phone for someone if they need a language. We have a sign right up at the front desk. They can point to their language and then we can call a number and get somebody almost instantly who can speak and interpret for us. Um what's new this year is we are going to start having signs all over our buildings that help people understand how they can access that service. So in
their own language they'll be able to read what they would need to do to uh ask for that help so that we can get that trans or that interpretation surface available for them. Also, as far as translation, in the last couple of years especially, we've been able to access more and more tools
online that help us to provide translated materials. This is great because, as you can imagine, we don't have people in our district who speak 45 different languages. Thankfully, uh we have technology that can do that for us. So, we have a website that's fully translatable. Um we have emails now that
can be sent out through a system that translates it into the parents preferred language. We have newsletters that do the same thing. And last spring we started piloting a two-way text messaging. So I can send you a message in English, you can receive it in Portuguese, you can type back and it
comes back to me in English. So it's really been a great tool for our teachers especially to be able to have those conversations with families about what's happening in the classroom. This is just an example of our website. If you click down on the bottom, I think this is Somali, so you can just change the language and everything that's
available is in your own language. We have our community and family engagement specialists which has been a huge huge asset to our school district to have these amazing people in our buildings. Um they not only can speak the language, they also understand the culture, they understand um some of the
barriers that our families face and can really help walk them through understanding our school system. We've had a couple of them in our office this summer. Um Sandy and Dilliana have been there and it's been fun to hear them have conversations over the phone or working with people as they come in to just be able to to serve as a um
understanding person who can help them through and navigate what can be a complicated system as people are coming into our school district. Um Jacqueline Bis is our interrogation supervisor and she's really going to be the one who can help families if they find a barrier, if something isn't
working for them. Um, we do have the Civil Rights Act that ensures that people have resources and that language is not a barrier. And Jacine is a great resource to families if they are finding some place where they're not able to get information or if they need access to some of these services. So, she is going
to be the one for them to reach out to. The next steps for us is to really provide training on this to all of our staff and that will start next week. We are um going to have principles have conversations in their buildings about what this plan looks like and how staff can access these resources, where they can go to find the things that they need
if someone comes to them looking for an interpreter or how to navigate some of our different systems. We're sharing this with families through our district handbook. You saw an example of a poster. Um one of the cool things that Jacqueline is helping lead our community engagement nights. You've probably seen some of these in the past, but she's
being really intentional this year about having um community engagement nights with different parts of our community, as well as just in general inviting anyone to come in and learn about things like this, help them navigate Power School and all the different technologies we use, bringing people together to sit in the room, our staff
to sit in the room with families and actually walk them through these processes and understand our system. So there'll be several of those this fall and then throughout this school year on different topics. And this will definitely be the first one we talk to them about in September. And this is a
living document. We can change this as we get new tools, as we hear from families of what's working or not working. Uh it's really important for us to get feedback throughout this process. So as we roll this out to staff, we'll hear from them like, does this make sense? What's missing? What needs to change? and the families as well so we
can make those adjustments and make sure this is really a good plan that serves and meets the needs of our families. With that, I will open it up for any questions. Great. Yes. Um this is great. Thanks. Um one, I'm
just curious, does this um do do language challenges and barriers um manifest at all like within classrooms? And um is there are there thoughts about if that's an issue um you know how that will be addressed by the
plan? Uh this plan is really about the family side of it. We certainly have things in place to help in the classroom. Um I am not the education expert. I'll look to one of my friends maybe. We have multilingual language teachers throughout the district in different buildings.
Okay. So that's kind of okay that Yep. So the classroom is being addressed that way. This is really just about how we're we're serving families. Perfect. Thanks. Thank you. Well, we don't have 45 multi-ingual teachers or staff that you mentioned. No. And they're not experts in a
specific language, but they're experts in helping kids learn a language. Okay. All right. It's amazing. If you walk into one of our ML classrooms and see people working I mean they they might have five different six different languages in the classroom and they are able to navigate
and work with students. It's incredible. Thanks. Um, you mentioned that there are a lot of these components that we already had in place in our district. Um, could you highlight a few more of like what are the newer pieces that came out of this plan? You mentioned the I think the posters in the um schools might be one of the new ones.
Yeah, I think some of the new pieces are the how we communicate it to let parents know what is available to them. Some of the technology tools are newer. I mentioned talking points, some of the website pieces, um, our our newsletters. We switched to something called S'more within the last couple of years and that
has a feature that allows us to translate um some of the I think it's called bright era which is how we send out all of our messaging. So those text messages and emails that you get from the school district those are now all translatable. Um so those are newer tools that have been in place. Really
the biggest change I think with this plan is how we are communicating to families about what is available and with staff as well. I think one of the things we haven't always done is um work with our staff so they understand all the tools and how to use them and what's available. So that will be a big piece
this year is just helping them navigate what's what's out there. Great. Thanks. Um sorry, two questions. One is the um what does this replace? Did we have a plan previous to this or is this replace sort of a patchwork of things or what
does this replace? I think it's a patchwork of things. So again, we've done a lot of these things, but we haven't had it in a plan. It was just kind of we're doing this over here, we're doing this over there. It wasn't as thoughtful or strategic. Um, so what we're doing now, in part because we are required to, but also because it's just the right thing to do as we're
communicating with families about what's available. Um, so I don't think it replaces anything. It's just truly organizing in a way um that makes it easier for people to to use. Awesome. Thank you. Um and then the second question, um I just one of the other organizations
I work with, uh Karen is the fastest growing um community that they're serving and I didn't I don't think I saw that up there and I was just curious if if we're seeing a similar um uh development here
and if so, how do we address that or if that's through a separate thing? Not yet. So I actually just pulled the numbers last week of what are our top languages. Spanish is by far our highest. Mung, Somali, those are our top three. And what's interesting is after those top three, then we drop down to
like maybe there's maybe 20 of this, 10 of this, five of this, one of this. So, it's really smaller numbers, which makes it tricky, right? Like we can we can translate in Spanish. That makes sense. There's 400 and some families in our or kids in our district that speak that language. So, that makes sense. When it
comes down to we have five or 10, it's harder. we don't have all those resources which is why technology is so great because now we can we can use Google translate we can use some of these different tools that are available to help us. Thank you very much. Any other questions?
I um I was at a Caminos event and I just want to give a shout out because it's related. It's not exactly this but our family engagement specialists. we don't get a ton of time to really recognize them and in it's amazing to me when I go to those family engagement nights how
instrumental they are in the dialogue between staff and families and the work that they do and um I just can't say enough I know that was added a couple years ago um and they are so beneficial to our families so I'm glad that that's
that you talked about that position today and um and I'm excited for teachers to learn about this because I feel like they're going to be able to leverage especially the two-way communication. Um my my question was with the translation services, do they
come into play or can they be utilized during conferences interpreting? Yes. Yes. Yes, we definitely have that available. Okay. Thank you. That was it. Right. Thank you for that update. I'm I appreciate it. Oh, we do need to take action.
That is an action. Um I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Okay. And all those in favor of approving, raise your hand, say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
Okay. We're going to turn this next item over to Dr. Funk and this is um an action item for MTN agreement. So, as some of the board members here are aware, I think at least three of you initially, the school district used to have a
transportation provider called MTN that uh provided transportation to our students um I think in the 2020 school year in 2021. And the there was a conflict with MTN as far
as be able to fulfill the contract. And as part of that, the district sued MTN in September of 2021. Um, move forward to the spring of 22 and MTN, I believe, sued the district.
And so they have been suing each other for since and I started in July 22 since since before I got here. Um, with this lawsuit, um, we have been expending district resources because it's not insurance protected. It's a
because we we initiated the the suit. So, we have been expending legal money to try to um um really um complete this lawsuit. So, there's been three attempts at mediation. The first attempt was in June
of 2022 before I started. The second attempt I think was in July of 2023 that uh I met with the representatives from MTN and our our attorneys and at that point MTN would not go below a million dollars that we were going to have to
pay them. Um so then we were scheduled multiple times over the last few years to go to court. Um it kept on getting pushed back. Um, we now have a date to go to court in October for up to eight days here in Washington County. And I
talked to our attorneys. They told me that MTN had gone to a new law firm. And I said, "Well, to try and avoid court and more legal fees, let's see if we can settle this." So, a few weeks ago, I spent a Friday in Minneapolis,
um, and in a mediation with the same judge, retired judge who's been working with us for since the inception on this. And at the end of the mediation, at the end of the day, um, MTN agreed to withdraw their lawsuit if we withdrew ours and no money would would exchange
hands. It's pretty significant because I think initially MTN was suing the school district for $15 million and to get them to completely withdraw it at the end of the day um I think is a a significant uh um
victory I think for the district. Unfortunately, we we've expended a lot of legal resources in the interim. Um, and you know, as an as an aside, this is the third lawsuit that I have inherited since I've been here that were all
initiated before I got here, and this is the last one. And so I think if we can put this to bed with not spending any more money, um because the other choice would be to go to court, run the chance of a trial, and if we lost the trial, um
we would have significant exposure because again, this is not protected by our insurance company. So, my recommendation to you tonight and our attorney's recommendation, Christian Schaefer, on this case is to um settle this agreement and uh both sides walk
away with nothing. Um this is an action item. So, uh real quick, I'm going to This is not a roll call. I would do a roll call. You would do a roll call. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Director Theelander with the second and then questions. um comments.
Director Theander. Yeah, I just want to thank you, Dr. Funk, you and your team. I mean, the three um negative clouds that we've had hanging over our district for quite a few years. I mean, that's a big deal and a lot of like, you know, potential exposure. So, thank you. Um I mean, it's
great to have this one behind us and I think it's prudent for us to uh move forward and be done with this. Agreed. Any other comments? I saw your hand up. No. Oh, okay.
I guess for me, I just want to say I'm I'm relieved to put this chapter behind the district. I know there's this this has just been an ongoing um drag on the district itself and important um to note that transportation, safe and reliable
transportation is critical to our families. And um I think the expenses we have incurred to our ongoing annual budget. I think we learned it was what 5 million as a result of some um some just some decisions to maybe ignore staff's
recommendation is a cautionary tale. And this sticks with me as a board member more than any other decision that I have observed. um the long-term ramifications of going against a recommendation of the professionals who do this day in and day
out and it's hurting us now as we can see with all the budget cuts. So, I'm grateful to put this behind us. I'm grateful that we have a provider now that is um although the cost is more, they are safely transporting and they are reliable and they're a good faith partner to us. So, um and again, Dr.
Funk, I just want to echo what Dr. Theander said. Thank you for putting this behind us. I do think it would be important to acknowledge that there are other staff even before um Superintendent Funk came who were dealing with this headache and kind of getting the ball rolling. So to those people, they know who they are and um
grateful for their work on this as well. So great other comments. Uh Joan, roll call, please. Dr. Gersfitch, yes. Dr. Hucker, yes. Dr. Kelsenberg, yes. Dr. Law, yes. Dr. Parker, yes. Dr. Theander,
yes. Chair Sherman. Yes. Great. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Um, now we're going to move on to an adventure club update. Welcome, Annette. All right, Chair Sherman, Superintendent
Funk, and members of the board. As uh Chair Sherman indicated, I am going to give an update on where we're at with Adventure Club. And in particular, we're going to talk about enrollment first. So, oh, thank you. There we are. So, what we did is a
yearover-year analysis to look at um where we are at at at the beginning of August. So, you can see we have increased our overall in full enrollment. So, there's a difference between full enrollment and partially
enrolled. And I think those things are obvious, but just to state the obvious. Full means that we've been able to accommodate all of their needs. Partial means we're only able to, uh, serve a portion of their needs. So, uh, as you can see, we've increased it, I believe,
if my math is correct, is about 26% increase in overall comp fully enrolled students going into this school year. So, we feel pretty good about that. Uh, partially enrolled, we do still have 72 families that are in that position. I
will mention something about that in just a minute. And then we have a weight list of 240. Um, as a result of the transportation information coming out last week, we are seeing a lot of movement. It is not uncommon for us to see movement in our enrollment. It's a
constantly changing element. It has so many different factors for families. School start and end times is only one factor. Their work schedule is a factor. Their family circumstances are another factor. There's so many different things that
can cause this number to move all the time. Uh consequently, as a result of the information coming out from our transportation department, we are in the process of contacting 60 families right now to offer them additional care. So these numbers are in them in the middle
of changing as we speak and we will see the fully enrolled go up. So we're excited about that. This next slide is really just uh to once again show in a um an easier visual way to see the difference over the last
few years and how we have started out the school year that we have seen um things improving in the last few years in our ability to serve families. We've also seen an increase in need. So those things do go hand in hand. Uh there is
obviously um this is not a newi situation that Minnesota as well as I would say nationally we are experiencing a child care crisis and really the major factor is is that child care is very
expensive if you are going to pay the staff the wage that is going to attract them and so it's always this balancing act. How do we get to that spot where we are providing a a wage that is attractive but also not pricing the
families out of the ability to to uh afford the care. We've been fortunate that the state of Minnesota has provided some additional funds specifically to help us afford this cost without putting it on the back of the families. Uh, and
so as a result of that, we are currently at just over $19 an hour as a starting wage for our adventure club staff and we're we're pretty um pleased with that. And the school board has actually helped us with that over the last few years to get that number up to where
you have a phone number they can call. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Actually, if you're interested 651-351-83000, please call particularly on the south end of our district. We find that that
is where our greatest need is. And so, we are desperately seeking individuals who are interested in working on that end of the district. Oh, and I did not say on a previous slide, there is an estimated need of about 20 additional staff. So
uh but um then in the last 10 years just so you understand we have not been fully sta staffed at the start of the school year. The demand has outweighed the our ability to serve it. Um this last year though and this is actually um better
than it has been in the last several years. We were able to clear the waiting list by December and so we're hopeful that we're on that same trajectory. some additional things because certainly you know we want to put forth every effort to help families. So the
community education team didn't just oh I this is first how we have been recruiting people. Sorry I was already skipping ahead to the next slide. So, recruiting efforts, we're partnering with other departments to offer full-time benefit eligible um employment, which uh certainly serves
not only the employee well, but serves the the families well too because we find that they are a stable source of employees. Uh we've posted on our website, we've done newsletters, postcards, social media. We've boosted on Indeed. We've posted at local
colleges targeting our educa students who are going into education and child development. And then we've done advertising through the high school. One of the more uh recent developments that we're trying as a new tactic is that um
we're reaching out to the pair professionals through our principles to find out at our elementarymentaries whether they would be willing to stay for maybe just an hour at the end of the day. I know they've already had a very long day, but if their schedule isn't exhausted, if they aren't at 40 hours
and they're willing to stay a little longer, that would give us enough time to then get more of our high school students, they will have completed their school day and we'll be able to come to the the school in need. So, just yet another layer that we found and we took
action on um pulling out all stops to make sure that we serve our families. And then finally, this was what I was going to get at is some other things that we've been doing in community education and hopefully all of you have seen this and received it. Um I've I've
heard a lot of great compliments from um many people. Uh we were very excited. Yesterday was our first day of enrollment for the fall and um just comparing last year versus this year, first day of enrollment. Last year, our youth enrichment, we had 69 kids
registered on the first day. This year, 359. Wow. Awesome. So, we're filling a need and we've done that in part thanks to our enrichment coordinator who has almost doubled the offerings so that families will be able
to find uh activities that will meet the interests of their students as well as the time and and need for their students. So, if you had had a chance to take a look at it, I'd recommend taking a look. They put my team puts together a pretty a pretty great catalog every
season. So, we have a variety of enrichment classes. They run 60 to 90 minutes and that there are scholarships available through youth advantage. So, we encourage people to reach out to them as well. All right. Any questions? Just really
quick, if someone wanted to reach out for a scholarship, who would they contact? Uh for youth Youth Advantage, right? Uh so they are I don't have the website off the top of my head, but they would go direct to Youth Advantage. They could go direct to Youth Advantage. They could call us and we can connect
them. It is also referenced in this catalog, so they'd find there. It's on our website as well. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. Um, I just want to um compliment the work. Um, I got the catalog this weekend or I
saw it this weekend and I was just highlighting all the things because I definitely noticed my my daughter who will be um in kindergarten and we are one of the families who need after school care. um looking at some of those uh
course offerings and thinking this is going to make things so much easier um just to have even some more another hour at the end of the day. Um so it was definitely noticed and I'm sure definitely appreciated. So it was by our family. So great. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that.
Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to you a little bit before the meeting and I'll say it here on the record is um so I I took one of your groups to uh one of their uh summer well you have a venture club in the summer as well. Great and I they do a lot of field trips in the summer and uh so I took one of them
and the places we go they complement the Stillwater kids one the Stillwater kids and the staff that are accompanying accompanying uh th those kids. So I want to say that again. Um, we just need more of them it sounds like. If the paras now a question, if the paras stay laid like
you suggested, would that then move them into benefits eligible status? I believe most of them already are benefits eligible. This would just be an extra hour to their day. So they're probably, let's say, 32 hours a week, which is a pretty common schedule. So
that already has entered them into the benefits. Okay, great. just be an extra hour a day. Any other questions or comment? Yes. First, I'd like to echo everything on the enrichment classes. We signed up for a number of them, went through the category and we marked the marked the
heck out of it. Had a lot of options in there and so uh kudos to the team there. also just um very impressed with how much work has been going in and the creativity in how to do some of the problem solving around uh the need in
this um uh care crisis. So thank you for that. Um, one question. Um, so as I understood it, the child care is a pretty key component of, you know, something we assumed as a board, uh, that would have to be in place for,
um, school start time to change. Did we as a board or did we as a district put any sort of like number or date that like, hey, we need to be able to hit this mark by this date in order to continue down this path. And if we are not then we're going to reassess or did
we how do we address that? I I just wasn't around so I don't know how that I ignore you. You can go ahead. Um as a board when we had the conversations around start times we I think the bench for us was knowing that we have existing weight lists. We had we had many families not being served by
the existing system. So our goal was to improve. We w we didn't go into it thinking we were going to fully address and clear a weight list. So, it was just to serve more families and um to reduce the weight list um just by trying something different. If you want to
elaborate on that. Great question. I I think the answer is we approved the switch a year and a half ago and as part of the
purposeful nature and how we did it, it gave us time throughout the year the next year to take a look at okay where's the trend going with our u child care and you know you've only been on the
report since January, but I would say at least probably three times last year, we provided net came up and provided updates to the board on the glide path we were on. And you know, we did not have a specific number in the sand, but
I can also tell you the last time she was here was last spring. I think we were almost almost at zero at that point. Um, so pretty comfortable with the the direction that that we were going and I mean this is something that I I think
was a a key factor in this. Are we going to be able to support our families and and not to make this any worse but really try and improve what we're doing and I think we've done that. But I I think we board administration was very purposeful about watching this um throughout the past year and it has gone
up but I you could see the need has gone up. I mean, I think uh um that that has been the key, but you know, when I came here in 22, I think she had on the slide there, we had like 500 kids the first first day of school that families that needed support. So, um you know, I think
folks have heard me say this around the office. Um I'm pleased but not satisfied. And I I think uh that's the that's the direction, but you and your team have just done a remarkable job and just keep up the great work. Absolutely. And I think this is an area
too just when we um ask for input from the community to make ideas student centered ideas better and stronger. Um this was something that the community said delay it a year wait we we really want you to delay the implementation a year so that we can make plans so we can
be thoughtful. And I think that really did listening to that feedback from the community helped um helped significantly. So, I think that was just a great example of how a student- centered idea from our administrators that's in the best interest of our
student learners um can be made stronger with when we listen to the community as well. So, but I I would just like to echo the comments here. Your team has done outstanding work and I'm sure there are other people in this room who have been pitching in to help and um and just the amount of updates to the board. This
is just a model of um of really good hard work. So, thank you very much and appreciate it. It really was the work of the team. They did an exceptional job. Yes. Great. Can I just make one one quick comment? you guys have covered most of what I wanted to say, but um one other
piece um in having that conversation about start times, I feel like child care came onto our radar because of that conversation um and because we were listening to families and their concerns about the structural impact that's going to have um on our district and on their
daily lives. So um I feel like that conversation facilitated these changes and I am very happy with it. This is quite frankly exceeded my expectations. I mean, given it's not fixed, definitely not fixed, but the fact that we have we are serving so many more families um and
we are reducing our weight list at the same time and it's just really impressive work. So, um keep up the good work and it's it is a childare crisis that we are trying to serve that need in the community and we're doing our best and we are making good progress. So, thank you for all your work.
So, I know that you said that the 240 you were likely taking sick, did I get that right? So 60 more families will are receiving a phone call to say we have additional space now. They might be part of the special partially served. Okay. Or they might be part of that. They
haven't been served yet and might move either to this partially or fully served. It's very dynamic, but 60 is coming off of the numbers that we're looking at. More people will have more service. That is wonderful. And then if there are changes and people need child care and
they're just finding out now, right? Um how do they get on the wait list? Uh that same phone number that I called that I mentioned earlier where they can go on the website and I'm assuming too it would it be the um early childhood website would have a link to community education adventure club web
page would have the information. Yes. Perfect. Yes. Yes. Not to go backwards, but we want to make sure everyone is on the wait list if they need the care. So absolutely, absolutely. Speaking of that weight list, um is it a first come, first serve or is there any kind of preferential treatment for
anybody? That's a very good question. So we offer our current families as we prepare for enrollment for the next or for the following year. We offer our current families an a window in which they can enroll first in part because their
children are already in our program and that consistency of care is such an important part of their life that we wouldn't want to have to take it away from them if we can prevent that. So we have those families enroll first and then we invite new families to come in.
All right. Well, thank you much very much for this update and for your continued efforts. Very appreciated. All right, our next update is a transportation update, a new face. Well, good evening again, um, board chair chairman, Superintendent
Funk, and members of the board. Thanks for the opportunity to share a brief transportation update. And I'm joined here by Tom Rizley, who is our new transportation supervisor. I will let him speak about a few things here in a moment, but I just wanted to share some good news with you. Um, we have, as you know, had some rough patches with
transportation in the past. Um, and we have really been intentional this past year in making sure that we are doing everything in our power to smooth that and make sure that families have a really good start to the school year, knowing how important it is for buses to show up and kids to have uh a place on that bus. So, in the past year, we've
we've done a lot of work. We've made a lot of intentional decisions to try to make sure we have a smoother start. And what I'm really excited to share is that our rough bus routes are already out. parents received an email on July 28th with information about bus routes. That's three weeks early before the
start of school year, which um in my time 17 years in the district is the earliest that I can remember them ever going out. And what that has been able to allow us to do is address the issues because there are always issues with bus stops, with times, with where the staff is, just different things that we have to work through. So that's giving our
staff a lot more time to respond to those parent requests and address the issues as they come up. Um so our team has been very busy since that time. Uh we have a new help desk ticketing system which has also been one of the improvements we made and that has let us more efficiently respond to the requests
that parents are sending in. Um in previous years we were getting emails, phone calls, more emails, more phone calls from the same family over and over. And so it was block um bogging down our system. We had different people working on different elements. It was the same families that they were working with. It was kind of a mess. And so with the ticketing system, we can track who's
handling what ticket, um where it is in the process, how long it's been out there, so that we can make sure that we're really efficiently responding. So that's been great. And to date, um since mid July, we have had 620 tickets, just to give you an idea of how big this is.
620 tickets that have passed through that system. Um every time we clear a bunch, people get excited and then all of a sudden it's back up there. So I think as of this afternoon it was maybe around 160 170 that we're still processing. Um so I think from a parent perspective we just want to say thank
you for your patience. Thank you for using the ticketing system. It makes it a lot more efficient for us than phone calls or um emails. And we are working as fast as we can. I think the average time is about three to five days. Some of them are a little bit more complicated and take more time. So,
that's kind of um moving it up to more of a a week timeline versus being able to turn them around really quickly. Um I just want to give a big shout out publicly to our transportation team, Tom and Amber, Julie, and Carla's a new addition who's helping support out this
team. And then we also have a lot of other people at central services that are lending a hand, answering phone calls, and uh helping parents work through things. So, a huge shout out to all those people who are working so hard um to make sure that we have a good start to the school year. With that, I'm going to introduce Tom again and let him say a few words, too.
Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Good evening, board chair, Dr. Funk, and board members. I just have a couple bullet points I just want to go through. Um, as I know, I've met some of you. Um, it's great to be here. We have made
really good strides so far. Um, I want to really echo what Chrissa said, um, for the team recognition since I've been here. uh the o the overwhelming warmth and greeting uh from day one uh when I
was first working with Mark and I had numerous people daily in and out of my office just welcoming it gave me a really warm feeling uh great place to be and I just want to echo that because that's something I mean Dr. Funks even come into my office with his cup of
coffee a couple times and just literally closes the door and asks me how's it going. I mean, you don't have that every day. And that's that's that really strikes me as a place that really wants to elevate. So, um, with that being said, I just
want to really thank Chrissa, Julie, Amber, and Carla. Uh, I tell you what, they're they're the A team. Uh, they they get a lot of stuff be done behind the scenes, and we all know what that's all about. Um, and I'm hoping that I can
just fulfill their needs to step us up in even a better direction. So, with that, um, I want to cover, uh, just we have a lot of, you've had a lot of challenges in the past and a lot of decisions that are not easy. And as a
parent's view, I've already talked with some of them of going, these are hard decisions. And what's what's multiplied that factor is I have to be the bad guy at some point to help centralize because everybody wants to stop at their location, but yet the next call is the
bus rides too long. So trying to balance that is I don't have the magic wand and we only have so many resources and the cost of those resources are going up every year, not going down. So we have to really really watch that. uh working together here at
the table collectively and then also parents. Um it it's a team effort across abroad. Um they're challenging but they're doable. Okay. Um I wouldn't be here if I didn't think they were. You know, I've been doing transportation. I started calling the years 38 years in
transportation. Starting as a bus driver, drove up through last year and I still miss the kids. I really do. Um so I applaud you for driving yet. Um that's awesome. I just in my position I can't which is fine. I've been offered but I
I'm busy enough. Um but it's one of those that experience of knowing those bus stops and what the criterias are and what's doable and what's not, you know, for the safety of the kids and then also what's right. So um big thing is focusing on communication uh between the
board, myself uh through Dr. Funk um and just being efficient and s sustainable. Um and that that those are the key elements. Um just trying to do the best that we can. Uh there's always room for improvement. You know, I've always
shared this from day one with you. Our ride, our bus ride is is there. I want to try to make that a fulfilling obligation with the district, but also try to keep those dollars and cents in the classroom because our kids are coming here for an education.
