time is 6:40 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.
Heather, can you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance of the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. >> Thank you. And then when you're ready, can you please call roll? >> The following board members are present at the district administration office. Gina Asdo. >> Scott Andreas >> here. >> Natalie Copeland. Oh, nope.
>> Not yet. >> Not yet. Zack Dorhold >> here. >> Diana Fenton >> here. >> Shannon Hos >> here. >> Heather Williams here. >> So, right now the following board members are not present. Natalie Copeland. The following cabinet members and staff are present in at the district
administration office. Superintendent Dr. Lorie Putnham. Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dr. Jason Harris. Assistant Superintendent of E5 Learning, Nikki Hansen. Executive Director of Community Education and Community Partnerships, Shannon Avenson. Executive Director of Engagement, Equity, and Strategic
Communications, Ayan Omar. Executive Director of Finance and Business Services, Miss Scallarude. Executive Director of Human Resources and General Counsel Tracy Flyno. Executive Director of Innovation and Technology Services, Katie Herbalt. Executive Director of Operations, Matthew Buchet. Executive
Director of Special Education Danny Mayer, media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott, and the custodian on site is Emerson Beamer. >> Thank you. Then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's board of education meeting and work session agenda.
>> So move. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Diana. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Shannon Hos, yes. >> Zack Dorhalt, yes. Scott Andre, yes. >> Gina Asido, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, yes. Heather Williams. Yes. >> And then we have the consent agenda. The
consent agenda consists of non-controversial items the 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, two items. Item A, approval of personnel
staff changes. And item B, Apollo renovations and additions change order totaling $8,231.31. Um, looking for a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. >> So move. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Diana. Heather, can you call vote on
that? >> Heather Williams, yes. Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Scott Andreas, >> yes. >> Zack Doorhold, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Gina Espo, >> yes. >> Okay, moving on to our discussion and action items. First up, we have the
review of the 2026 2027 student and family handbooks. Um so welcome um Nikki Nikki Hansen and Dr. Jason Harris will uh welcome their team presenting tonight and Jason stepped out
for a second. So Nikki you're on it. >> Perfect. Good evening Chair House superintendent. >> Time for the hot topic of the night handbook. Here we go. >> Lovely hosts. >> Um all right. So, we are super excited to present um some of our updates to our
elementary and sec our early childhood and elementary and secondary handbooks to you tonight. >> Uh for the review, um we'll be looking at some of the changes that we made um that were connected to the uh Minnesota
School Board's Association handbooks. Um there will be some um added sections in in there from uh that template and then also we have just some refined language in there. Uh there's also some added sections sections that were removed and then we'll have some time uh for
questions if you guys have them. >> All right. So in the past, as you're all familiar with the handbooks, uh we had the same format for several years now. um it was in more of an alphabetical order format by topic and now we're
moved to follow the Minnesota School Board Association uh model policy structure. It matches more of our board policies and how they're they're written and and just the overall structure by parts. Uh so you can see it's now going
to be divided into four sections with information, academics, rules and discipline and health and safety. Okay. And as we uh look at some of those changes, there was a a key to help kind of navigate that. Um so we have a blue
grayish kind of color there to represent those MSBA changes. Um there's yellow highlights for uh refinement. And on the side you'll see uh some of the old language uh just to give reference to what it previously had said. Uh then we have uh in green the added sections and
red the deleted sections. If there is no highlight that just means that it is exactly the same as it was last year. >> And I'll just pop in here quick if I can. Um this key was also the key that was given to you a couple weeks ago. And so we tried to mirror our presentation off of that key for the transition
between the presentation and the and the example that you received in email. >> All right. So all of these next blue topics um they are all MSBA section ads.
So and then on the right you can see which part of the handbook that they're going to now fall under. So we have arrival and dismissal hours, the school calendar or district calendar. Uh employee background checks, equal access
to school facilities for students, clubs and organizations. fundraising, gifts to employees, interviews of students by outside agencies, non-discrimination, parents right to know, and drug-free
school and workplace. So, all of that is um now added to fit the MSBA format. Oh, sorry, two more. um harassment and violence prohibition and vandalism.
Okay. >> All right. And then um in these sections um where the language is just a little bit more refined um in our title and opening page uh we added uh early childhood to the title and also included uh Corey View in there. Um backpacks and
bags. This one is specific to our secondary handbook. Um there's just a note that uh those backpacks must be secured in lockers prior to advisory period and in high school. Uh they are permitted in class except for at McKinley. Uh the early childhood screening, there's some language
updating um just the requirements for that screening. Uh employment background checks, just one sentence was removed from that. The final sentence, uh equal access to school facilities, there's a title edit in there. I believe it's an additional a few additional words. uh
insurance. There are some language revisions uh language for our immersion programs. There was an adjustment to just note that the north side immersion program uh is Kennedy >> to Kennedy. >> Yep.
Um in the meal sections uh program title change and language refinement. Also the um pledge of allegiance uh now reflects MSB language ch MSBA language change publications and materials also MSBA language change. Student records uh
title switch from the annual furpa statement. Title one, it just now reflects all the schools that are receiving title one. Uh title nine updated language email and district page. uh volunteers again MS MSBA language
change academic acceleration and reclassification has some updated language assess assessment in statewide testing updated title and language uh grade reporting has some updated language absences and attendance um has the policy now linked in uh
anti-bullying and safe schools policy that policy is also linked in there as well. >> Keep going. >> Yeah, we're moving. Uh, cell phone technology, personal electronic devices, uh, added cell phone to the section title, uh, weapons prohibition, MSBA
language change, uh, emergency school closing, it now reflects, uh, our website information. Notice of violent behavior uh, by students is now MSBA language change. Safety protocols are updated to match uh, our safety response
procedures. Uh, searches, MSBA language change. And specific to high school, um there's just a bullet added in there that uh after dances and after school events, students will not be able to access their lockers.
>> Okay. And now um the green are just sections that were added to the handbook. So we have language access and service rights as well as MTSS which is known through the state as multi-tered system of
supports. And here in St. cloud. It's um we call it our community connect. So, just languaging that out a little bit in there as well. >> Okay. And deleted sections. Uh announcements. It was deleted but moved
to the communication section. Uh and then the work release passed. Uh students fill out permission slip to leave the building during the school day, not a release pass. And that's the high school only uh portion of the secondary handbook. That's the exciting update information.
Any questions? >> Okay. Thank you for joining us tonight. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, next item we have the Regional Talent Development Collaborative and joining us tonight, joining our superintendent, Dr. Lori Putnham, is
Luke Grryer with DED. So, come on up. Yep. Welcome. Grab a microphone. Thanks, Luke, for joining us tonight as well. There we go. and I get to kick us off. Uh, Chair Haw,
members of the board, cabinet team, and those from home, we're very excited to be here. And, uh, I just can't thank Luke enough for giving up some of his time. Um, if you have been in this area for a while, you may have had the good fortune of seeing him present. I know he's come to uh, United Way convenings.
He's come to our district multiple times and um is always a big hit. Shell, I think that's an understatement. So, I'm very pleased and and grateful for his presence. Tonight, um we are going to share um something that has been uh
percolating out out of a community effort um since March. So, I want to really highlight hit that since March. uh RT which is a very short period of time because it is just now August I believe um our 742 team has been meeting regularly with SCTCC St. Cloud State
Granite Partners Centricare GSC and DED to reimagine what it means to prepare a student for life after high school here in central Minnesota. So what we're about to walk you through tonight is a foundation only. It's the beginning of a much larger regional talent model. As it
matures, the collaboration is designed to grow to include CSB and SJU, the University of Minnesota Medical School, additional business and industry partners, um, and other school districts across central Minnesota. Um, so tonight
is a first look, not a finished product. So, if you take a look at this slide, it captures a shift that we're asking you to hold in your minds during the rest of the presentation. The old model is the Carnegie unit, right? And that was built around isolated exploration in grades 9
through 12 measured by time and seat. Um, and it ended with graduation where a student was largely left to figure out their next step alone. The model we're proposing is a continuous 9-6 plus pathway mapped directly to industry measured by skills and competencies a
student can actually demonstrate and it ends in employment or a seamless transfer to SCTC or SCSU then employment and ideally in this region. So put simply we are no longer just designing high school pathways. We are designing a
regional talent pathway uh across uh areas. So why now? For one reason um it it it came together right there are just some things that are serendipity and so I was got uh the honor to be part of the
community advisory board um for SCSU as they brought on President Thompson. Um it's made up of regional leaders um from across sectors. Um and this was a um one of five suggestions that were made um when I was not able to attend a
committee meeting and this is the one that people really grabbed hold of um and uh asked us to um to to share with the whole advisory board and people got very excited about that and so um it has grown um really organically um and um
almost seamlessly right it's just there have been so many yeses right across the So certainly that is why now um I think the other thing is is to think about generative AI right it is make it's making traditional high stakes testing and the final product right the essay
the worksheet uh the single test obsolete because knowledge itself can now be generated instantly right that's the disruption um the pivot is that our focus has to shift away from time and seat and memorization and towards a system built on demonstrated skills and
competencies and the solution is a new dynamic framework that continually assesses, tracks, and develops the skills our students will need to be future ready. So, this is what we're calling the core engine that we've built to respond to that design. We're calling it the future ready by design. And those of you who
have been as part of the profile of learning, um the profile of a graduate work that's been happening for several years now will see much of your work and your thinking reflected. Dr. Harris has been leading that work in partnership with some of our board members on achievement, equity, and integration. and he had to he is stepping out. Um but
he and that team deserves all of the credit for the foundation of this work. Um so what you see um you know I think one of the changes though that that you'll note there are several changes that you're not know or uh to take uh Nikki's uh word refinements. That's my
I'm adopting that. That's my new language. I really like it. Um it all sits on the top of one foundation which is student co- agency. And that means that students are setting goals, monitoring their own progress, and acting responsibly to shape their own learning in real partnership with teachers, families, and employer
partners. And that framing comes directly from the OECD learning compass 2030. So not only is it based on the good work of Dr. Harris and our board members, it is found it's also based on the work of a global highly respected educational organization.
