##VIDEO ID:J9he0xwK_QQ## the meeting is now called to order it is January 22nd 2025 and the time is 6:35 p.m. our mission is to provide a safe and caring climate and culture in which we engage Inspire educate prepare and Empower all Learners in partnership with their surrounding Community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's Society Bruce Ken you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance okay I can try to remember that and do that next time if that's what we okay thank you and then when you're ready can you please call roll yes uh Madam chair the following board members are present at the District administration office that includes Scott andreon here Natalie Copeland here Zack dhol here Diana Fenton here Shannon HW here Bruce henches here and Heather Williams here following cabinet members and staff are present here at the District administration office superintendent Dr Lori putam Minnesota superintendent of the Year assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of E5 learning Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of E12 Educational Services Shannon avenson executive director of Community Education Adam Holm executive director of finance and business Amy scal executive director of operations Joel height Camp executive director of research enrollment and assessments Donna roer executive director of Special Projects Gary gangji director of community engagement and Communications Tammy Dand uh media technicians Paul noac and Gordy Scott and the custodian onsite Austin goodwater thank you and then I'm looking for a motion to P approve tonight's Board of Education meeting agenda so move I a motion by Scott second by Natalie uh Bruce can call V again Heather Williams Bruce Sanchez yes Shannon hos yes Diana Fenton yes Zack dhal yes Natalie Copeland yes SC Andre yes thank you then we have the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of non-controversial items that a board adopts routinely without debate any single member May remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption on tonight's consent agenda item a approval of minutes from December 4th 2024 and December 17 2024 and December 18th 2024 Item B approval of bills and other Financial transactions and the grand total amount of $5,995 7618 item C approval of personnel staff changes item D acceptance of Grant Awards and donations item e quarterly expenditures for board members item F Apollo Theater Improvement change orders totaling $ 31,3231 item G call for bids North Junior High ltfm improvements item H call for bids South Junior High ltmf uh improvements item I call for beds Apollo parking lot improvements and item J joint purchasing contract Awards award South Locker replacement at this time does any board member wish uh for an item to be removed from the consent agenda Natalie Madame chair if I could please remove D acceptance of Grant Awards and donations okay um then I'm looking for a motion to approve um items a through J except for item D move have a motion by Scott and uh second by Natalie Bruce can you please call vote go andreon yes Natalie Copeland yes Zack dhol Diana Fenton yes Shannon hos yes Bruce henches yes Heather Williams yes okay are you looking to recuse yourself from item d okay thank you so looking for a motion to approve item D so moved second I have a motion by uh Bruce a second by Scott so Bruce can you call vote and except for Natalie Heather Williams yes Bruce henches yes Shannon HZ yes Diana Fenton yes Zack dhol and Scott andreon yes all right thank you um on to information items tonight we have two first up we have the comprehensive Arts planning program presented tonight by Laura stepner director of Elementary education you good evening chair hos superintendent putam and members of the Schoolboard I am pleased to be here tonight to share our district 742 art strategic plan um this was a plan that was created in partnership with the ppage center and so we are very excited to share the work I'm also excited to welcome Marin Wagner here with us tonight maren was the co-chair of this work and she will also be Co presenting with me tonight um Marin was integral in the planning process and has done a great amount of work to to lift this Initiative off the ground I also wanted to acknowledge Mariah Chamberlain who is our other co-chair and couldn't be with us tonight due to some flight delays uh that were out of her control but I just want to acknowledge maren's hard work because Marin also served as a co-chair for this project so with that we are excited to share with you our uh strategic Arts plan that was created through the compreh ensive Arts planning program with the perpet center so we wanted to start with this quote that just kind of encompasses what I live every day as an art teacher and then just like what the kids um experience when they come into spaces of art that the Arts must be at the heart of every child's learning experience if they are to have a chance to dream and create to have beliefs to carry a sense of cultural identity and um that just comes out that beautifully sums up everything that comes out within the Arts um so now just a little bit about the um planning that we've been doing over the past year and a half and um what the perach intended or what the purpose is um but the grant provides assistance to school who apply and have need for um development within their Arts um community and then within that Mariah and I have been receiving um technical assistance with that and the perit has been coming appear to work with us in our planning and Mariah and I've had some leadership development and then we get the grant money within that too um and then it's been so we are in the middle of year two of a three-year process where year one was dedicated to analyzing our arts program amongst a whole um group of people in the community and then now after analyzing and planning we are in the process of implementation and then next year the we should be in our full implementation with what the Strategic plan outlines um and then these were uh who were on the the members of the team so it was Mariah and myself were the co-chairs and then we've had Community Partners from the Paramount um from csbsju from scsu um there's a variety of both music teachers and art teachers from the district um and Laura and District leadership and we've also had some parents as part of it as well um so this process I will say being part of it was uh very invigorating it was well-led it was great to have the facilitation of ppage to help guide us um we had uh Shannon was part of it as well we had really big thoughtful robust conversations about Arts programming this process gave us a chance to dream really big um and then eventually you have to narrow it down we had to identify our strategic directions um what we wanted to put our effort and energy into as part of strategic plan uh our team identified three strategic directions connection to community intentional and thoughtful engagement in diversity equity and access to the Arts and supplying um and supplying support to staff and we're just going to share a little bit about each of those and and what they entail as part of our strategic Arts plan um so first is connection to the community in this strategic direction we're really thinking um about how having task forces that involve Community engagement is critical we are really fortunate in the stcloud area to have so much access to Arts programming um we're very unique in the ways that we can leverage Our Community Partners um but we don't always get to get in the same places and spaces and dream and think about how to um leverage both of the resources within the school district and within the community and so one of the pieces that we've identified as an action step is to have some task forces for art and music that really bring together the district and the community um we also talked a lot about how highlighting the Arts to our parent groups is something that's important for our community and so we've um talked a lot about how we can leverage the parent groups that meet here in our district and we can use those um opportunities where parents are coming together to highlight arts and also to get feedback from parents uh we also really are interested in engaging students in the community and in this work so how can students especially our secondary students be involved in things like potentially grant writing potentially coming up with Project based learning or Community Arts programs and initiatives that are really important and meaningful for them as students um and bringing them into that Community work we were also fortunate to receive the culturally responsive Arts education grant which is funding that can help support this work and so um one of the things that is really exciting about the page is that you get the financial support for planning but not necessarily the financial support for implementation um Mariah worked really hard to secure this additional funding Stream So this now will allow us to have funding sources to help with things like pulling together task forces um maybe being able to provide compensation for teachers to attend parent meetings to highlight student performances at those meetings the second strategic Direction which is the intentional and thoughtful engagement in diversity equity and access um really focuses on a number of things one is increasing access to Arts programs and this is within school and outside of school we know that there are many opportunities for students here in District 742 and we also know that there are students who um maybe aren't aware of some of the great offerings and so part of our strategic plan is to ensure that we're really increasing those opportunities for Access that if there are great programs out there that kids um would thrive in that we're working as a district to help make those connections for students and also um really connect students to the programs we have here in the district um we also talk a lot in our district about College and Career Readiness and really just highlighting that the Arts is a great career option there are scholarships there are benefits um it is a pathway to secondary success and really wanting to make sure that the Arts are seen as part of that conversation and highlighting that when we talk about secondary post-secondary options for students um and then embracing diversity in serving all students uh you many of you have had the opportunity to hear from our Walker West partnership at least a couple of times and the Walker West partnership is one way that we can really Leverage musicians that help to um bring in culture and the culture that our students are familiar with to the classrooms um these artists are working with our elementary students really targeting fifth grade to ensure that students have um exciting culturally engaging fun diverse programming in the elementary school to help make that connection and develop that love of Arts that can hopefully transition into secondary and then the third um is supplying support for staff so um we have Natalie here who's a former arts teacher being an arts teacher is a is a big job right you're often teaching a lot of things you're teaching many different things um uh you might be navigating more than one school system and making those connections and so we've been really excited to think as part of this planning process about how we can really support and provide meaningful support for art teachers and music teachers as well um so thinking about how we assign mentors we are able to provide content specific mentors for our Arts teachers um really working to develop curriculum that's cohesive and accessible for teachers so that they're coming in with a really great plan for how they're going to provide that instruction um The Walker West partnership has also helped with professional development as well and so not only are they working with our students in the music programs in our schools they're also working with staff coming in and demonstrating some of the instructional techniques um providing opportunities for staff to plan with them to think about different ways to engage students in in music specifically um and then building culture and climate into Arts programming and that's really that culture and climate for staff so prioritizing time for staff to work together on professional development days um ensuring that staff have an opportunity to give input on the professional development that's important to them building the connections often these folks are Singletons at their school they're not on a team of science teachers or a team of Math teachers they're on a team of music teachers or art teachers but often those are very specialized so really thinking about how we can provide that strong support for our staff members that are in these programs um right now as maren said we are in year two and so I just wanted to share with you what the prioritized actions are because remember we're moving towards implementation in year two and in year three it's that full implementation and so this year the work that we've identified to be um highlighted this year is planning and facilitating Community Arts organizations and programs into schools really looking um Mariah has been working hard to to think about how we can leverage the strengths and talents of our community and have those Community Partnerships within schools we've loved the Walker West partnership and we're excited to think about how we might be able to replicate something like that with local artists from the St Cloud Community um as we start to work with family groups we want to be able to collect information from these family groups and then analyze the data we've also talked about the task forces that we want to form um and making sure that those groups are able to get input from family groups and organizations there are also lots of organizations that focus on arts in our community as well um boys and girls club is one that stands out there are many but those groups have data that maybe we don't have about student interests student strengths student needs we want to make sure that we've identified representation for parent engagement meetings and we've made the connections between our Equity department and our music teachers to start to um plan how we can bring in those uh music components into the parent meetings we want to make sure we've got a set of questions that we're asking families to really get their input when we have those opportunities to be at family meetings um highlighting and advertising student work you've seen student artwork at the Dao that's been one of our our pieces that wasn't necessarily part of this planning um but it's been a great opportunity for students to highlight their work and we want to continue to think about where are the places and the spaces in our community where we can highlight the art of our our students um providing input to admin on scheduling so we want to think creatively about how to get more access to arts and then also as you know in a big complicated system there are are always trade-offs when it comes to things like scheduling um and so just having an opportunity for the art teachers to really um Define some of the the challenges and creative ideas they have for scheduling more access to arts and be able to work with admin on whether or not those are viable Solutions so at this point it's really just generating ideas kind kind of that what what if what if we could offer something unique or different what if we could use uh this time a little differently to increase access to Arts that of course will take lots of planning because the the domino effect that happens with schedules um but we're excited to start brainstorming and bring those ideas forward and then continuing the dedicated time for professional learning so our staff had an opportunity uh in October and we'll have another opportunity in March to be together as art and music teams to be able to work on that professional development so that is what we had for you tonight to highlight this strategic plan and Marin and I are happy to answer any questions you might have okay does anybody have any questions or comment Heather thank you I was not blessed with much for art skills either um performance or visual that said um and I go back it was a a challenge of growing up because I have five brothers all who intended to have I'm sharing way too much but we had art shows when I was little and my older brother sold everything for 25 cents and I got a penny so it's disturbing um you talked a little bit about it and and within this program um with task forces asking some of the tough questions and I'm sure some of it will come out so my question I have three what is the biggest barrier to Arts engagement that might be something that you're looking at and partnering with some of your your community Partners as well um Performing Arts versus um Performing Arts tend to be visible theater music those sorts of things can you talk a little bit about Visual Arts opportunities particularly at the secondary level okay did you have three or oh and the third one okay is what do you see as patterns in growth and retention in arts participation particularly as you go through the PE through I mean obviously if you have little kids you know they draw and and are engaged every day almost in some sort of Art and then typically you see that fall as they age through so um what sorts of growth and retention do you see in arts participation over the course of their of students careers okay do you want to take any you want me to start yeah I can start with that last one so particularly focusing on how to retain engagement within the Arts from like as being an art teacher I know that there is I have essentially one shot to connect with my students and make sure that they love coming to the space because if I am critical of them and I bet every single person can think of one thing that their art teacher or their teacher said to them where it was like yeah you know and so we know that kids wanting to be in spaces of art means that we need to create teachers who then will support them so that's a huge piece of the professional learning and especially like as an art teacher being I am lucky enough to have a co- teer in the middle school at Kennedy um so I'm not an island but almost every other person is and that can be very hard to try and build up your art community and whatnot and so then that's where things start to fall apart is when people are isolated too so that's um a huge piece of the professional learning opportunities because when we have art teachers who love their jobs and are connected and um have professional learning opportunities then they go into the space and they create a space where students want to be and then you know that