The bus ride is on the convenience side. Um, and we need to do it efficiently and safely. There's a fine balance there. So, with that, that's all I have. Wonderful. Welcome to the district. It makes us really happy to hear how warmly you've been welcomed and your initial
impressions of the district. So, um, proud to call you a pony and looking forward to, um, you know, just seeing your expertise applied to our district and we know that there are challenges and some, um, opportunities that can be, um, that we can actualize here. So,
we're excited to have you do that work. Uh, is there any questions for Tom? Sure. So, yes, I did meet you over at Lake Elmo and we talked for a while and you got some background here. So, let's uh let's make that translate into what we're trying to do here. Um, you said
620 tickets. What are the nature of these calls coming in? Is just people wanting a ride, get us on the schedule, or something else? All sorts of things. I mean, some of it is just about um maybe a problem where we had a stop that should be moved someplace. I mean, that happens occasionally. Others are more complicated. But I think the most
challenging calls that we have are the ones where um we have the two-mile no transportation zone that we put into place because of the budget and that's that's a long ways and for some families that's a true hardship and so we get a lot of really difficult conversations where we have to explain why we're not
able to provide busing. Um I think those are probably the most challenging. You can talk more about what you've seen. Sure. Absolutely. So, when they're going through the ticket process, if it's a simple bus change, I know um Amber's helped out, uh Julie and Carla usually step in and they'll make that
adjustment. Uh when they we we kind of built these responses a little bit, um to communicate that with parents if we're able to or not to. Those more difficult ones usually came to myself and then I would discuss with Cararissa and we would we would base those on
looking at some of those were I just had one that's couple hundred feet. It's 5 to 700 feet for a seventh or eighth grader to walk that. Now each scenario is different right? So looking at the street view is one. Looking at the nature of the stop, looking at the age
of the student, looking at the line of sight because our system is centralizing because we do have the criteria walking up to a half mile to a school that's elementary and now it's two mile for our middle schoolers and our high schoolers, right? Uh the criteria that we have set
in our system for routing is up to a half a mile walk to a bus stop. But looking at some of those is just I'm not going to have a kindergartener walk a half a mile. But would 33 be doable for a eighth grader, ninth grader, 10th
grader depending on the scenario? Yes. So just looking at those criterias because within that two mile we're requesting those parents walk. Now there's a lot of criteria within that and that's just in the ticketing base. Um some of them were just asking about that. Some of them were asking um they
might want to try to get switched. A lot of them at the beginning were open enrollment. Um we had a discussion um because past years we turned that down and looking at the numbers I did a quick subnopsis just looking at going for the 290 300 and some students for out of
district that we were transporting over 100 of those were coming to the public side and we definitely don't want to turn those away because the the crisis that we're in now and just through conversations let's get those routed but trying to figure you know and trying to balance those and it was a very good
move on the district to open that uh to release those rough routes. Um I'm a true believer in giving those parents because having that passion with that they have to have time to plan, you know, and every year if we have to make adjustments, they have to be able to
adjust because as we because what I've noticed just peeling that onion back on some of these is it's been pacified and it's been allowed even though at this level it says we're not to be doing that. And that puts me in a bad spot.
But it's just the position I have to be in of we have to do that. It just you can't give here and take away from there in the same scenario. It's not fair. It's not right. So does that kind of answer that question? Yeah. Yeah, that helps.
One other thing to remember too is this the first year that we've done the optin process where we've had families notify us if they need transportation. We used to just route all of our elementary kids. So that's been a different process too. So, there still are some families who are like, "Oh, I forgot to do that or I didn't know I had to do that, but we're still trying to get on buses." But
I would say overall, most families seem to have been aware of that. Um, we'll see what happens on the first day of school if they're like, "What? Where's my bus? Tell doesn't need a bus." So, we'll see. But, um, overall, I think people just want to talk to us about the the actual placement of a bus stop or a
time or something like that. And we we all know, you know, as a bus driver to bus driver, um most parents and students think that the bus route stays the same, the stop stay the same. And I've been explaining to parents now the buses are re-evaluated every year and the
placement are looked at every year because I I truly once we get into the groove, I want to release the routes earlier. We'll be working on this stuff in the spring, so we're not at such a rush. I came on board in April. It was way too late for that. Plus, you already
taken a new um software and throughout its first year of course and trial and error that that's a huge tasking by itself. So, we we have a lot of steps here, but we're making great headway and
it's just it it takes time. You know, I tell Dr. Funk it takes about a year to understand everything and then five to 10 years to implement. So, we we'll get there. So, I'm all ears. Thank you. me just yes. Refresh my memory. How many kids are we talking about that we actually that
actually end up signing up all all together? So we're looking at a little over 7,000 in the total trans transportation. So you're looking at I the last time I looked it was about 7,400 on the
transportation side. And that the the thing that Chrissa was talking about the the re uh resigning up for a bus when I first before I even started I came here on a couple operation meetings and I highly suggested that as well
because you reach out statewide. Um a lot of districts do that. More districts than what you would believe actually do that reset every year. I believe in that because what it does is it helps us utilize our resources. They need busing or they don't. What we need to do is we need to clearly uh clean up our internal
piece of that communication and that just takes time and it it makes more work on us on that one side but if we do it in that March April time frame we can already start building that route structure for next year and get a good placement of where are we at for next
year's already and then once we kick summer school off it's just finalizing and then we release. So it's doable. Yes. Mhm. So, first off, thank you and welcome. You know, so far this seems like it's been a significantly better process than
previous years. So, congratulations to you and the whole team. So, appreciate that. Um, couple questions for me. One is on the um let's say if I was checking my email, who would I be looking for an email from? Um, so the email comes out the same way that we send out our school newsletters, all
of the different things. It's used through a system called Bright Arrow, but it comes and it'll say a message from Stillwater Schools or it'll say from the transportation department. Um, so it looks very similar to what you get your school newsletters from. And if we were concerned that we may not
have gotten that email or asking, how would we reach out? Talk to the guy sitting next to you. um a family, we would encourage them to use the help desk ticketing system to put in a ticket to check if they didn't receive that communication. It could be for some reason the communication didn't
get to them or it could be that for whatever reason they didn't actually contact us for the opt-in. So, we will definitely take care of that. Um you might just be able to talk to us afterwards and we'll see what we can do. Theoretically, that's a good question. Um, so if all the routes are out, is that the includes
the hubs too, I'm assuming, or just everything is out in three weeks early? Fantastic. Everything is out. This is a remarkable difference from last year. Last two years in the last Yeah. the last couple years. Um, so I really appreciate I mean you
guys are really have a great structure built out um in order to better support our families and I really appreciate that. um given we haven't had the first day of school yet, but I'm trusting that this all this structure will will pay off on the first day and first week of school, even though I'm sure there will be bumps as always. Um but I just want
to say thank you for all your hard work and the whole team that's been been doing it. It's clear you are a very passionate guy about transportation and I appreciate that. Um and I particularly appreciate your um adherence to the budget um that the and understanding how
challenging it is our transportation budget. we we've gotten an update. It's pretty big. Um and we really do want to keep those um dollars in the classroom as you said. So, and after coming off a big budget cut year, um I know those are really tough conversations to have with
families and we do want to help and accommodate as much as possible, but there's a price tag every time we do that. Um so, I really appreciate you holding the line on that and um and keeping the big picture in focus for us. So, thank you. A lot of it is collective. I always told my team I said individually as a stick
will break easily but as a tripod it's it's nearly impossible to break and that's where you know Dr. Funk and I have talked u we just need to be on the same sheet of music. I said I don't care which direction we go because I said the last thing anybody wants is to hang out on a limb by themselves
and it's not just us here it's our parents and a lot of it is educational. It's just it's tough you know it's we all have to be responsible to where we're at. It's just a lot of moving pieces and it's I do have a passion because I've been at the the front line
driving and dealing with those parents and angry and right at the door almost I can feel their breath right there and also I can feel their breath on the phone you know and I've since I've been here I've been called almost every name in the book and that is it is it is part
of the course and I understand that it's not like I take it personal but I just want the parents to know of I'm not coldblooded. I'm not mean. It's just we have a very distinctive line that we have to follow. This is a tough decision. It's not easy
because for you for this board to make that decision and to follow suit with that going from a one to a two- mile, that's huge. That is huge. But I see the dollars and cents to that. And it's it's a hard one. And hopefully we can turn that around. If we can start utilizing our resources
and get it under control and manageable, then maybe we can start reducing some of those rains a little bit. So, it's just but it takes time. It takes time. It's not overnight. So, thank you. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate it. Yes. Well, just one last thing. Uh once we
have the routes out and school starts and things are sort of solidified, will we hear back on reports on where things are at and sort of a final readout? Couple thoughts on that. I think you're going to what you're going to hear is you'll get a report on where things are
at, but I also think at some point, Tom, I'm not going to pin you down, but go for it. We are at some point mid mid school year, you're going to get a report from Tom on how we can take a look at some real efficiencies that
we've already identified that we can maybe take different approaches to how we're transporting some of these kids. And he's already he's on his radar. He's just in a time because of the start of school, but I think you're gonna
we have some opportunities here that uh that we've identified. So that'll be part of it. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you again for that update and much again, thank you for the hard work to you and your team and um we appreciate it. So,
no, thank you. And again, I can't thank everybody here with all the support and then also the team back, Julie, Amber, Carla, because I know some of them are watching. So, well, thank you. If you're watching, thank you. It's important. And I want the families to know it's not just one person. We
have a whole lineup of people that are very passionate with this and I can't express this new ticketing system. I'm always a believer in documentation. I love that because there's traceability to when I reported, when the parent
reported so we can stay up with those because it gets really confusing. a phone call, email, I even took a call on my personal phone and just trying to take balance those and making sure which ones are duplicates and which ones aren't. So that gets really challenging. So it
just you want to make I I can't express that enough. That was a huge saving. It was a little difficult. We we kicked that off what about two days before we actually released the routes or so. Oh, a week. We had a week out, but it was like, you know what? I was like kind of nervous, but I was like,
you know what? Once we got in a groove, I was like, oh, this is this is really nice. Cuz then they have fun. They start issuing their boss the tickets. Well, this one's too hard. Let the boss do it. I love it. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate it. And thank you. Thank you.
Have a good night. Yes, you too. All right. After that update, we will move on to our next update, which is multi-grade classrooms. And we have Caitlyn, the executive director of elementary education, to explain how
this came to be and a little bit more detail for her family and for the board. Chris Carlson's up here. Oh, Chris brought a friend. Welcome. A friend. This was very much a joint effort from the the staffing and operations side with the educational side. So, I felt
like having both of us here to talk through any questions you have about this decision, how we got to it, how we're supporting um implementation of our multi-grade classes. So, great. With that, I'm gonna hand it over to Chris. She can talk you through some of the logistics and decision- making
processes and staffing, and I'll talk about the educational components. Right. Well, good to see all of you. Um so tonight we'll talk a little bit about our enrollment patterns, budget realities, and the staffing decisions that we've made um for 2526. Um as you
know, it's not unusual for our enrollment to fluctuate from year to year. Um historically when we've seen our class sizes increase um in certain buildings, we've been able to respond by adding sections. Um that's been our go-to approach for the last years. Yeah. 10 years.
Um in order to keep us within the board approved ratios, class size ratios. Um this year the picture has been a little different. Um the legislative session ended in June and at that point we recognized the need for additional budget cuts. Um it became clear that we would not be able to add new sections
for the coming year. Um back in the spring we established a staffing you know cap or goal um of 140 FTE um in our elementaryaries uh based on the enrollment at that time. Um and in previous years, as I said, we would adjust that. Um but we were unable to do
that this year due to our financial constraints. Um in order to keep the class sizes reasonable and still provide support um to all the students, we decided to use a multi-grade classroom model in certain areas. Um multi-grade classrooms are not new to Still Water.
Um and in fact, uh most recently we used them in 2015. um they've been a way to manage um enrollment while maintaining quality instruction and support. Uh this approach also allows us to preserve staffing levels without exceeding our budget.
Um throughout the late spring and summer, our leadership team met weekly to monitor to the enrollment numbers and class sizes against our board approved ratios. As we saw enrollment rise in certain buildings, we began running scenarios that included the possibility of multi-grade classrooms. These decisions
were made incrementally as data evolved and we communicated each change to the affected staff and families as soon as those changes were finalized. Um in short, our approach this year has been um to manage enrollment fluctuations within the staffing resources that we have while preserving
class size balance and student support. Multi-grade classrooms provide us with the respons with a responsible student centered way to achieve those goals within our current budget constraints. Thank you. So with that, educationally, um, you
know, as Chris mentioned, this isn't necessarily new. It's not new to Stillwater. It's not new to public education. Um, and like many things in public ed, there are trends and there was even trends where multi-grading was uh desired and ideal and there because
there are documented benefits for students specifically around student agency and learning um leadership skills. Generally research shows that multi-grade classes and same grade classes academic achievement is about the same but students in multi-grade
classes have more confidence um more empathy and uh report feeling happier and connected in school and have um earlier developed leadership skills. So there there are definite social emotional benefits. Um with that you
know our teachers are very very skilled at differentiation. You can have a class of 25, 30, fourth, fourth or fifth graders and have a diverse um level of need from an academic or behavioral standpoint and they're all in one grade.
