Yeah. Good evening. It is Thursday, June 26, 2025 at 6 p.m. We are at the District Service Center in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. We would like to acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the land of the Midawakatin Dakota people. Midawakatin means dwellers of the Spirit Lake. The first
item on our agenda is roll call. Abby Louise Hines here. Ryan Clark here. Sharon Van Leer here. Eric Tesler here. Meinda Dos here. Smi Patnik here. Katie Schwarz here. Um 2.0 pledge of allegiance. Please stand.
I pledge 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. 3.0 is approval of the agenda. Can I get
a motion to approve? So move second. Moved by Sharon, seconded by Simmyi. Any comments? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. 4.0 is comments to the board. We do not have any this evening.
5.0 is our consent items. All consent items are considered routine and non-controversial by the school board and will be approved by a single motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items. Prior to this meeting, board members had the opportunity to review each item and could have
requested an item be moved to an action item for individual consideration. That did not happen this evening. So, can I get a motion to approve? So, moved. Second. Motion by Sharon, seconded by Melinda. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. 6.0 would be
information items, but we do not have any this evening. 7.0 is action items, and we do have four. Um 7.1 is proposed policy changes, and that will be presented by Julie Nielsen, superintendent. Good evening, and thank you. Uh this evening, I am bringing
forward for final approval five district policies. Policy 611, homeschooling, where there were no proposed changes. Um, policy 612.1, development of parental involvement policies related to our title one programs. No proposed changes there. 615, testing,
accommodations, modifications, exemptions for IEPs and students on section 504 plans. Um, there was an update to names and programs. 620 was our credit for learning where we've talked about that change in statute and 624 online learning options. There were
no proposed changes. This evening I am asking for approval of those five policies. Can I get a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion by Sharon, seconded by Simmyi. Any comments? Okay. All those in favor? I. Any
opposed? Motion passes. 7.2 is Minnesota State High School League membership and that will be presented by Christine Schaefer, assistant superintendent. Good evening, school board chair Schwarz, school board member, Superintendent Nielson. I'm here this evening to request approval for the renewal of the South Washington County
Schools membership in the Minnesota State High School League for the 2526 school year. South Washington County Schools is currently a member of the High School League and the league requires school boards each year to authorize continued membership for the upcoming year. In your board packet, you'll find several documents for your
review. These materials replace that annual video that you used to watch um for in previous years. So now all the materials are in your packet. The first document is a 2526 school year update from the state high school league executive director Eric Mertens. The second outlines the mission and purpose
of the state high school league. And the final three documents are the official membership res membership resolution forms for all three of our high schools. So, just to summarize for you, um the resolutions affirm that the school board delegates the control, supervision, and
regulation of league sponsored athletic and fine arts activities to the state high school league and that we will adopt the league's constitution, bylaws, and rules and regulations assigning responsibility for supervision to our school representatives. So, that is um a
nutshell what the resolution say. So, at this time, I'd like to request schoolboard approval for the South Washington County Schools continued membership in the Minnesota State High School League for the 2526 school year. Thank you. Can I get a motion to
approve? So, move. Second. Motion by Eric, second by Luis. Any comments? Okay, this is a resolution, so we will need a roll call vote. Abby Luis Hines, yes. Brian Clark, yes. Sharon Vanlier,
yes. Eric Tesmer, yep. Melinda Doss, yes. Smi Patnneak, yes. Katie Schwarz, yes. Thank you. Thank you. 7.3 is our 202526 budget and that will be presented by Chris Blackburn, director of business services.
I know I felt like we were a little straight on this way as well. So, um, good evening, Chair Schwarz, members of the board, Superintendent Nielsen. Tonight, Minnesota school districts are required to have a revenue and expenditure budget approved by June 30th of the preceding year. The finance
department, so my team of Nikki Kasle, Amber Shower, um, Mayor Beth Collins, Patty Marks, Diana Moreno, and Amy Tarman have prepared the 2526 budget for school board approval. The 2526 general fund to community education fund budgets
were presented to the school board on June 12th, 2025. The school nutrition fund budget was presented to the school board on May 8th, 2025. I would note that there was no changes to those budgets since those presentations. We did notice that the um special session wrapped up late in June
and so that any impacts as we looked at the I would say available information now, we will wait and present that with a revised budget as well. Um, so any legislative impacts will be included in incorporated into the revised budget this when we revise in likely March of 26. So at this point, administration
recommends approval of the 2526 preliminary budget as presented. Can I get a motion to approve? I'll moved. Second. Motion by Sharon, seconded by Simmy. Any questions or comments? Hey Chris, I just had two questions. Um, so the first question was and both of these
I'm sorry I forgot to ask during the workshop. Um the first question was around um you had mentioned during the workshop that our benefits costs have increased quite a bit and um one of the questions I had was as a district we have chosen not to go the self-
insurance route for um health insurance. Can you talk about if you've investigated that and what your conclusion is? Absolutely. So each year um we or when we do the hit a bid which is required every two years we do also at that point take a look at whether self- insurance would make sense
financially for us as well and what we've historically found in the past number of years our utilization rate um is would exceed so what we would have to charge for premiums it just doesn't make sense for us to move to that self-insured model yet with the current utilization. Um so certainly we will