carries on and then I can take the first two so I think there's a couple barriers uh that I've noticed through my work with with the Arts programming um one is those transition years so when we go from elementary to Middle um it's a little bit vague in the minds of fifth graders like what does it mean to be in band and Orchestra um we've done some real intentional work with bringing our band and Orchestra and our choirs out um the programming with Walker West we've really been trying to highlight like and these are the types of activities you would do if you joined band next year and then um by working with Walker West to work with the teachers they're also incorporating some of those strategies so last year we were excited to report um that we were seeing more students expressing interest in band and Orchestra but that transition year also when you're a fifth grader a lot of it is what are my friends doing um where are they going to be and so I think we a barrier is just the typical brain of a middle schooler which is a complicated little thing um that we all need to navigate and so we're really trying to find that um like maren said speak to that Joy early um help kids by being deliberate and explicit that we are um doing the things that they can continue if they have that joy and that love uh Mariah and I just met last week to build in a protocol as well one of the things that we we noticed is that when the Middle School staff come to talk to students they talk to uh The Home Room teacher so that makes sense right they go into the fifth grade classrooms they talk about the options and then the kids sign up and that goes to the middle school but the music teachers don't get an opportunity um or we haven't built that in for them to see what did kids sign up for so that they could say oh Natalie you didn't sign up for choir like you would be great at choir tell me more so that the music teachers can follow up on some of those strengths that we see so sometimes it's just those little solutions that that could make a big deal because we all know the power of the conversation so I think that's one barrier the second I think is once we get into high school and that's why we spoke to part of our strategic plan being highlighting those post-secondary education opportunities um and the scholarships and the ways that Arts can serve as a a viable career and so students um often get into the high school and they feel that forced choice do I take um this science class do I take this career Focus class that's really interesting to me um art is a year-long opportunity in most cases so thinking about especially music like that takes up space in the schedule and so that becomes a barrier as well and we know we can do a better job with highlighting for our students the benefits that an an Arts experience in high school and in secondary can really provide for them so as we work with this purage work in the Strategic plan that will be part of our action steps tell me your second question again oh Visual Arts right um so we do have a couple of opportunities um we do the ver Russell show at St Cloud State we do have an art lead a visual arts lead um and she is brilliant and committed to highlighting our program she was instrumental in getting the artwork in the Dao um getting it up at scsu and is um continuing to meet with our teachers to say where else can highlight um we've had some initial conversations with Paramount um how can we create um art that could be displayed in Paramount especially if um they're highlighting something that our students will be attending so we've had opportunities where students have attended a musical or theater performance um how might we have art students be creating art that fits with that theme that isn't something that we've brought to fruition yet but really looking for those Community connections we've had some great success that we can build on um some good partners ships and so that's those are the the two that come to mind um right now you're welcome well I can't sing and I can't play an instrument uh don't do a very good job of painting what's left I think that the Arts is a place for everyone um and I think that what we focus on and I think Martin spoke to it so eloquently is is the joy um art isn't isn't going to be 2 plus 2 equals 4 art isn't going to be um how do I decode this multi- syllable word you know art really is feeling it's emotion um it's heart it's creativity it's students um opportunity to express themselves and so if if we can help create a narrative for students that um interrupts that idea that I can't sing I can't paint I can't act um that that's really our work is to to not let students think that we wouldn't let students think I can't you know I I just can't do any of these these subjects we would really say well we can we keep working on it we have a growth mindset and so I would say that our our teacher is our teaching staff is so committed to ensuring that all of our students feel at home and feel like they have a place within the Arts um and what we need to do as adults is when we hear from students that they don't feel that it fits to help them see see their gifts see the places and spaces where they can Thrive um and and really not decide early on that art isn't for them maren would you add anything to that as a someone who works with little artists yeah I would also like to say speaking to you personally like you couldn't walk the first time you tried so you had to try again drawing and painting and playing instrument like these are all skills right like when we practice them we get better at them and so that's what like I try and reinforce in my classroom and also like on top of everything that Laura had said about you know artist feeling and all of these things all these beautiful things that art can bring us art and creating music is also critical thinking and problem solving and like every single day my students show up to my space and they come up with a creative solution to a creative problem and that is what it what am I going to create today you know and there's no other space in the school where that is like apparent or where it can happen as fluidly and so like thinking of how impactful that is on the brain it's like it's so it's so incredible it's so incredible because they have to come up with idea they have to figure out how they're going to make it and when something goes wrong they have to figure out how they're going to fix it and if they're going to start over or if they are going to turn it into something else and there's so many micro decisions that are made along the way I think that's kind of forgotten about too so like above just painting or just drawing or just playing an instrument there's so much more that happens is there any room for art appreciation for example I really enjoyed going through the Lou in Paris I really enjoy ushering at the Paramount and at the ledge doing teach any sort of art appreciation AR are there is it that within the stand yeah so we have within the state standards there's um connect create respond and reflect and so I would say that we do a lot of art appreciation with ESP like within my classroom at least and um I know that there are opportunities which this grant is a part of like going to places like the in Institute of Art and get bringing our students to the spaces where they can appreciate because there's I just read a study actually about how impactful looking at art firsthand is and how it just lights up your brain and how um like it just releases all this dopamine because it's so good for you and because art is amazing right and and so like that Grant helps bring us the access to not only creation but appreciation and I would just add on to that we we do have we're very fortunate um in my time here in 742 we've had lots of opportunities where Community Partners will reach out and say we want your students to come to us we want to come to your students um and our teachers do a brilliant job of helping our students understand that this this is um an opportunity to enjoy but also to reflect to appreciate to um come back to the classroom and have those discussions to use those experience Es as a catalyst for for writing and talking and developing academic vocabulary and so when our students are able to take in a show uh or participate in a a theater production at the elementary or see a musical group or have a musical group come in um that appreciation side of of really thinking deeply about what they saw and felt is part of that programming for students do we have a play in a week I know the great theater at one time had play in a week yep so that's a universal um opportunity for fifth graders across the district so all of our fifth graders and that's been a couple of years now we've been able to provide that for our students and I think Lincoln just got done this last week didn't they um so it's it's a great opportunity and that's one of those Partnerships where students um all get to access they all get to participate in a way that um fits their needs uh where we see you you'll hear countless stories from our Elementary staff of kids who just Thrive kids who they didn't expect to be able to stand up in front of their peers and and say lines that are just doing amazing things as part of this great theater partnership and it's highly valued in our our system um when I Usher at the at the Paramount it's fun to watch school kids come in they bring them in by the bus load um how many times do our students get exposed to that it often depends on what the opportunities are that the Paramount is having and so if the Paramount is doing a show uh that really aligns with programming for our elementary or secondary students um are we have a great relationship with their Community partner director Amy myON and she's very great about reaching out and saying how do we get your students here um last year they had a couple of violinists that came in and our middle school students were able to to see that we had some of our students attend and The Lightning Thief play that the Paramount did as well and so um with great theater and the fifth grade play that's something we guarantee every year that's going to always or that's going to happen for our students as we we they go through the elementary programming um with a place like the Paramount it depends on their season it depends on the acts and the groups that they've got coming in to perform um but Amy is great anytime she sees an opportunity she's always willing to reach out to partner to say how do we really connect to the student and bring this opportunity either into the schools or have your students come to us how about Transportation who pays for that so if we have transportation costs to have students go um we usually work as a district to figure out what are the funding sources that are available um we try to plan for these early we try to also be budgeting and thinking ahead of what might be the possible opportunities and so we um have an opportunity to start our budgeting process for the education department early and part of that process is bringing in our art lead to say what are the the things that we can see coming so that we can be planning ahead for that um if we don't plan ahead it gets trickier but we've we've gotten some great processes in place to be able to be thinking ahead and forecasting those needs we might have the other piece is um very often we can bring those artists to the school to take out the transportation and so um there are many times where an artist is coming and performing at the Paramount in the evening they're arriving that morning and they might be able to perform at a school early afternoon so we can take out that Transportation piece and get that access to students right in their schools thank you very much for your work on this grant my question would be um kind of end product as you are doing this are you evaluating um the programs that we are currently offering at various levels and will eventually there be a recommendation for here are the in music opportunities that should be offered at various levels uh for students in District 742 so I think that work will be highlighted but that that's just part of our process and protocols um as a district we're always taking a look at where do we see um student interest student need you have had the opportunity as a school board to hear about course proposals and so there are often times where we say we've got we've got a new need we've got a a creative way to bring more Arts programming um just like we would Sunset other courses we follow those same processes so bringing in initi or I wouldn't say initiatives bringing in new courses and learning opportunities kind of comes through that curriculum review process um each content goes through its own processes and so our Arts programming is able to go through those processes as well to be able to really evaluate how things are going evaluation is part of a curriculum review and so just like we would evaluate how is our math program doing when our Arts programming is up for evaluation ation we go through that process as well collecting data Gathering input thinking about any refinements or changes we'd like to make to programming as you were talking briefly about barriers I I couldn't help but thinking about the um the perhaps overly focus on uh the core subjects uh the basic um skills and we don't include creative expression critical thinking perhaps that um that are included in these kinds of music and art programs and um I don't know if that's a barrier if that focus is a barrier for us but maybe that's something we have to think about yeah I think that speaks to the the idea that we really want to highlight um for students the benefits and also be thinking about creative ways because sometimes it's it's not that a student says I I just want to let go of the Arts they's they're struggling to say I only have this many slots in my schedule I'm interested in a lot of things District 742 offers a great wonderful wide range of opportunities for students and so the unintended consequence is that sometimes causes Force choices so some of the things that the the team has talked about is just what might be creative ways to think about how we use time differently to increase access for students who say I'm really passionate about this and I don't want to miss out on something else as as a high school uh administrator in the past I remember scheduling students uh with no lunch so that they could be in two musics and eat their lunch while they're doing one of those music exactly what I'm talking about yep well Milo does eat lunch every day and is in Bandon choir at Apollo so um which is really great because I don't know if who the powers that be might be sitting right behind you that allowed that for this year for her to be able to be in both and have that double connection you know because she loves both she's like how do I choose um yes as a former arts teacher I'm super into this uh discussion and really thank you for laying out what you've done and um Marin I love to hear the passion in uh what you do and that you just love to create an environment where kids love to come and be with you so thank you for that um if you can convince my daughter who is an artist who stopped wanting to go to art classes because she doesn't want anybody to to critique her art not that she has any room in her schedule right now at Apollo but um she's she paints something for me every Christmas and every birthday and I have them all up in my house and it's like you should go and be an art class she's like no way so that's a really that's an interesting it's not because anybody did anything to her she had great wonderful art teachers it's just like I don't think I can handle the criticism on something I love so dearly um so yeah it's kind of interesting um what I've seen from my kids and from other kids in that are in um art programming at 742 is just their resilience is what I wanted to kind of bring up to you they're doing solo Ensemble right now in choir they're getting ready for that and Milo wants nothing to do with it like she doesn't want to stand in front of people and sing unless she's with a big group but it's part of the programming and so she's um you know not doing a solo but she's helping with an ensemble and so it's that resilience of things she doesn't want to do that she's P you know forced out of her comfort zone a little bit and and um the the the director at Apollo is a great job at that um I have a couple of questions and one other comment so one question was do we know the reasons and I think we talked about this with Walker West before but what are the main reasons Why students don't make that jump from fifth grade to sixth grade I I'm thinking specifically in music you know signing up for that band choir orchestra um do students I know it's are my friends doing it right or do I want to do it but are there other barriers that you found out that make that jump pretty hard I think the the general music course is very different um so in a general music course the the purpose is to expose kids to a wide variety of of Music opportunities and then when you're in band or you're in Orchestra um often it can be hard uh the music can be not as connected to to kids because they're they're thinking they're going to you know play something they hear on in whatever they're streaming right off the bat and that's not going to happen it takes some skill and some practice and so um sometimes students will will join and they'll think this is hard or this wasn't what I thought or I'm not I'm not into this music and so that can be a barrier and that's been a big F focus of the The Walker West professional development is some different ways to approach uh music instruction um and then I think the barrier of of comfort so it's a big jump to go from elementary to middle school and you spoke to the friends but also um middle schoolers tend to just really blur and in they like to be they not a lot of them like to stand out uh they you know that's that can be a kid's worst nightmare and so thinking about if I pick something that feels uncomfortable to me are new to me that can be really scary at that developmental stage so some of the work that we're trying to do around um making those intentional Connections in fifth grade prioritizing The Walker West artist for fifth graders and really helping them understand when you're doing this African drumming like drumming is an option that's that's part of band if you really love this and this is bringing you Joy there's a way to continue this path um and then trying to do that intentional connection with the music teachers um the music teachers also just uh planned the elementary to visit secondary right they don't really get an opportunity but Wednesdays affords them a little bit