And on top of that, the it sits on three do on top of three domains. You can see um we've we've grouped them out into a effective, behavioral, and cognitive, right? These are the things that we are expecting our students to know and be able to do and to have demonstrated, right, that they can do by the time that
they graduate. So, you can see things like empathy and adaptability, ethical judgment and leadership, data and AI fluency, and a critical thinking. Those aren't just high school skills, right? They begin in late elementary and middle school, right? So, I want to be really clear that this is not just a high
school conversation. Um, we know that empathy is we're building that in fact as early as kindergarten, right, and preschool. Um, and so we want to make sure that that the responsibilities um of building these future ready by design skills and attributes belong to
our entire system PK-12 and they end of course in a de a passion right for lifelong long learning. Um, that it doesn't also just end when they walk out our doors. Um but many of these um in fact all of these um uh attributes that
we're looking for are also ones that our employers are looking for. In fact, Granite Partners uses almost this exact framework again which is unsurprising because if you look at 21st century skills right um the the five C's, right? The OECD, the World Economic Forum,
right? The these are the skills that around the world people are looking for. Um so these are actually exactly what Granite Partners uses to develop their own employees except for our team wanted to add arts appreciation and engagement. Um because as we know that that's a
vital part of being human and uh and um really living a a full and enjoyable life. So that was what we added. Uh so here's what it will look like as a student actually moves through um the career pathway experience, a four-phase
progression. So exploring begins in 9th grade and it includes early exposure to career options and foundational skills. In 10th and 11th grade they start analyzing. So there's a deeper investigation into specific career clusters and initial pathway selection. Integrating uh also happens like with
SCTCC through advanced technical training, dual credit uh and hands-on apprenticeships and certifications. Uh some of those of course also belong to SCSU. Um but the the beginnings of this uh model has really consisted of 742
SCTCC a couple core partners um so that we can build out something really strong and foundational and then others are watching it happen and supporting along the way and SCSU will join us um because we know that through SCSU and CSB SJU the med school there can be a completion
of advanced degrees direct career entry and continued professional growth and I want to be really clear though one for this on one uh St. Cloud area schools will continue to provide a highquality college preparatory academic pathway alongside or in addition to these career pathway
options. This is not instead of college prep, it's alongside it. So, it is not a requirement. It will never be a requirement for our students to choose a pathway. We're really thinking of this as an ecosystem, right? It's the heart of tonight's presentation, which is why one of the reasons I'm so grateful to have a
partner here beside me. Uh right now district 742 is the K12 foundation though again this is intended to be a regional model where other school districts will walk alongside us. Um our proposal is that we would provide 10 tailored career pathways and foundational skills assessments. You'll
hear from Luke in a little bit about why we've chosen the 10 career pathways that we have. Um SCTCC ensures program alignment, dual credit industry and industry standard certifications while SCSU maps direct transfer opportunities and advanced degree programs. Right now we have uh founding uh industry partners
and granite partners in centricare that we know other employers are interested and their job will be to add sponsor um to sponsor paid apprenticeships, mentorships and workforce placement. So the core concept underneath all of it is stackable credentials where every transition adds value and there are no
deadends. And what I want to underscore on this slide is that this ecosystem is built to flex and expand over time. And what you're seeing tonight is only our founding partner group because again March. So this is what the original the the
pathways look like in practice. There are 10 career uh pathways. They're mapped directly from 9th grade to the demands of our regional economy. Um our initial pathways are ones where we've already uh that we have located employer support that have lined up for paid apprenticeship. Um include uh
mechatronics and advanced manufacturing. um the uh healthcare, education and social services and I'm missing one. That's it. Is that it? EMS. That's right. Emergency managers.
There we are. I just had to look at my slide. Um and then the future pathways um include business, finance and entrepreneurship, generative AI, IT, uh construction and trades, transportation and logistics, agriculture and food systems, and aviation and aerospace. and
our partners at GSC, at DED, at um folks who have retired um but have uh long served in this community are in the process of mapping industry partners onto each of those pathways um because again paid apprenticeship is a core part
of this program or this our ideas. So we want I want to take make this concrete with one example thinking about the mechatronics pathway which is built in partnership with granite partners for now. So you can see that a student would start in nth grade with career exploration and a foundational skills
assessment. In 10th grade they're paired with a manufacturing career coach, a local industry mentor. In 11th and 12th grade they move through articulated pathway courses, dual credit opportunities and industry credentials like OSHA and NIMS. And after graduation, they transition into into a
paid SCTCC apprenticeship with Granite Partners with the option to continue on to SCSU after their first two-year degree. That's one pathway and we have nine more like it in various stages of development. So here you can see the economic engine
which underpins the whole model employer sponsored apprenticeships. They would be 24 hours a week, 48 weeks a year leading to zero student debt. You'll see an illustrative wage and responsibility growth structure here. And I want to be transparent, the actual wage and bonus figures will be finalized with our
employer partners and validated of course against deed regional wage data before our public launch. Um what we know is that granite partners has signed on. So that's why I picked the mechatronics and they have committed to 20 once a student leaves our pathways enrolls with SCTCC they would go to
school 2 days a work week work three days a week at one of the granite partners uh companies there are 10 of those companies I think acquiring one or two more um and uh they would be paid $21 an hour the year one 20 with an hour
incre a dollar an hour wage increase each year $2,000 completion bonus at the end of their AA degree with SCTCC and the option to have a full-time employment at one of Granite Partners companies, they could then, if they prefer, transfer to SCSU because that
pathway is will is even more but will be more seamless. Um, and then of course they would get a $23 an hour, a $24 an hour, and a $4,000 completion bonus um at the end and a job at one of the uh Granite Partners companies, which are of course most of which are in uh
Minnesota, though there are of course some across overseas. And um I I'll go to Norway. Um so uh so I think that that's one of the things that that is most exciting about this. Um, we know that for many of our students, um, they
need us to hand them off right into something that is secure, something that is that they can see and touch and feel. I don't know many 18-year-olds who don't need that. Um but I think for our students coming from generational poverty, um it is even more imperative
and even more our responsibility um to give students when they walk across that stage at graduation a way to um support themselves, their families and contribute to our economy. Um and this gives them just that. Of course, uh
Centricare um we're working with them closely to develop the EMR and the healthcare. Um we are one of the the partners for education and health and human services and of course our wages are governed by contracts and so our our pathway will look different. Um but that is also of course the economy right that
is that is how how uh different industry works. So those are just some of the examples. Here's a timeline of what we're proposing. Ideally we would launch uh the four C those four focus pathways in 2027.
Um we would be talking to our staff um and our our students and our families um about this idea. Um talking about the future ready by design framework, talking about the uh career pathways um showing the options that exist. Begin some of those pilots again fall 2027,
expanding to 2028 um by bringing in more pathways with us, by bringing in other colleges and universities, other school districts um and then a full implementation for the district in fall 2029. Um also time to for when Apollo opens because we are working closely
with our partners and particularly around like mechatronics and manufacturing to build out the spaces that exist untouched right untapped right now in Apollo we have this really unique opportunity to train our students and support our students learning to meet um the needs of this workforce and
of course it's all built the whole uh design of Apollo is flexible learning just like tech and so that can be moved in and out as industry needs um And what there's something important I was going to say about that. And at some oh and I think it's really important to know at some point um this will transition away
from the district right we will always have our career pathways we will have our apprenticeship and our business partners um but the right now the the design the facilitation right is is being led by me and Lorie Kloose um deed
Luke um Nata and Gail from GSC SCSU and Rick Bley and Ken Hullman Um but that is this is not this is such a huge broad effort that this cannot live with a school district right it needs a core planning team and so that is the
direction we are going um I will just say I'm super excited unfortunately Luke couldn't join us but I'm super excited um as I'm about to wrap up um thinking about next steps and what we need um we have a team of folks from uh the presidents of SCSU and SCTCC um idea we
believe um the director of the GS SC um some retired folks who are volunteering with us. Um we are all going to Portsouth, New Hampshire at the end of September. Um I hopefully Dr. Harris will be joining us um to uh to a the center for assessment as we co-design
what does it look like to define, measure, and assess critical thinking collaboration. all of those skills that we named on our future ready by design that it's really done in collaboration and true partnership. Um so that it's
not just me, Jason, Nikki, right, saying this is what matters that we are really thinking about a full assessment that is also mirrored at higher education and can be used across uh the region. So we are looking tonight um you'll hear from Luke next um but we are looking for
feedback um we're looking for partners. uh as you looked at those career pathways, if you think, "Oh, I know of this business, that might be great." Um, and then of course, you will need help scaling mentorship um and work-based learning opportunities um to fully power this apprenticeship engine and the work
talent development uh um effort. >> I'm going to turn over to Luke. >> Yeah. Uh I already have one. >> Oh, sure. Yeah. I don't know what I'd do with two. Um so, anyways, I'm Luke Grryer. I'm a labor market analyst. I work for the labor market information
office at DEED. So we produce basically all the economic data for the state on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and this is probably my favorite type of work even though I live kind of in econ land. I think the most useful and value
ad applicability of labor market information and data is aligning our education systems with economic demand or from the students perspective economic opportunity. And there's always been um a need for this,
but it's probably been suppressed or uh it didn't necessarily rise to the level of priority until more recently. So, I've been doing a lot of this work in the last decade, and a lot of that has been driven by our demographic change. So, we had really good labor force
growth in the '9s. Uh, started slowing in the 2010s, in the 2000s, and the 2010s, it got real stagnant. And in a lot of our areas, it's uh it's very stagnant. Um, and so this chart right here shows you population projections
for Sterns County, which are not exactly optimistic, but labor force follows those projections. You know, your age dynamic plays a role in that, but what this means to me is we cannot afford to let any student slip through the crack. Um,
there's a lot of people trying to figure out what to do to continue growing our economy. um when we have human constraints like not enough people necessarily in the right places at the right time. I believe one of the only realistic strategies to make a
difference in the margin is to help students find their best fit as soon as possible. Um, I kind of came to this conclusion after reflecting on my own misadventures through education and and looking at the
other uh sources of labor that we get. Our high school students in our high school on the net are by far the biggest contributors of net new labor force in every single corner of the state. Even here where we have had a lot of
immigration, it pales in comparison to the amount of high school graduates we pump out every single year, like three-fold. And we can't necessarily just let them leave our institutions and try to figure this out on their own. So kind of the
