Yep. >> It is 700 p.m. I call this special meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Good evening, fellow school board members, community members, and St. Francis area staff. Thank you for being here tonight. Uh we start all of our meetings off with our mission statements. So we're going to do the
same thing for tonight's special meeting. But our uh mission here at St. Francis is to equip all students with the knowledge and skills to empower them to achieve their dreams and full potential while becoming responsible citizens in a dynamic world.
Tonight uh just so everyone knows there are no consideration of visitors. Anyone that's part of the task force is allowed to speak tonight to us. We're going to have a discussion um go through that report and there'll be no action items at tonight's meeting. Uh this is
information only. Uh our first order of business is the adoption of the agenda. Are there any questions on the agenda before you before we hear a motion? All right, seeing no questions. Is there a motion to approve the agenda for today?
>> Thank you, Mr. Second. Thank you, Miss Anderson. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing no discussion, all in favor of the motion uh for the agenda before you signify by saying I
and raising your hand. I >> motion prevails 7 to zero. Thank you. Our next agenda item is the one and only for tonight information report, the St. Francis Area Schools Community Engagement Task Force. Uh before we start with that, I just have a statement
on behalf of the board to the task force that's here tonight. uh thank you for the time and dedication and the effort you put into this. Uh we know it was not an easy ask. Uh it was not a small amount of meetings. I think we had an idea of four meetings and I think it
turned into a lot more uh based off of your guys's input and what you uh went through to help us. And we're all very excited to hear what you have to present to us. So, thank you for taking that time. Uh and I'm sure you're going to hear some thank yous from us when we're done with this as well. But at this
time, Darren, I'm going to hand it over to you to get us started. Um, what I ask is each of you just please introduce yourself. I know he's probably going to go through all of your names, but if you come up to speak, just introduce yourself for us. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bird. Hi, my name is
Darren Overton. I am with Site Logic. I do community engagement. I had the privilege and the honor of working with your people and your community, your community members. I do want to say I it was not uh I do this a lot. I it's all I do for Sent Logic. I go around and help
school boards, try to make connections with community members, try to, you know, get an understanding of what maybe the community is looking for. Uh it's an important task that uh that we pride ourselves in and I'm I'm happy to be
here in St. Francis doing this work. U Thank you, Mr. Anderson um and Mr. Burr and Mr. link with the three people I initially had the honor of talking to and now I get to be in front of your board. So I'll just I I get the really
quick part here the agenda uh so this is what you're going to see tonight. You all have this um in a board packet so you know what what the agenda looks like uh what the task force is going to go through here in
why this is okay there we go. You got to got to click it harder now. You remember? So, uh, the the the task force really felt like they wanted um you to know that they they work here. They live here. They have grandkids in St.
Francis. They're they're graduates. We have students on this task force and they're taxpayers. So, we had a lot of good representation from this task force, about 20 people. And here is the team. We had about 84% participation. Uh
those are all of the people that were there that night when we we took the picture. We had a few people that were working or not able to attend that meeting, but we had about 20 people attend uh pretty pretty regularly. 84%
participation rate of those 20 people. And thank you first of all again this is what task force they this is their presentation. It's not mine. uh I helped them put it together, but it was at their direction. Um they wanted to make sure the board knew how much they
appreciated the the fact that you're reaching out to the community looking for some input from community group and the transparency, the openness, and the depth of the information that they had available to them was was impressive. And they made I've heard comments like that throughout the process. There are
also a lot of people we as uh Mr. Burr mentioned it started out four or five meetings and then people said well we need to see this we need to see that we want to do this we want to do that and I came back and to uh Mr. Anderson Mr. Bird uh Mr. Linquist to their credit
they're like yeah we should if they want the information they want to look at it they want to explore and learn and do further investigation we should let them do that and in the in the course of this those are all the people that that helped uh that were instrumental from
people from the city uh your PTMA financial uh solutions advisor Michael Hart Hazel Reinhardt the demographer we had a we had a meeting with her uh online Peggy Tz tzd Doll and I don't know if you've had a chance to go and look at the website we've updated the
website with a lot of different videos everything that we've done as a group um and that's where I'm done thankfully no one wants to listen to me anyway but I'm going to introduce the rest of the presentation is done by the group again uh like all information items and
reports uh let's hold our questions till the end let's get get through the slides and then we can go back and discuss things as needed at the end of the presentation and introduce Kate Blanchard. >> As he said, I'm Kate Blanchard. Uh thank you to the board members for this
opportunity to speak with you tonight and thank you to the Psychologic team as well for helping us uh get to where we are now. Our group began this process in the fall nearly five months ago. Well, all the way back in October as you can see. Um as you see, we spent over 40 hours at
our meetings. this task force will tell you that we often went past our meeting times. Uh not just because Darren wanted us to finish the task at hand, but because we were so devoted um to the work that we're doing. Um we have an awesome group here today.
Um as we did this work, we always kept these three questions in mind. Um does this make sense for the kids? Is it fiscally responsible? Will it have community support? Um, as we went through the process, we acknowledged the fact that our group's recommendations um are not the only
considerations. Um, there are many factors to consider, including state requirements, um, building codes, financial budget, etc. As we move forward in this process, our goals were to learn, explore, and understand uh, the current and future facility needs of the St. Francis public
schools. We spent a lot of time discussing our policies or excuse me priorities and recommendations. Um ultimately it is up to you um the school board to decide the direction moving forward. Um early on I think it was during our first meeting um all the way back in
October that we did a brag worry wonder bet um activity. This allowed the state logic team to learn more about the community facility task force members, who we are and where we're coming from. Um, this list is not all-incclusive. Um,
but here are a few of the takeaways from that evening. We bragged that our district has a small town feel where families support each other. Um, a worry was the community support and class sizes. As a proud public school classroom teacher myself um working in a
neighboring school district, I know the negative impacts of class sizes. Um reduced student engagement, increased behavior issues, and plus individual intention are just a few of those downsides to larger class sizes. We did have some wonders um with our group
about future enrollment. Um also about what the community will look like in the future. Um, a bet is that our community will grow, but are concerned that we are running out of space in our schools. We looked over the facility requirements
of our buildings and learned about the district's financial position. We also looked at the facilities and how they support students, teachers now and into the future. We also analyzed long-term, flexible, and fiscally responsible solutions. Um,
and we were factual communicators to the St. Princess school community and are finally here today to present our recommendations to the board. Part of this process was to tour the district's buildings. If we did not get a tour of the building, a video was made
in place of a walking tour. Um during these tours, the principles would lead the tour. Um during this time, we discussed positive aspects of the building and grounds as well as sharing um out some important facility needs. At the end of each tour, we used what we called an Eisenhower matrix, which you
might have heard about. Um this is a decision-making tool that helps prioritize needs based on urgency and impact. And you can see um a few of the examples um on this slide here.