of an opportunity where they have extended time where the secondary still in session so to be able to to come into those spaces and see so they can speak firsthand I was in band I just went to South and I I saw this and it was amazing I I visited choir and did you know so that they can start to help kids kind of create that picture in their mind that might be really fuzzy thanks for sharing that um the community piece is really interesting to me because we have such a very Musical and and Rich art community in our in our area um again just going with what Milo does since that's what I get to hear about about um she is in interact at Apollo and project 37 uh came which is an all ages uh music show came and that's one of the the things that they're volunteering for but just that Community Connection like I can go somewhere and hear Taylor Swift stuff and I can volunteer for that and so that Community Connection um seemed really important she was really excited about it and the last thing I was going to talk about was guitar class cuz Milo also took that this year and um I know you know kind of when we see those those course proposals come up I'm like oh I wonder if anybody will take that but then her knowing that there may be a two as well I mean it's just really amazing because then she and both my my boys sat and played to the guitar uh together and sang over Christmas break and it was just like wow Apollo did that for you way to go so um thank you for all your work thank you for being here maren okay anyone else Lauren Martin thank you very much uh your passion is very evident tonight so thank you for sharing thank you for having us thank you okay next up we have the Apollo School presentation uh presented tonight by principal Justin scal want to do art run it back all right good evening superintendent putam for chaired board chair HW and members of the board just give me one moment to get logged in here all right it is my honor to uh sit here today as principal at Paul high school and share what's happening in our school Community um we have a lot of exciting things happening at Apollo so to be able to choose um and highlight a few to bring tonight was a difficult decision but really want to focus on our four pillars that uh we're focusing on as a district this year and uh show you what's what we're doing at Apollo to make sure that all of our students are finding safety and a sense of belonging and learning to collaborate and uh learn to be uh the best citizens they can be when they leave our space I'm going to start with a short video that highlights a lot of amazing people within our building and you're going to see that's going to be the theme of what I'm presenting tonight it's about the people it's about the staff it's about the students that are in our space that make our school amazing and I wish I there was so many that we could have chosen from to uh to put in this video so just to be able to share a few with you tonight of these um of these folks I'm just so proud of every single one of them so I'm going to go ahead and start with that high school is a big part of our Lives it's where we spend so much of our time but let's be real it's not just about classes and grades it's about finding your people feeling like you matter and knowing you belong because when you feel connected Everything Changes you're more confident more focused and honestly just happier so let's talk about why having a sense of belonging at school isn't it's everything as a principal as a leader in the building uh I want to make sure that every um parents every students specifically every staff that walk into this building feels uh sense of belonging regardless of where they came from what they believe their background uh we want to make sure that we promoting and creating that positive culture uh that serves everyone regardless of who they are when we look for each other and we support each other and we respect and value and honor each other then we're creating an inclusive environment for everyone just knowing that like I have a community behind me knowing that I have friends and just a group of people behind me honestly makes me feel like coming back to school every day my biggest like sense of belonging is probably like speech my junior year when I kind of started getting into the community he started kind of talking to people it kind of really helped just to have that sense of belonging and that group of people that you're always with and it almost felt like a family I feel good I feel like I belong everyone here is kind and makes you want to feel like you want to be here and have fun at school I've struggled with like language arts and stuff and I've had teachers or some there that I could get help and make my work better than what it was it's a very wonderful place and a heart welcoming and the team is always here for you when you need talk to someone and also teachers here are always here for you to talk to when I walk into school in the morning I feel a sense of belonging from everyone at the school whether it's teachers coaches teachers can push me to stay academically strong and they also can help me when I'm struggling coaching is have taught me to push through any hard situations and I just always know that there's people here to support me at Apollo but at Apollo it just feels like our teachers our Administration support staff that everyone is here for the kids we want the kids to do well so I can make them feel like they are wanted which they absolutely are and I want to see them be successful i' Des at the time whatever I'm asking them to do they know that when they're here they're safe and they're supported and they can just focus on the task at hand um I want to get to know the person the best I can so I can help them the best I can so just always having conversations with teachers knowing that they can come talk to me about a concern that they have for a student is really important even these kids that they say that they don't need the help and they don't you know they they seem like they don't really care they do uh it's just those things that get you through the week that make me come back each day I just want them to be able to talk to me about whatever they want to so every day want to come into work you can see the happiness in the students they just feel welcome to see a familiar face every day when they walked in they have a lot of friends now the stuff it's very welcoming they're joining the sports now they're going to the events now they want to be um they want to participate in everything that's going on in the school they're asking questions about the events the games the dance they want to be part of the family here at Apollo I walk into this building every single morning knowing or believing that I belong here we're very fortunate to lead a very diverse School Community like Apollo that's what makes our school special and why we feel we [Music] belong High School is a big so I want to start tonight by talking about high academic achievement and um some things that we're extremely proud of that we have at Apollo High School one of the things that we started a few years ago was recognizing students and their academic achievements um we're all probably familiar with with an honor role and getting a certificate and extremely proud to hand out the a honor Ro and the B honor role but we've got some students that work incredibly hard to pass all of their classes and we talk often about graduation and graduation rates and we wanted to acknowledge them on the same level um that the students that were achieving those Awards with with those a andb honoral certificates so I'll show you on the next slide but all of our students that get an A honor rooll B honor rooll or earn all their credits for a trimester get the same certificate that they can bring home and we encourage them to uh hang on their refrigerator and to uh to show with their parents and all those things to be proud of but we also highlight they do get handed out in our advisory and it's the majority of our students and we want our our we want our other students to rise to that occasion and and to achieve that goal and to reach that goal um they come down for a little little freezy snack as a group by grade and they always enjoy that time together too but um you know it's that ex extrinsic motivation sometimes that hopefully we can get them to really kind of um to continue to work hard as most of our students do we're also incredibly proud that 20% of our 11th and 12th graders earned college credit through uh the AP advanced placement exam College in the schools taking a college class at Apollo with a teacher that has the credentials through University or through post secondary education options so one in five of our students um in upper class earned uh college credits in some sort of some sort and then take that with them to the University of their choice after we also have our bilingual seal um last year was in seven languages and we will increase that to nine for this upcoming school year and I'm proud to say we have 74 students that are going to take that test on on Friday and those are 74 students that are trying to be certified as being bilingual trilingual um in some this be the first time we have a student taking ASL and um to get that certification but when they um it's quite you know it's an intense test and then it goes through a process of getting rid and then there's the potential to earn uh college credit through that and we we recognize those students and I'll show you here on the next slide sorry coming up very shortly I just wanted to highlight a few um again focusing on high academic achievement sometimes I heard it in the last um presentation talking about doing what my peers do and it's so very true as far as you know picking classes and we wanted to show hey these students are taking these hard classes and I'll let you read it for yourself but I I appreciate the the far right um take AP language arts even if you hate it it's fun trust us that goes a long way right you've got uh because often times and you saw one of our amazing Advanced language arts teachers um in Miss Iden but there's an opportunity to get in and make a relationship with a teacher and challenge yourself you know when we use the word hate because it's probably hard but once we accomplish that and Achieve at a high level there's that sense of accomplishment and that's what it's all about putting yourself out of your comfort zone taking advanced classes trying something different and uh you know these student testimonials have been have been really great we're in that registration process our freshmen register tomorrow so they get to choose you know start thinking about what that looks like and that's an important process for us because then that's how we build our staffing based off what our kids register four so we've been very intentional um it's a fstep process we've been meeting with families we had a great turnout last week and talking to principal Kenzie at Tech they did as well just getting information to our 8 through 11 families about what's happening um for the next school year I've got a proud mom taking a picture so I'm going to wait here for a [Laughter] moment so on the left that that's those certificates that we talked about so you see they're they're the same uh upper left is a honor roll bottom left is be onor rooll and the far right it says credits earned and they get those the same day same time and we highlight that on the far right that was a celebration of our bilingual seal students and that was a little um little breakfast that was put on by Graham and uh working with some of our district level Administration to come over and recognize students and and what they accomplished and having an opportunity to um to highlight that achievement safety is so crucial and it's something that we talk about all the time in schools and we know that when we uh welcome our students in we have a huge responsibility to keep them safe and that's a promise that we make to our families that we do everything we can to provide safety at a high level uh again focusing on on the people relationships help create a safe environment and we have so many people in our building that their responsibility is to build good relationships be proactive with students and using using those relationships sometimes when they need to to make sure that they can um you know keep Keep Kids Safe keep our school Community safe and I feel safe every day when I'm at Apollo um we have something called Eagle time and Tech has the same called tiger time it's a 30-minute block and twice a week we're able to um you know give lessons that our teachers present around relationships around safety and also around College and Career Readiness and whatever we need in our school Community to get that information to uh to our kids but we're very intentional about that um to make sure that we're providing all the information they need I'll show you our individual use restrooms in a few slides when we get there and talking about safety but we had Eagle time lessons about using an individual use restroom and um and the responsibility of that when when it's being shared with teachers and students and all students and just things that you know we want to make sure everyone had the same message and it's been great they've been doing a great job of keeping those spaces um clean and and for everyone to be able to use active supervision is so important and what that is is exactly what it sounds we ask our teachers between classes if they're available to stand outside the room and it's not a it's not a negative thing it it's just saying hi to students as they walk by having a conversation uh we have a student support team that are so engaged with our kids and that includes dean of students and um our csos which is which is our security but really they're there just as as supports to our kids and to help them as needed and just knowing students and knowing they can come to and and sharing information um you know with them as it comes about so we can help them and help them with whatever it may uh may be as I mentioned our dean of students and assistant principles they have daily check-ins with students we looked at our students who struggled uh academically first trimester and buy grade and and they have a list and and they they call those kids in every day and see what they need if they're not there they find out why they're not there and and continue to build those relationships to see how we can help them and um you know turn that around from from last uh trimester and then also our single use restrooms is something that we um were fortunate to get this this this summer and I'll show you a picture of those in a moment can explain and talk about those a little more so that picture on our upper left that's our student support team um the people in that picture their job is to work with students all day long uh most of those people in there provide some sort of uh supervision and an extracurricular role um you have you know our head basketball coaches there our head track coaches there our head Esports coach is in that picture our head boy soccer coach and just lots of great people that just want to be around kids and they're there to uh to work with them to keep them safe to be in the Halls to make sure kids are going to class to check passes and call home when they need to um our our truancy interventionist is in that picture who works with the the uh is a bridge between families and truy and if it gets to a level where there's um you know missing a lot of school working with the different agencies that um keep track of treny so just a lot of wonderful people and then that bottom right picture is just a picture that I took as I walked in the cafeteria kind of looking for for that and I'll just highlight you've got three adults standing here and they're all in our student support um Team one's a par educator one's an assistant principal and one's a dean of students so they all have very different roles but they know their responsibility in the lunchroom they're actively supervising they're there they're present they'll step in as need be they'll talk to students as they're coming by but their role is is just to be available as needed and to continue to build those relationships throughout that lunch period we all spend time in the lunchroom we have three lunches we try to be in there um I want our administr ation to be represented by at least two or three of us at all time our dean of students and our other staff just to to be in there to support and um and help our custodial with tables and all those things as that's happening and then this picture here is our new single use restrooms we have we have four sets of these and they're each in a corner of the Learning Community as I said these are for staff and these are for students as well um we got a lot of feedback uh myself and superintendent putam and anytime we had uh student groups we had a bathroom issue students didn't like going into the bathroom they didn't um lot of congregating in there we would come in and clear them out and they'd fill up again uh the amount of I I presented to this board and you heard me we talked about the amount of um you know journals and all those things and we were we we fixed it I mean this is a problem that I can say is fixed there has been zero negative comments about a restroom at Apollo this year it's been I've received positive feedback from students and from parents and that's a win and I think we need to celebrate that because they are greatly appreciative any administrator that came to me and said should we do this I would say yes and um I think it it's uh provides a level of um you know for students a level of security and a level of um privacy when they're using that space to know that they're um safe and private to take care of their needs as they do throughout the day student and family belonging is extremely important to me in our Administration and I know to our school district as well um there's some things that we do intentionally every year um we started doing home visits to start the year for our freshman students and I know the district also does um does that with our new students and our kindergarteners and that's a program that we started and we're extremely proud of and I just it came out of the idea that I had when I was an assistant principal is that so many of our families they they dread a call from the school the first time that you call maybe is because something happened that wasn't great some sort of behavior something that you need to talk about so our goal is to go to Every freshman home and to introduce our and we do it in large teams we're always with two or three people we make sure that um that student and Family's main language is represented