idea is if they can take, let's say I changed my mind like six times, which is an underestimate. Every time you change your mind after high school, it it's costly. It's costly in time and money. And the longer you go on, the more expensive those changes
become because your time becomes more valuable. And so the student loses or the graduate loses, but also employers lose because it's just delaying the inevitability of that person hopefully finding their best fit where they're
most useful in the economy. like with their innate traits, they're going to be successful. They'll command the most wages. Hopefully, they'll be happy doing what they're the best at. Um, but that's kind of the idea that I have. And a lot
of this starts pretty darn young. Um, significantly younger than what it has in previous generations. So, when Dr. Putnham was talking about, you know, 9th grade, I'm ecstatic that it's that young. Uh, I'm not the right
person to talk to ninth graders, but they definitely need to be exposed to the world of work and start thinking about it and trying to connect some of these dots because if they do go on to higher ed for them to have any chance of completing within a reasonable amount of
time, they're going to have to have their prerex done in high school. And, you know, like all these decisions are just flowing downhill. And it's difficult for me to see people place blame on college graduates demanding unrealistically high wages because they didn't get any wisdom on the front end
to make the decisions that they made and some of them ended up being costly mistakes. Right? So avoiding kind of all this for the benefit of students, communities, and our economy. Um, another thing that I think might be surprising is just how interested
students are in most communities to stay in their own community. We're not necessarily rural here. In my eyes, this is a metropolis because it is. Um, I'm also like a country mouse. So in in a lot of more rural places like
our surrounding communities, sometimes there's a apprehension to invest in, you know, scholarships or even partnering with a local school district, spending money and time, particularly when you're taking people out of productivity and placing them in a school and things like
that. But a lot of folks probably underestimate the amount of students that actually want to stay local. So, I pose the question whenever I go into communities and I get to survey their students. I don't have your students surveyed yet, but I will this year. Um, is what are we doing about that? You
know, how do we make it easy for students to stay that want to stay local? And if our pathways are exporting our students, that's not necessarily helping us as a community and it's missing the mark for a lot of our
students. So, in Sterns County, about a third of students that I surveyed last year, this is oh, what was it? It was over a thousand students, but a third said that they want to either stay in their own hometown or in the same area. And that's pretty much what I see
everywhere. And typically what's interesting is if you compare say 9th and tth graders compared to juniors and seniors, the older they age up, the more interested they are in staying local despite probably being exposed to more
interesting things and exotic places. And I never know. Is it because what they've seen is not as interesting or attractive as they thought when they were younger or as they age up are they seeing and experiencing local things that are more interesting than they did when they were young. But
uh I think that's a really important aspect. And I'm going to talk about current tech ed because it's kind of like the way we measure a lot of this type of work. um career tech ed in our area increases
the odds or the chances or the probability of enrollment uh or I should say of working in the same area by 10 percentage points and that's not by accident you know that's not coincidental it's because the type of
programs that Lori has been talking about these pathway programs where they're connected with the community and employers in particular they allow students to understand the opportunities in their own backyard. They're making meaningful connections with the people that can help them make a living and
that helps them stay local, the ones that want to. I strongly believe we should be lifting up the students that stay as the same successes as those that leave. Um, which we most educational institutions haven't
really done at the secondary level. Um, I also wanted to show you just uh like a snapshot of what our economy looks like here in Sterns County. So, in this chart, the bars represent the amount of jobs. The blue dots are the average annual wage for each of our major
industry sectors. And I wanted to just kind of call out that, you know, healthcare and social assistance, which would be two of the what, five, four pathways, accounts for about one out of five jobs. manufacturing there at 13%,
educational services at eight. So the initial phase actually is really really well aligned with our employers and that is a like a hallmark quality uh of what you need to have a well functioning career and teched program.
um I get to do this work across the state and that's it's kind of a balance between finding what students are interested in so you kind of get some first wins and get them interested in this idea of what's next after high school but then also aligning this with
where there's opportunity for those that want to stay here. Uh next slide. Uh and then I think it's also important to just grasp how diverse our economy is. And despite a lot of disruption, a
lot of technological advances over the last three decades in particular, a lot of our jobs don't require higher education and and that's not necessarily a bad thing
and it's not changing a whole lot. Um, so I and I say that because sometimes I get the feeling that people think like, well, the solution to poverty is to send them to college or things like that. Well, if everybody went to college, that
doesn't change what our economic demands are. So the the pie chart here, not to make you hungry, but roughly half of the jobs that pay a living wage. Okay, so above the cost of living for a family. Okay. So, not just a single person
requires a high school diploma or GED. So, when you think about the world of work and what a student might need in order to be sustainable enough of all those major social welfare programs, a high school diploma is by far the biggest key to open and unlock the door
to our economy. Higher education is fantastic, but it doesn't fit what a lot of our jobs need. And in any given district that I've ever looked at, somewhere between a quarter and a third of students never enroll in higher ed. And that's also not necessarily a problem because you can see if everybody
enrolled, that wouldn't necessarily mean everybody gets better jobs. Uh, next slide. Because part of the problem is helping students understand what's even available in their backyard. So this chart right here shows student interest
on the top. This is from uh like the surrounding schools that took the survey last year. A lot of it's for Corey and then to the north and west of here like um Melrose Holding forward stuff like that. And then the bottom chart is all the students that I had in the survey
across Minnesota. And you can see how some of it's really well aligned in this area. And and I know if I looked at 742 students, I know that healthcare and human services would be at the top because I've never not seen it at the top. Um, and then it gets
a little bit different and a lot of that's driven just by what students are exposed to. So in southwest Minnesota, I see agriculture rise to the top. In other places, it might be um um construction like it is here. And
it's it's kind of a fine line between manipulating what students uh should be interested in, but also helping them understand what there is available in the in our own backyard and helping them understand what we have opportunities for should help them build interest for
it, right? And then that's kind of where those partnerships really take hold. All right, next slide. And some of the push back that I've heard from folks about current teched in different places um is there's is
sometimes some apprehension or fear that we're just creating widget makers. Uh you know we we want well-rounded people and we want them to leave and go explore and things like that. And I and I think you know this chart right here just kind of expresses that
that's not necessarily a founded fear. So a high quality career and teched program and it's it's built right into what like the regional talent development is is higher education is hooked at the hip with career and teched. the technical skills and the
career explo exposure, the the most successful versions of that are connected with higher ed. And therefore, the majority of students that are going to higher ed, particularly our local schools, have had career teched experience cuz for a lot of students
that will be their first foot in the door and their first time interacting with a higher ed uh institution is through these dual credit or you know college in the school type programs where they're interacting with college where they maybe would have never been
exposed to that in the past. Uh, next slide. These are some blurry charts, but take my word, I'm trustworthy. Uh, this is from some research that a brilliant colleague of mine, Allesia, did where she was kind of she was looking at
different measures for uh, students um, living in poverty. And this chart right here just shows you that regardless of educational pursuits, students um in poverty earned higher wages when they
had career and techad experience in high school. So that's what we see across the board. I think the next slide shows another version of this that's not just based on poverty, but students get the biggest benefit from current teched who don't go on to higher education. There's
a lot to unpack here. I kind of feel bad for putting this here, but it's basically looking at students who did not concentrate in career and teched versus those that did. And then we track their wages after they complete high school. So, the biggest benefit is for those students that don't go on to higher education. However, even for the
students that go on and complete a university degree, they still earn higher wages than their peers that didn't take care tech in high school. So, there is a benefit. That's kind of the one of the reasons why I love this work is because um it's seemingly
non-controversial. It's agnostic in nearly every manner. It's just better for every student that we've looked at. Uh next slide and the so you know I work for the department of employment economic
development. Um we deal a lot with employers. We try to help understand the workforce issues. One thing that we've done a lot of work on is hiring difficulties, skills gaps, things like that. You know, we hear kind of the end outcomes from employers and try to trace
that back to where is this stemming from? Is there anything we can do from my uh own work and a lot of our research? Um, a lot of what the skills gap is isn't necessarily real obvious. there's a lot of demand
side stuff that's, you know, like you just you're in a poor location where nobody wants to work or you have night shifts that nobody wants to do. Um, but beyond that, a lot of it is some pretty basic stuff like how to hold a
screwdriver. Um, you know, how to um manage conflict, how to share your color crayons, play in the sandbox, all those sorts of things. Be independent and not bring your parent to an interview. And I always challenge students and
teachers when I'm at schools to think about who is the best where is the best place to equip students with these types of skills. And you could say not us. But again, if a quarter to a third of
your students aren't going on to any other formal education beyond this institution or your institutions, you're their last stop. And I think what's remarkable but maybe missing the mark is that a lot of those
soft skills we develop intentionally in high school particularly but we don't necessarily put it in terms that students care about like the value ad and as shallow as it may be and I know this from talking with thousands of
students they care about money right and a lot of the times that we're telling students to do things they don't understand that that is actually developing a value ad skill. So everything from turning in an assignment on time to having a thought-provoking
controversial civilized discussion right all those little things we do I would say a pretty dreadful do job in education in general of putting in terms where a student would actually care. they might accidentally learn it. Um, or they might avoid it, you know,
and I'll just give you one example of my own. Like in hindsight, I kind of figured this out. So, I grew up in the age where you could take a keyboarding class, right? And um, I signed up for it because I thought it would be a pretty easy class and I it was an entire year
uh, like two three trimesters I was on trimesters. So, every day I'd show up to this class and um and I would log on to Oregon Trail because nobody could really see me and I would uh just kind of wipe out my
entire Oregon Trail family and get rid of them as fast as possible cuz they just Yeah. Like I didn't pack any food for them. All I did was buy ammunition and guns because I wanted to make it to the Rocky Mountains and hunt bear cuz you could not do that on the planes. And it took roughly the whole time to get to
the Rocky Mountains. And some days I would actually get there, which was like a huge accomplishment. In my keyboarding class, this was the biggest accomplishment that I could I could have. And the backdrop to this is I'm a simple farm boy. And my f like we didn't
really even have a computer and we were like relatively successful farmers. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor. They're just, you know, making it. I saw no value in learning how to type. I thought for sure I would go and farm. Like I didn't see anything else. It's what I wanted to do more than anything.