And I will let him go for the next part. And this is Harry Grahams. >> We didn't practice this. >> So, uh, good evening everyone. My name is Jerry Grants. Uh, I just want to compliment the board. This was a good
move on your part. I was a school board member in starting in 2006 to 2014 here at ISD15. Lifelong member kids went through here. Now I have grandkids going through the school system. So it was a a great
opportunity for me to get involved and see what's been done since you guys had your past referendum passed. I wish that we would had something like this that we did when I was on the board where we could see all the facilities see the impact, see the maintenance,
just see the overall schema. I learned more in this 40 hours that we were just talking about than I did probably and I I shouldn't short sell my board time, but it was a more of an eye openen experience about how the district functions, the maintenance of the
building. I mean, from a day-to-day operation. Uh, but it was nice to see all the improvements that had been made over the last bond referendum. Beautiful. I mean, really, really well done. So, that was nice to see. I'll quit rambling. Darren's gonna yell me
because I only got two minutes, right? I'll tell you what. So, anyway, so I got the data portion of this. So, u Michael Hart, I'm just going to kind of go over to this one so I can kind of go over some numbers with you guys. So, Michael Hart was one of the second third meetings that we went through. Um, he
worked with you guys, I understand. Sorry, Mr. Hart. You talked about school funding uh about how money is distributed. So, I think you guys have gone through this. One of the one things I'd like to say that has improved it. I don't know what our rating was when I was on the school board, but you guys
have done a nice job. If you can see this, the history rating for your uh Moody's rating, which you guys were getting your loans for bond ratings. Uh, it's improved from a BA1 up to today. You guys are at a I wrote
it down. I just got to find my notes. Oh, we're at A1 today. So, you guys have done an awesome job over the last few years. So, and we had some information. Uh, we wanted to talk to all the cities back school district just didn't have
the time. It didn't work out. But, we were able to have the city of St. Francis come in did some communications about growth in the city of St. Francis. One of the things that always comes up is the intersection at the middle school bridge street roundabout. Okay, if we do
that we want to put a straight through. I also work for North County Highway Department. So I was here we did the first roundabouts. So I took a lot of that was not a good time in my life but it worked out really well. So I
think he did anyway. So anyway, that was a topic of the discussion. So it was nice to have the input from the cities. Like I said, it would have been nice to have more from all of them, but just times we just couldn't get through it. But very informative and it all worked out very well
and >> I don't think it's going to work over there, but I got >> Thank you. >> So I don't know you guys framework. It was apparently I was talking to Dave Anderson. He was a board member and started with me when I was on board. He
was actually on the first term before I started, but they had Dave in the district doing various studies. Uh this was kind of a this is very interesting to me. Uh when I was on the I had to call Dave Anderson to check on this. So
2015 when I got done our population was 4,621. You see here 25 to 26 were 4,58 and 2000 Mr. Anderson informed me that our population at that time was 5,775
but I remember in ' 08 09 my current or my youngest daughter graduated in '08 that was one of the largest graduating classes and I think it still is. I think that was at 45500 somewhere in that vicinity. We kind of expected it to continue to grow. Didn't
happen that way. It seems really really odd, but the numbers are there. So, and Hazel kind of kind of u continues with that fact and showing our our future population maintaining to actually being
somewhat smaller. Will it happen? This is something that I think you just got to go on a yearby-year basis. like you just can't take it for and say, "Okay, let's build around it." Uh, one thing Mr. Anderson brought up, he's going to be here to make,
but the school district actually bought 40 acres of land off 221st Avenue, I think it was, for the purpose of building a new elementary school based on our current populations at that time. Well, thank goodness that didn't come to
fruition because I think we didn't I don't know what we had for kids here, but I don't think we we fulfill the capacity. So, yeah. So, very interesting, but like I said, this is something that's probably going to be done on a se not semianual but three four year basis. See
how how the district's growing or not growing. So, the way that Thank you. This is a one of the one of the screens that caught my attention as a past board member. This is our three elementary schools. We have Cedar Creek, St.
Francis, Cedar Creek, East. So, we're running at 100. That's SFB, we're at 107% capacity. Cedar Creek, we're at 105% capacity. East Bethl, we're at 103% capacity.
And I I would like to seen this screen about 15 to 20 years when I was on the board. I don't know if you guys remember when we got the portables at SFD. They got those metals. It was not a good time in the in the ISD 15, but these numbers would have
been significantly higher from a commercial usage standpoint. But this one, it's and our target rate for elementary schools, I mean, is 80 to 90%. that's where you'd like to run. I think that's the more I think that's impossible. How do you we don't have the
ability to control that down flow of children coming in and going out. It's I mean it's it's a lack of better term it's kind of a pipe dream but it is a number you try to achieve. So anyway uh yeah I'll just kind of hit some of the
so kindergarten these are some of the inputs from the principles of each one of the facilities. Uh kindergarten classrooms are under size. Prek and connect and kid connect spaces utilize teaching spaces. Same thing. No classroom space for expansion increasing
enrollment. No classroom space for expansion. So kind of a common theme amongst our elementary schools. Okay. And you go to the next one that we kind of emphasize the same. So this is just kind of a color code of
each of the elementary schools again. So just kind of think about this as a stop light. Red not good. Green good to go. Three kind of getting in that range of possible becoming a situation. So with
SF everything not bad from a population standpoint. Uh ideal is a square foot per student. So for kindergarteners, we like to have 50 square feet per student. Okay, we're currently at 39 feet. So
we're running at about efficiency of about 78%. So the 50 represents or yeah 50 square ft. So that's about just a little over like a square of 7 by 7. That's what we've gone for each
children and we're running at about six and a quarter. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it starts to add up as we get more children in there. First grade, we're doing really good. We We're on square footage of 35, 37, so that's
good. The third and fourth grade, same thing. We're a little bit tight, but still within the ranges. So, not bad at SFP. So, once again, very nice the improvements that were made there with the last run. So, go ahead and get that
next one. Last one. Cedar Creek. Cedar Creek is kind of a kind of a tough one. So, kindergarten once again is our 50 square feet per children. They're at 35 first, second, and third. Right where we
want to be, if not better. And then same thing, fourth and fifth grade. We're in that red zone. We're exceed 80% mark what we want to be for size or square footage for kids. So, that's that. And one more
is East. East is probably the best of all three. The only one we have there is fourth grade or 25 square ft per child. We're looking at 35 feet per square child which runs. So they're running
about efficiency of about oh 82%. So not bad. But overall the school uh it's it's still tight. the teachers and principles do a really great job of of working with their areas
and whatnot. Like I said, it was it was nice for me as a past board member. I think you guys still get your designated schools. We still have that or you get your So, you don't always get to see how all the other schools are functioning. This is a nice uh opportunity to see how
the schools work. So, but that's like I said, we're kind of if it holds true what Hazel says, this may not become an issue in the future, maybe, you know, that's yet to be seen. So, it's just something that's going to be that's good to have a starting point what she
provided for us, but like I say, uh just something to be monitored as we go forward. And I think that's it. All right. Next one will be Jenny. All right. Hi guys. I'm Jenna. I'm an 11th grader at our high school. My mom
went to our schools from start to finish and she now works in the district. So, I love it here and I'm very excited to explain our priorities and our projects. So, uh we started off we didn't start off this was towards the end of our
meetings. We broke up our group into smaller groups and looked at how we thought our community priorities um align with our own and throw this up. So, we reached consensus on financial accountability and responsible stewardship as well as like
secure buildings, healthy facilities, and making sure they're safe for everyone who steps inside of them. And everything below that factors into those top two. So, they're just as important. Now, we did go through a form um individually
um and we found that preparation of students for careers in life is an overarching goal. Again, everything below that falls into that upper level, but we all, you know, have our own priorities as well as the community
priorities and that factors into our projects. We had some activities towards the end that helped us narrow down what we thought was important. So for each school, we put our um specific ideas
onto a sheet of paper and obviously that comes from our own um priorities and the community voice and we voted on Okay, so those aren't coming up, but we voted on those projects to bring them
into a recommendation stage. um the green dots if a project or an idea got 70% green dots that was a consensus for the group and obviously you can see that some of those reach consensus but they
fall under different categories of funding and stuff so we didn't put those on our recommendation but they're just as important and detailing our recommendation we focus on clarity confidence and context so making sure that the students would benefit from it the community would
support it and that it made financial respons it made more financial sense and you know those just really helped our recommendation come into light um those things so I'll hand it over to Keith who will bring the recommendation home
>> well good evening first of all I'm Keith Kirsten. I've lived here in in um this school district for about the last 14 years. Um I've been uh mostly in Minnesota my my adult life and um and I
really um have have learned a lot in this process and I and I thank the board for taking the foresight of of doing these types of projects. They I think they're really imperative. I'd also like to say that um I spent I've spent 50 60 years
in uh in business and done a lot of in in retail business and done a lot of focus groups and Darren and Site Logic and Michael unbelievable compared to what I'd normally run into. In fact, I I live in Iani County and and I was
involved with the Cambridge INI school board referendum and I think that if they would have had this group, I think that the outcome would have been different. I think that the whole process would have been different. So, you guys chose wisely and I applaud you
for that. Also, um I had a chance I was at every single one of the meetings and I went through every one of your buildings and even the building that they did the fly through. I I couldn't believe it being your bus and I had to get up the next morning and and go over and and beg to just walk through because
I couldn't believe how bad it was and uh and what they had to work with. So, I've been through all of your facilities and I'm a facilities guy. I've had um very upscale grocery stores in Minneapolis and St. Paul and I knew the importance
of of keeping them well-maintained and and and very clean. And I go to a lot of schools uh in Minnesota because of my kids and then my grandkids in sports. And I I
really have to to applaud Chris and and and his team of what they do. I think you have some of the most the best maintained facilities for the age that they are that I I have ever seen. And not just cleanliness, which is really important, but how they how how
everything's painted. And I know they did it just for us, but uh it it really it really stands out. And the other thing before I start, I I just want to say that um I was very impressed with the the the uh school staff people that you have. They're very
engaged. They're very excited of what they're doing. And I also have to say that in in in this whole process that as we look at recommendations um Chris really had to hold us back uh
because we wanted to solve all the problems and give you the answers and we know that you know we know that that's your job but we wanted to do it instead. uh and that and before I get into the recommendations, I would like to say that the the the group really felt that it was important that we hope that you
guys continue this process and even tap into our group if you if you need some things in the future for us to take a look at this. We don't we don't have to be over. So with that, you want to go to the first slide the second. Oh, here I got it here.