by one of the adults there so we're able to communicate and we have great conversations with them and just welcome them and we do that at the beginning of August we tell them about activities they can participate in and um and lots of things that are happening in our building welcome an open house um and make sure that they know and have all those they get a packet that has all the forms and all the all the things You' need to know and we do that in Le of mailing that for our freshman uh we did a homecoming Community picnic this year all of our staff we chose to do that as part of our family engagement time all staff have that time and the Friday of our homecoming uh events and I'm excited to talk about Homecoming in a few minutes uh we had all of our staff there and it was um it was a great Turnal there was food there was games there was a lot of good community so it was it was very exciting and then we have our family picnic at the end of the year same concept all of our staff is there we invite everyone to come um it's really just a big barbecue that everyone can come and talk about uh the great year that we had and really end the year on a high note so here's some pictures from our freshman home visits you can see one of the teams that went out that day uh a lot of people wearing their red white and blue uh one of the ideas our head football coach uh had this year is that he woned a list of all the students that had played football the year before and have a jersey with their graduating class on it um so he went around uh with some of his assistant coaches and brought that and took pictures for them so you you can see uh that young man that's uh standing there holding his jersey and then you have a uh that is my son uh and then you've got another student receiving his packet that I talked about and those packets do come in three languages to make sure that students have um have what they need for um to make sure they can everything's translated for them on the left that's a picture of our homecoming picnic that we had this year and thank you for those of you that were able to attend it was greatly appreciated and on the far right is just one of the stations we had at our end of your picnic last school year and having families and coming out for for Community uh this homecoming uh we did something different and and I have to thank our activities director Carl heiney who's behind me and also assistant principal Courtney Gordon they were the two that really ran with this idea that me and Carl had when we were brainstorming about how we could do things differently um I would say it was a great success uh to the point when we were doing a lot of people said how are you going to do this and uh we said we will make it happen but um for example Ryan hoi the principal at rori came and asked if he could Shadow me for the day because he wanted to see how we did it so they can do it next year and we've had a lot of questions myself and Carl about how we were able to logistically do this um but we wanted to bring homecoming to all of our kids and we wanted to do it during the school day so when we had the idea we brought it to Dr putam and Dr Harris and they said absolutely but make sure we talk to Tracy bow and make sure we have all of our everything covered there and we did and she gave us some good ideas of how to to do all the things uh in that regard and uh and we went with it so we played a varsity soccer game a volleyball game and had a swim meat during the school day on homecoming so those things happened from 1: to 3:30 and then we had the picnic which you saw the picture of and that led into the football game and then we had the dance right after that so there was an opportunity for I think it was about a 30,000 step day that day which is good but uh we were we were running around and it was great um how we did that is we had to um when talking to Tracy we were going to have the the community come in so we had it was Apollo Tech volleyball in the gym and it was Albany came and swam in the pool and then we had Rory for soccer out at the field for boys soccer students that attended they needed to fill the field trip form uh because they were going to be in with our with our community parents could come we weren't taking that opportunity you could pay for a ticket and our kids could go um our other our other criteria was that there was no odrs office discipline referrals so stud students had to be um you know have a great start to the year and we were promoting it and we had no issues with that students were great with um you know doing what they needed to do and they had to be passing all their classes and if they didn't then they were going to be working during that time to get caught up on their classes this was at the end of September so we had 959 students so about 76% of our students uh attended an event and that doesn't include the students that played in the event um so we were very pleased with that Turnal on Monday of homecoming we had 190 two students that had permission forms in but didn't meet the academic criteria we let them know and by Friday that number was down to 72 so you know that that they wanted to do this and that's a good measure of that because they they got caught up they took the test they got the assignment in and were able to go attend the the homecoming events um how we did it is at lunch we had a list of who had the the um had the forms in the permission forms you went over to a table you chose your one event and you got a wristband and once you got your wristband that was your admission ticket in we knew that potentially volleyball and swimming would be done first so the students that got done there then went down to soccer and the reason is cuz so soccer's got a time so you know when it's going to be done based off that and we had it timed out to be done 15 minutes before the buses soccer got done students went up went to the bus shoot and those that went home went home and those that stayed for the events stayed and it worked great there was Zero issues and it was a it was a wonderful afternoon so here's some pictures on the far left is the volleyball game top right is the um is this boy soccer game versus ricori bottom right is the Albany swim meet and like I said this all happened between 1: and 3:15 and any student that wanted to go home that participated was able to get on the bus and go home so a lot of students gave good feedback never been to a game before I'd like to try that next year tell me more about this and all the things that we were trying to accomplish and our kids got to play in front of pack crows which um happens you know some sports maybe one game a year you get a really big Crow but this was a great opportunity for our students uh staff belonging is extremely important to us um along with student belonging our amazing assistant principal Laura freeze had an idea she's like I want to do a competition she explained it to me I said if you run with it we can do it and it turned out to be it was so much fun so in the month of December um we had an undercover dress up uh dress up week so everyone had a team and it was everyone in the school from you know from Food Service to maintenance teachers and it was all random and you were on a team and and you had to collaborate a team color and all the things that everyone could participate in so the first day was a socks and sandals day and the thing is you didn't tell the kids so I would say 80% of staff were wearing I was wearing this and sandals and by the end of the day there's some girl and they started to catch on what's going on what's going on the next day was a color day so you had teams it was the pink team and the blue team and they were starting to really get it but the um the big one was on flannel day so you can see that is after school we asked anyone who had flannel on to come down and that was a uh that was a hit and the kids started to figure out but you can see some of the different things that were happening some of the teams the bottom right was the pink day um it was really funny because on the last day there was a gingerbread and at their staff meeting some gingerbreads were handed out and you had ask people do you have the gingerbread well gingerbread man and if you did you gave it to them and it it blew up and the kids started to find out so now the kids are looking for people with Gingerbread and Hillary Johnson walks in the building at 3:00 and three girls run up her do you have the gingerbread she's like what are you talking about it was just this and it was a really neat way to lead into kind of that long winter break so um really having our our staff feel a sense of that as well another event that we uh collaborated with and again with Dr putam and Dr Harris and and principal Kenzie at Tech was the future 100 and I know Molly shared that with the board when she presented but um from Apollo's side you know the future 100 is 100% of our seniors having a plan when they leave uh leave our schools and our event we were so pleased that our community came out and they supported um we had an opportunity we had 240 out of 302 seniors uh filled out or begin to fill out college applications 180 applied for St CL State and St Cloud Technical College and started those applications or finished um we had St John's and St Ben's had staff helping with the Common App and working with students um we also had a great opportunity on the far left we had businesses we had about 30 businesses that came out and we're talking about opportunities now like things that we can do you know that we can get you started in our in our business or for After High School and and really made some good connections there uh the bottom picture is is community members and there is about 50 of them working with groups of one or two to helping them fill out their college application and speaking of there's Hillary um helping one of our students fill out an application there so it was all just a great group of people people from the school district and the school board and from our our Workforce that came and supported that day and we're extremely thankful and our our students were as well and then epic day is another opportunity um you know for students exploring potential interests and careers um and that happens at St Cloud Technical College all of our 10th graders went to the event at St St Cloud Technical College in October uh students get exposure to the college in uh different College and Career Pathways which then they can bring that interest back and work with their counselors and work with our our College and Career pathway coordinator Jameson who's amazing and get an idea of if I want to do this job what do I need to take in high school and what what should I be applying for and where should I be going to school and we have those resources to help our students once they've pequ that first interest in what they may want to do after high school um and students get those real life Hands-On experiences at Epic day and here's just some pictures from that day and it was really great to see all the different things that that our kids were doing and all the different um um you know different Workforce uh representation of of what you can do and uh and our kids getting to an answer questions ask questions and have a hands-on experience so that's a little bit about us at Apollo High School and I appreciate you taking the time and uh I am open for any questions wow you could have ended at the video I I thought okay well now we have to listen to this presentation and just rocked it again that was so impressive anybody have any questions or comments Diana I just I have a comment okay I have a comment on the homecoming event I got to participate that day as a community member going to the soccer game and then coming back for the football game and I can't tell you how amazing that was and I know the work that it goes to take on an event like that with the wrist banding and all of that I was so impressed by that effort that day it reduced a barrier for some kids that can't come back in the evening to go watch an activity so my challenge for you is as a comment from a parent from North said wouldn't it be great if we could get the north kids here that day too as as a former North teacher who took students to the Mall of America buses of 800 I bet we could get them from North to a Hollow that day so great work on that effort that day um but I'm going to push you one more one more Challenge and I appreciate it thank you for the for the kind words and uh The Man Behind Me has come to me with some ideas on how to get our our junior high students involved in something similar and uh we will continue to talk about that I appreciate it but it's definitely been in those conversations and to grow that for sure let me add on yeah let me add on to Diana's comment um and this is probably a statement to to you all at Apollo but really the district I for a number of years did NCAA compliance and my goal was always to work to yes and there are a lot of places that simply don't do that and they take the easy answer and so um particularly in having come from St Cloud State and seeing some of the bureaucracy um to to be willing to figure out how to make it work and I know contracts can be difficult with staff um but kudos to all of you for thinking outside of the box and figuring out how it could be successful as opposed to taking the easy answer which is no is an easy answer um but it doesn't always get us where we want to be um I'm frantically looking through the data deck um I do have one question that I'll probably keep looking but um on one of the early slides um uh the question was um students feel like in our school that we respect each other and I believe it was 60% that were disagree or strongly disagree there were a lot of slides that were much more positive than that why was that an outlier and and what sorts of things are you doing to C I mean obviously homecoming is one of those things anything that you can do to try and create belonging but what's your lived experience um related to student respect amongst each other yeah you know that that's a really great question and we had it was SAR last year and we actually focused our you know our our building goal on that because if you also look at it our students they feel they feel connected to the adults so the it you can see in our data that their experiences with the adults are positive but as a whole it it's those peer relationships and again it's everything we go back to in Eagle time is just um how do we show respect how do we build those positive relationships how do we continue to to grow and understand that um you know the words we use and then and I do not want to use this as um as an excuse but the role that social media plays in that and how easy it is to get behind a phone and a screen and the intentionality between behind teaching um you know about cyber bullying and teaching about uh what those those ultimate effects can have I know in their health class right now um they're talking about um you know bullying prevention and and those things that sometimes those those young brains aren't thinking about it those words and those things can hurt to an to an extreme level where someone's going to take that um you know potentially harmful step so we want to make sure that we are continually talking with our students about those positive relationships but we have work to do there and there's no doubt about it and we're continuing to do that just a um since I have the microphone uh just a couple of things and academically I mean obviously this boort has talked um significantly about uh some of the challenges in some of our test scores I just do want to call out um all of your efforts on future 100 um once again an opportunity to think outside the box your numbers were pretty impressive there in terms of the number of seniors who applied uh at an institution and and again so many times we hear you have to see it to be it and I think that that helps and then same with the certificates and um trust me I am of a generation where sometimes I think we over certificate over trophy um over over over over um I also understand that we have students who don't get recognition in a lot of ways and particularly from the academic perspective so to think about not just the the a students and the B students um but to give the students who may be are are struggling or or they're a little bit more challenged um recognition that I mean I tell my own boys this all the time and they're and they're much more privileged but uh there's a heck a lot of life that is simply showing up and trying hard um and and that doesn't necessarily get you an A or a B but you'll find out that in life there's a lot of people who can't even do that bare bare minimum standard and so you know talking about progressing um on schedule yeah it may not be a level work it may not be B- level work but um everybody likes to be recognized and particularly amongst populations who maybe don't see that I I think trying to put that carrot out there um certainly when it comes to some of the standardized things still gives them hope um that they can they can get somewhere and and and again that's future 100 as well so thank you thank you uh Justin thanks for the presentation and I just wanted to say congratulations and great work to you and and Carl who's sitting behind you there again having been a building administrator hearing what you have gone through and the programs you're initiating uh that's tremendous it's a tremendous effort and and long term has a big impact on kids um Heather mentioned the future 100 I happen to be there that day and work with kids and I have to say I was very impressed with the kids that I worked with who uh knew what they wanted to do or where they wanted to go and and really how to go about it and uh some of them had had PSO uh experience and and uh uh we're really uh very focused but um the way you're using your support staff and making connections with kids just seems to be ideal in terms of what we've we need to be doing and then just the last thing one of your early slides uh the student in there qu had to quote the two kids together uh um class of all time I think we just invented a new term we've all heard of goat greatest of all time now we have coat the class of all time out of that's a that's great yeah that that one might catch on I know I'll tell the teachers next staff meeting that's the goal so you want to be a coat thank you well principal scholar see what happens when you're good at something then you get added on like let's bring all the middle school kids okay you're like yeah this is really great I'm so glad I succeeded um there's no shyness on my part of how much I love Apollo and everyone in this room knows that and everyone in my family knows that and