So I thought playing Oregon Trail made a heck of a lot more sense than learning how to type. So I never learned how to type. Um and and I never connected the dots ever because look at what I'm doing now. I am not cultivating fields or
spraying or farming. I'm an analyst. I write and publish papers. I do research. I write memos. I am typing all the time. It is a skill I never I'm still not super strong at, but that is a value ad that I didn't
connect the dots to. And we have those all over in every every discipline that we have. So turning our curriculum to be framed in a career oriented way I think is one way to put it in terms for
students. they will understand ah this provides me a value. I can command a higher wage and that is what they care about. Um they just might so happen to learn some other stuff along the way that uh makes them a good person too, right? So that's kind of uh I like to
share that story because I don't think I'm the only one um that didn't learn what I wish I could have learned when it made the most sense and it was free to me right at the right opportune time. So, I thank you all for your time and if anybody does have any questions, I'm I'm
happy to answer >> Scott. >> Uh, you were talking a little bit about uh future um things that you might want to aim for.
And I was thinking, we're getting a medical school here. Why don't we get a veterinarian school while we're at it? We're in central Minnesota. There's lots of farm out here.
Preparation for a veterary school would go very well. Uh I was also thinking about uh agriculture. Um, we have a real hard time holding
students from the rural area because we don't push it. We have as maybe as much as 20% of the kids that live in our district going to outlying districts because we don't have agriculture and holding forward and Cold
Spring all these outlying districts do push a agriculture. It's something to think about. Anyway, >> uh I know I move fast, but uh agriculture and food science is actually one of the 10 career pathways that we
have there. Um and we've been working in partnership with the department of agriculture um at the state level. And as for the veterinarian school, um I think Gina may know better than most of us what the medical school costs, but um that is certainly outside of our purview. Um but being an animal lover,
I'm down. Thank you, >> Heather. >> Thank you for the presentation. I I'll be honest, I both like it and don't. Um because sometimes I think we we focus uh our our language now focuses entirely on
students as employee employees and I do get concerned about what we miss and when we talk about wages and and that's how we're programming them to think about life. I'm not sure that uh that is the only value and oftentimes that is what they hear. I do have a couple of
questions and probably one for Lori and one for Luke. Um one if I'm a So for Lori, if I'm a student or I'm if I'm a teacher, what does the what does the implementation of this do? What does that look like on a day-to-day basis? How are you training them to prepare?
And when you talk about connecting dots and having been a former adviser, connecting dots is all about relationships. Unless you have a relationship with the student, there actually is no opportunity to connect dots because they don't listen to you. And so, how are you scaling um to have
the teachers ready and able to do this? Does it all fall on, you know, more limited um CTE sorts of courses? Where does the English teacher, the the math teacher, the science teacher fall into this? Uh and how do you ready them for that? And then um concommentantly uh
Luke um I think one of the challenges that I've seen just in life overall is we we love the word mentoring and we love telling people that they should get mentors and we rarely actually prepare prepare mentors on how to do that and
then a student gets placed with a mentor. So you're talking about the granted equity partners and um who's doing that and the leadership talks about the ideas, who implements it, and how do you make sure that the mentors because there's
plenty of kids who go into entry- level positions and they report to somebody to be honest who doesn't really care about their development. >> They are checking off a list that they've gone through the orientation, they've done this, that and the other thing. what is the accountability
that what we're putting students into is effective and there are people leading it who aren't just talking about the theory of it um but that's trans transponding down to the people who are actually on the ground so I'll kick us off um I'm going to go
back with how I started March right so all of your questions yes and do I have answers for them no right because that's work we're going to do in collaboration Um, we've already met with the high school principles and the middle school principles and Luke and Dr. Harris and made plans to show up, right, just like
we're doing here, showing up in front of our teachers and our staff and say, "Here we are, right? These are the reasons why we are looking at this um and working for our our community and our students for opportunity, economic opportunity." Um but certainly um what
you heard tonight is a a frame around um this talent development right the career pathways but that was our focus right it doesn't you know I just wanted to be super clear like I'll be with like we will be with our teachers right there are many other things that happen in our
high schools right activities athletics fine arts right all of the durable skills that we are talking about and so I don't want people to think that just because we're talking about this solely in this moment that that's all we're going to do, right? This is a an
alongside and I don't know what happens, right? I I I will tell you there are no right, I think we can all agree there are few new things in education. Back when I started in Minneapolis as a school counselor at the one of the high schools there um we had we had career pathways and there were teachers
clustered around career pathways, right? So you we were you could be a cosmetology and entrepreneurship teacher for the English teacher, the math teacher, and the science teacher, right? And you all shared the same students and you all talked about entrepreneurship and maybe we focused more on technical
reading, right? You those standards you may lean into a little bit more. So I think that there are opportunities, but that would need to be done in partnership, right, with our teachers, with our students, and our families about what that looks like. And so unfortunately, I don't have a good answer. All I can say is that we've
thought about it. We're going to go talk about it and then we're going to see what comes. >> Yeah. And and the question about um not only finding the right people that can engage and motivate and and be the right mentor um but also scaling it. That's
that's a tremendous challenge. Um there are a number of districts that have done that I would say relatively successfully, but it's it's somewhat intensive. Um what typically works well
is if a single company does it well uh and figures it out. They've identified the right people in different areas. Uh ideally then you kind of end up with that competitive drive on the employer side because no
employer I promise you no employer in town is going to appreciate it if they are funneling kids through and a couple of them end up being retained or at least they know about the company and they're missing out. There's a um a
platform that I discussed with uh Dr. Dr. Putnham a little bit ago that I think is a I've been thinking about this for years uh a viable solution cuz like one of the problems is I I mean this has happened to me multiple times and it's ridiculous like where I I'll present to
students and then I'll have a student come up to me afterwards and say hey you know I'm really interested in being this do you think it'd be a good idea to get like an internship or something? I think, my gosh, yes, of course. Like, learn about it now because it's free.
But they're asking me how to do it in their hometown. And I'm like, I live 3 hours from you. I don't know. I don't know anybody. And that is so sad because what we've basically had for students up until recently, the only way for them to
find that person is to search through job postings or cold call. like both are completely inadequate. So there's a platform um that I think might be a solution where uh students can search
you know if you're interested in um theater you could search and you could say well like I can I can go 5 miles or 20 miles and then employers or partner organizations would be able to post or have accounts on there and say all the things that they could offer. So, like
maybe I can't give you a full summer internship, but you can swing by for an hour and I can show you what it's like to work here. And I think that is the way to scale it in order to get the right people. I mean, there's an incentive for companies to find them,
but there's also a fair amount of organizations coaching employers on it like uh service cooperatives and nonprofits because uh they don't always have the the best people to how to think about this either. You know, they're not in education typically.