Right. Or I can do it right. >> That's right. There's a few things I can still do. There we go. Um, so this is the first one with the recommendations of uh PK through five. And you'll see that that in in that uh and also the
early childhood uh education we you see that that the student drop off and pickup was really a big thing and then water and sewer. And these are the consensus. Now, I think it's really important to point out that we looked at a whole bunch of other projects, but we
didn't feel that they really rose to the level that that needed to be addressed on on a fairly, you know, fairly quickly. Uh, it is also important to to point out that this is a consensus. It was not unanimous by any means. We we have a very diver diverse group even
though it was very small. Not not because you guys didn't try to get more people in it but um it it was very diverse and people came with agendas and that's and I think to some extent that's good. Um but we we had a lot of
different things that we looked at and we really kind of zeroed in on the things that we felt had to be done. When we take a look, this is the K through five. I'm going to skip ahead real quick and and go to
the U uh 6 through 12. And you see there's a few other different things that are on there. And I'm not going to go through these because you guys are all capable of reading them yourselves. And but when we take a look at what we are looking at
in this whole thing, it all comes down to what we felt is just some some immediate needs that um that are worth trying to figure out ways to
to work with them, but not not actually taking each one individually and saying, "Okay, let's do this one, then that one, then this one." but saying okay what makes sense from a an overall standpoint and then help with you with
understanding how much emphasis that we gave to it. If I can go back to this slide, it has this one here I think is the most important slide and that is to evaluate and optimize program
space needs including be building utilization, great configuration, alignment of programs and offerings with available space. And this kind of goes throughout all of it. Now, when you take a look at at even the the shop classes
at the high school, uh or what um mind, your principal at the middle school, >> Heidi, >> yes, Heidi, I mean, so enthusiastic and I mean, I think I asked her that she
brought she put 14 new programs in and I said, "Well, what programs did you take out?" And why would I take any out? you know, and there's only so much space and there's only so much things. And when we take a look at at doing this evaluation
optimization of program space needs, including the building utilization, we believe that it's really important that we tell you that we think the best thing for you to do in these recommendations is to look at every
single possibility. I think you owe it to the taxpayers. I think you owe it to the kids. I think you owe it to the parents. And in today's environment to get anything passed, to go out and build a new school, it's a little difficult,
if almost impossible. And I think you know that better than we do. So in looking at this, is it right to have a a K through five, two K through five sitting next to each other? What are the implications of that? What does that do to to to
take some of those hundreds and 107s down to to you know into the realm of not needing a new building? Are you doing programs that aren't mandatory? Should they be looked at? Should they be put on the table? If you eliminated some of those programs that
aren't mandatory, you may get a lot more people on the the community-based committee. Uh you may get a lot more involvement. may get people to to really get behind doing the changes that you need. When you take a look at some of
the alignment of program and offering, you know, what what do these things that that you're doing take up space and does it really u attribute to the core principles of what you're trying to do? uh you know we we
know that all the schools in Minnesota are struggling with math and and reading uh proficiencies and we know that even according to Minnesota uh uh MCA I think it is called that that that that we're
at 50% or below on these things. What are the things that we are recommending here do to help with those areas? how important are those areas compared to the the space utilization that you're using for other things. So, these are the types of things. But if you go
through and you look, I'll go back here to to each one of these. When you when you take a look at some of these, you really have to we we we believe that we we we that you have to the way that they ended up in other projects
is because we were conscious of what will the community support and I may differ. My opinion may be community support and taxpayer really it's taxpayer support. That's kind of number one to me. I wish there was
security and safety of the kids and the the staff, but in reality at the end of the day because people don't get involved, we have to be very cognizant of what the community, as you guys know, will support. And then it comes down to, you know, what what the mission of the school district is and how each of these
things under each of these projects improve that or or or don't. And as you see in the high school, we'll to that slide there. Whoops. Whoops. There that we get a
little bit more granular into um things like the shop classes, the the continued develop middle school explor explorative programs. How many of those can we do? Should we be doing all of them that we are? How much space do they take up? And
what does it do to the space that's there? Um so I think that the the the bottom line in all of this is that we We thought a lot of the schools um we think that there are some real important needs especially um in some of these
drop off uh things in the in the elementary schools. Um some of the things that are today like welding and shop classes and things like that that can really help the community and give kids an alternative uh if they're not sure about their future education and
postsecary education. But um and then the last thing I want to mention is the transportation building. The very last one there. I think we have a slide on that. There we go. As I said at the very beginning, I I I asked Peggy if I could go and walk through that. I think that
that's something that you're really going to have to to address sooner than later. And um you know, one of the things that we discussed is do you have that completely away from all the other stuff, you know, so it doesn't drag anything down? um and and we and look
for alternatives and maybe some of the suggestions did include and I've talked to a couple different developers myself trying to see if there's something that we could get the city the the u a developer and the school district together on and maybe set up a separate
task force to see if there's a way that we could be very creative and and work on that that particular problem to see if you know we could get something through that. But those are the types of creative things that I think can come out of a committee like you guys formed.
And again, I thank you for doing that. Okay, I think with that we have questions and answers, right? >> Yes, we have. Just raise your hand if you were on the task force. You just raise your hand. So, pretty much everyone here. Um, and thank you everyone else who didn't present
tonight, but they are here and we talked about how important it is that their voices heard as well. If you have any questions, u we'll give some other people on the on the task force a chance to talk as well, answer those questions. And if there's anything else you want to
add as a task force, um just you know, you can either uh come up and and say it or you can say, stand up, say it from your seat, however, whatever you think. And then also questions to the board to the task force as well. Be great. >> So Darren, I am going to give them all a
chance to talk. So, if you would just introduce yourself and tell us your role in St. Francis. So, if you're a parent, if you're a student, uh just a real quick so we know who for if you're on the engagement task force. Rick, we're going to start with you. >> Hey, I'm Rick Bner. Um I'm a parent in
the district, former student, um and lifelong uh community. >> I'm Scott Weiss. I'm a parent and been in the district for about um four years I guess now. Daughter right now is in eighth grade and is looking
forward to high school next year. >> Hi, I'm Hannah as you already know, but uh I really enjoy being a student youth like on the task force and able to just like portray how my everyday life is a student.
Um I'm Kate Blanchard. Um one of the presenters and I'm task force too. Um, I have lived in Oak Grove since 2017. Um, I am a parent to a beautiful little girl, Ruby, who is a second grader at Cedar Creek right now.
>> I'm Aaron Weiss. I'm on the task force. I am a parent of a 2023 graduate and a parent of a current nth career at high school in special education. Hi, my name is Courtney Mansino. I have three children in the district and I'm also part of the PTO at Cedar
>> Creek. I'm Dagel. Um I have lived in this community since 2001. Uh was a student from elementary school through um graduation and continue to live in this community and I now am the American Indian education coordinator for the
district. >> Uh I'm Clayton. I'm a junior at the St. experience in high school and I am a part of a lot of stuff. >> Noah Cotton. I graduated in 2001. Lived in the community my whole life. Uh and I have two kids in the district, a seventh
grader and a ninth grader. And thank you for the opportunity to participate. Uh lived in the community since 2004, my 22nd year in the district. Um, and I have three kids out of 24 graduate and then a junior and a third.