everyone in the community knows that um I learned some interesting things though that I didn't know um from your data deck 80% of extracurricular activities are run by Apollo staff it's beautiful for those kids to be able to you know see their coach during the day and be able to to Really connect with them so that just wanted to call that out um I was going to talk about the same thing that Heather did like the two things can be true thing and we saw this in the South data deck as well where the majority of students are disagreeing that students respect each other but then the majority are agreeing that they feel socially accepted that they feel safe that they belong and um I was going to ask you to talk a little bit about it but it seems like that's just I mean it's social media but also anything else you wanted to add on that that like is that the adults prying them up from their bad relationships with each other I mean I know that's not necessarily true but like the the discrepancy there is amazing and I think one piece that we need to do better to get a true cross-section is to get um our students take that survey in Eagle time and looking at the the um amount of students that have taken it we have work to do to get 100% completion as well we're at about 20 to 25% of our students take that and I I just wonder sometimes that's an outlet for someone to share something that they're feeling too so how we can how we as a staff can put more intentionality to get that that full reading and it may go either way right we don't know what's going to happen with that but I think it's we talked about arts and and kind of um a great presentation talking about going out and afraid to take that chance or afraid to be judged and and I see that students you know you get versions of kids like I those those students that were in the video I was so thankful that they did that but you know to get that that true expression of oneself because they're so afraid of what not again not going back to it but taking a a video of that or or what's going to be said and that that's Middle School high school but uh yeah continuing to teach you know creating safe environments I think to me is the most important part socially and emotionally yeah it makes also makes me want to ask a student you know like even ask my daughter like you know what's what's the difference for kids between respect is that an adult word that we're using that to them is negative you know versus like this belonging and like that's much more the culture that we Thrive with here that you know respect is part of it but anyway that's a whole other subject um oh see music right there it's the Arts this is the theme oh I'm about to start singing Everybody all right uh I I did want to ask about one thing in the data deck that's concerning and I you touched it a little bit which is consistent attendance so it's um for student groups there was one at 41% there was one all the way up at 80% so what are you seeing in that and I know you we're talking about your coordinator that works with that what's what's going on there yeah you know we're very fortunate to have um Mr duncanson I can say since he took over his role in about January of last year we've seen our attendance increase by 8% so having a person that that's good at what they do and getting kids to the right place so that that's just part of it though but it's everything that we talk about us as a district and this uh everyone in the room as a board is what are the barriers what's happening why are we not getting to school and then finding out why you know meeting with those kids that are having um that maybe struggle trimester one and usually attendance is a component to that and trying to figure out how we can support them but um you know also there is some some of those pieces of just not wanting to come to school or um you know having getting to a point where um we're making decisions that we're not going to attend class and I I think we've really done a good job of limiting that keeping our our Halls clean and making sure that we don't be um there's not students wandering around but um you know why are they choosing not to attend all their classes and those are questions that we asked them and we asked their family when we're working with them to see what we can do differently is there an issue is it that that piece where they don't feel a sense of belonging or they don't feel respected in a space so I'm trying to get to the road of the why because there's a reason why and um every student's different when it comes to that thanks for sharing that two more things I wanted to say one was that um Milo said you always have a smile for her in the hallway so way to go she's like he's like she he's always smiling like always it's kind of it's pretty great but also there's a lot to smile about but so way to go and then um I think I've said this before when it was Apollo's time to to present like tonight but you know my kids are they could go to PSO starting in 11th grade but none of them them have chosen that and Milo's not going to choose that either and what she says is you she takes a lot of AP and the boys did too but she said I don't want to miss time at Apollo I don't want to miss time with my friends and that just points to something really beautiful you know that's a lot of the times our community doesn't see but um if I meet someone new and they ask where my kids go and they're not from St Cloud you know and I'll say Apollo and then they're like oh well how is that and I'm like it's so great and let me tell you how great my kids were prepared for U ofm and you know it's just um I'm just really thankful that my kids are are eagles so thanks for all your work thank you just wanted to keep adding on the how that survey again and just highlight um what I feel and the students and families I talked to is you and your staff there just doing a great job especially kind of with this unique subset of students who kind of had a lot of school disrupted from Co and everything it's there's no normal way to approach them but the way you guys are doing it is just um is so far seems pretty awesome so thank you thank you just as I was thinking a couple of of comments to Natalie's point about attendance I mean it will be interesting over time because we'll get more studies about Co and the impact of of what what that had I also it occurs to me that we have more people who are working remote work has become a a a thing um which I think changes I mean I I see it in my own um family I work remotely now and their impression of what it t like when I went to work every single day they got well you have to go to work that's where it happens and now um it it just changes a little bit the tone and tenor and the belief system about it and in my last comment about that would be I I think at least grow up before um the Advent of smartphones not even cell phones but smartphones um being at home with so social isolation and so you avoided being at home I I mean I you wanted to go to school because if you didn't go to school you didn't have contact with anybody and I would imagine that that has significantly changed how students think and believe um about their interactions now there's a whole another set of it about we're more socially isolated even though we're connected in in so many different ways but I think their perception of of not being isolated is different and gives them an opportunity to stay at home and not think about it the same way the last comment that I I meant to say earlier um and I say this partly for the for the public good but um the the transition to to single person bathrooms um I I think sometimes seems um I I mean again some of us from other Generations maybe just don't understand it but the number of conversations I've had with my own kids about their I mean I hate to say it but their discomfort in being in um stalled bathrooms is incredible I'm like that's just how you do it but the Comfort level and I mean I've had kids my kids who have now we live close enough to Tech but who have driven home at lunchtime to go to the bathroom to go to back to school and I'm like what is wrong with you so I'm not saying it's right I'm not saying that I support that and I'm like I don't get you but it is something that is real for these students and so if that's a solution and I know that that's in um some of our construction plans as well I do want to call out that that's meaningful and and I don't want to say it's just for me I've talked to parents um throughout the district and I I've I mean I had a parent tell me that her son won't eat breakfast because he needs to and and won't drink because he wants to make sure that he doesn't have to use a restroom prior to after school and and that this is a way that we can promote um better attention and just better um belonging and sense of of Self in place I would have had a better GPA with baths like that and everything you just said in that last comment I've heard that too from parents and this has solved that to an extent including leaving and wanting to you know be more comfortable in at home so um freshman meeting how does that work a freshman meeting days you you have staff that go door too with to meet students or do you go as a group of two or three or yeah no that's a great question so we have um our assistant principles and myself are we're working and and our dean of students um come in know a week early and then they're they're working as well so there's that puts seven of us and then we um let teachers volunteer to do that as their um their extra Duty assignment so instead of working you know we have a dance a week from Saturday so in L of doing something like that then they can spend a half day going out and visiting those families so we have the teachers break that into half day trunk chunks and then we also use our bilingual communication support Specialists to make sure that we're able to communicate and we go in groups always at least two usually three um and then we have one of our assistant principles um Courtney Gordon sorts the by neighborhood and gives you a packet of about 15 so your packet might say St Joe and then you go out to St Joel and you and she has them all neatly organized so it's a pretty clean path and um we go through the different neighborhoods in the um of all the students that are coming to Apollo and it takes about three full days with about 10 people a day and and uh it's pretty slick that sounds great wish they would have done it when I was a kid the only thing we're contemplating changing for this year is we do it from 8 till 3 and we don't like our our connection rate we don't put anything private on a doorstep and we always let them know ahead of time some folks just aren't comfortable and don't answer their door but we maybe are going to flex that time to the afternoons to try to get people when they're home from work so that' be very helpful yes um epic day at the St CLA Technical College um how do you get a whole bunch of kids over there and what do they do when they get there yeah so we coordinate um you know working with uh the Epic group there's there's actually a group of coordinators that plan the day and then working with the district level Administration um and uh we're provided some funding for the buses so we get those buses secured right away and we're already planning for next year for next October um and then those buses come in waves you take one class that's all we were able to take about 300 350 kids so there was about 12 buses that came and they picked up the Apollo students and dropped them off and then they went to Tech picked up the Tech students in those bus and then McKinley as well and then they do the drop off and then they pick them and come home after about two hours oh you try to do kind of around lunches so you're not disrupting the lunches and the teachers understand the importance of the day and and they just know that those students will be out of the building for that time okay um family picnic I've been there it's nice that's really good it's a great night yeah um one of the things that uh you did when I was visiting is you took me out to to see a bit of the building and the bathrooms are fabulous it's really really unique I'm glad that we've done that um you talk about the uh advanced placement classes um not everybody does great in advanced placement classes I mean they're hard they're supposed to be hard um what if you come down with a C or D when you're taking an advanced placement class is that going to reflect on your uh regular GPA you know there's a uh there's a system in place of weighted grading for uh Advanced P placement classes so your grade really if you finish your class let's just say with a c um on your GPA it will reflect as a b so there's there's an incentive there to know that it's a little bit harder and that um you know your grade may not be if your tip used to getting an A or B you may get a b or a c or something else but understanding explain to the families that that's um you know part of taking this more rigorous curriculum and then um oftentimes when the students are younger nth and 10th grade you know they they figure it out and decide if that's the path and kind of learn those study habits and and what that takes and um we try to create that so kids aren't discouraged from continue taking them as they get older okay um relationships um about half the marriages end up in divorce and a lot of that is because of expectations is there any teaching of e expectations or relationships in your school you know I think from a higher level just in general relationship building um you know proper communication respectful communication um you know really getting into those interpersonal relationships um that's not a topic that of a standard that we really discuss but it it just we focus on how to create overall General relationships that then can carry into those friendships or those those marriages and and other really any place in a person's life U that's fine thank you okay anybody else thank you very much appreciate it thank you know you've had a busy day okay um up next we um are moving on to our discussion and action items we have three of them first up we have the uh approval of the girls soccer Co-op um presenting tonight we have Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of secondary education along with Apollo activities director Carl heiney uh good evening chera superintendent Platinum board members uh tonight we're going to look for approval for the uh girls uh Co-op I'll let uh activities director heiney kind of walk through uh some of the things of how we came to this decision along with principal scholar rout yes thank you for having us here tonight uh to discuss this this movement here of of grow soccer in in forming a a crush uh Co-op um which we're looking for for the first time since the big merger of of the other Crush Sports and uh got my co-pilot here principal scull to to help me out here because this was a decision that um I I think it's important to say that wasn't just thought about and brought as a as an activities leader activities Department this has been discussed with our building administrators our assistant superintendent superintendent um and has been a a planned and a thought out process um and it took a lot to get us to this point and and we'll explain that here as we go but um again we're coming to you to look for board approval and merging our St Claud Apollo and St CLA Tech girls soccer programs to form the Crush um as we look at Crush cooperatives um and we look at how we get here um we we look at a very variety of different things uh participation numbers is a big lead to uh getting us to these positions and I'll I'll have some data here in a little bit to show those participation numbers um but really when we look at fielding teams and in both of our soccer programs on both sides of town look to to field both a varsity and a JV competitive team um we do look to try to navigate some of that and how that works um and possibly field one team um if we can sustain those numbers but numbers kind of drive us to those locations um we also looked at safety and student participants um when you're looking at pulling students up and and playing at a varsity level uh what what kind of goes into those things when those kids are involved in those Sports and you know if you're looking at all the moving down and and taking from the junior high to to fill out and field those teams uh to to make it an actual competitive team um you're looking at displacing junior high students and having them compete at a at a very high level as far as the physicality and the strength that it takes to compete sometimes um but also just kind of that nature of of how do those numbers continue to to grow and if we put them out of place and the experiences aren't as good both on the field and off the field um are those numbers is going to stay right or are are we going to lose them over time uh because of us putting them in a in a tough spot um also we look at that access to opportunity um for our district students and really trying to keep everything within our umbrella right in our district and how do we continue to promote our athletes and and students and give them the opportunities uh across the board right and and we're in a position right now where where our Apollo girl soccer program is is struggling to field those numbers and that access to opportunity um and how that looks like um on our side of town specifically and then as we look at at at co-ops um we we like to keep our kids in District and we like to focus on on on how do we support our own our own students and when you look to co-op outside of out of the district you're you're really sending your kids to another school and they're playing under that school's programming um so we really try to keep our students in in District and feel that we as a district can provide the opportunities that our kids need um to be successful under our umbrella and support them so that's kind of uh how we get to this spot so then the the why and and again why we're here as I alluded to earlier um most of our programs and most of the teams that we compete again carry a full Varsity uh and a full JV team um where Apollo has struggled and we've the last couple years only carried a varsity competitive varsity team um with our numbers hovering around that 20 participants um and that number kind of varies as the season goes and continuing to keep those students out uh has been difficult um so we have we have only carried a varsity team and so that means that all of our students that play girls soccer from n9th grade through 12th grade compete on that Varsity level um leading to some different experiences for others um we also had to pull up or we pulled up eight or three eighth grade students to