And that is also true when you have two grades, right? So, our teachers are just very accustomed to meeting kids where they're at with what they need and making those adjustments and modifications on a daily basis. And so that looks the same frankly when you're
looking at a 34 class or a four five class. You're just you're ad you're adjusting your instruction um your instructional modalities and adapting those those lessons. Our students will have access to their grade level
standards and benchmarks. Um, one of the things that we've been working on throughout the summer as soon as it became evident in early July that we needed to start moving this direction is our teaching and learning supervisors have been working on curating resources to support teachers. Our teachers who
are identified to teach these multi-grade classes have been given an additional seven hours of paid time above and beyond the time they have to get ready for the school year during workshop week. Um and we are working partnering with the principles to
identify what's the best collaborative teaming model. So for some schools there's more than one multi-grade section and they'll make nice they can make their own we call them cat teams but professional learning communities. So they'll have maybe a multi-grade team. For other teachers maybe they've
been teaching I'll use a fourth fifth grade example. Maybe the teacher's been teaching fifth grade for 10 years and they're very comfortable and confident in that content. So, they may choose to team with a fourth grade team this coming year to get a little more comfortable and have that kind of peer-to-peer um access in that grade
level. So, there's a lot of flexibility to be able to meet the needs of teachers and of course our teaching and learning department is queued up to support them kind of on demand as needed. questions. Um, can I just ask related to the
budget? My sense is that I mean obviously in past years might administration have made a decision to go to a fund balance that now is depleted for an a situation like this. Is that fair? I don't know if that's a Dr. Funk question or a
Well, there's really not been much of a fund balance since I've been here. Um, so so we haven't done that. But what I can tell you my guess is this would be a situation where a fund a healthy fund balance would be advantageous. Yes, we don't we do not have a fund balance. So we have no cushion
right to to delve into. But the difference between this year and last year is this. Last year when we talked through priority based budgeting, we set aside I think it was six staff members in case summer enrollment
increases occurred. So we had a buffer this year because of the fact that the the dual fact of we were cutting, you know, $5 million plus an additional $700,000 impact we did not foresee. We
had no cushion whatsoever. So it compelled us to um to take a look at different options. Um and this is the the one the team came up with the uh I want to just thank
uh Caitlyn and her leadership and her principles. Um they identified this. We got the information out. We contacted teachers. We contacted families in July, early July. And then
as as Chris mentioned, we monitor enrollment. I don't say it's daily, but a couple times a week in the summer. And we've identified, I think, another school that was at a tipping point. A couple of other schools that were on the edge, on the edge, on the edge. And we said,
we're going to wait, wait, wait, and then kids would move into the district and then, okay, now it's tipped. And so a couple of those um buildings were notified later in the process. Um but we've been proactive in trying to reach out to our staff and support them as
much as possible. Um indicate to families that this might be coming. You know the class list um our class list usually come out they come out on Friday. Okay. So the way the parent communication has gone for these decisions is, you know, um we meet
weekly and look at those numbers on Friday and make a decision and pretty quickly get on the phone with the principal of the impacted building to solution what is the best way to multi-grade in their building. And then uh once we have that solidified and we've notified the and worked with the
staff on who's going to be teaching that, we send out a a communication to that school community including staff and families. It's not specific to individual parents yet. That will come with class lists because class lists are also being developed and adjusted
throughout the summer. So when the class lists come out on Friday, if a parent's child is assigned to a multi-grade class, there will be an additional um specific communication that provides a little more information and background on that class and that teacher.
So those will come on Friday. Thank you. All right. Um what does the multi-age MA classroom look like perhaps an example? And how does that save us money? How does why how is that affecting the
budget? Yes. So, there's a handful of different multi-grade um classes that we have. Most of them are either third, fourth, or four, five classes. The way that saves us money is if we have what amounts to
I mean this is where Mark's map brain is amazing because he'll just tell me right now but if you have essentially two and a half sections of worth of students because there's board approved um class size ratios. So let's say we have two and a half sections worth of students in
fifth grade at this grade level and two and a half worth sections worth of students of fourth grade. Historically, what we would have done is we would have staffed those at three and three, and those class sizes would have been a little bit smaller, well below the border proof ratios. In our current
fiscal environment, we can't afford to do that. So, we take those classes and we say, okay, we have roughly half of a section in fourth grade, half of a section in fifth grade. We're going to create one section. So that allows us to then do that for that section instead of
increasing the overall FTE. Okay. Did you have a question? I did. Um so if there's no difference in outcomes from a learning standpoint and if they
are better off social emotionally, why don't we just do it all the time? It's a good question. That's why I made a comment that trends happen in education, right? And sometimes we'll adopt a trend. You know, the whole open concept. One point Stonebridge was completely open and now there's kind of
like a hybrid open concept, right? Rutherford is still very open. So, these are just all trends. I mean, there are certainly pros and cons to open classrooms, to partially open classrooms, to multi-grading. Um, everything comes with a pro and everything comes with a cost. And so,
um, it's it's a valid question. And I I certainly can't speak to whether we should or could can continue this moving forward, but I think it is always something we should consider when we're looking at um growing our fund balance or making fiscally responsible
decisions. And um I look forward to kind of watching I made a joke earlier with Dr. Funk about how I love to take data. So, I I look forward to trying to figure out some ways to quantify this and track this to be able to better answer your question and say, you know what, maybe
this is something that we're going to continue regardless of our our, you know, financial um current state. So, more to come. There is certainly good um research around relationships and I could speak to where we're doing combo um sorry
multi-grade classes, where we're doing multi-grade classes. we are looking at some of those relationships that are established. So if there's a a fourth grade teacher that's now doing a fourth fifth grade uh class, there may be a handful of students that had that teacher the previous year for fourth
grade. Really good match worked really well for the student, the families, and the teacher. There's no reason we wouldn't continue that relationship. And one of the things that I was, you know, you send out those community emails and you kind of brace yourself, right? like who's where you sit by the
phone and wait and I was very pleasantly surprised with the volume of parents that reached out to the principal saying you know this might be really good for my child and here's why and just we also had families that said I don't really have a problem this but I have concerns for my child and here's
why so I would encourage families to reach out to their building principal and share is this going to be a good fit for your child and is it not and if it doesn't mean that we can 100% honor those requests but it is good to Can I ask just really quick um how did
you select the teachers that are doing this and then how did you select the students because I'm assuming there was a a strategic approach in terms of you know maybe the younger grade is ready for that differentiated stretch to the next grade or can you just speak to that a little bit? Of course. Uh there was a couple tights
like out the gate I said we will not do a two three combo anywhere that has to do with our curriculum. We just adopted all of this new literacy curriculum. it's grade banded K235 and it does not mesh well to do a inter
you know a multi-grade across that two to three. Um so those were there were some kind of established parameters for those types. Then I leaned on the principles because they know their teachers, they know their school communities, they know their students, they know their families. So the
principles and I partnered on here are the different multi-grade options. We talked through the, you know, myself and that principal of the building through every scenario, pros, cons. Um, ultimately the principal made the final decision of what to do and then communicated with staff. But staff had a
voice in this as well. And I'll give an example. Originally, I sat with a principal and we looked at some different scenarios. We went with one. He reached out to the staff members to say, "This is what we're going to do and how we're going to manage it." and they called them back and said, "Actually, can we do two sections, four, five, and
do it this way, and here's why we think it will be better." And so, we were able to shift with the teacher input. And that had a lot to do with teachers saying, you know what, I'd like this challenge or we feel like this will work well for this cohort of students moving through
the system. So, we we've adapted where we can to those kinds of requests as well. Great. Did you have Well, I I I was that I was kind of gonna ask the same same question, but then too like monitoring the kids like that are entering into this experiment. Um, you
know, are we like over the course of the year? I mean, is there And then maybe this happens anyway. I guess I really don't, you know, just watching making sure that the fit is the fit you were hoping for in a in a given room. Yeah, we already have great systems in place for that and we do that for all
students. same grade class, multi now multi-grade classes. We have um our sabers information we take. So we have formal data measures with sabers and with fastbridge. We have curriculum based measures built in. We have anecdotal information from teachers and parents and students. Um we have student
engagement surveys we do um at the beginning, middle, and end of the year. So all of that information helps us make those decisions. Again, principles um are working on the class list and have a lot of great information on students from previous years. And so, you know,
they can look at the cohorts and kids of of students to say it would this child will do really really well in a multi-graded and and I got a parent email saying, "Hey, you know, my ch children were identified for um the gate program and we decided not to go. Maybe
this multi-grade class option would be a great option for them." And so then I forwarded that on to the principal. So lots of thought has gone into this. I know it feels fast and it is fast because it is a moving target constantly
over the summer and so we are you know constantly monitoring and adapting to get as close to that bullseye as we can. I appreciate you um clarifying that you had parameters like around not combining grades two and three. that makes because
I didn't know where exactly these grades were. So, that's I think that's a very wise decision. So, I appreciate that. And um I think it goes without saying, I'm sure you say this every day, but thank you to the principles and the teachers um who are flexible in in getting this done for students and
trying to work with you to make the best decisions possible within the budget parameters. I mean, we certainly have fiscal reality. Um so, we do and I'm grateful to the principles for their support. I'm also really grateful to the teachers who are stepping up and doing this, some with a lot of excitement because they have
previously been multif teachers. So, Dr. Parker, sure. Thanks. Uh, I think we all probably want to echo that gratitude um to the team and to all the teachers stepping up because that's a an interesting challenge to to face. So, thank you for that. And not to sound like a broken record uh but again thank
you for the creativity and bringing solutions to uh difficult problems that that uh we as a board are probably kind of presenting to you. So appreciate appreciate the hard work for from you and the team. Um one thing you mentioned was you know this is coming up fast. This is going through fast. What
learnings did you guys have from this implementation? And what would you think about doing differently or not differently next time? Like is this something would more time be helpful? But because
of the dynamicism, that's not even a word, but because of the dynamic situation. Yeah. the fluidity of of the situation, the numbers, you know, that that seems like a difficult proposition to say, okay, well, it came fast, but we want to make sure that we have as much
flexibility as possible. So, any changes that you would consider in the future? Any learnings that you take away from this? Certainly, more time is always welcome, but the point you made stands. It's very fluid and it has always been very fluid
with enrollment, especially in the summer. Um and so I I don't know that that's a realistic ask. Um certainly it was complicated further this summer by the legislative session ending so late in June and again factors outside of our
control um that impacted our you know fiscal flexibility so to speak. Um but yeah I I I don't know that there's a great if we could do it differently solution. I think uh we set some
parameters for ourselves around okay, we're going to meet a minimum of every week on this and we're going to get that information and we're going to make a quick decision to turn that around at that that specific spot. I think a key point here is
the time was a definitely a factor, but I think the other difference is this and and uh I think Chris mentioned it. Um the district hasn't done a multi-age since 2015, so 10 years ago.
And so it was not um in the water of something that we currently do. And so I think when the decision was made that we need to shift to this model, people
internally in education, I mean, I've been part of multi-agges in a number of different places that I've been. Um, okay, we internally were used to it. teachers here had taught it, but our families were new and younger and they
had not experienced it. So, when we said we're going to make the flip to multi-age, okay, this is something the district has done before, I think the real lesson there is, okay, what does that mean? And and give us some more in-depth examples of this. And I think
the lesson in the future is okay. Well, now we have this as a as a as a tool that we could potentially use and we can be much more clear with families that this is potentially what they could be experiencing down the road. And I don't think though we had done it, it was a
different generation that had done it. And so, uh, I think if if I'm doing a a review of it, it's how do we provide a bit more clarity on the front end of, uh, what that's going to look like. So, okay, they were aware, but but really
what does that mean? So, that's my thought. Thank you. Yeah. And then, does someone have Go ahead. Okay. Um, just to piggyback off that point, that was the reaction I got um from a couple families who reached out to me. The families who had no idea had
never experienced it were very nervous about what this meant. Um but those who have any kind of association with it were very excited um and were able to testify to how great this um this model is for students. So um I think you're spot on in kind of maybe now this will
start the conversations. Um and I had a question for you. Um I love that you are already thinking about gathering data and using this kind of as a little pilot um to figure out what are those benefits? how can we track our kids? Um, and I'm curious, um, on the teacher side
as well, is are there going to be any opportunities for our multi-grade teachers to get together at any point during the year or maybe at the end of the year? Um, I know they're going to work probably within their own schools. Um, but I feel like that's a great resource too to get direct feedback from
the teachers on on how things are going and what they're seeing more anecdotally, too. Yeah, it's it's a very important important point. And when I talk about data, there's so many different types of data you can collect. And um it would be remiss to not also gather that anecdotal data from teachers. Certainly there may
be less formal opportunities for them to collaborate across buildings. A lot of that is self-directed. Um often I find if I just get out of the way, they do that on their own, right? Um so that those are certainly the things that I have worked with principles to make sure
that our teachers that are in those multi-grade um positions know where other multi-grade classrooms are happening so that they can share resources and you know work smarter not harder. Okay. Thank you.