>> And here we got one more. >> I'm Richard. I'm live here since 2012 and I'm a concerned citizen and the future the country rests in our
children. That's why I'm involved. Perfect. Thank you. So, before I let the board ask questions of the group, uh do any of you have any other comments you would like to share that weren't addressed in the presentation? Okay. Board members, uh questions. If
you have any questions, we can direct it at individual that presented or anyone on the board or on the task. >> Carson, do you have the first question? rough. Right. So when you were looking at the grades and the projections with the red, yellow, and green, it just has
the like this year's. Was there any projections on what future years look like? >> Um so I'll take that. Uh the demographic studies from Hazel Reinhardt would show that we're we if we're fortunate, we'll be relatively flat in our enrollment
projections. Where that enrollment is might shift in our district. So, for example, we heard from the city of St. Francis about the parcel that is, you know, basically just across uh 47 here and there's 300
some houses, you know, there's multif family housing that's in the East Bethl side of things. So where the population is may shift over time but basically we will be lucky according to Hel's number if we stay flat because despite the fact
our community is growing and the number of houses there isn't enough housing opportunities in our community um that's according to city St. Francis, they were sorry sir. Um and uh people aren't having as many children. The fertility rate has dropped
precipitously and that accounts for kind of our flat uh well student growth despite the population growth. I guess that kind of but as far as like each location like first grade I can't remember which
one was in the red but is that does the projection say that they're going to stay in the red or so basically yes one of the side effects of kind of the remodel was there were some decisions made at various sites that I
would say constricted the size of the rooms even if they do have the necessary neessary square footage decisions like uh putting lockers into elementary school classrooms over at East Bethl. They might have the necessary square footage, but it's not actually as usable
as you know the teachers I think would probably like or the students would. It's one thing I know that stood out to Kate when she was elementary teacher. She's like, "What are we doing then? We got boots and coats and all kinds of things going on." So, some of those
things are already kind of baked into the cake. Um, but they should stay relatively the same where the population shifts. Even Hazel couldn't tell us that. >> I'd like to add to that. If you uh we we
we did a a little just kind of down and dirty on taking K2 and 35 in the two schools that are next to each other and just kind of do a little bit of an estimate and it does improve those
numbers. I didn't really understand quite why Mike kind of explained that to me in and when you have more kids you you don't have as many classrooms that aren't to the you know to the capacity that you want. So I think an exercise in
doing that might also really give you some information on that slide before I go back over. Sure. where it says water and sewer. Is that like preference or is there water and sewer to like the road and we just
haven't hooked up yet or is this eventually we're going to hook up to water and sewer? I have that in East Bethl, Cedar Creek and Early Childhood. >> Absolutely. Yeah, we're going to kind of leave, guys. >> Um, we are on well and septic for all
three of those sites and over the past several years, we've had some issues with well water over there that you might be aware of. You've been on board. >> Yep. >> Um, additionally, our septic system at Cedar Creek is is we were extended given
an extension by the state, but it's basically non-compliant and the drain field needs to be redone. Um, we're reviewing that. We have a meeting I think scheduled. person done and Chuck and I in next within the next week or so the price tag is anywhere from $100,000
to a million dollars to fix that and we obviously don't budget for that kind of money in in regular budgets. The city of East Bethl at the same time and Carson and Nate have both met with city officials over there. Um they're pursuing a they have been pursuing a
bonding bill in the state to run city water and sewer up to 65 and then even over um to down sims to where we are which would allow us to then hook up to city water and sewer. But our ability to do that is contingent on their ability to secure funding for the project. So
we're kind of stuck in a little bit of a purgatory if you will um about what to do. Uh the septic is a is a in ourface issue that we have to deal with in the immediate future. >> Did they give you a timeline on when they anticipated that or is it still not
known for sure? >> Um I probably Carson could speak better to that. I I don't have a timeline. You know, it would have been rushed to get it in and as you look at state funding, I don't know if there's capacity for that giveaway. >> Sure.
>> So Nate or Carson feel free to >> I'll jump in. I know that uh Matt Lung, the city administrator for the city of East Bethl, uh is really active with uh pursuing state and federal funding sources. So, uh I believe the city has
secured at least a placeholder in Tom Emmer's, you know, earmarks for, you know, federal aotment of $3 million, which is would be a small portion of of a project there. and he's interested in
trying to include some more funding in the state bonding bill. I um you know either this time or more likely two years from now because it will take a lot of building up to that. >> Thank you. Thank you both.
>> Yeah. So their initial planning was just over 10 million uh that they were looking for through state bonding. We don't anticipate it in this session. Uh bonding it would be the next one that they'll look at that. Uh that does not include hookup to our facilities. It
brings it right to it, but it doesn't include the hookup portion. So um again, that's part of the discussion I know you all probably had because we got some feedback from East before that discussion as well. But they've uh we have as a school district provided a
letter of support for their anticipated plan but not funding. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. And that's I took that letter from a year or two ago, rewrote it uh for the the federal aotment and gave that to Mr. Buck. >> Thank you.
>> Yeah. And uh just like Mr. Bur said it, you know, the project does not include costs, you know, for the city. we'd have to bear that of not only hooking up to the system but also the yearly operational costs for water shine and
sewer. >> Thanks. Sorry, I'll just add a little on to that as well. Um, we were informed this well on our tour of the schools and I think it speaks a lot to the buildings of how old they are and just over time we
really wanted to emphasize to the board the building has so much history but we need to maintain things before we have to get something passed right away. So it really was important for us to mention >> Mr. Sh. So the transportation
building has been an issue heard here. I've been on the board for 10 years now and it's been well past that and I appreciate all everybody's time. Was there a reason that more time wasn't devoted to trying to figure something
out there or why we why we're pushing that aspect off or how do we continue? I'll take that. >> I I think it's such a big problem that that um we know that you knew know that
it's a big problem. So I don't think that we really spent a lot of time because it would be getting more into what Darren kept pulling us back from of solving the problem. Uh even I even when I talked to a couple developers just because I that's some of the business
that I do now. uh Darren say, "Whoa, whoa, Mickey, that's not where you go." But I think that there are I think that there are some possibilities, but it gets into the partnership that has to form. um uh 7 years ago uh I don't know
if you are familiar with 50th in France they they that area we there was a there was an old really wellbuilt that poorly designed a car uh ramp behind 50th to
the north and the city didn't know what to do with it but they they could tear it down. It was too good to tear down but it wasn't designed right. So, uh, we went in and we built them a brand new, uh, we bought the land right across the
street to the north, uh, and built a brand new ramp and traded them. Didn't cost them a penny. And we took that old one, now there's shops in the bottom, offices on the next, and then it was structure enough where we put condos above it. And I think that that is a
valuable piece of land, especially if you could take Bridge Street all the way to 47 and and do something across from the middle school there where that land is and and like when I talked to Peggy Peggy. Yeah. Peggy, you know, to go to a cornfield 3 miles north of here and get
all that congestion out of there where her driver sit, you know, on overtime trying to get through those intersections and and cause that big problem starts to make sense. And there may be some creative ways to to to get around that. But again, I think that it
was so bad that if we started to try to give you any more on it, it's more in the solving the problem versus letting you know there's a problem. >> Yeah, that makes sense. >> So, what you can't see on here is that transportation building is actually a flashing light on the paper.
>> I'd like to make a recommendation that we keep looking at. It did help Cambridge stuff though because in Cambridge they were talking about a new garage for you know for all their trucks and everything and and it really opened
up our eyes. I I I advised some the county commissioners in that we don't need to put all those trucks inside anymore. Look at all your buses that set out here. And if if they think their building's bad, they just I've told them all go look at this one.
