falls on the shoulders of Jean Zender and our community ed program and her staff and they're doing amazing things. Um, I just want to encourage anyone if you know someone who could take advantage of English as a second
language or could work to develop that proficiency so that they can have greater success to be empowered, the district's here for that. And let them know it's it's easy. Just walk into Central Square. Uh, Linda Jacobs will get you figured out. And with that, I
will stop talking. Um, I am entertaining a motion to adjourn the Tuesday, May 27, 2025 school board meeting. Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. Thank you. All
any discussion? All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Opposed. The motion to end this evening carries 70. Good evening to everyone. Thank you. We are adjourned at 8:13. All right.
Good night. Thank you.