I think we'll look for some of the teachers also to get to get their feedback on how we can improve that process. Um you know what what supports do they need? How what worked really well for them? um as they go through this process this year because then it, you know, we're probably not going to dig ourselves out of a hole in the in
one in the space of a year. So, we may be right back at looking at that again next spring. Um and maybe if we are a little bit ahead of the game, we already have that that groundwork laid, it will be just a little bit easier as we move through um the enrollment and staffing process.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think um as a board director, you know, all of us wear many different hats, you know, both as a you know, elected board member, as a parent, as a community member. Um and we have the the privilege and opportunity to kind of see how, for lack of a better term, how the sausage is made, you know, and all the work that happens behind the
scenes. And I think it's just, you know, I appreciate, you know, with really three um impactful um student impacted type of uh pro uh parts of our district was kind of talked about today both with
Annette and uh you know, child care and and Tom with uh busing and now with the multi-age and I just you know appreciate in all three aspects just the really the comprehensive and the thoughtful full approach that gets taken within this
very fluid environment that we have to work within because essentially it's a sandbox that we have to work within and we don't have uh the ability just to make you know things happen. we just have to work with what we have. And so I just really appreciate all the time and effort and you see that that top down and and that you know bottom up approach
of that communication you know you talked about with the principles and and the teachers and back up the principles and back up to you and um you know so I think I really appreciate all that work that's being happening and I would just ask families you know just to be open-minded um and just know that you
know we're all in this together and to um you know give some grace to all the hard work that's happening. because at the end of the day, everyone in this room is doing what's best for kids and that is kind of always the the northstar. So, I just want to be thank
you for all the work for all of you, you know, that's happening. So, um you know, it's it's really fun to sit back and kind of observe and listen um to all the great work that's happening. So, yeah, I would like love to end on that because you ended it beautifully, but I had one
follow-up question related to what Parker asked. Um, and because that's kind of where I was thinking is like what were the factors and what maybe might you do different or would you do the same? But now that we have the legislative and the funding for next year kind of a little bit more laid out
and I know this is probably too soon to tell because we don't have data. We don't know what the feedback is, but would you set aside funding now that you you know to have those extra classrooms as a buffer or is this something families might see you know have you
made up your mind? are you waiting to see or you know now that we have the funding in place from the legislature I guess we have a more clear picture how do you see that moving forward I'm going to step back and make this statement
that we have been living under this class size ratio number that was created I don't know 20 years ago 20 some years ago. Is that the model
that is best serving our district? And so, I mean, we've already had some preliminary conversations on, okay, yep, we're looking at combo classes. We're going to give this a shot. This I mean, they are effective. Um, but is this the
best approach or are there other different approaches that we can utilize? Um, and so I think as the year goes on, you'll start to hear us just as the high school is looking at different, you know, scheduling things that they're
looking at. Are there different ways we can educate um our elementary students um not adhering to these if you're in kindergarten, you have a 24 or 22 student, but if you're in, you know, fifth grade, you're 32 and a half or 32
or whatever it is. Um so so is there a different approach we can take and so I don't have an answer for you but I can tell you that that is something that we collectively as a team are just starting to um take a look at is this these board
adopted 18 to 32 ratios is this the best approach to educating these kids that's really good to hear and we haven't revisited that just financially it's an expensive endeavor to reduce those so I appreciate that thought and I
look forward to information continued to be shared. I also um know that I'm excited for this having like observed some of the gifted and talented conversations um because I know you're strategically um putting these classrooms together
that it could be a way of differentiating. Um, I just would be I'm really excited to see some of the data that comes off and I'm sure there'll be things that um will be a challenge. Um, but I feel really blessed that we have the teachers that we have and um I know
that they're going to serve our students well and um we have amazing families too. So, I'm sure they'll share that feedback as well. Uh, yes, Sarah. Um just um one uh question about um just from what I've generally picked
up there there does seem to be sort of a a general consensus that these can be really beneficial um arrangements um uh that you know if they're if they're done well and I understand we're in a situation where there's you've been
doing as much planning as possible in a short period of time. One question I have though and just to um ask a question about one particular um concern I've just heard um about the multi-level classrooms and the more like grade
specific state standards um and a concern about being able to make sure those are both taught to in these combined classrooms. Can you just talk a little bit about how that's being addressed or how that'll be monitored? Yes. So, um, it's kind of as I said
earlier, it's not unusual to have students working at benchmarks at above or below a grade level in in a single grade class. So, that still exists. Um, a lot of that comes down to strategic student uh placement, student class list
that that our principles work on. And it's it's the differentiations, a lot of the, you know, the standards, those those benchmarks scaffold. So the difference between a fourth grader or a fifth grade might be just a smaller like a just a tiny bit
deeper of a depth of knowledge around the same concept. So while you're introducing a concept to a whole group in whole group instruction, you're getting at that standard and then you can do some differentiated groups based on skill level, not necessarily grade level. put
students in small groups based on skill level and have them work on the standard and on the benchmark related to that standard more at their skill level. Okay? And and that is true for fourth grader, fifth grader, third grader, you know, what whatever the age you can you can be
really responsive. So to me, this is something that's very comfortable because my background is in special education, right? And so at any given time I might have had 10 students in my classroom working at 10 different benchmark levels. So when I'm teaching a
lesson, I'm just scaffolding constantly. That's an extreme example obviously, but it's the same concept about doing flexible grouping and differentiation within the classroom that our teachers are very skilled at. And teaching and learning is developing resources to support them. And something that I
didn't know existed, but I've learned since we made this decision, is within Benchmark Advance, the curriculum that we just adopted, they have um entire scope and sequences and uh classroom resources for multi-grade classes. So that was like a huge win. I'm like,
look, we got the right curriculum. Um so we're Yeah, I know. I knew it and I didn't even know it. Um so we're we're leveraging those. Um and currently our teaching and learning supervisor that oversees math and science is working
similarly to create resources in those content areas to to support with that differentiation and kind of disagregating those benchmarks for students. Thank you. Team effort all the way around. So thank you very much for this update. I hope it
was beneficial for the community and for staff and I know it was beneficial for the board. So appreciate you kind of coming in and doing this for us and we look forward to continued updates. Great. Thank you. All right. Um today we have um we're going to move into our kind of our
workshop discussion and this is going to be around enrollment which has come up a couple times. Um, so one way to um to look at revenue in the district is to look at our enrollment numbers and to be constantly looking at what we can do to
increase enrollment um so that we can increase revenue and um hopefully assist in the budget challenges we have. Um so anyway, we are have a team here to walk us through some enrollment. At the end of this presentation, uh, we'll have
kind of a board perspective conversation on enrollment. Um, and that's going to just be kind of a fluid dialogue between staff and the board. So, we'll start with, uh, the presentation. Wonderful. Well, thank you again for the opportunity to to speak to this tonight. Um, we've had a lot of conversation about budget and clearly that is
something that is very important and that's what our intent tonight is to explain a little bit about how enrollment and budget go handinand, how planning and enrollment go hand in hand. Uh, and I think the important thing to remember as we kick this off is that enrollment is really probably the one
thing that's going to get us out of our financial problem that we're in right now because um, with new students comes new dollars and that is we've seen we can't just cut our way out of our financial situation. It's really about enrollment growth. So, we had a director's retreat earlier this summer and Dr. Funk was very clear with our
team that our our focus internally is to figure out ways to grow enrollment. And so as a director's team, that's something we've been very focused on and we wanted to share a little bit of information with you tonight. And the purpose of tonight's conversation is not to go in the weeds on our enrollment numbers. That's coming later. So for
those of you who are like, "What's our capture rate and where are kids going and all those things, hold on, it's coming." Uh we really want to wait until we have our official October one numbers. If we shared info with you now, it would be really skewed because as you've heard, students are coming and going and we just don't know what that final number looks like yet. So that's
coming. And we'll also be talking more in the fall about fiscal forecast and how this all ties to our priority based budgeting. But tonight, we just wanted to give you a little bit of for you and for our public an understanding of all of these different terms you hear, like what's ADM versus pupil units versus
enrollment counts. So, we'll give you just kind of a 101 on some of those terms and then how that infects us both from a funding standpoint and planning and then um have a little bit of conversation about what we're doing as a district to try to grow our enrollment, some of the strategies that are in place and what our plans are this year. So,
I'm going to turn it over to Marie to talk about part one, which is the funding side, and then Mark will talk a little bit about planning and then we'll wrap it up with a conversation about kind of next steps and where we're going. Thanks, Carissa. Well, and it's really hard for me to not go in the weeds
because that's of course my nature. Um, so I'll do my best. Um, so as you see in front of you here, uh, we have a lot of terms which get into not only the finance world but into the planning
world when it comes to student counts and pupil counts. And so I'm just going to walk you through briefly what they some of the terms mean. And there is a whole Mars manual out on the state website if you're ever bored and want to read all the different flags and
factors. But just for basics here, um the average daily membership um as you can see there is just the portion of the school year um which a students enrolled um over a specific time period. So
that's basically the days enrolled um divided by your total instructional days. So that's your average daily membership. Um that comes into play a little bit more as uh we get into adjusted pupil units um which is next
and that's our primary driver. Um when we use a lot of the school funding formulas in the legislature, uh there's the pupil count um that's used and that's weighted by grade level. And you can kind of see off to the right
here a 1.0 adjusted pupil unit. Um that's grade K5. Um and then a 1.2 is 612. And there's some other weighted ones. Uh we do now get voluntary um prek
revenue. Uh that was school readiness plus before. Um that was weighted at point6. Um and there's other factors there too, but those are just some of the basics. Um and again those are
adjusted to reflect uh the students that we serve. Um then you go a little bit further down here and that's uh resident adjusted daily average daily membership and so those are the public school
students who live uh within the boundaries of the district. Um that is our October one um enrollment count that comes into play. Um but also most another important factor is our
residential pupil units. um that drives um your uh transportation sparity. It also drives the district's um aid levy split for our local optional and referendum revenue. That's a large um
piece of our levy when we get to uh presenting in another month or so uh what our refer referendum revenue calculations are. So that's a a larger pupil count as you'll see on one of the slides coming up.
So some of the key funding uh components here um like Caressa mentioned students um students matter. Uh the pupil count is a main component of most of our funding calculations. There are very
very few that don't um somehow indirectly tie to some pupil um count somehow indirectly. Um not all calculations use the same pupil count. However, some use a residential count,
some use the weighted average, some use an adjusted. So there are pages and pages of formulas if you ever want to see all that. um come see me. Attendance is different than enrollment.
However, attendance is managed um it is taken you know daily um through MARS. Uh the enrollment of the student is the pupil count that drives our um average daily membership and for basic revenue
and other funding components. certain grade bands are weighted. Again, um as I had mentioned, the October count drives the compensatory revenue. It also drives your title one. Um so those are are
counts that um calculate that revenue for the next fiscal year. So this chart may be familiar to some. This was presented by our auditors um last year. Um this is just a source uh
for you to look back at past history of the district. What this is is our total uh ADM and adjusted pupil units served. This does include um our early childhood
special ed. So those numbers in the blue and the yellow do include the ECSE counts um as well. So it's not just K12, it includes those numbers as well. And so just this is we're going to just
simplify this um just for the gened formula allowance for uh 202526. There are multiple other formulas that come into play for uh general ed uh
overall general fund revenue, but just for that general ed allowance piece of that $7,481 um that piece how it can impact as enrollment shifts within a district. And we're just going to use um our
enrollment as an example. Um so there are a lot of other um characteristics of students um across different districts um that drive revenue. Um when people say well give us
an average pupil funding amount. Well you can't really do that because it's not really representative of all students. Students are all different. Um, you can see a district A, student A,
um, on the left side there could have an IEP, um, eligible for free and reduced lunch driving compensatory title one revenue. Um, the district has a $500 um, adjusted
pupil unit referendum. Um, district B, student B, um, could be eligible for multilingual learner services. um is in an elementary sparity district and has a $1,000
um adjusted pupil unit referendum. So on top of what we saw on the previous um page, that's $7,481 base general ed allowance. So there are categorical funding pieces um in
addition to you know you have your operating capital dollars your gifted and talented allowance. So there are multiple funding pieces um that are added um with each student.
So, just to kind of highlight some of the um back in the spring here when we were looking at our 2526 budget guidelines and assumptions, we did make some assumptions for the budget that we are in right now, the fiscal year. And
um we did take an enrollment at a point in time um to do those allocations. um that was uh pulled as of February 17th and then we did uh take another picture in time on March 7th um to do
some allocations to schools. And what you can see there um down in that left hand corner um are our numbers that we did project uh for the budget. Again, these are budgeted numbers um that do
drive the staffing allocations that we provide to sites. And you can see that total um ADM at the time is uh 8,100 that is our K12. Um and then that
adjusted uh pupil unit is 8,660. So, if you multiply that by just the general ed uh formula allowance, you'll see that it's just about $64.8 million that the students are um
generating in just our gened formula. So, any fluctuation there can have a huge impact on the budget. Um our budget's about 152 million in just the general fund. So, um students do drive
just in the general ed portion um a large uh portion of our revenue. And then the residential um adjusted pupil units comes again into play when we do the levy and uh the
referendum, our local optional revenue, uh those levy components. Um, and I'll be highlighting those again in another month or so when we start working on our levy from September through December. So, I'll be highlighting uh those levy
components, but you can see right now projections for fiscal 26 about 10,782 adjusted pupil units for the district residential enrollment um which will
drive those levies. So again, just for um projections, we did not include the ECSE and voluntary preK numbers um in these totals um right now. And then you can just see that's a page out of the
budget book um that was provided um just as information for past trends. And again, just to highlight what MARS is, there's so many different um uh acronyms and things like that, we just
wanted to highlight that um this is the Minnesota automated reporting student system. Um it's statewide. It collects data um required for uh multiple areas. Um and it's it's used by districts,
charter schools, uh collects student data by multiple uh types of student data that flags different areas um of a student. It generates uh state aid levy calculations, the data, federal grant
allocations, federal and state reports. Um it also in the fall um the data is used for compensatory revenue Q comp title one um child count for federal
special ed funding and um state assessment documents and then at the year end where we're kind of creeping into right now um as we begin our audit process um we are working through the general ed
revenue venue, uh, shared time aid, um, some of those other contract alternative aid, extended time revenue, and then, uh, English learner aid and charter school lease aid. There's a lot of different things. MARS, um, is the
driver, um, of district revenue um, and reporting. So, with that, I'm going to pass it back to Mark to just highlight some of the planning. So, good evening. Really quick, can I just just really
quick does anyone have any questions on just that financial component before we move on? Yes. I just want to confirm I think your footnote answered my question, but um can you go back to your slides? The the blue and yellow slide. Um
just want to confirm these numbers are not comparable to the bottom left chart two slides down. Right. Correct. Correct. So if someone was looking at this at home, playing along at home, saying 8,100, oh no, we're way down from previous year at 8,900,
whatever the number was. Correct. It's this is K12 only. And the previous slides from the auditors include our early childhood special ed, which is about 118 or so students. And the numbers on the right are
comparable to the chart. You got it. Okay. So I just added those up by h like correct on my by hand on my phone. Correct. Um and it looks pretty even from last year. Correct. Okay. Correct. Thank you. Actually, you could stay
there. Um the one ADM average daily membership equals $7,481. That roughly I know there's exceptions. Is a student going to school all year? Right. 100% of the time. Now, if he misses some days, goes off campus for a
class, does that just start reducing the math? Yes. depending on how many days the student is absent. Um that can over time start depleting that ADM. Um I believe there's a certain time period that um I
think it's 15 days where the student then starts it starts counting against oh so they reach that threshold and then the money starts diminishing. Correct. Okay. And then is that like is that a whole day that they are missing or is or could it be
it'd be 15 continuous days? 15 what? 15 continuous days and they get dropped. Okay. So a kid that that does one class PSO. Yeah. It's it's still still counted as a Yeah. PSO students are are counted
differently, but uh um but for for attendance purposes for for ADMs, um we take a look at if a kid is gone for more than 15 days at a time, they get dropped and then we have to reenroll them and it's a there's a process.