So, thank you for that. >> Uh the remaining infrastructure needs, is there a deeper divide document somewhere or what are what are all listed on every elementary school? I'm trying to get to where are you looking at >> the
>> Yeah. So, for example, SFB is a eight building as is early childhood. Um the water lines and sewer lines in there and we have we've identified one or two already in SFB that we've put linings in because the pipe is corroding, cracking,
right? And at some point we're going to have to tear up concrete floors. at some point we're going to have to replace those aged pipes from the 50s or 40s or whenever and replace them. And so that's kind of I think what that's really targeted. Um do we have a deep
understanding of all of the pipes that are in the ground across the district? No, we don't. Unfortunately, those are more of a yeah, they're going great right now until there's a problem, then there's a problem. So the linings that we've done have been patch work quilt type stuff. like we're
just trying to get by. Uh we're not it's in the middle of January. We're not tearing up the floor anytime soon and the lighting is good for several years. So we know that there there's a going to be an urgent need at some point. >> Okay. >> In the early childhoods that it should
be noted that they well some of their water is unrinkable. They have babies and young children there and they have to go to certain fountains because their water is under because of that. >> It was other little things like uh the
learning center if you're on the east side there's basically no drinking fountain to access especially like right next to the gym. I think I'm sure Clayton can speak to this well having B soil having basketball practices there and your kids are like where's the drinking from? It's like, well, there is
ring found on the east side. You got to go over here and just bring your water bottle instead. So, they're just little items at each one of those. It's like, you know, you see something, say something about it, and we could have made comprehensive list like we did years ago before the bond, but that's
where, you know, we have to make that decision or the board has to make that decision. Mr. Did you tour Sand Hill? I mean, it's not technically our space, but we used to have a lot of storage there and storage
is a big issue at a lot of locations. Was there anything talks of like one location of storage for multiple buildings or we did not tour Sanville? Um it hasn't been used as an educational
space for us in you know decades or whatnot and we're on a 10-year lease with Tri Valley Head Start. >> I just told you we usually store a bunch of stuff in there. >> Yep. Yep. And when we lost that building we had to find alternative storage. So right now we lease a building off of
Highway 65 right off of Sims and 65. The old B world is right there. Um we lease storage space there. Um that started you don't need the history on that but um we also had an agreement with the city where they would use our boardroom for our city council meetings that we
were allowed to use uh store you know some of our equipment and outdoor equipment in their heated shed. When they built city hall they had to move the fire department temporarily over there. that booted us out. So again, we had to find we got stoages in need across the district
>> and and we did talk about that if on on the school bus thing that if if there was something built in a cornfield a few miles out of town that that would be the ideal place when you're building something like that to to put enough square footage in there of fairly
inexpensive square footage to to take all of that stuff and put it in one location because as you split it off all kinds of places, it is more expensive and you lose things. >> Just we have a follow on that one. >> Okay.
The student drop offs and pickup. I mean we hear that all the time. This is like I mean I think we're pretty much we could almost vote on that tonight because this is if anyone is anywhere near school at any time before or after it's just
ridiculous. It's not safe for the kids. It's not safe for your car parked on the side of the road. Um it's definitely not efficient. So that I really I mean you hit all four of the elementary schools here and I would imagine the other ones are I mean there's more people driving
cars and such I guess at the high school of course but man the middle school same thing. I mean I I I say across the board that's something that's definitely a priority one in my mind at least as far as hearing back from the public and experiencing it myself in the morning and then in the afternoon at different
schools. >> Yeah, I think uh we all agree on that. Can I just add on that? Um, I think the big thing with transportation and drop off and pick up do it daily. I enjoy seeing my kids walk in and out of school. The big thing that everybody's
talked about is how we can get the cities because that's the unique thing about our school district is we have so many cities that work together. So, we're really hopes that we can get a good communication with these cities so they can work well with us.
And then just go back to the bus garage. It's the city of St. Francis and um I think Paul Carpenter who now has some role there was talking about you know they're going to renew 47 possibly in 2027 depending on the bonding and that
will put in a series of roundabouts and that's a great opportunity to potentially push 47 all the way through or Bird Street all the way through to 47. But the side effect effect of that is it affects pickup and drop off at the middle school. You can't really have a
bus garage if we're gonna Bird Streets is going to push through 47. So there's a whole series of ifmens that require a really a great deal of coordination. And then the other thing that that Bill Courtney was saying is our biggest concern with like the sewer was and
Chris articulated this really well was we're going to spend a million dollars to redo the drain field at Cedar Creek and then two years later Eastville is going to be like we can actually require you to hook up to city sewer and water and the money that we just spent on that
is now pardon the fund flushed down the all of us had the recognition you saw on the slides. about the fiscal responsibility to make sure that we're spending that money wisely which is why you know we do have to kind of patch things and wait to see but without that
I would say commitment from the board to do that additional coordination between the county the city of St. Francis, city, peace be up, Oakrove, etc. A lot of the things that we've tried to highlight aren't going to get done or they're going to get done in a way that
someone's going to come back five years later and be like, why'd you spend a million dollars on the train field when you knew East Bethle was coming up just a couple years later? And that's the difficult job that you have. And I'm sure, as you know, hindsight's always 2020 from the public perspective, but
that's the task that we have now given you. And I would say like he said, you have a group of at least 20 interested citizens here and Darren has mentioned this and I would agree with Keith. He is a fantastic facilitator. The next group
that you guys hopefully empower to have additional community input needs to be twice as big. And I don't mean this to be a call session, but the vast majority of the people here are members of our community. We have
two other people here and we have to we have to involve more members of our community and we have to do a better job of communicating about this recording and getting it out there because it's also a little frustrating to put 11 meetings in 40 hours in and we have two
members of our public and thank you Mr. Anderson, former chair, school board chair for being here and thank you Anderson for being here as well. But we're preaching to the choir and you're part of the choir and so are we having put our time, energy, and effort into that and that is
>> there's a level of frustration I would say for me at least on that because this is really good work. I think we all felt that and we want that to get out to the public as much as possible. You're absolutely right. >> Yeah, I number two. Only two people are
here that weren't on the committee. It breaks my heart. >> Mr. Sh, all the presenters did a great job tonight. Just wanted to shout out to Jenna as a high school junior to get in front of all these adults and present as
well AS you've done an amazing job. >> I I do this quite a bit. Jenna is and and Clay, two of the most responsible Jenna was at every meeting. Clay was in basketball, so he had missed a couple
here and there, but it was so fun to have those students a part of that. And I heard somebody said that they're just the average. I want to meet some of your sharp. So, but it was fun. >> Jenny came on her birthday. >> Yes.