>> Yeah. I think Heather in the sense of just what you you stated the overview piece I work in the practical land of our counselors and our teachers and they and they say just that right in the sense but when you really think about it of what we've been doing it's it's
nothing new we're getting the commitment from the secondary folks uh post-secary folks and the technical and the uh and the four-year university to commit to the long term for us right we start giving kids experiences already in fifth grade right like we're already past
ninth grade. We're getting in if we're getting to a great theater for a week. It's our job and responsibility to give kids the exposure to everything, right? And they choose what they want cuz our kids will tell you. Some want to go to four-year, some want to go to two-year,
some want to go abroad, some might want to do nothing and they might just want to stay home. But in our responsibility as an educational institution is us giving the kids the opportunity and experience, right, in the sense. And so when we look at it in the in the in the
talking about it, we take sixth grade kids go to Biztown, they learn about finance, they look at it in a fun way. We also break it down into the sense of how that applies to math, how that applies to everyday things in the classroom. So it's helping teachers to understand what you know, Heather, you if I don't have a relationship with a
kid, no learning is going to occur because I'm checked out. Or we can have like Luke and the pilot laying over there where he's on his keyboard not engaged in the lesson where we have the teachers. Oh, no. I want to check your understanding Luke and let's really make
sure you understand how this applies to your everyday meaningful life when you start to think about it because you do have to think about it. And so when we look at it, our opportunity and job is to give those kids all the experiences to the future 100 where we get the business folks to come in and our kids
will tell you, right? We took the juniors to the to the over to one of the businesses and it was like that's a lot of kids in in one time, right? We need to scale it down, but it's our responsibility to give them the opportunity to touch point here's the interest. We have kids that do the tiger
build. They build a house with Habitat for Manity if I really want to learn. In middle school, you learn how to do it in just a simple shed, right? We give kids the opportunity from a black kid to a white kid to a Somali female that I just saw in hijab with a screwdriver the other day to when we had an experience
at Habitat for Humanity where our student female was the only student that was building a house and we were like, "Yeah, that's what we want. We want kids to get the exposure to the young lady that I had talked about last year where her life is in
turmoil and she got that CNA certificate and it helped her. Our data shows this, right? When our kids take 150 hours more one content specific area in CTE, they do better. To your homeless kids, to your disadvantaged kids, to your kids of
color is giving them the opportunity. But I'm with you, Heather. It's our responsibility to give them the whole scope and not just to the they are our future workforce but it's our job to look at them as learners to give skills, knowledge, character formation and build that agency where we can say we gave you
that whole experience across the land but I'm with you our counselors I'm talking to them now like how's this look in the sense of a regular practical sense where I can come into ninth grade I look at what classes I could take and here are the opportunities by experience we can take them here in ninth afraid to
go down to St. Cloud Tech. We start with our kids being mentored to through the bigs program where big brothers and sisters early and so I'm the one I'm with you Heather. the practical land, but in the bigger overview, it's the secondary folk, post-secondary folks and industry folks now coming and saying,
"Hey, think about it in that way." But we know what happens in the classroom through the relationships with the kids engaged in one content area and helping them understand this is a good experience and it's our responsibility as an institution, a school organization to give them that that opportunity from
a public standpoint. >> And I want to I'm going to turn it back to you in a second, Dr. Harris, but I also want to say you asked who's going to do it and like in all cander, right? That terrifies me, right? Cuz this is such a huge endeavor, right? I that is
not lost at me and I try not to think about it too much because then I won't move, right? Um but and that's one of the reasons why I say this can't live here, right? we can take, you know, we can, you know, we've got people who are on board and, um, you know, like Jason
said, we're already doing a lot of it, which is why we started with those four pathways because we're already pretty far down the road. Um, but we do um I am meeting on Friday um with some of the those the those folks that I mentioned who are kind of doing some of the core
work. Um, there's a five there's a a grant I think from DED. I don't know that to be sure. I think from DED. Um, and I I'm not being sarcastic, like I think that's who's pointing it out. It's the state. Um, but it can be up for up to $500,000 um to develop. And I swear to you, it it's like it was written for
this. Um, so we are working as a again, we're trying to do everything in collaboration. Um, so we are not siloed. We're not right. Um, and and so we we're applying for that. And then, um, Amy Trumbly from the Initiative Foundation
just sent me another one. It's a another huge grant that's a a compilation of the Gates Foundation, the something else like all these foundations um that enjoy you know that tells us that that people you know trends come and go right but that tells us that that's where people
are looking to invest right is is this work and that would absolutely I think be a necessity um is to to pay somebody whether it's you know a new something new whether it be GSC ad staff We somebody right outside of us add
staff but somebody has to own this like we'll have people who own it right I would love to see point 2s for you know teachers who are out doing it give some release time you know so that there's ownership like we we we have a great model with the healthcare pathway already and Jen doom and her hosa work
show right there are things that are already happening but yes yes and Jason will you just talk through a little bit kind of to the point of this isn't necessarily new um But Jason and his team developed this um alongside of SCTCC. So
>> yeah, so we've been looking at just the practical way of giving kids the exposure early um of here are your core areas that you need to take the requirements to graduate. You need your cores to graduate, but we also want to look at making sure they are proficient
in those skills of knowledge and ability. And then how do you expose them to the career things? So like our 10th graders, they go to Epic, they learn about all types of things and have the experience. We also look at it in when they get to the classroom, how's that apply to my classroom and what skills do
I need? So we look at it as how do we continue to give them exposure through career technical then the workbased learning. So what right now we've been certified through three pathways through DED, right? So our healthcare pathway is already certified through DE. So, it looks at how do we give information to
students and it follows this pathway to make sure we're looking at all the specifics. We also get uh are certified in automotives. Uh specifically uh right now we just got certified this year in a uh uh manufacturing. We got a $100,000
grant through DED right now to kind of tease this out. But now we're looking at all the way through 9 10 11 all the exposures then to what I talked about earlier where you look at them when you grab to uh SCTC and then St. Cloud
State. So you can look at a 96 pathway through in the practical sense Heather where Lori feels a little worried. Our teachers are doing this is their job. They specifically they're trained in content areas. Our job is continue to help them understand how do you make it
meaningful and relevant and this is the way through hands-on experiences when we talk to our folks when they come in our students even tell them right like tell me why this is why this applies to me right and so if I hear somebody from the field come in and tell you that it just
only sparks the light bulb to say hey I might want to do this more when we sit down and talk we recently had our college students come back to tell our kids like here's what you need to do to get ready for the next stage if you want to go to college. We also did a a trade fair sign in this year where our
students sign trades to CTE field. We had manufacturers come back and talk to our kids like I didn't know what I wanted to do but now I make this amount of money but it started in the minimum wage of a job in the summer right and so our job now was looking at to the
commitment what Lori did was the champion of where we can't live with us she got everybody together to commit to this we have to graduate standards 912 already it's our responsibility to make sure kids are out in the world now it's the next step for the business folks to
say and give us opportunity and experience. And so this is kind of what we put in a practical sense. When I come into ninth grade, here's what it looks like. Here's the pathway and experiences through all the all the things. But working with the teachers, our group is doing those things. Now we have new
standards like we haven't had before. And this just helps. But our ground folks, our counselors, they're all in kind of getting this together now. And we have an employer advisory committee right now that in this local area that comes and gives us on how those classes
look and real life experiences and and tells us how here's how it looks. So I'm with you Heather. I'm in the practical world of how we're going to make this happen and then how do you collaborate with teachers to do that and then get the student as the learner to build the
skills that they need. So >> Diana, were you're good? Okay, >> Natalie and then Scott. >> Yeah, this is very exciting. After how many years of us talking about what is it that we're going to do? And I mean,
it's not because we were just talking in circles and not trying anything. There were so many frameworks that we looked at. And the thing that I know this district won't do is just copy paste some uh stuff that doesn't work for us, you know, just to say that we have some sort
of framework. So, I'm glad for that. Um, I also did not take keyboarding in high school and I was ridiculed for constantly using caps lock every time >> until I finally had to change it myself. It would have been much easier in high
school. So, I feel you there. Um the reality of my life is having two um college students and one that's going to graduate this year and their fear of the current state of capitalism and
the American dream of sorts is palpable. And so this really speaks directly to that. Um what we're already doing is so great in this district too. So, like this isn't the one thing we're going to do, right?
But to your point of trying things, um my senior in in high school will spend her first two hours every day at her old elementary school, right alongside being a teaching assistant with her favorite teacher ever, which is her art teacher. And that's what she wants to do is go to
art education. But she will learn as a first former first year teacher. She will learn boots on the ground. do I actually even want to do this or not? Um, she works at the Children's Museum. I think it's a yes already. She loves it. Um, but like that's the sort of thing that um that our counselors have
allowed her to do and my boys as well as they came through to really understand. Okay, I think I want to do this, but let's get boots on the ground work on it. Um, I think the framing, so I'm kind of with Heather on this, like the framing, because I'm also like,
what's the state of capitalism? Like, that feels yucky. Um, cuz it what it feels like to me, and I don't think this was your intention is like, and this is how we're going to help industry, which that's not really our job, right? Our job is to help students. So, I'm
wondering if we have Jason. So are I wondering if we have like a this is the problem that we're trying to solve or these are the problems we're trying to solve and make that more student centered um because otherwise it can sound like we're getting off of I know
we're not getting off of our docket but um so I guess that's my question to both of you like this sort of a thing that we're talking about today what's the problem that it solves if it's the top three or the top one what would you say >> you know so from my perspective Um,
I I look at it through the lens of a student, not because I'm a student myself, but because it's a bit of a chicken and egg. You know, we can blind ourselves and say like we're just pumping out well-rounded individuals, but if they don't get good
jobs and put a roof over their head, like what are we doing? And um a lot of people probably don't like this, but I mean that is the first need in the hierarchy. And you can talk about
becoming worldly and cultured all you want, but if you can't put a roof over your head, that does not matter. And you can try to become worldly and cultured by hearing it from somebody else, but it's better if you have enough money to
travel the world and learn about other cultures in person, you know? So, I see it as just kind of like an all-around win. um it's not necessarily we're we're forming them into the jobs, but they should at least know what life
after high school is all about, you know. Um and and I think there's been uh well, I know because we track higher education outcomes, far too many students that have pursued dreams
without doses of reality. And I'm not advocating to kill programs that produce students that live in poverty. However, I would say it would be highly beneficial for those students to understand what their expected earnings
would be and then help them think through how to make that a viable plan. Um and and I talk about CTE not as a funding mechanism because I don't work in education, never have, likely never will. Uh I just speak about it broadly.
So like take art for instance. Typically art teachers and the liberal arts side of the house like they don't see themselves as part of CTE. So a lot of them are suspect like what happens when students start going to these classes instead of my class?
>> I'm a former music teacher. So yes, exactly. And I'll I'll give you the skinny on the way I see it is AI is probably going to only increase those types of skills, but we've siloed them
and that has created halves and have nots. So you can have those skills and have not money, right? Or you can have technical skills and have money but not those skills. And AI is democratizing a lot of technical skills that we have
been traditionally thinking about in CTE. And I think AI is going to be the saving grace for a lot of those types of jobs. So myself as an analyst um my ability to communicate um paint a
picture of data, tell the story makes me valuable because a lot of my technical skills they're replaceable like that, right? So, I see all those like I was I loved art. I was relatively decent at it.