participate this year to get us to feel that full varsity team so um and then what I talked about earlier is athletes playing on a position those eth and ninth graders playing at that Varsity level um there's a lot of good teams and competitive teams within our conference and within our sections that um it's a tough experience for a lot of kids um when they're going through those things um and then District Junior High numbers like I said this decision came over a process and as we look at okay maybe this just is a just a bubble that's going through our high school level um so we kind of take that dive into the junior high numbers and I'll show you again these numbers here in a little bit but our our numbers in the junior high are also declining for girls soccer um and not at a not at a steady rate that we could say okay if we get through one more year we could possibly feel the full competitive team or if we moved another year ahead and we took some of these kids to bridge time um we're we're really just kind of displacing um for a short time till we get to that same road um same path down the road and then lastly um every two years the Minnesota State High School league does a reclassification um which they take all all the enrollments of all the schools and then per sport they redivide them based on classification so in girls soccer there's 3A 2A and single a soccer right now currently both uh Tech and Apollo are are competitive in the 2A class um and so every two years they would they would they redo this classification but every year as classifications are distributed um schools and and Sports in general have the opportunity to appeal that classification so in in this case of a merger um they would take both both of our enrollments they' take the bigger school which would Tech would be Tech and they would take half of our student population out of Apollo they merge them together and that's where we will get placed via classification when the high school league comes up with this here in about a month but by doing it in this timeline we are stating to the high school league that we are forming a new uh cooperative and this would give us the opportunity to appeal that classification so again with this timeline we will get the opportunity to submit our case to the State High School league um and hopefully be able to present in front of the board why we feel that our Cooperative would be better at at the specific classification um so that's kind of the the timeline and why I'm sitting here today and not um looking to prolong this into the spring or into the summer um because if we move past that timeline we then would lose our opportunity to appeal that classification so into the numbers um these are both the numbers of the tech and Apollo um girl soccer programs and these numbers reflected the current registration of these uh programs this fall so assuming every single one of those athletes stays and comes out and competes again uh doesn't move doesn't quit doesn't whatever um the these would be our numbers so as you can see um I took I highlighted in read the 10th graders so Apollo is losing 10 seniors uh which was another significant impact to our our numbers um Tech would be losing five so by removing them Apollo would be left with 11 student participants uh in grades 9 through 12 um from the current roster and Tech would be with 30 um 30 is a is a healthy number um 11 clearly is is not um as all those kids would be playing at the same time um as we look at our Junior High um this is where you know we thought can you can you find a way to move some of these puzzle pieces and and give us and prolong a little bit and give us another opportunity for recruitment give us another opportunity to establish things and as you look at our Junior High numbers uh North and Kennedy combined there had 26 students um and and as we had the conversations with our activities coordinators at the at the middle level um North and Kennedy are very proud of that 26 number um knowing that a lot of those students uh came out to try something um were encouraged by friends and um that eight as we have kind of tried to converse with some of those students and try to anticipate how many of those eight probably would be moving moving um it it was kind of a mixed review of how many of those eight would continue on um then as you look at the South Side um you have a total of 18 students um and when you're looking at trying to get about 10 a grade uh those numbers are very very thin again assuming every one of those same students comes out again the next year and the next year and next year all the way through their High School career so that's where the numbers have led us to this position of we've we've looked at a lot of options and and we keep coming back to the if you make it another year you're still going to have the same problem and and right now with the High School league reclassification and the changing of every two years uh the timing of this seemed appropriate to give ourselves the best opportunity to form this Crush continue to give our students an impactful opportunity at girl soccer but also give us the opportunity to appeal that classification and keep us where we we belong or we think we can compete at that level moving forward and as we'd like to continue with this direction of this Crush Co Cooperative um Tech would become the host school um and really that's just kind of the the home location um both um Tech ad Eric rusa and myself have we kind of balanced out our Crush uh co-ops I take about half Eric takes about half um and so that kind of depends on student need uh facilities those kind of things so as we look at the the person that's going to oversee that Crush Cooperative as far as the administrator uh that usually is is kind of discussed on student need but Tech would be the primary location or the primary host um but as with all of our Crush Sports and our Crush activities we'd like to try to split our locations so for instance uh we got boys lacrosse and girls lacrosse coming up and they each get about seven or eight home games um and we try to split those as close to 50/50 as we can um but understanding the other factors of space and other activities that are going on and and the limitations of that space um and also you know the student population and and you know the the the students that represent Tech and the students represent Paulo we try to do the best that we can to give it a an equal or Fair uh opportunity um we we like to um push forward with Coach Borman uh as taking over as the head coach of the crush girl soccer program coach Borman is the current head coach at uh Tech High School in that girl soccer program and has done a great job um leading that group and and continuing to to build that that family um orientation over there at at Tech um currently we are transitioning between coaches at Apollo uh so it also led us to to this decision and we think she's going to do a great job and would be a great position to lead um a new co-op uh she also served as an assistant coach under me as I try to go through and navigate the the girls basketball scene and as far as a new co-op Crush Co-op so uh she has a little experience in that um and also has the resources uh with me as someone who's gone through that experience too um and then as we look forward we'll look at to Rebrand um and make that Crush branding which means the the new uniforms um and those kind of things that come with those co-ops and we've already kind of discussed uh along the line how at the building level and with the district help how those things can be um worked out through our our uniform budget that we use on a regular um but those are kind of the things that we are are looking at as far as specific to this Crush Co-op um so our next steps tonight I'm asking for board approval uh once that board approval is taken care of we've already got the approval of our our Central Lakes Conference um we already have the approval of section 8A which is all mainly conference schools plus Little Falls um but we've had those conversations and they all all support this this decision for the co-op so once we get board approval we would submit to the high school league um for our our cooperative and then once that is approved these classifications as I alluded to earlier come out in February uh mid-February and then we have uh till the beginning of March to to look at an appeal or reclassification and that's kind of my information for you report uh I've got a few questions uh the first one would be regarding Crush teams about how many teams do we have that are crush or do you know the exact number I can go by season you got it's roughly 75% of the teams are crush the teams how many of our um our Crush teams are Cooperative sponsor correct how many Cooperative sponsor teams do we have with districts other than 742 so lacrosse is lacrosse is a unique one because that is also with Cathedral um and then so there's three teams but it's still a crush and that'd be the same with gymnastics so they they are crushed but Cathedrals involved with those and then we do have uh Tech boy swimming is a another unique one that has a Cooperative with uh Tech Cathedral rori Becker and big lake and that's a that's kind of a oneoff yeah and our girls swimming last cathedral in St John's Prep um and I would like just kind of note that a lot of those cooperatives with other schools have been them coming to us or here we're seeking to join um and that's where we're looking to join within our district what are we noticing regarding participation once we are Co-op cooping um moving to Crush what's happening with uh participation in those particular programs especially I would be interested I mean I think our Crush co-ops have been very supportive um and it it like everything there's a little bit of a growing phase in how how we can take both sides of towns and our our you know traditions and all these things that we we've done within our separate programs and merge it and make it one so there you know usually there's a little fluctuation in the first couple years but um as if you would look at kind of our our Crush co-ops that we formed four years ago um our baseball our softball those numbers are are are thriving they're doing very well um and and we're we're back to melding these these programs that are you know they're they're one they sometimes forget they're they're they're coming from both spots of town St Cloud I mean okay um is our goal long term to return to each School supporting individual programs for kids when the participation numbers are such we evaluate every every sport so the crushed teams and the non-rush teams based on numbers to see what the trend looks like um both ways to go back to having those um their own individual at the schools or to potentially look at having two so uh Carl and I know Eric um are very much looking at those Trends and that's something that we do every two years because of the you know looking at this so as our recommend for at this moment in this two-year cycle would be this is the only one we'd see you know it would be adding the co-op and my last question would be then um when you go through that process how is this communicated to parents and athletes yeah we we work through that process and we we discuss it as an activities group and as a leadership group um and then we really look for the the help in the direction of our our district administrators to to help promote that um both uh Eric rusa and myself uh held a family informational meeting uh about a week ago we invited families to come in and and express their concerns Express their their questions to us um and we F those try to answer those questions the best we can and then we're able to bring some of those things back to our our district leadership team and assistant superintendent Harris and Dr putam and and kind of discuss some of those options and you know see see where we ended up but uh um we o sent messaging to All Families um and notified them that we would be seeking board approval and that the opportunity to discuss those were last Wednesday I just as add it was 14 specific Crush teams currently right now since 2021 adaptive sports girls and boys Notre track ski dance girls hockey softball girls boys golf boys lacrosse boys and girls tennis girls basketball gymnastics Boys Hockey wrestling baseball lacrosse and now Crush I think we heard it specifically from our Arts folks find an interest of what you like and staying with it kids have a lot of options right now and so when we looked at soccer specifically it can be an expensive Sport and when you take away the barrier of the money we talked about it today if I have to drive cross to monello those games travel how do I network with families uh we looked at uh c c ymsa specifically on how their growth was coming along and it was stagnant friendships matter in middle school when we heard it earlier right if me and Alie going to go out and we're friends and I've been playing competitive soccer since I was five and I know if go play at the school team and they're just basically beginning I might not want to come out and play because that's not really fun for me only if I come out because and we've heard this from kids I'm going to do it with Natalie she's my friend right and so it's finding ways to grab kids and engage them and keep them there for the our the Long Haul when we talk to our younger players specifically that have gone up that's a huge adjustment me and the superintendent talk talked about not just the adjustment of your body the social aspect of teenage students that are 16 now you're with 12 year olds how's that look right those things also show up and we kind of look through the gamut of how that looks and then what do we need to do in solution wise to try to fix it and so our activities directors principal scholaro has sat down and you know when we talk about it folks don't want to come together right you rivalry to your school and all of it but when we when we looked at it this is all our our organization and we have to come together at 742 I heard some things that you know I sat in the seat of a principal at South and the principal at Tech High School and you know some of the things of why don't we co-op with other districts why don't we co up with our folks first right this is where this is where we learn together I think principal scholar hit it you go to you go to Apollo and they're out invisibly in the hallway talking to the students you heard it the coaches are also working in the buildings how well did that create a sense of belonging for kids to show up I can have you in the hallway telling me I need to get to class and be there on time but I also can have you running laps when you're doing X Y andz how's that work and building character for our students and so uh this was a thoughtful piece and process and I think our folks let leted a good process around it just oh um the whole issue of participation to what extent are factors from outside of the school impacting that and when I think of that I think of the early youth organizations where uh student kids are being drawn into competitive Athletics in third grade and earlier and um families have to put forth a lot of money to allow them to participate and so if they can't participate is that at at the grade school level they lose that Advantage as they're getting older is that part of what's driving the the reduction in participation once they get to the high school level yeah you know I think that has a a good part of it um and as a in our conversations with families one of our our parents brought that up as this is a a bigger problem than just at Tech and at Apollo you know this is a this is something that as a as a sport of soccer right and and clearly our our boys are flourishing as we've we have extreme numbers at both sides of town but um getting our our young females out for uh for these activities and how at the young age do you make that more feasible right and more attractive and and we we understand with our our cultural diversities and and different things there are different you know barriers for for our students students even at that young age but uh you know it's kind of been one of those Community things of how do we work with our Community Partners and the cmysa you know the the youth basketballs youth hockey to continue to drive participation in our area and then hopefully then it continues to flourish into our Junior highs in high school but you know it is often that transition piece from they're involved in youth then they go to the junior high and it's like well I kind of want to play but I don't really want to play I got other I can just play on the travel or I and you know they kind of we lose some of that participation and then trying to get it back out in the high school after a couple years off is is is tough to gather but that is definitely a community problem that we would love as as a district or as an activities Department love to work with to navigate how that that consistency could be there for our kids I think the other piece that that needs to be discussed with this is is by if this Co-op is approved by this board is you looked at numbers and at the junior high and our acceleration process will still exist if you're a seventh or an eighth grader and you go through that process and and make that varsity team great for you you have the skill and talent to be there and meet all but it's going to keep our Junior High kids competing at their like grade level and and build those programs up and to feed into that Junior varsity and varsity program instead of pulling because of of a number to try to fill it a JV and now your three best eighth graders are gone it's a trickle down effect and it affects those programs just as much much I have a question and then a um many comments uh help me understand to me out of all of this the biggest question that I have or the biggest barrier um in this conversation is actually about the reclassification um so when you say that we have the opportunity to appeal or when when mshsl comes out and they reclassify and you have the option to appeal is that per sport or is that across the board that that would be per sport so we can look at all of our Sports whether they're crush or not and whether they're in the right classification that we feel is competitive or good for our students um but there are a lot of factors that go into those those classifications and how many schools are in your Coop and all the different numbers on class right there's two classes of hockey there's three of the of soccer there's four of basketball so there's a lot of different factors but uh it would be per sport yes so then sure um as a career Athletics administrator I've I've wrestled this this coming out last week um I've wrestled with the request um because