>> And I think Courtney didn't make great cookies or some people that was good. Any other questions? >> Okay, I've got one for you. What I get I I heard it loud and clear from multiple
on more city input, more city involvement uh from the entire district, not just St. Francis, but what else was missing uh from this initial look before we get into what the future looks like? What else was missing um for your group that you would like to see that Darren
could not provide for us? Um I would say um just our like sports facilities like our tennis courts are uh they're very crapped and our gym space we do not have gym space. Um Rob knows boys and girls basketball has to be like flipped every
week to be like early or late and like freshman they don't have rides often. So like if they have early practice then they can't ride the bus home. But if they have late practice then they don't may not have a ride to practice. Um, but
our tennis courts are very bad. Um, that I mean last year I rolled my ankle. I didn't do anything bad, but like I tripped on a crack and I mean it could potentially be worse. I would say those two are probably our worst things. Um, but otherwise our football stadium could
be bigger. Like our away bleachers could be much bigger. Um, our home bleachers, especially like homecoming, we don't have enough seating for everybody. um just our sport sports facilities maybe be bigger or advanced
>> and I'm sorry to piggy back off of that. We were informed also during our tours that we actually have had to turn away tournaments and things to come to our city to which would not just benefit the schools obviously but the the community
because we don't have enough space. The gym space at Cedar Creek is horrendous and smells and it's very disgusting good horrible horrible gym space and that's where they have to do their business of it. It stinks and gets like
a weird floor. It It's been bad for years. Um, and I'm just a tenure resident so far of the community, but um, my son will have gone to pretty much every school in this district except for the
special, >> you know, I I would like to say that um, I I've been out of public education and really following it much for 10 or 12 years in
the gap between my kids getting out of public education and and my grandkids being of that age. They don't participate in in public education. Um but uh during that time it's changed
a lot and uh one of the biggest disappointments that I see is the cost of athletics and I this may be getting off the subject but when when when I was in school 200 years ago and my kids were in
school 50 years ago there's no cost any type of of of athletics. And that cost I know has driven people out of participating in it. And I don't see any difference between that and other things
that are elected that are done in school. But you we've had to do that. And I think a lot of it is because that parents aren't as involved to get these things passed. You guys can't do it yourselves because there's a lot of taxpayers that don't want any part of
it. My taxes went up $1,040 just in the school tax last year, but it was for the right reason. But I was educated in it by by these gentlemen here. And so I understood that it was important what you guys did, but it still went up
$1,40. I think right now to do things like build houses and extra gyms and all those kinds of things, it's just about impossible. I really do believe that. But the way that you do do it is to get people involved. And people have to be
kind of rattled. You know, I mean, we're talking about the elementary schools. If you said, "Okay, we're going to get rid of of um early childhood education because it's not mandatory." I bet you'd have a whole bunch of more people coming to meetings and getting on task force. And if you said, "We're not going to do
football anymore because we can't do it right or or tennis," you're going to get more involvement from the community. And maybe at some point that's what you guys have to decide. And again here we're solving problems but I just you know since it was brought up I you know I
think it's it's important and that's what I mentioned earlier when we had that one slide with a little tiny thing. It is taking a look at every aspect and every opportunity or every different type of of thing that you can look at and and making sure that you're bringing
forth to the community what is needed. So, I'll get off my box. >> Perfect. Thank you. I'm just going to say one thing before you move to your great answers. I'm going to reframe my question just a little bit. Okay. Uh, so
you guys got a information presentations from other organizations, BTMA, you all are public education finance experts now um because you sat through that class. But, um, are there any other inputs that you would need to make you more
successful? So, I know we were fortunate enough to have staff members from across different uh roles in the district on the committee, but did you talk to people from nutrition services? Because we have a few things in here about nutrition services. Did you talk to bus
drivers about um pickup and drop off of buses? We talked about about parent pickup and student drop off, but we didn't necessarily talk about the actual bus and how that works. Is there other input that you guys would have really liked to see uh that we didn't have time
to get to that we if we continue moving this would be beneficial in helping us solve problems and John go ahead and say whatever you >> has responses to that part >> ideally it would be nice to have a voice
from every department or every from the students not just the ones that here but students is um obviously special education are a little difficult to talk to but past students we have we've had some here but recent just
recent graduates um but more teachers I mean we have teachers on our committee but teachers in different departments gym teachers science teachers tech teachers what what do they need what can we give them what what's going to make them the best teachers they can be what
what are we lacking obviously community input and we Obviously, we're the community, but obviously we didn't get as many people as we wanted to either on our group. So, >> um I know you guys just had the board
meeting on Monday where you discussed um our Indian education non-concurrence response. Um and one of the non-concurrences this year is about spacing. Um, and so for me, one of the main reasons why I wanted to be part of
this committee was to understand the schools better. I mean, our program is going into these schools. Um, we only have designated spaces at the high school and the middle school. All of our other um, programming at other sites is shared spacing and it's become a really
big issue for us. And so, um, I was hoping that by being part of this committee, I'd be able to, um, understand a little bit better, and I definitely do. Um, but I think it would be really great to hear from other pro
pullout programs. Um, anybody that's using shared spaces. Um, I feel like a lot of times those programs get overlooked and because spac spacing is such an issue, it'd be nice to hear what each of them are kind of requiring to be
able to do their programming successfully before the school board and the district moves forward making um, additional changes. >> I guess I'll speak up. Um, getting a representative from each city would be
super beneficial regardless of how our buses are affecting the roads and how this each city can be very supportive when it comes to taxes as well. How they can put in their newsletter about what
we want to update and be in they can communicate as well for us for each city. We really rely sorry we really relied on the building principles and the program supervisors that have knowledge of those sites. So like at East Beth
was great and she would highlight like well actually we do have a problem in the kitchen but you know money's already been set aside so we're addressing it in this way. Um so we really relied on them and Darren was very adamant as mentioned multiple times on the two. The reason
that our scheduled two-hour meetings lasted three and a half or four hours is because we we did >> we we did want to delve into all of those things. And it's like one of those things where once you know a little bit, you want to know more and then you're
like, well, I think I might be an expert on this and I've got some ideas of my own. And that was I think the most uh powerful part about this as someone who's worked in the schools for 22 years is how much I was able to learn. I just know if we had 20 more citizens, I
really firmly believe that would be 24 more apostles out there talking about like we have an ear handler that was around when JFK was alive at SF. >> That's going away though. Multiple. It's going away. When I talk to when I talked
to one of my football players, he asked like, "Hey, what are you doing tonight?" Well, not going to be at tennis practice. I'm here at the facility task force thing. I talked to him a little bit about it. He's like, "What?" Like, "Yeah, you know those big giant things on top of your rooftop units, your RTUs,
as you know, all know that like it was around when JFK was alive." He's like, "No, that's not right." Like, "Yeah, we have they got like pictures of it. You can see and like we've got to jury rate things." And that was the other thing that our maintenance folks do a great job. We did not have the knowledge of
what needed to be replaced when, what the life cycle of the rock units were. And I think because of the work that Chris and Chuck and our maintenance and facilities teams have done along with site logic, like we should be in a much better spot moving forward. So we don't
have to worry about the boil of the brakes in the middle of January and replace it for $500,000. We can be proactive on those things and say we've got to set aside money for those things or we have to actually levy for those things. And that was the the eye winner
for me, especially with the school finance part of the reason you're able to levy the IAQ dollars is because everyone acknowledges we don't get enough funding when it comes to long-term maintenance. And when
our buildings are from the 1960s, the 1970s, we're going to have bigger long-term maintenance needs. >> Go first. I lost my train of thought. >> I I was just going to say to answer your
question a little more directly. Um and some of us actually joked about this too like kind of wish we would heard from the janitors. Not to discount Chris and everything that he provided us which was fantastic. Um and I think he had another supervisor there too with us um who was
great. You could answer some of those down and dirty questions that we were asking or some sides. Um, but part of me wishes I ever cornered some of them when I saw them. Monty, for example, at C3 just, you know, what's it like kind of behind the scenes a little more because we, you know, visually can see stuff and
things are explained, but we moved on. I feel like that would be just from a somebody who doesn't live in your community and you can look at things very objectively. I and I'm I'm not I'm I'm being very honest when I'm
saying this. One of the most um inquisitive persistent groups I work with, right? And you combine that with a pretty big district with a lot of square footage. Right away, I I was thinking, uhoh, we
don't have enough meetings. And then somebody in the group said, we don't have enough meetings. And I said, okay. I went back and and talked to the leadership team and we added those meetings. We could have met for another six months and and kept busy. They asked
great questions. Um they did none of our time was was we're were screwing up or not doing what we had what we're supposed to do. But the the sideboards that the board put out the mandate this is what I want you to do. looked looking
at all of the facilities made us I kept having her pull the back like okay you you're not going to solve this so you know you're not going to see very specific recommendations on fix this fix that you should do this you should have this grade level here you know those
it's it's making the board aware that what what we're seeing as a community it's a beginning and I I've said this to this group I'm like it'd be awesome if the board would take this experience with community engagement. Add people.
Keep the ones you have that are still interested in doing some of this work. Add people and just look at the elementary spaces or just look at the outdoor facilities uh for the high school for athletics or you know whatever it may be. Look at different
alternative funding mechanisms that the board has and is capable of using to do some projects that that are coming up. But it it was overwhelming at times and I know a lot there were some people I could see in their eyes they were
thinking there are so many different directions we could go and dive into this and this and this but we just we couldn't and even though we tried to provide that as much as we can there's a limit as to what you can really do and
do well >> but we do have a ton of ideas >> just a few Right. >> Mr. General, >> I can um just on the topic of like the maintenance crew, if we were to do like
specialized groups that look into like the outdoor facilities, um we definitely need to meet with them because we always have a lot of opinions and ideas regarding natural facilities, but I don't really know how they feel about them and like about them. And then we got a video tour and it would have been
hard to meet with them because it was in the middle of winter, all the grass is dead and everything like that. But I mean like as I travel and go towards other schools like all my friends like, "Oh my gosh, it's so pretty here." And it's like it's not always about like the looks of things. It's about how they function. I just want to know again how
the maintenance the outdoor maintenance crew feels about that. So school safety is on a lot of parents' minds and in the last we did a lot of work with school safety. I don't see it on here as much. So is the consensus
that it's good right now or what what drop? >> Yeah, that's the school safety for pick up and drop off. But everything we heard from all the principles was the safety in the building >> was good >> was good >> and the one thing that they almost all
mentioned was they would love to have more >> video cameras >> but it was like that's not necessarily a capital item that needs to >> be set aside for and I would just say as a teacher those are more reactive things
sometimes than proactive but they acknowledge. Yes, we have safe, secure entrances. If we can improve one thing, we would love to add more cameras in various spots throughout the site and build windows. The windows
>> and this is kind of along the same lines, but it's not dealing with buildings. SRO, was that any discussion there? >> School resource officers. >> Sorry. Thanks for clarifying. >> You had one. You had one on the
committee. Good. >> Richard, you had your >> When when we talk about pickup and drop off, I believe each school is unique except maybe Cedar Creek and East Bed because they're so close.