In my adult life, I finally realized where those skills came into play. I benefit from the art classes I took as an analyst, but nobody ever connected those dots. And I don't know who's supposed to do that. It's not it's it's
very abstract work, but I think that would have been beneficial to know like aha cuz I can think about things many different ways and conceptualize in different ways than most people that are
just dealing with data, right? Um so I I honestly see it as kind of this is is much more immersive than we have CT here, arts over here. I think those humanities soft skills I think they're
only going to become more important to pathways like that. I think I don't see how it happens any other way actually. And I think for me the top two things right that we're trying to solve um one I think is engagement right there are
many students one of mine included who went through all of AP and was not at all engaged A's B's not at all engaged right um thought he was going to be an engineering major now is a philosophy
and cognitive science right um so I think that especially right and that's why we had AI as one of those slides because like it or not it is a pivotal factor right in how education changes as wrote learning pointless right there are
some basic masters right and we do have a framework for for where AI gets used and how it gets used and you'll see that all in September um for review and input um before we make any decisions but um that what is it that we're offering to kids I think desperately needs to change
um and if we cannot connect for them what's happening right Now, we have no chance of competing with video games, with the dopamine of of apps and Tik Tok and and um why why keep showing up for
seven and seven and a half hours a day, right? I I I say desperately, sadly, that we do such a good job of killing curiosity in our kids. >> By fourth or fifth grade, they're just done, right? And I see that some of this if you choose it, right? You can go
through our schools and never choose any of these. But if you choose it, my hope and my thinking, I could be wrong, is that it sparks some engagement, some curiosity, some connection, right? Something that is meaningful to to our students um because they see something
that could happen next. And then my that's my second and I referenced it and I feel very passionately about it is that we owe it to our kids to show them what they can do next. Right? They are not not all of our kids most many of our kids are not privileged to be able to
walk out of their schools on graduation day and walk into money to a job to a house and unfortunately many of our parents are doing the best they can just to keep a roof over their heads and many you all know this right but this is why I'm so passionate about it is if we
don't do it no one's going to not because our parents don't want to but for whatever reason the barriers are there finance opportunity access and if we don't do it, we're creating the same cycles and it breaks my heart. And so this is one way that I
think we can give kids a vision, right? And not only a vision, but lay out clearly, here's $21 an hour and no debt or go to the trades. We brought in our trade unions, right? There's apprenticeships that exist. Um, but
we're giving our kids a pathway to a a sustainable life. And I will tell you, I go back to something Dr. Green said to me years ago. Um, if you don't know him, Dr. Green was on our board. Um, a brilliant man. Um, and he said, "Lori, stop teaching kids to dream so
big. Our kids, right?" And I was like, "What?" And often with Dr. Green, you're like, "What?" He's like, "Our kids need to graduate and they need to dream of a house and a car and to take care of their families and themselves. They don't need millions of dollars, right?
Teach them and give them the skills to be able to support themselves and their families without struggle, right? Like you don't have to keep, right? Like that this is what our we need to give our kids this as the base, right? This is our the expectation that they can support themselves, be contributing
members to communities." And that's a big enough dream right there, right? We don't have to paint a a picture beyond that. Kids can find once, right? Once those basic needs are met, >> they can find that themselves. But that's what I that's the problem I'm trying to solve. >> And there's some sadness to that for me
as a parent. There's there's sadness to that. When I'm talking to my, you know, when my kids were in sixth grade, I'm like, uh, this is the start of your college. I'm I'm sorry, but like we don't I don't have money to send you to college, so you got to get that, you know, it's like the reality of that is
so heartbreaking to me that we have to do that, but that's where we are. The the two that that that um that seem to be in this for me, number one is belonging. I mean, you're talking about students that I know firsthand
from my students that have gone through the the students that will just love this are the students that sometimes are least engaged because they don't there's not a place. Um, and then graduation rates, like let's be real about it, you know, that's if that belonging comes
through this for someone, they're much more likely to graduate on time. So, yeah, Luke, I think I cut you off. >> Oh, yeah. you know what I tell a lot of communities you know when you're thinking about this and this is good that you kind of you had like a big broad scope but um like especially if
you think of your underresourced kids you know in in and a lot of parents like I've tried unsuccessfully many many times to try to engage those parents that don't show up just like they're busy right they're probably working two jobs the ones that show up are the ones that show up to everything and I love
them they're great parents but like they are well resource the the students that you know are underresourced, their folks probably aren't super engaged. They're probably not reading my stuff. And it's not like they need to read my stuff, but like they are busy.
And if the only messaging that those students get is in order to be successful, you need to leave. I think that's a disservice because those underresourced kids likely have the most social capital here. And if we
tell them that in order for them to be successful, they need to leave here, we're sending them to a a scary place somewhere else that has the same jobs we got in our own backyard, but nobody's going to be able to help them if they get a flat tire or if they need to have
somebody watch their kid, right? like it's likely for the majority of our students they have some network here and I think that's um a sad sad ending when they go take another job for the same amount of money in some other town when
they could just as well stayed here particularly if they wanted to. Scott. >> Um, I've been looking at that manufacturing pathway up there and um,
my the teachers here picked my son to be a welder and they worked him up that manufacturing pathway and till he graduated. and he said, "Dad, it's hard, hot, dirty
work. I'm gonna sell cars." And at 22, he bought his first house. I mean, it's it's good and it's bad. >> And that's uh Yeah. I mean, I'll be be the f like learning what you don't want
to do is just as valuable as learning what you do want to do. Yeah. Gina. >> So, um, well, first of all, thank you, Luke, for your story about Oregon Trail because that brought me back. And I usually tried to carry everything I could in my wagon and that it would sink
in the river. So, um, >> blue past. Yeah. >> Yeah. And then we Yeah. >> I can't help. Got >> you were going for the bears. Yeah. I should I should have Bears. That should have been it. Um, I'm actually I think I'm looking at this in a little more positive light. Um, I see this project
as I don't think that the folks working on this project such as yourselves and everyone else are saying this is the answer. I think you're saying this might be an answer for some kids that might not work for others. And I also I don't see it as either or. I see it as both
and like this is just another thing. >> And so I see it as access and opportunity. You know, there may be like you mentioned when someone changes their major in college, which I did three times, you know, you lose money
and you lose time and then you are undermployed for some time and then it takes a while to catch up. >> So, I'm I'm looking at this as not a, you know, here's our presentation and this is the answer. I'm looking at it as here's another thing that could work for
a lot of kids. And I'm and I look at it as when you mention, you know, curiosity and sparking curiosity. One thing is drive in kids. You can't teach drive, but you can spark it. So maybe this is something. Maybe they'll go to a program
or they'll go to a class and be like, h, yeah, maybe that maybe that's for me. So I'm I'm kind of looking at as that in that lens. And um thank you guys for your work and everyone on that. >> I couldn't agree more. My my probably my biggest frustration with secondary
schools is how how many students go through it and don't understand the tremendous value it has. And I'm not an educator, right? Like I don't have any skin in your guys' game really. But it is bar none the best single thing you can do for yourself
in the world. Like gaining that education of a high school diploma opens up the door. like the world's your oyster and then everything else comes after that. But so few students see the value. They just want to walk across the finish line and and a lot of them are
missing out on the tremendous value that they get along the way. Case in point, are we all good? >> Really good conversations. I learned a lot and I'm excited and I recognize this is really a lot. Um, but gosh, it's
really exciting and if anybody can do it, this district and this community can do it. You know, look what we saw last week and you know this amazing people here. So, thank you. Okay. Um, next up we have Tracy Flynn
Bo, executive director of human resources and general counsel joining us for three action items. The first is approval of health and dental insurance plan renewals and premiums for 2026 2027.
And um, thank you George Vanderweet for joining us. He's from Senior Benefits Consultant with One Digital. Thanks for being here again and hanging in there. >> Okay. Good evening board members. Uh Chair Haw, Superintendent Putnham. Uh as
uh as you've pointed out, Chair Haw, we are talking about three different action items tonight. I'm going to do a brief introduction to those and then uh George will um do some overview around the financial plan uh analysis. So in
opening I just we're asking the board to consider three different things tonight. Uh there's a there's a premium recommendation from the LMC that happens annually every year after the full year of claims history and performance. uh we
meet with George and the labor management committee who he meets with us every month and reviews the financial condition of those plans. But in June, we review the the plan performance for the year and it is the responsibility of the LMC to review that information and
then to make a recommendation to the board on annual pre setting our annual premiums for our self-insured health and dental plans. Um so we have uh completed that work and that that recommendation is here before you tonight. Um, having done that work, we're facing a 15%
increase in our premiums. And so, we wanted to give that some context tonight and also talk about some solutions that will help carry some of the burden of that increase. So, before we kind of jump to our district, I think it's important to set this in the kind of
state and national context. uh the conversations that we have at the labor management committee like the conversations that will go on at our dinner tables and homes across uh the district after these premium increases will will be reflecting the difficulty
of rising health care costs. Uh but as you can see from state and national information that we're not unusual at 15% we're kind of right smack in the middle of what we see happening in in similarsized plans in Minnesota
moving from 14% to 21.5% and the national surveys tell us this is the fourth straight year in a row of really significant increases in health insurance premiums across the country. So, I think for our employees, it's important for them to understand that as
a self-insured plan, uh, we we have to make hard decisions about our plans in that context and the district can't control the context. Um, the challenge at this point for that increase um, for our employees is that
we are in the middle of a cycle of our contracts. Our contracts are 2025 to 2027. We finished negotiations of those contracts and have already negotiated the premium contributions for this year and next. And so without um other action by the board, that full 15% increase in
those premiums will be borne by our employees. Uh that's difficult and challenging for all employees because we're talking, you know, hundreds of dollars a month of increases, especially in our family plans. Um but it's particularly difficult for our hourly
support staff positions um because the impact as a as a proportion of their monthly salary is just very different than it is for some of our exempt or highly compensated folks. And so, uh, as we started talking about that with the,
um, personnel committee who reviewed this first as after it came out of the labor management committee, um, our our discussion, um, turned to whether or not there was anything that the district could do to cost share those increases. And so Amy,
uh, we appreciate her a lot. to and back to her office and we charged her with uh really reviewing whether or not there was any opportunity for us to to do something to cost share. We did this back in 1011 when I think we had a 15% increase then and the and the district cost shared about 3% of it at that time.