Correct. Anything else before we move on? So, as you guys see, Roman is complex. So kind of Marie deals with the financial side of that and then I take the the school side of it and kind of look at planning, look at staffing and those sorts of things. So the first thing is just kind of understanding overall numbers. You know, every year
you kind of look at where are we at districtwide in comparison to the last 10 years. Are we up? Are we down? Kind of where we were at. Looking at projections. You know, we have a teamworks demographic study the last couple years to kind of they have projections where we are within that. And then also within our market share, you know, what percent of the students
that, you know, if there's 10,000 students and we have 8,000 kids, you know, we're at 80%. You know, where's our market share overall? And then you take that and kind of break it down, you know, by level, you know, what's the high school looking at, where our middle schools at, where our elementary schools at. Then you kind of break that down looking individual buildings. And then
also really diving down to what areas do we gain kids and what areas do we lose kids because you know I'm not gonna get in the weeds here too much because you know like Marie but I know we will in November we come back but we have a positive migration by grade level which means you kind of do the math and you're looking at the charts you're going to
see graduating classes of 650 675 700 every single year you're you're losing 700 kids and you look at our kindergarten numbers and they're like 550. So right out of the bat you're at a negative 150. But what that positive migration means is we gain kids, you know, from kindergarten to first grade,
first to second, third to fourth, our our two biggest gain spots are our transition spots. So when you go from elementary to middle school, that fifth to sixth, and then the second one, when we go from middle school to high school, that eighth and ninth, those are the two big areas for us where we um gain a lot of kids, you know, throughout the years.
And we'll share more data on that um as well, but that's kind of just how we use that overall big picture. Also, we use that um to use some of our facility planning capacity. Where are we at? Are schools that are getting up their capacity, lowering capacity? Do we have
to do a boundary um conversation? You know, I know we'll use this data when we do a boundary conversation this uh fall when we look at our two new elementary schools, but that data is used in our facility planning. The data is also used, as you heard, as well as staffing decisions. you know, staffing. We start projections in the middle of January and
we'll run projections all the way through the first month of school and then we'll look at our projections to see again where are we at from last year. Where are we at and compared to where our demographic study is every single, you know, at the beginning we do it monthly, but then as we hit the spring we do it every week. We look at
those numbers, look at our staffing, our class size ratios, all those sorts of things um to come into play. And the the real you know reason right now we talk about how fluid it is before school starts um our numbers change dayto day now you know so um being a principal for
many years families are very quick to enroll in the new school they may not be so quick to de-enroll from the school they come from so historically if you take our very first day of school over the last 10-15 years and you compare that to our October 1 numbers we lose kids and that's historically over year.
So that's why we don't want to get into what our numbers look like right now because they change on a daily basis. We want to make sure they get solidified with October 1st numbers. Then we can have true apples to apples between um previous years and where we at right now. So we'll come back after our October 1 numbers. But just that's kind
of the reason why we're not giving specific numbers here as we sit in August. Looking at kind of timelines this year. Um we're going to do a really um big marketing push here starting November. And reason November is big is that's when our kindergarten um packets go out. and we'll talk about that here in a second. All the way through the
summer boundaries in November and December are going to be a board conversation. Um I'll come back in September. We'll talk guiding change document around what we want those boundaries to look like. Um once our October numbers hit, our staff or our committee is going to meet in October and then in November, we'll have an
initial draft of what those boundaries look like here to you in November. And then we'll have some uh schoolboard input as well as some community conversations throughout November. and then December we'll come back with our final recommendations. And then starting in um uh February starts our staffing
process all over again for next year. And so that February to April is kind of when we start staffing planning to when it gets rolled out and you do postings for staff. But obviously, you know, staffing starts in February and goes all the way through um the beginning of school year. So Marie threw a bunch of different terms out at you. So you're
going to get a few more here. I apologize. Um it's kind of a you know a term overload. Um, but just a couple things. So, when we start talking these different terms, you have some context behind them. So, you know, there's resident versus non-resident. Resident means they live within our school district. Non-resident means they live
outside of our school district, our school district boundaries. So, like take a kid that lives in Woodbury. There's a portion of Woodbury that is in the Stillwater School District. And there's a portion of Woodbury that's in the South Washington School District. So, just because a kid lives in Woodbury doesn't mean they're one or the other. That's where the resident non-resident
component comes at. Now take that same student in Woodbury who lives in South Wash. They can be an open enroll student. And what an open enroll student means is somebody who lives outside of our district. They live in Forest Lake. They live in White Bear. They live in Mameidi. And they want to come to our schools. They're choosing to open enroll
into our schools. They become an open enroll student for us. Once they become an open enroll student, they are a pony. They become one of ours, but initially they are an open enroll student. The second term, which are interchangeable to some and get confusing, is an alternate enrollment. What alternate
enrollment means, it's just elementary and middle school, but it's you attend a school outside your school um boundary where you live in. So, if you live in the Afton area and you choose to go to um Lake Elmo Elementary, you'd be an
alternate enrolled student to Lake Elmo because you live in the Afton boundary. Or you live in the Oakland boundary and you choose to go to Stillwater Middle School or vice versa. So open is outside of the district or non-resident and alternate is a a resident student that's going to an alternate school than what
they're boundary for based on their um address. The second one is um preschool registration. We do not get funding for preschool kids. So preschool kids is all run through community ed. Um the part where preschool is critical and vital
for us is the um retention rate that we get for our prek kids when they start with us stay with us. I mean the last I don't know what we have a number like hiatus um for those families that um come to us as prek then stay with us at kindergarten. Maybe not necessarily at
that same school but they're in our our still order pony world and stay with us in our district. And then the next one is kindergarten enrollment. And there's a huge push and a huge process as those five-year-olds are coming into kindergarten for the first time um with a kindergarten welcome packet and a
marketing campaign and different um access points for students with orientation um as well as families with orientation as well as some family parent nights to ask questions. Um mainly for a lot of those first-time families that don't have any kids. Um those are very attended by first-time
families coming into those pre kindergarten um orientation. um meetings and strategies that we have. So, just looking off to the right, um some of the key dates we have is there's not really a a date for kindergarten to enroll, but we kick off mid November by setting those packets out um and they'll kind of
roll through January, but really they can roll through um the start of school year. They can come at any time. The real key date is that open and alternate enrollment is January 15th. So what that means is by law we have to it opens
October 1st. It closes January 15th. So anybody who um applies between that October, November, and January window when January 15th comes then they become in a lottery system basically and then there's um different buckets that they come. So if let's say there's four kids
that want to go to Afton kindergarten, if they're all within that October to January window, they're all considered in that same tier, that same bucket. If somebody applies on January 16th, then it's time date and stamped of when it's kind of first come, first serve. So that big window is really that that that we
push is that January 15th. You'll also notice why boundaries. We want to have a boundary decision in January. So any of those affected students, affected families have time to if they choose to fill out that alternate enrollment form before that January 15th deadline comes
so they can be considered in that same pool. So that's kind of why how all those timelines kind of mix and match together. Preschool runs a separate one. They have a mid January date um where they run their preschool enrollment as well. So I'm just going to kind of stop right here just through the enrollment pieces and see if there's any questions
before I move on. Yes. Um I want to make sure I heard this right. We offer preschool. They don't pay for preschool. We don't get any ADM or anything for preschool. So they do pay for it. It is it's a fee
based program through community ed. Does it pay for itself? That does preschool is there enough that they pay through community ed? Yes. Yes. It's self-sufficient through community ed. There are not any, you know, K12 dollars, general education dollars used for it.
Okay. What we support is the classrooms. So when we look at a capacity of school, we'll take two classrooms set aside to give to preschool and then they'll staff the teachers, they'll buy the supplies, all those um sorts of things. But so we apply that we give them the space they do all the funding to support the program.
All right. Thanks. That helps. Verying a little off topic. Um for uh transportation for the alternate enrollment and open enrollment. What is our responsibility there? Is there any? So we do transport if they come to the nearest um existing stop within that
boundary. So take um kid lives at Oakland, wants to go to Stillwater Middle. We're not going to pick them up for where they live at Oakland and we're not going to create a new stop for them in Stillwater Middle. But if they want to get an existing stop within a route within Stillwater Middle that has room, they can get on a bus from there and do
those uh and get on that transportation from there. So, there is an option, but they would have to drive to an existing location. Fair enough. And I just want to clarify something and it it's related to what director Kelzenberg had said, but
preschool is not a profit for for us. I mean, we we charge what it costs to run is what we charge to families. Is that minus I guess any funding that we would get? I would say that I mean I don't know the particulars within the
community I'd fund with it but the general education fund from the school district receives no revenue from our preschool program and that and I think that's an important point because I do know we had some um fee increases. The other thing and and
help me out here uh either Marie or Annette do we do we have an allocation of voluntary prek dollars that so we we have voluntary prek money from the state that families can utilize if they cannot afford it. So um that's another option for families.
Yeah, we currently have 42 seats I think Annette. Yeah. Okay. So there is support available for for families. Okay. Thank you. All right. So now kind of shifting gears
as we kind of look at um heading into this year looking into boundaries and looking to the future of kind of what are some of our housing trends moving forward. So um we have 18 different communities and municip municipalities within our school district. So, um, I visited with a few of kind of the bigger ones just to kind of get a a snapshot of
where they're, um, looking at from a housing perspective over the next 5 10 years. Um, so the first one, obviously, if you look at Lake Elmo, um, Lake Elmo housing is continued to grow in the next five years. Um, talking with their planner, they have 2,39 new units that
will be up over the next uh, five years. 93 of those are single family and 1136 are what they call multi-unit. could be town homes, could be apartments, could be condos. Um so as we move um to a new school and a bigger school and obviously you can just see when you drive around
Lake Elmo the houses that are popping up um we really have the the space and capacity for that new school to accommodate that growth that's that's going on in that area. Also in Woodbury, we do have a small portion of Woodberry um and a lot of it is is grown out, but there are two um pretty big um units
going up here as we speak. Um there's about 500 units in Woodberry. Um, and by units, they're um kind of apartment, condo, town home. Um, the first one is a 252 unit um on Karen Drive. So, if you know where that Amazon warehouse is,
kind of straight west of that, um, they have the framing up already on that, um, development. And the other one on Manning Avenue, um, just south of that Amazon warehouse is 237 units. It's the reserve on at Prairie Meadows at uh, on
Manning Avenue. So those um will not be up and running for this school year, but again as we open up the new schools in the 26 27 school year, the anticipation is both of those um um housing units will be up and running. We'll get students from those areas. So as we look at our boundaries um we'll definitely
take those two um units in consideration as we look at our boundaries at the south end of the district. The next one is um looking at and you probably know the prison is closing in Bayport and so over the next five years is what does that look like in Bayport and what does that impact have on housing? So in
talking to the Bayport officials they have um 500 new units um that they need to add in their comp plan and so they're looking at maybe does that go where those 500 units are? Kind of just ballpark numbers. 200 of those would be single family and the other 300 would be multi-use whether that's apartments,
town homes, condo, etc. Um but possibly could be looking at that space um for future um growth within the Bayport area. How big is that development going up on the hill right next to the school and so the second one um that they're going at, it's the it's a property just southeast. It's adjacent to the new
school in Bayport um or excuse me, the southwest corner. Um there's 105 units going in there. There's 35 homes and 70 apartments. And so they're going to start grading this fall. Um and then next spring is they're going to start construction of those units. So um those
probably be around the 26 27 or maybe the year after. So shortly there's going to be another new 100 new houses um in the Bayport area. Continuing on the south end in Afton um there's not a lot of of growth there and and talking to them and looking ahead to their 2050
comp plan. Um currently they have 3,100 um population um and now they're looking to add 400 total people to make it 3500 and they're still going to continue with the single family on large lots and they don't anticipate that changing. So looking from a Aftton perspective um
kind of that housing seems very um steady in that area. And then looking in the Still Water and talking to the the Still Water folks, they don't have any um big changes anticipated. They said there's two possible um units on Manning. If you're heading north on
Manning, um total possible 70 units, but those aren't even in development or even conversation phases. Those are things just down the road. And the only other potential that they even talked about, and it's not even official yet, and they don't know if it's going to happen, but there's conversations of annexing that
property south of 36 on Manning, kind of where people are talking that new HY to go um of possibly annexing that into Still Water and then having a HY or whatever is going to go there. And there could be some housing uh development around that area in the near future, but there's nothing set in stone or concrete
in that area. So, um very stable in the Still Water and surrounding area. So it obviously isn't a complete list of everywhere we're at, but just wanted to give you a snapshot of some of the the bigger areas and developments happening within our school district. The other thing of note over on Manning there, of course, um is Lake View
Hospitals building a 450 million 500 million somewhere in that range of hospital and that is going to I'm sure be a driver of growth uh for the community. So and those folks are going to have to have somewhere to live too. might that be a driver of um some
housing turnover because I know in our last enrollment presentation from teamworks they talked about that's hard to predict right like that housing turnover but it is going to happen and what could be a catalyst for that I mean is that a I I don't not sure if that would be a
driver or not okay um and then the other thing is I don't know what the hospital is going to do with the current hospital so I mean that there may there may be a potential development site there for somebody okay and looking at the team we're just kind of a little more context to that when looking at their data. They kind of have uh four different ranges from kind of
conservative to more aggressive looking at enrollment based on different factors and some of that you're talking about. So kind of the baseline is looking at birth, you know, Washington County births and development that's active in terms of houses you can see being constructed right now as your baseline, you know, and then the second piece they look at it is where's future
development. You know, there's some farm field, there's some land that said, hey, maybe over the 10 next 10 years that could be something and they include housing turnover or you call generational shift or whatever that people have lived there for 30, 40, 50 years. Some of those areas that could be turned over. Also, they factor in market
share. You know, if we increase our market share, what could that look like? So there's different levels of how they kind of factor in and we kind of try to navigate which one of the areas we see fit. Thank you. Yeah, it was fascinating just to go back and review that presentation. So
that is a great segue to um my portion which when we talked about market share and what can we do to try to grow grow our enrollment. And so we have several strategies that we're already employing and some that we're talking about doing a little bit differently into the future. And one of our big focus areas
is just on the customer experience and making sure that families who are here are having a great experience so that when they're out talking to their friends and neighbors, they can help us sell the district. That's the most powerful um selling factor is that word of mouth. Um so we are working really hard and creating some intentional
system changes to be able to provide better customer service. I think the board's heard about a welcome center concept where we have really shifted our focus at central services to be working together as a team, not just departmented silos, but to think about how does transportation, nutrition
services, community ed, communications, how do we all work together to make sure that we are creating a really seamless process for families from day one when they go online to fill out that enrollment form. What does that process look like and what can we do to make it easier and more friendly for them? Um,
so that's that's been a really positive thing. Just this summer, we've had extra staff on hand. We've had our community engagement specialists there to help when there's language barriers. We've had um nurses there to help answer and get some of those health things moving for people. We've had transportation