continue to um pursue that and look at that each time because at some point it may make financial sense just currently it does not. Okay. Um the my second question, um so I'm noticing in here like our building construction fund is quite large, right? And it's a it's a pretty big chunk of our budget for next
year. And um with uh if there are some implications from tariffs or from labor costs or whatever with the 400 million that we've asked the the voters for that the voters have approved. um what what are the implications if costs come out
turn out to be more expensive than what they had been estimated back before we had the election. Right? So and we certainly know that that does impact costs, right? But that authority we can only go up to that bonded authority. So the approval when the board um authorized that and the voters, you know, generously approved that that is
the max we can go out to seek bonded money for. And so let's say tariffs would become very significant. It would just reduce we would have to look at do we need to reduce scope on some projects. Okay. We would also look, you know, where there's some interest earnings and things that could offset some of that. So, okay. Thanks. You're
welcome. Any other comments? Okay. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Okay. On to 7.4 and that is to certify the updated census and that will be presented by Jake Winchell,
director of community education. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Schwarz, members of the board, Superintendent Neielsen. Uh tonight I'm here to seek approval to of a resolution to reertify our census count. According to Minnesota statutes, the population of a school district must be certified by the
Department of Education from the most recent federal census. In in any year in which no federal census is taken, a population estimate may be made and submitted to the state demographer for approval. The school board can pass a resolution by June 30th of 2025 of the updated population of the district as
determined by the state demographer. According to the estimates of the state demographer, the district population increased from 113,887 in 2022 to 118,152 in 2024. This population increase will impact the revenue of the community education
programs received based on the current funding calculation which is which uses the district population to determine total funding. So, at this time, we'd like to request approval of this resolution for the 2526 fiscal year. Can I get a motion to approve? So moved.
Second motion by Melinda, seconded by Simmyi. Any comments? Okay, this is a resolution. So, Abby, can I get a roll call vote, please? Ryan Clerk, yes. Sharon Vanlier, yes. Eric Tesmer, yes. Melinda Doss, yes. Si
Patrick, yes. Luis Hines, yes. Katie Schwarz, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. And then we are on to 8.0 and that is our superintendent report. I feel like I really should have a long long long report because I'd hate for
this to break any records at, you know, just a little over 10 minutes. But I don't have a lot to share because it is that time of year. Um, and when I say that time of year, it just means that it's a different pace, but there's a lot of work going into right now for the start of the school year and getting
everything ready. But just a note, um, construction, our board gets updates, um, every week and our, um, system leaders get updates. But if you were to drive by Crestview and Park High School, you would see a mud mess right now with all of the rain. Um, but nonetheless, the hope is that the road into Crestview
and the parking lot for Crestview is all set up. So that eventually that road will go back behind um with cars to drop students off. And of course, that's not going to be ready by fall for park because they'll be doing that addition on the back side of the building where the cafeteria will go. Eastridge. If you
were to go to Eastridge now, you're going to see new entries into that athletic area. Um, so the athletic doors, which we know athletic activity doors are closed, and they have drilled through the brick to have doors added there. Our Oakland Middle School cafeteria has temporary walls and will
be expanded going out and the addition there is well underway. Um, part of the storm shelter is already in place there. Um and then Woodbury Middle School, the picture for Woodbury Middle School this week had um a box with some wires in it. So that was fiber, which sometimes we
forget along this construction path that all of that is happening simultaneously. Um along with the sidewalk went in from Upper Afton through kind of the playground by Woodbury Elementary School. So the sidewalk is already in. I'm still trying to decide if there's
going to be a pond or something there um on one of the sides where the buses go in. But more to come. Maybe it was just a pond because of all the rain, but it was certainly a very deep ravine. Um, next, I just wanted to highlight our Cottage Grove Chamber, um, South Washington County Schools golf team. Um,
sitting in the back, Abby Baker was one of our representatives, um, golfing in the chamber golf. You know, they gave trophies out for 25th place, which was last place. They gave trophies out for 10th place and first place, and our South Washington County Schools team took 10th. So, in uh Abby Aby's office,
I believe or Mike Malan's office is our trophy. Um I think just a reminder that anybody um from executive cabinet or in the district who golfs in the tournament obviously takes a vacation day, but we also had representation from our principles association and our executive cabinet that hosted a hole and we were
out there just connecting and networking with community partners from Marathon um to 3M to just a whole culver. I'm trying to think about all the other good ones out there. Um but just really having good conversations about the school district. Um and then finally for the board to know um and we have some staff
out there that this week we did a full training on our new platform for data slicing and dicing and looking at data across the district across schools. And that program you will hear if you haven't heard this uh haven't heard what it is is called Educ Climber. But it's
going to be our one-stop shop um for documenting student intervention as well as taking a look at our data. So many of us were in training this week doing that. And so with that, that concludes my report. Thank you. 9.0 is future meeting dates.
Um we do only have one meeting in July. So that is July 17th, 2025. And that is our schoolboard business meeting here at the district service center at 6 p.m. And then August 7th, 2025 will be our schoolboard workshop meeting also here at the district service center at 6 p.m.
And with that 10.0 and we are adjourned.