And so Amy went and and located funding inside the budget that would be available to help us cost share. And so we're proposing the second action item tonight will be um proposing a memorandum of agreement that would increase the district's contributions by
the levels you see there by $25 additional a month for the single coverage, $60 for family and then about half of that for our TMT and EM are employee married to employee um groups who already have a significant part of their um benefit paid for by the
district. So that's why there's a there's a about half the contribution increase for those groups. But we would add that on top of what is already bargained for inside the contracts. Um how would we do that? We have to do that first with our bargaining units. We
have to we have to have a memorandum agreement that would allow us to to add that additional contribution to all of the bargaining groups. Uh the board has in front of it tonight that drafted that memorandum that has been shared with all of our bargaining group representatives
and the labor management committee. It is an add-on to the contract. So it doesn't change the 2527 negotiated amounts and when we begin negotiating the 2729 contract uh we would start where we left off you know at the end of this contract
period. So it is not a permanent change or a negotiated change in the contracts. It is an add-on a little bit like we did when we had um uh money during the COVID crisis and we had some additional funding and we did some things to to support our employees at that point by
having memorandums agreement to add some additional monies. So that would be the way we would proceed um if the board approves that tonight with the um bargaining groups for our non-represented employees. there's a there's a parallel resolution that the board would pass to allow us to add that
extra contribution to those groups. Uh so following George's uh summary of the financial plan, we'll be asking you to then consider the three action items. First, approve the LMC recommendation for a 15% increase in the premiums. second to approve a memorandum agreement
to be presented to all the bargaining groups to add those additional contributions um for this plan year and until new negotiated contracts are completed for 2729 and then third to do that parallel resolution for the non-represented
employees. With that, I'm going to turn it over to George and he will walk you through the uh the financial analysis that he provides so beautifully for this committee. He takes a very difficult uh uh topic and he and he breaks it down
for us so that the committee has you know real month-to-month understanding about where our plans are performing. >> Okay, good evening. So, first we'll just uh show you the the rates that exist. So, we do have the one plan design that
is a $3,500 deductible singles, the premiums that are listed there both for the single and for the family and then from there we want to give an update in regards to how the plan is performing. So, from a performance standpoint, you can see our medical
claims both from a projection and then also from an actual. So we are slightly above Blue Cross's projection but we are actually under the one digital calculation. Uh Blue Cross is a new provider for us in this most recent plan year and when they provided proposal
last year. One of the things we did talk to board about was we thought that their uh claim projections were low and so we have done our own underwriting calculations and and advised the district to fund based upon what we saw historically happening within the district's plan. So in reality, we're
much closer to the one digital calculation than to the blue cross calculation from a claims perspective. Uh our fixed cost, that's going to include administrative costs, uh stop-loss, and then credits against uh the plan for rebates. The actual why
that is so low is because last year's experience uh was higher than our actual uh stop-loss contract. And so there was a significant amount of reimbursement made back to the plan and brought back into the the fund balance. And so that
came uh in the current year, but it was based on the that prior year's experience. So Health Partners had made I think it was $1.8 $8 million worth of claim reimbursement to the plan on an aggregate basis because our contract uh we had exceeded the the contract limits
and so they were required to not only return from a individual stop-loss but also from an aggregate stop-loss last year. So that money came back into the program in the the 256 year. So that's why you see the the negative there. Uh overall fixed costs are in line with
what we had anticipated again at about 1 point or 11.2 2 million. Our funding right now is about 13.3. So the idea is we will have uh higher claims as the the plan year proceeds just because members start to satisfy deductibles and out of
pockets. So we typically have a little bit higher surplus at this particular point of the year. We do try to project what that value looks like by the end of the year. None of us at this table have a crystal ball to know exactly what medical spend is going to look like by the end of the year, but we have a a
fairly good understanding based upon what we have seen historically as well. So again, we we try to project that for the district and for the committee so that we can make accurate decisions on where we want to be. From a fund balance perspective, we're at about 31% of
claims. Our target reserve position is about 35. Uh so we are slightly below target but we're still kind of where we need to be overall from a fund balance perspective. Again about 112 million of expenditure so far. You can see that we
are projected to uh fund slightly above uh that expected cost. Again we knew that coming into this because we knew that that that uh blue cross values were on the lower side of it. So we are funding really closer to what we think your expected cost would be versus what
uh the expected costs of blue cross are on the next page from a a fund balance perspective. Again you can see we start the year in yellow at about 2.2. Fund balance has grown to about 4.3 but you can see that it is starting to kind of bell curve back down and we anticipate
that to be the case because again plan liability increases as the plan year goes on. members satisfy deductibles out of pockets and that shifts then to the the plan in terms of the overall responsibility. So our goal is is probably to to be at around $3 million
overall if we kind of proceed the way uh we project. Why are we here and how did we get here? Uh so you can see last year as you guys know we we visited and we talked about a move to Blue Cross. We talked about an increase to premiums of about 11 and a
half% and so that was the recommendation that was we what we had uh moved forward with. Uh but what we can't control is what happens from a member's decision standpoint. So open enrollment happens members start to see uh those increases district contribution member cost in
regards to that they start to evaluate other options that they have. So the hope was that we would grow uh revenue by 11 12%. In reality, what has happened is our population adverse selects against us. The population that has options might not necessarily have
medical expenditures finds other places to go, whether it's individual marketplace, other employer plans, spousal plans, things of that nature. We actually saw enrollment reduced by about 8%. So, the idea of growing our revenue
by 11 a.5% really only created a 1.6% increase to revenue. So revenue doesn't necessarily grow up as as much as we anticipate because again the member cost share is is fairly significant uh in terms of payroll deduction.
But what happens is claim spend doesn't change, right? So what that tells us is our healthier risk leaves the program. We we're still strapped with the individuals who don't have other choices, right? They have family members. They have uh our our plan as
their their primary plan. they're saying we're still incurring expense. Our costs are are still projected to go up about 8%. So that's why we're looking at a 15% increase. It's not that we did things wrong, it's that our population found other options. And so I think that's
also why district administration is trying to find ways to maybe soften the increase so that we don't lose any additional good risk that's out there and try to encourage them to stay within our program. And so hopefully uh you see the value of making additional district
contributions to help the members in terms of this larger increase. So from a medical plan perspective, that's kind of why we're where we're at uh dental uh overall. So then we're looking at that 15% increase really to cover expenditures that we anticipate to
happen. Uh other plans that exist, we also as part of uh a five-year RFP responsibility. So, as you know, last year we had our medical RFP. Every five years, we also have to look at all of our ancillary services. So, our dental,
our life, our disability, our vision, all of those uh benefits went out to market as well. Uh dental plan still funded appropriately. Uh our recommendation is is that there would not need to be an increase to that. Uh life and disability, a lot of that's
contracted benefits uh for members. So, the life insurance value, the the protection on long-term disability, uh through market pressure, we were able to get the standard to reduce their uh premiums by about 21%. That's about $77,000 a year savings to the district.
Uh in a three-year rate guarantee in regards to that, that's about $232,000 of savings. Again, most of that uh life and disability is contracted and it is a district responsibility. So there is uh you know some budget opportunity there.
The vision plan is a voluntary plan uh that does create some reductions to members that are participating in that program as well. So again about an 8% reduction. Uh one of the things that we talked about with the board last year was in the past health partners was our medical plan but they were also our flex
and our HA administration uh organization as well just because of how they operated. When we moved to Blue Cross, they had a partner called Health Equity. We made a decision to move there. We heard a lot of issue and noise within that organization in terms of member uh satisfaction. The district
administration along with our organization has done a lot of work throughout the year to try to write that ship. We don't necessarily feel that that's the best vendor for us. So, we did an RFP in regards to our our flex and H administration as well. uh our
recommendation is to move from a more kind of national maybe not necessarily so much caring type of an organization to a smaller boutique uh Minnesota organization called benefit extras for uh the upcoming uh renewal as well. So yes, that creates some change. Our hope
is though that at the end of the day it creates the satisfaction and uh a little bit better experience for our members because they're looking to get reimbursement of their deductibles uh for that HR plan. for sure. So, the recommendation uh that you see
in front of you again is a 15% increase to our uh Blue Cross rates. We are self-insured, so we we are setting those rates based upon what we think our expected costs are. This is not a premium that's defined by BlueCross. Uh it is something that we uh make those
decisions on behalf of of your self-insured plan. And then no increase to the dental uh plan. again a self-insured plan adequately funded. >> Okay. So, >> yeah. So, with that, there are three action items before the board and um the
first one is to approve the LMC recommendation for a 15% increase in the premium for the um self-insured health plan. >> Scott, I've got some questions. Um last time uh you folk came folk you
came before us uh you were talking about medical inflation. >> Yeah. >> What is the been the rate of medical inflation for the past five years year by year? >> The past five years. >> So yeah. So most recently medical inflation's running about 10%. So when we're thinking about change in cost of
medical care in this upcoming year about 10% historically it's about 6 and a.5%. The last few years it's it's been edging up from six to eight to 10. >> I thought that you had talked about 19%. >> 19%
increase in terms of >> medical inflation. >> No, there there would have been an increase in regards to prescription drugs run typically higher than overall medical spend. But when we bring the two together overall it's about right now it's about 10%.