as a former athlete at high school and college level um I have great concern about girls and women sports participation and it's also a huge passion of mine and I think in some of this we are missing uh in just the conversation about numbers we're missing some important points uh first of all District 4 742 has a responsibility to provide high quality and Equitable opportunities for girls in soccer The Limited number of participants at Apollo or our feeder North programs makes that difficult so let's acknowledge that uh secondly girls benefit from highquality experiences not just to develop on the field but because it helps them develop confidence and soft skills we know that girls are more likely to participate and stay on a team when they feel like they belong and part of belonging is competitive success credit to Tech High School they have had really good success uh they've created an environment um where that is possible Molly burkstrand likely wouldn't have received or earned the same sort of achievements had we been classified in a different level and I want to make note that that's critically important because we're losing girls in a lot of cases because they're not seeing the success or or if they're in these smaller programs or larger programs and we don't have a a a process for that um then not only are they losing the opportunity to play soccer the reality is most of them aren't going on they're losing these critical opportunities to develop learn how to work with teams all so on and so forth um mshsl rules require reclassification review for co-op programs the increase in classification to larger to a larger school or to a larger level would be detrimental to our Southside girls um and the ones the program that they have built and that is a huge concern of mine uh not supporting opportunities in our district um consistent with past practice would be detrimental to our North Side Girls so I I think we have to look at it from both ways um couple of other comments Bruce to your point uh the sports world is changing I mean I live and breathe this every single day the college level is an absolute mess to be honest um I I think what we're seeing sport specialization has not been beneficial uh so you see girls who start playing soccer and that's the only thing they play or they start playing basketball or volleyball and it's the only thing that they play so the numbers that used to be multifold no longer are in the same sort of way which is impacting everybody um there's certainly burnout when you start when you're 5 years old and you play every day uh we're seeing kids who by the time they're sixth seventh eth grade uh 10th grade sophomores in college who are just saying I can't do this anymore it's just not the interest that I have I think that's you know um certainly sad uh the point about the detriment so for those students who don't whose families don't have the access or the means to start early um already we've talked about so much tonight about the the social or the psychological side of participating when you're in Middle School whether it's in band or whether it's in sports if already you feel behind and you've not participated it is really hard to decide that you're going to come out in sixth seventh and eighth grade playing against kids who have been involved for really you know for five or six years uh and then finally we do have a cultural um perspective in St Cloud that plays out differently which to me is critically important in anything we do with mshsl uh to under so that they understand what our numbers are and and the last thing and and I want to make sure we make this point um so let me say this I'm inclined to support the co-op recommendation with the caveat that the board submit a letter as part of reclassification um and work with District officials to best advocate in the in the appeal um I actually think that the larger numbers um my two of my my older two boys both participated in Tech soccer um on the boys side they've had great success and they've had 80 90 100 and more students um uh participate or try out at least so having large numbers is not a detriment to success having large numbers if you're playing against a a level of talent that that just isn't adequate or consistent with who we are is the problem the the tech girls can continue to be successful with CR as a combined Crush program if we continue to be involved in the right place but being in a space where they're playing against um teams from the metro area who have much higher try out levels whose uh kids are probably spending and and have access to higher level travel teams I don't think is in the best interest of of our school district to be honest so I am inclined to support it but with a very strong statement from this from this district and from the school board saying that we need um for for the benefit of girls because we are seeing decreasing participation uh for the benefit of our girls to um to think about classification very strongly as they make that decision yeah and we that was a huge wrestling point for us too and uh a huge counter or focal of this discussion was around that classification because we know the the differences you know a lot of us in the first Co-op merger you had to adjust some classifications and and you know we were put in different spots but over time you know our our baseball G for a good example struggled initially in that fora category and now is coming off a state tournament participant our Our Girls Softball kind of struggled with some of numbers and that fluctuation and now has been back-to-back section finals um haven't quite got to state but it's it's going to take some time and and I want you to know that was a huge focal point of of moving this forward and and a huge um part of what we're looking do and that's why this timeline is so important to give ourselves that opportunity to get in front of the school board and apply for that classification because all of us sitting in this room agree 2A is where we belong and where we can compete and give our all of our students the best opportunity um and that's why the importance of this timeline is is where it's at and I'll just last comment would simply be I also want us to be careful not to set the precedent that we're not trying to grow participation this isn't an easy out this is I mean I appreciate that you evaluate every year um because I think that's important let's let's get to a good place um but then across I just think that the experience of particularly for for young girls and I'll throw out a stat 95% of women in CEO positions uh across the country in Fortune 500 companies 95% come from a sports background so put that together with with where girls learn to have a voice and where they learn to to compete um not just in the Athletics World but but in the world of of business and life um and and there's a pretty strong correlation so well thank you that all good stuff um just wanted to throw in the lot of thought a little biased because I have three girls all play soccer one at North Junior High and somehow last summer I ended up coaching soccer um and uh for the Youth Organization and because I uh my daughter will be in she's in seventh grade now um be eighth grade and um we knew last year or previous school year um numbers were tough and there's a massive volleyball participation presence over there right so there was like competition um but last year and this year um they I made a concerted effort to keep all the kids on the couple of the teams I was aware of to hey you're you're going to play soccer at North this year right um my daughter her friends teammates they they were out handing out flyers in the school um the coaches did a great job at north of bringing in what you mentioned some people to to try a sport in a formal manner for the first time ever and again yes I don't know if any of them will be back um I just wanted to highlight how hard it was [Music] to engage and keep um a lot of these girls in soccer we weren't quite as successful as we would have hoped um Again part of that is a little bit they chose to play volleyball and the others just didn't chose not to play um or they're really involved in theater or something um so it was is hard work um especially considering all the effort we saw put in there um so I just wanted to point that out uh that so it's going to continue to be but we have a great team we have good coaches teachers they were active and um so someone definitely have to keep working on this is not an easy conversation and we got emails from from parents and you know on all sides of the subject and thanks for doing your due diligence and presenting all this information I don't even pretend to understand classification um but what I think I'm hearing is that we want to be in 2A and that's where we currently are but what would happen if we didn't act today what's the fear is that we were going to go to something we can't compete in very well or so I I think the the the overall goal and the feedback from everybody involved in this process including families was that uh our giving our kids the best opportunity to succeed and compete is at the 2A level where we currently are if you move up to 3A uh you know like Heather said here we're going to be competing with the St Michaels the Rogers the Buffalo that generally have a little bit different of that that background and the Dynamics to be able to participate in those those Sports at a maybe higher level or younger age um and so we would we would by not completing this in the timeline with the high school League we would lose our opportunity to appeal into that class 3A or class 2A so if we waited and said let's give this the spring and recruit and try and get out and whatever that's fine but if we ultimately come back to that decision this spring to form the co-op we would automatically because of our school populations move into that class 3A so we wouldn't even have the chance to appeal at that time the deadlines are very set so we have a we have about a week to to if we choose to do that and if we choose to wait then and later came back to it we're automatically in 3A there that it's our chance to appeal and I think it's also important you know this this is really doesn't change the regular season uh we're talking all these things about postseason our conference really dictates who we play from August until mid October and this is once you get into the playoffs is um is where the change is but Tech came off a great season in a state tournament birth and I and that's extremely important I'm former coach incredibly competitive and I just I want to see these teams all be successful and and and I know you know that's where we're at so we want to give the chance you know we do have some we have won some appeals in the last round PA football won an appeal Crush girls basketball won an appeal and they're both down to classification so it's not impossible and it does happen um but um there's opportunity to go speak in front of a board um and I spoke on behalf of those groups to explain and explain all the things that we talked about and I think a support a supportive letter from this board for this and the teams that we choose is extremely important because we are an incredibly amazing District but a very unique District where our participation numbers just don't match sometimes the districts of our size for all the variables um two other questions what are the normal numbers I don't know if there is normal numbers but if there's diversity JV team like what's what's the usual number in our dist not in our district but in our can you tell I'm not a sports person I played nth grade basketball okay um do you know what I'm asking yeah okay I mean you can actively roster 22 on a on a team so I mean when you're looking at your program uh healthy program is upper 30s you know the 40 is kind of it's a lot but uh because a lot of times your your varsity although you're able to roster that many some of those kids will also play JV so they're they're playing on on both teams is kind of the in between um because you get mult halves in a in a game so um you know that that mid-30s is is really comfortable I I know I'm talking with with the coaches when we were talking about how many how many kids do we need to field more than just our varsity team I mean you you got to get to the mid mid 25 to try to piece together but you're you're healthly you know if you can get 10 a grade um or you know fluctuate between that about 40 is a good number but we have 11 on a field at one time right correct so that doesn't work yes yeah I did play soccer actually all the way through high school I was a goalie but soccer rappers didn't have a soccer team back then so um the thing I noticed because I know this is a lot about what I'm hearing a lot is that Tex and South the Southside numbers are larger than the North Side numbers in this but with the one thing you put up there it looks like South Junior High numbers aren't really that great either so so it's it's not yeah correct I mean Tech right now at the high school level um comparative is is a healthy healthy program and you know success helps and drives that and and we understand that um but as you look at those Junior High numbers and prolong supporting right the the numbers are are down on the on the South Side there and there's other factors to that we try to explore but um it just doesn't feed consistently throughout the years I think the we look where are they going where are the where are the uh students going they're going to what Zach said we see a higher number in girls volleyball right now at the middle level that's where when we look and we're like well if they're not playing where they're going you're you have healthy uh middle level Junior High girls volleyball numbers right now currently thank you what do we base the formula on is it strictly to to get into a or or able a is it strictly our in student enrollment numbers or does it calculate free is it complicated does it calculate free and reduced there's a lot there's a lot of factors that go into it but generally you consider the student population that's submitted to mde um and they take you know the larger school again in this case would be Tech they take their population plus half of Apollo's population to formulate the number yes they do factor in some of that free and reduce some of the the transient student numbers um into that as part of their equation uh but it doesn't represent necessarily our whole population but that's where in that appeal process we really get to highlight those different demographics within our district to get us in front of that board to appeal um and a lot of a lot of that process is based on some of those other numbers that we definitely qualify as a district is the opportunity to appeal exists because we had a change so or do we is it standard it's always open that we can appeal their decision any district with over 50% for introduced lunch can appeal okay so Heather you'll write up a letter and we'll sign it that that wasn't funny I mean that was funny but but I was straight up serious I'll work on it okay thanks when does that when do you need the letter it'll be a little bit of a process now if we choose to go forward with the co-op then they come out with the classification so we're about two months away from that yeah the classifications are dependent on MD's timeline uh middle February here and then that that appeal process would be early March okay once you so like in girls basketball where you already have that do you have to do you have to re you have to reapply every time yeah it's a it's a two-year process so we got that appeal process last time so we've been playing in that competitive section now for 2 years now everything gets reshuffled um you know they do take into cons some consideration how you did in that new classification but it the initial report is strictly based on the the student population numbers thank you okay um so this is an action item um the administration is recommending that we approve uh the new girls soccer Co-op with tech and Apollo as Crush uh anybody would like to make that motion I think Scott might have said I'll second you'll second I have a motion by Scott a second by Bruce any further discussion Natalie can we can we make it with the caveat that we do that thing Mig that that uh we were saying we would do write the letter uh yeah would that be more impactful than just doing it do you think I just the reason I want to do it is because I know parents are very um concerned about what we're doing you know on both sides of the fence and so I'm just wondering if that would be support that idea so now somebody with some Robert rules get me out of this mess and say do we need to pull back do we need to amend and the motion I assume Scott can amend the motion and then I okay can you how about if you need help Natalie could you say Scott would you like to amend the motion to blah blah blah blah blah and he'd say yes can you do that I would say Scott would you like to amend the motion um that uh you recommend adoption of crush soccer with the caveat um that the board participate with the administration uh to put together a letter supporting our position um related to classification I'd be happy to here Jan got that and then um Bruce you're seconding that then that amended motion yeah is that a good I mean is that a good motion is that a caveat to or should we approve the the proposal and then make a motion to add a letter in support of this that one makes me a little bit nervous because it's not an action item on our agenda but I'm not the in Robert rules so assuming that it's okay I would second that motion that we would all Zach speak well I mean as we're still supporting or voting on what the question was asked expecting friendly so there's semal but also we're voting then a letter must be written correct so okay not following it's getting L would you guys like two action items or one one okay I know it's one yeah okay so I think we're okay all right so we have um uh Jan thanks for writing this down here um and then so then um uh Scott amended his uh motion to include um Heather's words Bruce second in that and so Bruce can call vote Scott andron yes Natalie Copeland yes Zack dhal yes Diana Fenton yes Shannon Hans yes BR hes yes Heather Williams yes all right thank you guys all the work that went into that so just let me know okay uh next up um another action item here we have the approv of Elementary School boundaries um being presented tonight by Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of e through five learning and Joel Hamp executive director of operations yes good evening chair Haw superintendent putam and members of the board tonight Administration recommends the approval of the Clear View boundary adjustment to include the