working. All these different people are in there during the summer to help families enroll. And so we're trying to figure out how we can keep that momentum going throughout the school year, too, to really provide that good customer service experience and provide a good onboarding piece for families. And then to keep that customer service going as
they get into the schools too. So we'll be talking to our schools about what is what does it look like when a family comes into the office? If a family comes with questions, how quickly are we responding? What kind of service are we giving? So that's a really high um focus area for us in the coming year. Marketing and communications is always
something that we're doing. We're trying to make sure that we are providing um good information to families, that we have resources available, that they understand what we have to offer, and frankly that we're just telling a really positive story about what's happening here. Um so we are going to continue to expand our outreach to prospective
families. Mark was talking about the development potential in the district. So one of the natural things that we've talked about is how do we connect with realators? How do we connect with those developers so that as families are moving, they are hearing from the realer who is that often first contact, especially for families brand new to the
community? Um what kind of information can we provide to them so they can speak positively about what Stillwater has to offer? Uh we talked about what what's happening with kindergarten enrollment packets. How do we make that first connection to kindergarten or to preschool even like the materials we
send out for preschool? What does that look like? Um, we do a lot of marketing already through our early childhood family center because we know if we can get those kids from day one and those families that they will stick with us. Um, we send out bibs to every new baby that's born in our community um and a
little packet of information about early childhood classes and we've seen a great return on that. Um, so continuing to look at opportunities to to do that outreach early and often. Another important thing and one that maybe the board has some say in is just looking at the programs that we offer. where are
there um opportunities for us to expand programming that's going to be attractive to our families? We started talking about gifted this year. How can we make sure that we're providing really good gifted programming? What does it look like to expand things like immersion? Um we've talked about the high school schedule. Might that be
something that draws families or makes them want to stay here? Um so those are great conversations if we can just be thinking about those opportunities that families need that might make them want to come here. Uh we often talk about retention and making sure that people don't leave. Like we want to prevent
attrition. We want to keep people here. Some of that is customer service, some of it's programming. Um and some of it is just re-engaging. So if we're starting to hear from people who are having negative experiences, how can we reach out to them and and make that work better for them? And even targeting families who have left, like maybe they
left us, but we don't want to forget about them. So we are doing some targeted marketing to those families saying, "Hey, we're still here. There's still opportunities for you. we'd love to have you back. And then finally, partnerships. What are the agencies around us, the child care providers, the developers I mentioned? How can we make sure that we are staying connected with
them and providing information so as they're having conversations, they can tell a good story about Stillwater. So, that's a high level, but we are constantly thinking about more things that we can be doing um in all of these areas. And something too that we are open to suggestions from the board and
even from the community if they have ideas of things that we should be doing. One of my favorite things to do is watch other districts and see what are they doing and um sometimes borrow an idea that's working well in another district. So again, if you see things, you are always welcome to share that with us.
So with that, I think we wanted to just provide some time and space for the board to have some conversations about what um growth looks like from a board perspective. So I'm going to turn it back over to Allison. Yeah. Just um a quick question just if anyone had any questions for Carissa and what she presented. Could you go back
one slide? Um do we have or are there plans as enrollment becomes more of a um focus an intentional focus um because it's always been a focus but just being more intentional about it. Are there any plans to survey I know you've done this
in the past surveying families. What are you looking for? Um, you know, just kind of getting that two-way communication. Definitely. Um, I think there's a lot of different opportunities to do that. We've talked about exit surveys that we can do as people are leaving. Um, one of the things I was just thinking about as
as we've recently hired a new position called the welcome center coordinator. Um, that person, which is actually being funded through community education. So, thanks to them and all the work that Annette's doing to build that out. that person. One of the things I thought would be helpful is interview or or
survey recent enroles to find out about their experience and like what brought them here, what were they excited about, what was the process like for them. So, gathering that kind of feedback will be really helpful. And then um we've done this numerous times in the past of reaching out to find out from families what are they looking for, what's either
the reason they came here or the reason maybe they chose something else. So, we can always look to to bring back some of that survey work, too. I think it's it's helpful to get that dialogue or that kind of that two-way feedback because, for example, I mean, I know um anecdotally when I'm out in the
community, I hear a lot about career pathways. Um it's something that we haven't had the luxury of really investing in considerably, but um when you start looking at high school schedules, might that be able to build that out? And it's just a it helps the
board make more informed decisions. So, I don't know how the rest of the board feels, but I I would love to hear more of that, too. So, um well, thanks for the question on discovery because that was probably my first question was going to be how what what have we done to think about learning about this? So, that takes care
of that question easily, Pete. um when it comes to suggestions or or what what are what are things I'm seeing um whenever I'm um on social media, I get hit by a couple different school districts for highlighting their
programs uh and their open enrollment opportunities uh for those programs. Um so that is uh something that is that a question of of of demand or is that a question of programming? That's a separate conversation about are you are we
meeting people where they need to be met or are we meeting their needs those are two different things. So that gets back to the discovery question but um I will say uh making it personal again um whenever we highlight our sports it has
been a huge win for the kids that I coach and the kids that I'm around. um you know when the football team goes out and throws their little footballs in the parade that uh that is one of the best things that uh that uh probably the the
most my kid is excited about Stillwater schools. Um so that's something that and whether this is kiddriven or parent driven is a whole another question but um I love it. I was surprised that I didn't see much of a presence at um the
county fair. No, I didn't go. That's a big fair, so I didn't walk all the way around it. So, we may have had a presence. I just didn't see it. Early childhood was there during the early childhood day, which I think was maybe Thursday, Thursday or Friday. And we have done the fair in the past. The challenge with the fair, I think there's two challenges. It's a long commitment.
You have to be there from I think you said like Wednesday night all the way through Sunday. So just to find volunteers to staff the booth. It has to be staffed from like 10 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night. So that's what that was our biggest challenge was to find people who could actually be there during the summer during that time. Another challenge with the fair is
there's um there's so many people who come even from outside of the Washington County area that the families that we were connecting with really a lot of them were like yeah I live I live way out in you know Minneapolis or something. So it's like not necessarily our target audience. certainly something we can think of and I do think early
childhood does an excellent job the day that they are there and they take a lot of district materials with them so they are promoting the district on the day that they're there um but definitely something we consider again in the future but we did do that for a number of years and it's a targeted inflection point with that early childhood so that makes a lot of sense
um we just put up here kind of again thinking related to our governance role and how it relates to um to enrollment I put up some conversations starters here with um Cararissa that we can talk about this. I do think this would be a time
where just sharing like uh director Parker did things that you're hearing in the community that um because we all have an opportunity to talk to families and hopefully we're hearing you know a lot about like what they love and what's working and um maybe some pain points
that could be considered. Um, but I'm I think this is just an open conversation to say like for example, Parker's observations, people really talk about our sports. They're engaged with our sporting program or, you know, our community ed. I think that is um is huge and just knowing the enrollment factor
that we we get a significant um market share bounce um in our favor if we can get them early. So having room I think in our new schools for preschool um is something that like when we do that to think policy-wise like programming wise
um other comments or just observations? Yeah, the sports thing. Um yeah, I know there's people that sports get real once you get into sixth, seventh and especially high school. So I think some people don't need to be in the school to be in that sports program. So that's just I know enough anecdotally on on
those um but the point I was going to make cities the market themselves um is is great places uh Stillwater especially and um what you're thinking of the the realtor aspect of it you you pull down
on the menu the city the price but school district is way up there and then the city is way up there but um the cities market themselves do we tie in with the cities at all because that is um somebody's looking for a place to move.
Is it all tied together at all with with the cities or are just separate efforts? That's an interesting thought. Um I mean we have really great relationships with all of our communities. So I've definitely had conversations with Lake Gammo. Um they have a communications person that we've talked about different
strategies before. Um and Still Water as well. So that is certainly an area we could look at what other opportunities might exist for kind of that cross marketing. Um, one thing I thought, uh, as a board we're trying to create, I think after a lot of destabilization in our school
district, creating that stability, but then how do we share that stability and maybe some of the alignment of our systems? Like, how does that translate to what's important for a family? Because I and I hear all the time about our sports program, but I think we're doing some exciting things internally.
Um, I know it's might maybe not as flashy, but um, relevant nonetheless, I think. Well, just a couple things. You heard a gifted report a month or two ago
and we have some opportunities within our gifted delivery model, within clustering, within how we operate the middle schools, within our curriculum, within our professional development. Uh
you can look at the AU model. We have some opportunities in our curriculum there in our professional development. And so when you talk stability, we've got a great team in place here and the team is providing the stability for
these systems within the district to develop and I think historically and in historic I'll say type 10year time frame um AU has grown on its own. Gate has kind
of done its own thing. And so now we are aligning district resources to support these programs. We will have a larger building um for the uh um AU program at Lake Elmo in the
future. So as as we strengthen the program there, as we strengthen clustering throughout the district, um strengthen our middle school programs, we will have uh I think the the word of mouth will grow that these
are really good things. And and the same thing I think at the high school. I I see that, you know, and you're going to have a report here. I think it's next meeting on online learning. Okay. So, what are we doing to meet the needs of our students at the high school? And how
are we aligning our systems to support that? And it's those organic things that we are doing internally that uh are going to pay dividends for the district uh in the long run because right now I think we've
had some really good people with some good ideas but we have not put a systems uh arrangement around it. my thoughts. Um I appreciate that perspective and I was kind of having similar thoughts
around that that we are really moving into um a really kind of pivotal year this year that we've got a lot of big changes coming in and um they're all things that were intentionally done from a board level from a district level administration um to really create
student centered um programming and support through curriculum um and the bell-to-bell ban for cell phones. I mean these things that aren't necessarily flashy um things that we can't really market as exciting or that quite frankly are controversial um that people are not
sure if this is actually going to be um serving their kids the way that um that we are hoping and anticipating that it will. So I think a lot um the next couple years are going to really see how well this bears fruit. Um and I'm really
excited to see that journey. Um, and I also in my own experience as a community member, um, really the the biggest feedback I get from families is how much they love our teachers and that they really know that they care and that they
really want their kids to be successful. And then the hard reality is it's usually followed by a butt. And that butt is but I need more support for my kids. We need to have stronger reading curriculum. We need to have more
supports in our schools. We need to have more space in our schools. Um, so I know that our administration and our and this board has worked really really hard to do the structural work to make those changes happen. Um, but now it's kind of
handing it over to our staff and really seeing how this plays out and how well they can champion and be not only navigating these changes, but then supporting our families through these changes well because they really are
looking to our teachers as leaders in this community. And if things are a little bumpy, which they absolutely will be, um I really hope that our educators can navigate that gracefully and professionally and and get our families
through um this challenging time because it'll really strengthen our district. And I know that they can be the great leaders in this district, too. So, thanks for the prompt. This was actually I'm excited to have some of this discussion. So, thank you for this all and thank you for everybody's hard
work. Um, you know, a couple things that uh that I'm I'm going to echo uh Director Hawkert's excitement um for the what's coming down our pipeline. Um I think we have and and to to echo e echo
uh chair Sherman's words um around stability to me we've stabilized a number of things but we do have we need to recognize that we have a significant amount of change that's still coming to our district and to me how we and this
may be controversial I'm not sure but to me how we build that trust um with the district um and with the community and with each each other is through having critical conversations and through sharing data and through um a deep
analysis and deep conversation about what's going on. Um so to me having that criticism or that critique or that acknowledging where problems happen isn't a sign of destabilization. It's a
sign of building stability and building trust to acknowledge like hey this is what's going on. let's all learn and then we can either choose to address it or choose not to address it. Um but but if we to me that's one of the reasons
why I ask so many darn questions is I think it actually helps my goal is to help get to a point where we're while we're going through the stabilization process we're building trust through that process by having as much transparency or at least as much
pressure testing as possible uh through that process. I also think um you're right on the key points for I think there's opportunities and I think I've shared this with Dr. funk. Um where we can better support that those new families coming in at at
the those decision points, the transition points to um both middle school and high school and how to differentiate new families or families choosing us for the first time versus families that have been here through a elementary experience or a middle school
experience. um just knowing it's interesting to hear that that those are the points with our most in like an influx of students. So, thank you for sharing that. And I also appreciate the class size conversation that you alluded to um because something I hear about
often is class size and people being a little bit um you know not necessarily everywhere and I think we did a survey within the district around the time of levy and or bond or both or facilities but I think it was specifically like fourth and fifth and there were some
pain points in certain grades that people felt. So I think that revisiting um class size and reimagining how we do that could be a story to share um end up being a story to share. I know there's a lot of work but that's class size is something that
I guess two things. One um I have a lot of hope for pathways to be able to help get us out into the community more. I mean it's such a it has so much potential. was like a local incubator for kids to find find their
way into a career um and and to get the the high school into the community and get that partnership with local businesses. So, I mean, I think that's something that hopefully happens just naturally and and that that'll be great. Um and then you know in the end
hopefully we're putting all of this structure in place so that you start getting measurable results you know scores that you can point to and say look and then success breeds success and the marketing takes care of itself
because you know everybody wants you know Still Water is a school district of choice based on these you know maybe fallible but measurable outcome. So, a thought in a different direction. Um, looking at the barriers question, one of
the biggest challenges I have as a Woodbury family um is the geographical like long skinny um location of our district that we're just huge. Um, and I think that that creates some uh challenges specifically in like
Woodberry is a very suburban culture. um and kind of that expectation of convenience and closeness and there's a lot of competition in that area. Um so I feel like a lot of families really want to support public education. Um but they
also want to feel like they are welcome and part of the school district. Um and in my own experience and hearing from neighbors, that's unfortunately not always what happens for the Woodbury kids. So just being mindful um
throughout our district and I know it's never an intentional thing, but it's more of a on the ground thing that our talking about maybe rivals in South Washington County um using the the Woodberry um catchall phrase is getting
noticed by our kids um and by our families and by our parents. So, um, it is something that I think we can definitely work on, uh, because there's so many families in Woodbury that legit want to come here and are proud to be ponies and want to support it and it
feels like we're not always welcome. So, I think that's just something to be mindful of. Um, I know it's not always intentional and I get the school rivalry thing, but um, it is definitely an area we could work on and in a high growth area.