But they should be looked at separately because each situation is different. Mhm. >> And I think pickup is a different animal than drop. Drop up is come first come first serve. Pickup >> tell their skeleton.
>> They're sitting there for all. >> Yeah. But where the kids do the kids run to their parents car? >> No. The system is amazing. It is amazing. The system works. >> It's the road. It's the safety on the
road. The system at Cedar Creek. Yeah, >> has a different >> but in addition to that when you're doing each school you need to have the parents are required drop off you have school administrators and other people
involved in the situation. >> So every school should probably have their own task force for their pickup drop in my opinion. And in regards to SRO, not the bar, the officer, we were told to just look at
the building and not that >> program. Right, >> Mr. Um, another mentioned it, but it's it's worth noting. Um, I think at the next board
meeting, you will receive a donation form. Um Keith is a part of the work that we did and based on the enunciation school shooting that happened this fall where the gun the the perpetrator didn't
enter the building. Um we had some concerns at the middle school because of the windows in the cafeteria that face Bridge Street or face Ambassador. We had some concern concerns at F SFB because of the cafeteria windows that face a very visible highway. And so, uh, we
secured a bid for window film and tinting as well as, um, being able to bond the windows to the frames and, um, Keith donated the funds, um, through some of his charity work for us to be able to do that. So, you'll see that
donation come through at THE talk about safety and security. I wanted to mention that because um you know we've got we've got all kinds of windows all over the district, right? And and some of them provide higher viz to the general public than um I think any of us
are comfortable with after this what happened this fall. So we're addressing that systemically. >> Thanks Chris for that. I know you had talked to me about that before and Keith I just want to take a moment to acknowledge you saw an immediate need uh
and something that you've been affect so we appreciate that as a as a board as a district as a community. So thank you for that. um you know this this page with the data and the declining enrollment. I think there are things that are you know different avenues and creative avenues
to fund things but I I think the long story short is you know the main funding source is like butts in the seats and I this group facilitywise kind of makes me think we should do something
like this. I don't know how to say it, but like, hey, what would how do you envision like what can we do to improve, you know, the public uh education experience? Like I don't know, I don't I don't know if it would need necessarily
need to be the same group, but a similar group or something like this with good impact like this. Again, I mean, I don't know if you'd have to tour schools. Maybe you would tour schools more on a like an observation of like classrooms or media centers or you know the sports programs or things like this. But I
think that would be highly valuable because I I think that's I think it it's always hard for me to believe when I see houses everywhere growing up that we don't have anything. But it makes sense, you know, actuarily. But I I I think a lot of the reason why our uh enrollment
is dropping is because people have other options now in pro in in private schools. And then also homeschooling is becoming more prevalent. But I think uh you know it's not our choice necessarily
to say that you know uh they should they should come to our schools and it's certainly their choice to go wherever they want. But I think that we should put our best foot forward to give them a best opportunity where they're not looking at other options. Like if you provide, you know, I would imagine where
you're in a school district that's having hardship or hard times or not doing their job or the the community is not happy with with the area. Not talking about this one, but then versus some area like let's say, you know, Weisetta where everyone wants to go to those schools. I mean, you know, people
are literally moving there because of the schools. uh there's some sort of disconnect or co culture thing going on there that uh that maybe either our area doesn't have or we don't agree with or you know I don't want to become wise at all. Um but but it's a it's a thing I
think we could utilize something like this for more of the I don't even know what the words I'm trying to say like a soft >> review or something like that. >> So the nice thing about this group is you guys set the standard for St. Francis, uh, in our community engagement
aspirations, right? You you set the standard for what we want to do and get to to cover areas like SRO's, like um enrollment numbers to get after that as a group. We hope that it's not the same group uh for every one of those
engagement task force, but we understand uh that that's going to be a work on our level uh to fill that and to meet that need. But um really what you guys did is help us set that standard for the way ahead for the district to get after these things. So thank you for that. I'm going to make a couple comments Darren
before I hand it back to you. Uh if you have anything else to round up, I probably will cover what you have. But could I just make one comment that I think that what you were saying is extremely important in that um do you guys do surveys? Do you guys reach out?
I know my grandson is homeschooled who's in the district and my my daughter has to send in to Karsten's office I believe every year that what he's that he's in homeschool. So I think you have a a base of of reaching out to those people and
asking them why they don't send their kids to the school. Do you guys do that? >> Uh we have not. Uh we've done some surveys before but not specifically like for homesooled families or those who have chosen to go elsewhere. I think
that's a good suggestion though. And I I think also if you take a look at at being very specific about that, uh I know that that school that we have a business in in in Nebraska, they really highlight how they
have the highest math and reading scores scores in their area and they draw from a whole region. And I know you guys are working really hard on your math and reading scores and to to to to really work on that and and make that as a
marketing tool to bring more of these people in, you know, just might be something that's worthwhile. But you may find out something in that survey, but if you're very specific, if we did this, if we had this, would that make a difference on why you did what you did?
>> And I think it was Michael Hart was our guy. He's a school finance guy. We export 600 students. That's a lot of money. So because of Twin Legs Elementary or Rum River Elementary or whatever it is, you know,
net I think we're like 600 students who down despite the students who come in from Forest Lake or Cambridge or East Bethle, the ex net is like 600 students out. And that was probably an issue back when
they were around the block as well. It's just >> it has been talked about. >> It's a great opportunity like Mr. Humphrey and Pete has said there to find out why and you know try to call some of those folks back. You know the district cabinet has identified that as a top
priority too. We have to carve time, effort and money out to make it happen. But we've I shouldn't say we because I wasn't here at the time that the buildings were redone, but from what I've heard, they are so much better now
than what they were before 2017. And uh you know, we believe that if we get people into our buildings as much as possible, they'll be impressed with what they see, not just with the buildings, but with the programs and the people.
And so we need to we need to use that small town feel, you know, that the community has and make sure we reach out in that way of people moving into the district. So it's not just a brochure that we send out or a nice website. We need those one-on-one interactions and
you couldn't be more right. um after I went through um Ben Craig's facility and saw that he wasn't just warehousing those kids that are are are having problem that he really had a a vision for it. Um, I happened to mention that
to my daughter and they had a child at their co-op who was who is was working in the co-op that really needed what Ben is doing and they have now left the the homeschool co-op and and is in that program and it's it's going very well
and to get that word out um is is is you know back to the marketing. >> Yeah. And that's a great example because there are great things happening you know right next door but there are Thank you. I'm directionally challenged so
that um but you know if people don't know about it if they don't experience they don't talk to people they aren't going to they're going to join us here. So we have to use that small town feel. >> Um so I can speak on behalf of being a parent. Um my daughter is in second
grade at Cedar Creek and we love it there. We absolutely love it. But um when she was ready to go into kindergarten, I do have to be very honest, I was going to put her in another school district. Um just because Rug River in Oklahoma is just a few
minutes down the road from my house in Oak Road. And in addition to this, my daughter gets sick. She's um gets very sick after motion sickness after about 45 minutes. Her bus ride was over an hour each way. and I knew I would have to give her drama or do bracelets or do
something every day. So, we tried to put her in kids connection. We had a long wait. We were able to finally get her in last minute or else I was going to send her to another district. That's just my experience. But we stayed in here and we stayed in the district because she loves
it and she absolutely loves being with her friends. So, >> but some people don't, you know, for the reasons you said and uh you know, we we think that if kids join us, if it's preschool, if it's kids connection, if
it's at any of our buildings that we have a really good shot of keeping them. Uh but once a student goes to an Oka Hampton um you know then they're more likely to stay there and then their siblings are going to stay there because there's one
car ride down. So we have to start you know with the very youngest levels and that that includes preschool. I'll just determine like um I went to an OKA happen and I was very determined to not have my kids go to an OK.