St Augusta area and the county road 8 area south of Minnesota Boulevard on the screen here you will see Joel shaking his cursor over those two new areas that are proposed on the new map and with that we will take any questions that you may have and for listeners um just to clarify that this was presented at the January 8th uh 2025 board meeting um questions comments looking it's an action item Zach um just I think um my conversations I had people might not realize how long it's actually been so if can you remind us the last time we actually changed boundaries in this district for schools was we'll look to Gary we have to go to the gray hair that answer I I believe it was uh for elementary it was 1990 when we ordered the the three schools and then probably for the high schools when um when Apollo was built would you agree Bruce was there anything I believe so I can't remember well that would have been yeah for the 1970 school year sure so I just I just want to highlight that um I know people brought this up and as somebody who went to like five different schools without moving that that it was like oh no um but yeah it's been a long long time so just want to bring that up my comment would be again that this is not the first presentation of this it has been uh by the uh Administration we have significant um room issues at some of our schools and um that it's been given a great deal of thought and with that in mind I certainly would be supportive of it you want to make a motion to approve the Elementary School boundaries as presented I would do that yes and I have a motion by uh Bruce and a second by Zach any further discussion at all okay Bruce can go vote Heather Wings yes Bruce henes yes Shannon hos yes Diana Fenton yep Zack Dural yes Natalie Copeland yes Scott andron yes all right thank you last action item up tonight we have approval of the 2025 2026 school calendar presented by Shannon Aon assistant superintendent for E12 Educational Services good evening chair hos superintendent Pam and members of the board I'm here to uh bring forward the school calendar proposal for the 2526 school year I want to start with just a little bit of background information and then we'll look into the schedule uh the schedule proposal we have about 23 members on our team it includes building principles from elementary middle school and high school representation we also have members of the teachers union as representative again trying to make sure we have Elementary Middle School and and high school perspective uh the Executive Director of Human Resources and operations so Tracy and Joel participate from their perspective uh assistant super superintendant all three of us participate athletic directors as well and Equity Department representation as well we had three meetings that were held this year we began in October uh second meeting in November and then just recently here in January some other things for team considerations uh we do have to build the schedule around 1069 student days we also through the contract with teachers union we have four professional de velopment days total for the year and two total Workshop days and those can be in half day increments but and you'll see this on the calendar that I present in a few minutes we also have seven teacher holidays that we build into the schedule we also had a lot of consideration around eat and rosashana uh we also discussed overall schedule consistency and potential impact on students how various schedules would impact our students um a very lengthy conversation about winter break and um versus school going into June into that first week of June and as you can imagine there are people on both sides of that camp um some would like a longer uh break over winter break uh and and then go into that first week in June and others would prefer a shorter winter break that we have had um in the past and then not go into June uh we also uh try to balance the trimesters as much as possible so that um their the days of instruction throughout those trimesters are are close uh are are balanced equally and then another consideration is alignment with local colleges um scsu sju and also sctcc um multiple considerations around that are obviously our PSO students attend both sccc and um scsu is where our larger numbers are at we also understand that between family work and siblings schedules uh with students going and families working at those uh institutions as well and then also the student teachers that uh support um our schools and so those are all considerations that were discussed at length you have it's the same schedule it's just printed twice it's on the um PowerPoint for you twice um the first schedule that we are looking at here is in colorcoded so that as I reference as I go through and and and talk about the color coding it's easier to decipher what we're talking about with this schedule the second um the next slide I'll I'll quickly go to that this is what you will see um if it's um if you vote for it then this is what we post on our district website but a little more challenging to call out the specifics of that schedule which is why you have this beautiful colored version in front of you um one thing I will point out number one is uh gray is student contact days and so are the turquoise days on the schedule the turquoise uh represents the end of our trimesters so of course that those are additional student contact days so gray and turquoise are student contact days pink is the non-student contact days you'll notice that there are some that are bolded and those are the non-student contact days that are uh the teacher holidays or the paid holiday holidays additionally yellow is our professional development days and green are the workshop times and when we say professional development as either District or um or building Le uh and it's exactly what you can imagine professional development for our teachers and for our staff trainings that we're doing around curriculum or CPI or various trainings that we do the green portions on Workshop time are truly that's the time that teachers have within their schedule to work in their classrooms prepare curriculum uh do grading and and those pieces so Workshop is is is highlighted in green there one thing you'll notice that we do is or that we're proposing there is some green Workshop time obviously at the start of the school year um August and then additionally uh the day before the first or the or the day after the trimester 1 end and then again at the very end of the uh the year um after the last day of school on June 1st that would be that day that teachers come back that's what we have done traditionally over the last couple of years so the proposal and as I mentioned you will notice a lot of conversation did go into that December schedule and thinking about the 22nd and the 23rd um and again when we looked at other options we had multiple options on the table um the team really felt strongly that was the best schedule for students and the best schedule um for um for our students around trimester ends um and and so this is the one that we are bringing forward I will point out that unfortunately our um Spring Breaks no longer align beautifully with um sctcc and scsu I actually found that out the hard way cuz yeah um we were planning a vacation and I didn't know that my daughter who is PSO student at sccc is not on the same break as us this year and as my son at scsu so um learning the hard way but uh we are aligned in with this calendar proposal we would be aligned with scsu which is important we have a lot of our students and uh uh who do attend PSO there and additionally Partnerships with them and student teaching um sccc is the following week the 9th through the 13th and uh St John St Benz is the 16th through the 20th next year so a was that's where we were at with that piece um here we go so that is um that version of the schedule and then again this is the the draft that we are uh people are used to seeing once it is posted on our district website this the one thing that you'll notice different on this particular schedule is the 2 and the 3D um of June those are weather makeup days if needed so that's why you see a little bit going there into that schedule and it which is I didn't um show this one first because it's a little harder to see that all right any questions he anybody have any questions I'm looking for a motion to approve the 2025 2026 school calendar as presented so moved second have a motion by Natalie second by Scott any further discussion any discussion actually no further discussion you that was very um you covered everything so thank you you didn't have to leave anything out that um we were wondering about Bruce can you call vote Scot andreon yes Natalie Copeland yes Zack dhol Diana Fenton yes Shannon HZ yes Bruce henches yes Heather Williams yes all right thank you uh moving on to reports first up we have the superintendent report by Dr Lori putam her superintendent of the Year thank you cheros uh good evening uh chera Board of Education uh our few Community uh audience members who have really GED it out with us through this long meeting thank you for staying uh into our our community listening from home uh this evening I am going to uh be proving a a a response um to some current concerns that exist um in our school community and in our communities uh at large um the reason that I I'm having that we're talking about this this evening um is because we uh in this District are rooted um in a a mission that uh talks uh that promises a safe and care and climate and culture for all students staff and families and this board has reaffirmed that um the mission statement every two years um for probably a decade um and so uh wanting to as I get concerns from uh from students from families uh from principes from from you um wanting to be very uh transparent and clear um about where our district um where our district stands in terms of um of uh living out that mission uh so in this time of heightened anxiety and worry from and for our immigrant Community I want to assure our school community that St Cloud area school district is committed to the physical safety and emotional well-being of all students within its control and is committed to ensuring that all schools and District facilities are welcoming and safe places for students and their families I want to assure this community that pursuant to federal law all students of this district will continue to have access to the learning and other educational services available at their schools including rigorous courses extracurricular activities in athletics and support services regardless of the students or fam's immigrant status I further want to assure our community that we will act in accordance with Schoolboard policy 519 interviews of students by outside agencies and School Board policy 903 visitors to school districts buildings and sites to ensure that we protect our schools and our students to the fullest extent possible under the law from any disruption of their educational programs and from any threat to the safety of our students to that end I will issue a memorandum to all district leaders reminding them of these important policies and providing guidance for responding to any presence of immigration officials on District property this guidance includes directing any immigration and custom enforcement agents that may appear at our schools to my office for full review of the purpose and Authority for their visit consistent with Schoolboard policy further unless complied by a valid court order or by law I want to assure you that we will not disclose private student information or allow immig immigration officials to have access access to students where we are legally required to provide information or access based on a court order or other valid legal Authority we will take all legal steps available to provide proper notice to their parents consistent with furpa the Minnesota Government data Practices Act Andor other legal requirements before complying we want our students families and staff to know that we care deeply about your well-being and we'll act within our legal authority to ensure that our schools are safe and welcoming places during this difficult time I will meet with district and school leaders and family advocates tomorrow to review these protocols and answer any questions in collaboration with executive director Bo this statement will also be shared with all staff and families tomorrow thank you go ahead superintendent Pam thank you for addressing this issue directly I have appreciated this board and District 742 because we have a history of respecting Public Schools as nonpartisan our mission is to create a safe environment in which students have the best opportunity to learn the statement and reference to board policy state and federal law um makes clear for our public that that continued commitment and clarifies the role of our school personnel and the district's grounding in our mission thank you thank you okay um here we have the Board of Education standing committee reports I believe that we have two reports we have achievement integration and Equity chair Diana Fenton thank you chair H and superintendent putam this morning the achievement integration and Equity committee met Dr Harris had a great presentation on the activity opportunities that were um offered in the secondary schools this fall um and continue to support the work with the partnership with the Minnesota State High School league with the focus on safety expectations and belongings um second Donna roer shared information that we were discussing at our December Retreat on MCA testing and we will have more discussion on that in February and lastly we set the remainder of the calendar meetings for the 2025 school year thank you and then we have uh board finance and audit committee chair Heather Williams um the board finance committee met this afternoon uh Finance chair weams reported should talk to Al doen and invited him to serve as the finance committee Community representative he accepted that position and will join us at our next regular meeting uh executive director scalar rude informed the committee our three-year a of that our three-year audit contract expired she recommends putting the contract out for RFP and extending the terms to to a five-year contract in an effort to increase bid responses given the extensive time time demand to create the response and the committee members supported the 5-year duration thank you and then uh legislative committee chair Bruce henches yes thank you uh board chair um the uh legislative committee did not meet however as chair I have attended several meetings uh recently uh that have dealt with the legislature and um uh platforms of amsd and and um the Minnesota school boards Association and I passed out a uh uh brief summary of what was covered at amsd because I think that it's it is important for us to be up to dat and aware of these um things and uh the amst uh legislative preview was a couple of Fridays ago uh superintendent putam was there uh I had invited all of our legislators also to attend and fortunately one of them could it was Senator Eric putam uh was uh there with us also but there were 170 boards members and school administrators in attendance and 35 legislators from across the state and also commissioner Willie jet was there and and presented uh the superintendents from St Anthony New Brighton and an NOA and Shaka all spoke of the funding crisis that their district is facing and as they did it um they reviewed their current status as a school district and I have to say that I was um I noted that none had the demogra demographic challenges uh that District 742 is facing and and dealing with uh and uh doing so with a balanced budget as has been pointed out before um at the meeting legislators were asked to uh form a panel and come up and ask answer questions from the amsd uh platform and those legislators were Senator Michael Kanan from Blaine Senator Mary kunish from new Brighton uh representative Cheryl yukin yukim from Hopkins and representative Ron cresha from Little Falls uh interestingly uh Ron Kesha is current chair of the House Education finance committee a very important committee since this is a budget year and uh and the Democrats aren't there yet and so uh it is only he playing that role uh just a few things I put I'm not going to go over all of the uh quotes that I took of theirs while they were presenting but just at the bottom a summary um their indication was that they are open particularly to mandate reduction and non-cost items like fund transfers uh maybe local option Revenue uh which um this District I think right now has $724 in local option Revenue um but that they indicated that there open to discussing that they are concerned about MCA but they do not have an answer for it um one representative spoke of using the um um ACT score or the ACT test and another one responded that she was open to replacing the MCA but she's not so concern she's not so sure about the act so there's a lot of work to do there uh compensatory funding is important to all um and in fact a task force was discussed and and suggested and um uh the governor has proposed uh holding all districts um uh safe from any cuts to compensatory funding this year uh we'll have to see that may become a very key issue for us uh as we um review our uh um platform the special education cost subsidy is important they all said that but there are no additional funds available for this uh term and that was pretty much a consensus uh for the special education cross subsidy other than the commitment to continue to increase the payback of that to 60% uh they all agreed that something needs to be done about absenteeism but again there were no uh strong ideas although again a task force probably and that finally it's going to be difficult finding common ground uh or additional funding for Education it's going to be very challenging legislative session um our legislative committee will have its first meeting at the end of February February 21st um and we will be staying in contact with our legislators and um updating our legislative platform as we need to to uh communicate clearly to legislators our legislators what's most important to District 742 so thank you last up tonight we have future agenda items um the February 5th 2025 board meeting topics will include your not alone presentation middle level courses update schools update and some policy readings at this time does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item okay that was everything on our agenda um looking for a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting uh motion by Natalie second by Scott all in favor say I I opposed none meeting is adjourned 919 p.m. have a good night thanks for watching glor see you at 11:15 tomorrow right is that