Yes. And it's a very high growth area. Um, so we have a lot of opportunity there um to capture and and make those kids feel welcome and those families feel welcome. They feel like they're kind of on the bubble of not really welcome in Southwash because we're 834 and then we're also on the edge or
towards the southern edge. Um, and Mark, you know this for Brookview background. So, um, it's not new, but just something to be mindful of. Thank you. I will also say kind of piggy backing off of that is um after some painful um
school consolidations, I I think that re-engaging with families in those areas um more intentionally uh because I remember being at a ECF event and there were some young there was a young family that stands out to me and I know you were with me uh director
Hawker who they were from Marine and they were just floored by the services and the opport opportunities and um they understood the reasons for the decisions that were made and um they were very receptive. So I think that it's that balance of trying to re-engage with
maybe families who have felt um hurt by some decisions that were made in the past um predating anyone here. So just to kind of keep that mindfulness and then I was I'm always thinking policy to
now and so I guess And I would love the superintendent and staff's thought on this, but I and I don't know when we do this, but in terms of policy, which is that's what we're here for. I thought um the two policies that stood out in my mind that haven't been revisited or visited in as long as I can remember is
both graduation requirements and uh grading policy and how can we maybe as a board and as an administrative group have conversations about what does our what is what are our requirements for graduation? Do we need to change them? or they
Well, I think just as the high school talks about potential schedule options, you're going to need to look at your graduation requirements related to that. And again, as the state comes in and continues to mandate different courses that be taught, we'll have some opportunities there. Um,
so I think that happens naturally. Um I think the the the piece the the growth option is not necessarily the graduation requirements it's the graduation or it's the high school opportunities that we we
are able to have for kids um which will in the end result it'll end up with the requirements but you know and I heard it from Parker and I heard it from Pete and I hear it living here. Okay. And you know, last year I started the school
year, I stood up in front of the uh the collective group and I went through I don't know three slides of all the the different championships we won and different sports and activities. All right. It was just champions, champions,
champions, champions. Um and that's a grade. Okay. Um but at the same time, all right, what are we doing in other areas outside of the the the uh athletics
um to be successful um and to promote the district and and you know, I mean, I can name different districts within the state of Minnesota, you know, that do different things and they're known for it. All right. the the challenge that I
think we have as a as a district is what are we known for besides our great music programs and our great uh athletic programs. I was going to say I I was going to put the plug in that I do our music programs, our theater, our
theater programs are topnot I mean you go to some of those plays and choir concerts and it's and our I mean our fine arts in general not just music y um but but from an academic angle from a just a pure academic angle
what are we known for here and still are and so I mean that there's an potential opportunity there. I agree with you. Yeah. So, there's 17 people in this room right now, probably 45 people watching online
and uh um so we we could sell to this small group of people, but the uh the people that really sell our district are the staff in our district. What do we have? 800 staff, you know, teachers, uh paras, all the support. And um so we
can have a lot of enthusiasm here, but that enthusiasm also has to be sold to the staff because then in turn they multiply that by all the people they interact with. And maybe we're doing that, but I want to say it here that we want to get that positive message out
not just here at a board meeting, but uh but further out. And that's from administration to staff, from us to staff, from uh and it once that spreads it ripples out further and further. So um I want to build that in
messaging. any other comments or suggestions or opportunities? I I do think that um I and I know that you do this and I would love to hear when people do leave. I'm sure it's a
lot of we're moving, we're doing, but there might be some good data in some of that exit that you could say, well, you didn't have this or you didn't have that. Like again, that critical eye of I know so many things we do do well. Um and I would encourage us as we kind of
have some of these um changes like with curriculum. I mean that's a significant our investment in curriculum has been significant um Dr. funks since your administration took over. And I think that from a community standpoint, I
mean, we looked at a lot of curriculum that had been touched. And so, as we continue to maintain that focus as a board, that focus on professional development, that focus on I forget the three areas, curriculum, I forget the third always, but there's that when you first came into the district, and I have
that in my head in a lot of ways in terms of where is our priority from an allocation of resources. Um, so from a board perspective, just thinking about the six bullet up there from accountability and monitoring,
um, you know, do we want to have periodic, quarterly, halfyearly, whatever the right number is of updates on our enrollment, on our
um, market share on I'm not sure what other metrics we'd want to look at in this, but you know, open take puts and takes from who are we losing from our in from our, you know, think from a from a sporting
perspective. Who are we losing from a recruiting perspective and who are we winning from a a recruiting perspective? If if I if I was a sports team, you know, am I winning my home dirt and who am I pulling in? Um, do we want to have
do we have that sort of set up as a procedural metric to already have accountability? Do you want to time and granularity? Okay. So, we already provide the board monthly enrollment updates um that that we every
single month we get an enrollment update and you can see the fluctuation where we are current this year, this month, where we were last year, this month. So we we get that already. The uh the piece of where people are going or where that's a
little bit more difficult. We could probably get to that. We can do that on an annual basis for sure, but it's getting it just in time like that is is a we don't have the data and I don't think we've got the people to just be on top of it like that. Um, but the other
piece is I mean, and I' and again I think I think probably November we've got it on the the calendar that we're going to take a look at our board committees. Okay. So, I can share with you
different boards have different committees and I'm going to just throw one out here just based upon your question. So, um, do we have a monitoring committee? So, so the monitoring committee would be taking a look at, okay, what are we
going to monitor? All right, we're going to monitor test scores. We're going to monitor we're going to monitor student enrollment. Um, we're going to monitor u mental health. I mean, so there there could be metrics that we provide the committee at the board. So it's not
because I don't think we have the time as a board to be looking at these things, but this is something that it's a potential that uh a subcommittee of the board could take a look at that and then we could report that out to the whole board. Um so that's an option. Um
there are uh I think the bigger question is what are we going to monitor? you know, at you as a board, okay, what what do we what's important to us to uh to take a look at as we're, you know, as we're
going down the road here? I think that's that's the bigger question. Some of this information, I think, might be part of the vision card and the strategic plan that we're working on, too. So, we've had some conversations about at what points do we provide you
updates on our strategic plan action cards and kind of how they're tying in with the the metrics is where our vision card is kind of where we have those metrics. So, we've had conversations about providing more regular reports throughout the year to the board because we get them probably what three times a year at uh at our level
from the buildings. Um, but and we I think we reported last I don't know sometime this last winter we reported to the board on on where we were at, but that could be another part of that. This is all great. Um, I I also think
that just being more intentional as we're with outside organizations just to see what like Carissa, I was glad that you um stated that just what are other districts doing? What are some other stories? It just gives us good questions when we're networking with other board members. Hey, what's working? What's
not? And one thing I've heard a lot of feedback within professional associations that I have is um people are really interested in our cell phone policy and that we took a stand. And um I think that that could be depending I mean I know it's going to be bumpy. I
know it's going to be um you know it it needs some time and some implementation but I've had several people say you're doing the right thing and um boy I wish our district would do that even as I'm outside because I'm also in Woodbury so I talk to you know I
kind of cross over into some other districts pretty easily like within a couple blocks and um and a lot of families do like that and they say boy I wish that that was being done where I am at and so again I know that's time and it's letting change kind of settle. Uh
but I think there is some opportunity there. And then just seeing our story sometimes just having an in a story of why and I don't know if that has to be some schools have you know come in and get to know our district nights or but maybe in today's day and age it can be a
video or something that just is like a story. I I know that I don't know but I do see other districts that do that. Yeah, I think one thing that kind of stands out for me if I have conversations with u people in the public or at um other types of uh um
professional engagements, you know, one thing I might I'm really proud of is that I see us as a district doing having a lot of meaningful disruptive change. Change is hard, but there's a purpose. Um, and we're looking
at ways of saying this is what's been done in the past, but this is maybe better ways we can do it moving forward to better meet the needs of students based on the new reality. And I think that's just such an important thing. I mean, in the business world, that's that's normal. You innovate or you die.
Um, so I think as a public school, we're no different. If anything, it's actually, I think, a more challenging environment than the private sector because we're working a very tight sandbox of state funding and ADP and all the things that Marie loves to get, you
know, get into. Um, bless her heart, you know, but it's just something where I I think I know change is hard on at the front end. Um, but it's for the better. It's about preparing our students to be future ready to put in the best position
to be able to have the skill sets to be able to pivot in life because that's what life is about. And so that's what I'm excited about and I think that's as we look back to Chair Sherman's, you know, point as other districts are looking at us for the cell phone policy or the calendar change or the bell start. These are all meaningful
disruptive changes and I believe they will move the needle. And I remember principal Bach had talked about is I think um director Kellzmer had had mentioned you know how do we know which of these changes actually are going to materialize the benefit and he had a great answer. He's like does it really
matter if it if it moves the needle does it matter if it's this or that because it's all working in coordination to a greater purpose of what we're trying to do. So to me, that's what I see of kind of the um what I'm excited about and I think what people will look to us and say, "Yeah, it makes sense." And we have
to be able to, you know, um have the will um to see it through and know that it's for it's all for the kids. And so that's what I'm excited about. Yeah, I appreciate that. I'd like to just add um I think another
thing you could go back and just highlight as a board to is you've had multiple principles now I think present their schools to you and some of the highlights of um things they've done um
in their schools and just going back and focusing on that and they've also focused on their pain points too. um there may be some things in there that um could be potential barriers um to certain things too, but there's also
highlights um to their schools that may be marketing um opportunities for the district as well. So um just kind of ideas um very good point. That's a very good point. And I think there are some possible future
presentations yet to do, but I mean those are things that we are also doing as a district to highlight each school um for potential families. So I think that's a really good point. Two of the things that always stuck out for
me in those updates were um what Afton Lakeland is doing with data and what Lily Lake has done with um reading. Right. So looking at those more closely and thinking about how those can maybe
be adopted or looked at it more broadly I think is a really good idea. Yeah, I agree. And I and I do I do know that um it's always a double-edged sword, right? Because we have a lot of really good things going
on in our schools and we're making investments in the right places. Um, and at the same time I would be I feel like I do need to be honest and kind of like what um, director Parker was saying and one thing that does come up repeatedly
with me in the community is um, some of their uh, MCA scores and I think that we would need to I mean I think and I usually pivot with that and say and talk about the curriculum investment that we've made and how it
was um, we hadn't done that for decades I think when you had done the analysis um Dr. Funk and um how we're investing in professional development and I tell that story um I also tell the story of like it's there's more than just an MCA that's one test one day and there's
there's a lot of other really um uh indicators to watch and daily interactions in the classroom. Um, but I do think that is uh out there that and I so that's why the strategic plan focus I think is so important to demonstrate that we can kind of move that needle is
now we have that baseline of new curriculum. Um, and I know it all takes time. Uh, but just thought I would share that. But I agree. I mean I think there's just a lot to to tell in our district that's going really well in a lot of what we do. And
I love your suggestion, Maria, of looking at those presentations because I have at home like my list of common themes like with staff turnover was one of them on the um side of how it's a challenging thing in schools. Also, our principal's time that they want to be more academic leaders. I have kind of
that list. So, things that we can be thinking about as we're making decisions on behalf of the district. Well, I appreciate the conversation and um just the sharing and we'll look for more information on enrollment when we get some numbers finalized, but this has
been a good discussion. So, I appreciate your time and effort. Thank you. Okay, let's see. We are moving into close session next. Um, the next item on our agenda is a close
session. Pursuant to Minnesota State Statute 13D05, Subdivision 3, a public body may close a meeting to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its authority. The public body shall identify the individual to be evaluated prior to a closed meeting. The
only employee we have is Superintendent, Dr. Funk, so we will be going into close session to do that review. Um, I will make a motion to move us into close session. Can I get a second? So moved. Great. Director Theelander with a second. All those in favor of moving to close session, raise your hand and say I.
I. Opposed. We are moving to close session.