Um it was just so big and I think I wanted this small town community feeling, but I had so many friends that live close by that sometimes turn to bad because one time they heard somebody say something bad or they had a bad experience. And I think it's back in the
day I bridge this used to happen. I think informing the community about how it's changed so much would be just eye opening. I don't know how it would have been or just it's not I don't know how else to describe it.
It's not bad St. Francis. I don't I wasn't here. I can't speak to that. But it's so not like that. I we built the best community here and I for when you come you stay. So, I it's just a bad reputation that I hope
someday people will get out of their head. >> Yeah. When we moved here 14 years ago, our realtor said, "This is in the St. Francis school district." And we said, "Well, yeah, we don't we don't we don't have kids that that are going to be participating in
it, so we're good to go." And now that I've had such a good comparison between another school district on this border of St. Francis in this it's it's completely different than all that I heard about it. So,
>> how do you guys get the word out? >> Keith and I had the same experience. Our realtor when we moved here said the same thing. >> Yeah, that was one of her trying to help us figure out where they were going is that it's not as far away from the other district, if you will.
Maybe we can set fires so that we know that that might be a >> but I'm proud to be part of this district and my kids go here and I absolutely love it because of what you guys all say and what you guys do. So, um we are, you know, we're an hour and a half, which is what we kind of planned
on. So, this is absolutely awesome. We can continue this conversation, but I've got a couple just items um to let you guys know what the future is going to look like. >> Oh, good. because we I think I can speak for the group. If you add up all the hours that were put in and especially
all the emails that Darren made us read quite seriously we probably we could probably log in a thousand hours. So I was hoping and I think I could speak for the group that you know six months from now in September we would like to hear what you guys have done with this.
>> Yeah. So um the plan ahead is that so how the board works how we operate is we need a lot of input so we can make decisions right and you guys just started that process for us so uh what we will be doing is having work sessions I can't give you exact dates yet because
we have to work on agendas and how that works with everything else that's going on but we will have work sessions that help pair down these recommendations that you guys gave because we can't everyone knows we can't just go like this and take care of every recommend recommendations. So, we need to pair
them down based off of input that you gave us based off of other input and the board's priorities for the district going forward. Um things that we like to look at are near-term, short-term, and long-term um areas that we can work at. So, we're going to look at everything
that you guys presented and recommended. Um but we might not put everything into the same bucket. So, we're going to take a look at what that looks like. The next step that we would want is to continue the process. So you guys put in one of your slides uh on what you did. You
brainstorm, explore, evaluate, and find potential long-term, flexible, and fiscally responsible solutions, including considering operational efficiencies. That's the information we need once we pair down what we want, right? That's the information that we want to unleash
and let you guys just dig into it and help us present that. So, I have a challenge for you as a engagement task force that invite a friend, right? Mike, you said it. I want I wanted to fill this room tonight.
Unfortunately, the one person I invited, it sounds like three other people invited as well. Dave, thanks for being here. Okay, so we got to get better at who we're inviting, right? But I I do this in all of the sports that I coach. I tell everyone of my athletes, the
first week of practice, bring a friend. bring somebody new into the program. So, I want you guys to do that. I'm going to challenge you to do the same thing. You all know somebody in the community that has valuable input that can help us when we start doing this. Invite them. They don't have to sign the letter of
agreement with Aaron, but show up to a meeting and go, "Oh, wow. Okay, I could provide some input in this." Or they can go, "I want nothing to do with it." Walk away. But bring someone else. Okay. Uh students big time, right? You guys have a perspective that none of us have. even
those that graduated from this school, they don't have the perspective that you have. Uh so we need your input. So I really appreciate that you were part of it and that you both were very committed to it. That was a a concern that we had talked about is if we have students, but we have that commitment level. Wow. You
guys blew it out of the water. So like I said, you set the standard. Thank you for that. Um but once we pair that down and we get into developing uh solutions, I heard you. Okay. I heard that we want input from every area. So, it might not
mean that you're going to have a member from each one of our departments at all meetings, but we might be able to send out a survey to those departments. What are your needs when it comes to this area? So, we can get input and then that allows us to steer the direction of where we're going with it or ask some
questions, talk to the maintenance staff about field maintenance and how it works, those kind of things. We can do all of that. we have that capability internally and that's not a hard ask uh for our staff to provide some of that input and then maybe with parents right or with students and parents and getting
that same input we can do that um talked about the twice as big right to double it so we can double this size instantly if you bring someone and then I'm putting the same challenge on board members okay so once we get into this we didn't really want to have any influence
on this engagement task force that we had started We didn't want influence. We wanted to see where you guys took it. That's why we allowed it to expand. Uh but we each should invite someone to come to one of those meetings to help because we all know people have different perspectives
and look at things differently as well. Um okay, I'm going to go through a couple thank yous. First off, uh Mr. Linquist, we did submit you for an Annie for your video. So, thank thank you for the time and
effort you put in. I know it was well above and beyond the required duties and responsibilities. So, thank you for that. Darren, you and the psychologic team, thank you so much uh for the dedication you put into our district. You have nothing to do with our district and you put the time and effort into it
to help us. So, we appreciate that and I know they all saw it because I can hear it in their voices when they're talking. Uh there's some passion in here tonight, which is awesome. I love to see that. Um, okay. Courtney, Aaron, Keith, Mike,
Kate, Jenna, Haley, Clayton, Noah, Scott, Rick, Harry, and Richard. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here and for doing this for us. It means so much to us. Right. Look at I'm getting a little emotional because it's nice to
have community input um outside of this, right? uh we all put our sacrifices, our time into this district as well as everyone else that is involved, but you guys did above and beyond. So, thank you for doing that. Uh we do appreciate it.
I think we heard you across the board. So, thank you for that. Um we will continue to work with Darren to ensure you guys are notified of work sessions. We want you here. We want to have you part of the discussion. So, when we're talking something and Annette and I go, "Well, they this is what they meant."
and you're like, "That's not what we meant at all." You can help us with those conversations. Okay? So, be aware of that. We're going to push that information out. We'll use Darren still to help that cuz you have the all their contact information. Um,
I think that is it. Uh, district staff, thank you for your input as well when you did support uh this program. Carson, do you have anything? >> No. Thank you to the board, too, for letting the community lead this effort. Yeah, >> many school boards would not do that. >> Yes.
>> Yes. >> Darren, I did want to say thank you and call out Chris. Uh he was at almost every meeting, did a phenomenal job. He was a wealth of information. It was it was a lot of fun to work with him and he
did an excellent job. people that I was able to meet. I I am going to uh stay somewhat involved as as Nate said and generally once the board does their workshopping, we generally bring that community group back and have a
conversation. Well, hey, these are some of the the decisions that we made and this is why um to kind of close that loop, right? So, again, thank you board U community group. We'll be in touch. I know you love my emails. So, I I won't
I'm not going away. Um, but thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Nate. Oh, one last thing. I have a survey that we did last fall. Um, and it's a community survey. It's really turned into two. You got a lot of input from the from the students as well. Love
to come back and and share that. So, so Darren mentioned that to me today. Um, so board, what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk to the superintendent. to see where it fits on the agenda, but we'd like to have him come and just talk survey results that we sent out. Um, not specific, you know, there's a lot of questions that you guys use to help
guide, but he's going to go over the results as a whole for us um with what that was because that's always good for us. Okay. All right. Uh, any questions or comments before a motion to adjourn? Is there a motion to adjurnn?
>> Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Is there a second? Thank you, Mr. Any discussion on that motion? No discussion. All in favor signify by saying I raise your hand. I >> motion prevails. Thank you.
This board meeting is complete. 8:42.