>> Okay. So it's significantly higher than uh inflation for the rest of the country >> for other goods and services by far. For sure. >> Okay. And this I get the the feeling that you think that this is inevitable
that nobody can resist this uh medical inflation. >> Correct. And I think you saw on a previous slide in regards to what happened last year in 26 in regards to the increases overall for the small and individual market. I can also share with
you for 2027 all the insurance carriers have submitted their proposals for the 2027 both individual market and for the small uh business market. uh those proposed increases in terms of changes to premiums are around 15% both for an
individual and also for a small group for 2027. >> Okay. Um what are we doing to resist this medical inflation this >> Yep. Good good question. So one of the things that we had done as a plan is uh
we've implemented a program for our high-cost specialty drugs. So, we do have uh programs in place where members are utilizing alternate funding sources and opportunities there to keep those costs down. As a self-insured plan, we also get all the pharmacy drug rebates
to help to reduce our overall cost there. So, when we're thinking about the shell game that gets played within insurance and trying to take advantage of all those opportunities, we are receiving all the pharmacy drug rebates back to our plan. that that's north of a million dollars in terms of dollars that
come back into the program. Being self-insured as well, we eliminate a lot of the the different margins that exist within an insured plan because we are buying administration, we are buying stop-loss and we are paying our claims versus buying a premium where the
carrier is setting that risk and making decisions on how profitable they wish to be on our particular account. >> Okay. We, it sounds like we're doing a lot of the right things as a self-insured that we couldn't do if we were going through an insurance company.
But what do we do to resist Centricare, which is basically our local monopoly >> from raising the rates however much they want. >> Yeah. So I I think one of the the the things that had happened last year is the move from Health Partners to Blue
Cross because Bluecross has a stronger contracted uh program with central Care than Health Partners had. So that does help to reduce our overall claims. But at the end of the day, outside of not participating in their their uh clinic
systems, I I don't know how you eliminate uh what they have in terms of their monopoly. Well, I know that Medicare sets limitations on people, you know, but um could we do something like
maybe encourage competition with Centric Air by perhaps uh waving a deductible for them for our people to go elsewhere or waving waving some of the co insurance for our people to go elsewhere
to break this monopoly that Centric Care holds. What I would what I would say, Scott, is that one of the things that members have access to within their member portal is the ability to shop for cost of care. So, they're able to look at again because our plans are deductible plans.
First, dollars are their dollars that they're spending. So if they want to be better consumers in regards to their health care dollars, they can utilize the tools that exist in the past with health partners and today with Blue Cross to shop for those particular services to see that maybe centric care
is more expensive than some other provider and make a decision then to to lower their overall out of pocket because again the first dollars are their responsibility. I know a lot of providers don't want you to know what they're >> by law they have to and and this cost
tool has that information in there. So as part of healthcare transparency those dollars are available. It's not a menu like when you go into a clinic to see that. But through those uh member portal uh applications they do have the ability to to see what those costs are. Not only
from a medical plan perspective but also from a prescription drug perspective as well. Okay. >> So, we do try to educate staff in regards to those tools and the ability to to kind of lower their cost, but also to lower the overall plan liability for
the future as well. You know, as well as I do, the mentality sometimes is once I satisfied my deductible, everything is quote unquote free because I don't have any out of pocket. But unfortunately, that still does create next year's uh premium liability because we have to account for what that might look like
next year. Yeah, I keep trying to figure out how are we going to resist Centric Care from keeping a raise of rates or how about if we maybe wave some deductibles for people to go.
We'd have to do an analysis to see if that's even beneficial because we don't necessarily know that central Care is more expensive than some of the other providers in the area. >> Might be worth looking into is
I mean, the the feds certainly have the power to set rates, but seems like everybody else is stuck. >> Well, yeah. I I mean, I can I can also tell you a little bit about some of that, right? So, it when you think about the idea that Medicare constricts costs
for certain providers because we are a two-party system, i.e. Medicare people and private sector people. When you squeeze the balloon, Medicare squeezes the balloon on Centricare. Centricare gets that money back on private. So, one way or another, Centricare is going to make their money. So, you might be
benefiting today because you're on Medicare. Our members unfortunately don't benefit because your plan squeezed central Care that causes the employer plan to have to pay that difference. >> That's the problem with no health national health insurance.
>> Possibly would be a good decision. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Heather. Were you um grabbing your microphone because you're ready to call the vote? >> Yes. >> Okay. Super. So, I'm looking for a motion to approve the health and dental insurance plan renewals and premiums for
2026 2027. >> So moved. >> I have a motion by Diana and a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Yes. Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Halt, >> yes. >> Gina Aspido, >> yes. Scott Andre, >> no.
>> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. >> Are we doing more talking or can I keep rolling? >> Oh, the second action item is to approve the presentation of the memorandum of agreement. >> Okay, so I'm looking for a motion. Are
we roll? >> Okay, thank you. We're moving this along. It's getting late. I have a motion by Diana and a second by Natalie. Again, this is for the approval of the memorandum of agreement regarding additional health insurance contributions to the district collective bargaining units. Heather, can you call
vote? >> Yes. Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Scott Andre. Scott Zack Dorhalt. >> Gina Speedo, >> yes. >> Dana Fenton, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. >> Okay, last one. um is looking for a
motion to approve the resolution for providing one-time voluntary additional contributions to health insurance premiums for all of the district non-represented employee groups. >> So moved. >> And again, I have a motion by Diana and a second by Natalie. Heather, can you
call vote on that? >> Zehalt, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Gina Aso, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. Heather Williams. Yes. Diana Fenton. >> Yes. >> All right. That was it for our action
items tonight. George, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. >> Okay. Um, next on our agenda is a board of education standing committee reports, but I'm thinking we might not have any. Is that correct?
Going once, going twice. Excellent. Uh, future agenda items. August 19th, 2026 board meeting topics will include the end of summer construction project update, approval of the 2026 2027 student and family handbooks, approval
of the 2026 2027 weather related e-learning days plan, review for proposed resolutions for the MSBA delegate conference and policy readings. At this time, does any member want to suggest a future agenda item?
Okay. Looking for a motion to adjourn our regular board meeting. Second. >> I have a motion by Natalie and a second by Diana. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. Okay. The regular board meeting
is uh adjourned at 8:33 p.m. And at that same time, we are opening up the board of education work session for tonight. And we have three policy readings tonight, all second readings. So, first
up, we have proposed revised board policy 533, which is the wellness policy. And joining us to present that is Matthew Busher, executive director of operations. Good evening, school board, Chair Hos,
and Superintendent Putnham. I appreciate the time to be in front of you tonight. Uh, and in the interest of time, I'll go fast. Uh, also I get to go fast because these are second readings for which you've seen and you've had time to discuss. So, I'll do a real quick fly over both of
both of these first two policies and why we're here. The wellness policy, um, there's very little change. We did have a administrative review of a nutritional program through MDE and there was an edit that they uh that they asked for in the process and that was simply that um and I'm scrolling rapidly down here that
the wellness committee uh person responsible be named by position instead of just designate superintendent or designate. Um, and so that's really the only here is that we've now named who would who would lead that committee and that committee's work uh positionally and not just
nebulously as designate. Any questions on 533? >> All right, looking good. We can move on. You have one more for us tonight. The second reading for proposed revised board policy 534, which is unpaid meals
changes. Unpaid meal change charges. And again as a second read I know my colleague uh Sarah model super uh super supervisor of nutritional services has presented this as well. Um I'll just draw attention to the last sentence of this paragraph which really summarizes why this change is happening and what changes are happening in this um policy.
Uh this language did come after the previous approval and uh the legislative language shifted and we want to reflect that language. But the last sentence here um begins with this policy seeks to allow students to receive nutritional I'm sorry to receive the nutrition they
need to stay focused during the school day and minimize identification of students with insufficient funds to pay for alleart or second meals as well as maintain the financial integrity of the school nutrition program. All edits in here reflect that purpose. Um and
fortunately they also reflect our current practice. So the edits that are in here are reflective of what we had been practicing even if uh the policy language was the old MSBA language. Um so and a quick example would be there's they they've discreetly said don't
remove food from a student's tray once they've received it. Well, that wasn't our practice. So it was very easy change for us to make because our practices were already in line with that as an example. Um, so while there's a little more red ink in this one, it again, you've covered it before. It all falls within the spirit of that that first
sentence I read. Um, and I'll just pause there for questions. >> I'm very grateful for this district being way ahead of this um because those are important practices for all school districts. Okay. Uh, last up, Katie Herbald,
executive director of Innovations and Technology Services, is presenting the second reading for proposed revised board policy 531, pledge of allegiance. Superintendent Putnham and members of the board. Uh,
based on some feedback we got, we are actually making a change here to this second reading. So I am going to uh increase the size so you can actually sizes as aligned with Minnesota academic standards in civics. Um and this move is
to make it even more specific um on what we're referring to. So you get to see me for a third reading. >> Just kidding. Scott, >> it's good to see the social studies out.
I'm not sure that the civics is uh I mean Minnesota standards can be varied by which political party is in position.
I mean this the simple uh pledge of allegiance is very non conservative or liberal. But when you start talking about both particularly the social studies standards but also
civics that can be modified by parties in power. Why don't we just leave it as it was just a simple pledge of allegiance. uh if you you know if you take a look at the the state statutes right there is
there is a statute around instruction right so it is actually our obligation by state statute to provide instruction around the pledge of allegiance it's not enough to simply speak it right and so we wanted to get very clear about what instruction are we talking about and we're talking about civics's instruction
right the foundations of the the principles of our democracy we're not talking about human geography when we're talking about the pledge of allegiance, right? So, when we talked about social studies standards, those encompass numerous, we have a social studies teacher sitting over there, former one, they encompass a broad swath of
standards. Um, and yes, standards do change uh depending sometimes on who, you know, what political party has has um as governance responsibilities. Um, and then that's our job is to teach those standards. So, it doesn't matter what political party is in charge, we
teach the state standards. And so that is why you see it narrowed to civics to be more clear. >> Improved. >> All right, that's everything on our work session. So looking for a motion to approve tonight's work session.
>> I have a motion by Diana, a second by Natalie. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Okay. Uh work session is adjourned. 8:40 p.m. Thanks for watching. I don't know if I will be Bless
behold.