meeting to order. Okay. So, just a reminder um or an announcement for the board here. If we could just talk a little bit more into the microphone. Just the volume's been turned up a little bit just so everyone can hear. We're just getting some feedback on that. So, all right.
Um, anyway, thank you. So, we called the meeting to order. Joan, roll call. Director Griezfitch here. Director Hawkert here. Director Kelzenberg here. Director Lowour here. Director Parker here. Director Theelander here. Chair Sherman here. The quorum.
Great. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Great. I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's meeting agenda. Can I get a second? I will second. Great. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say, "I." I. Opposed.
Agenda passes. All right, our first item. We're going to go right into an action item here. This is um an action item on high school course. We need consent. Oh, I'm sorry. I skipped consent, but I
had it checked off in my head. Um okay, [laughter] my mind's moving fast. All right. Um consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve consent? To approve that. Great. Director Hawker with the motion and Director Lowour with a second. Thank you. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your
hand and say, "I." I. I. Opposed. Consent agenda passes unanimously. Okay. Now, we're on to our business items. First item is an action item on high school course proposals, and we're going
to ask Rob Bach to come on up to the table. So, um, really quick, I'm sure Rob is going to review again the ask, but this is kind of the culmination of several conversations we've had at the board table, ranging back a long time now,
back to probably 2023 because this is ultimately going to be what approves um a change in the way the high school um schedule operates and functions on. So, I just will turn it over to you and we'll go from there. Thank you. Yeah. uh last week or excuse
me last meeting um there were a number of new courses that were um proposed and presented to you uh for consideration that we'd like to add to our curriculum. A number of those um are in the elective areas. Um and then there was also kind of a suite of courses that are designed
to be part of an online academy that we are looking to start running um right away next fall. And I have one course that kind of missed the cut last uh meeting. So I wanted to make sure that just in the interest of formality that that course also was presented because I took a brief minute at the last minute
uh last meeting just to outline each of the courses give you a quick little overview of what the the course might entail. One course again that um kind of failed to make the cut last uh meeting was an online economics course. So all of the if you recall from the last meeting all of the online courses that
we proposed are all actually required courses. Those are the courses primarily that we have seen students signing up for online and the intent behind that behind offering our own online academy is trying to keep students within our entity. So rather than leaving and
losing the ADM that's associated with students going off to to outside providers, we want to be able to to offer that with our own teachers. Economics is a required course predominantly. Um it's offered senior year. So seniors are the the ones that are taking it. Um it's one of the
courses that um obviously there's some demand for with regard to to online and again just failed to to mention that in the the last goround of the some of the other courses. So if there are any questions about that particular course um be happy to answer it but basically it's pretty much the same as what had
been outlined uh during the course of the last meeting with the other the other online courses. Great. um right now because there's kind of two um items on the agenda. Our first item will be to address what was presented in the last report. So we'll
be looking at action on the um the courses that you had already presented. Then our next item will allow questions for the economics. Okay. So right now I want to um see if there is a motion on the floor for um so moved.
Okay. Uh we have a motion to approve. I'm assuming the um course proposal as presented. Correct. Is there a second? A second. Great. Director Lowour with the second. Um now this would be a time where we can discuss. So if there's any lastm minute questions that you have for principal
Bach uh or if you want to um share your thinking uh in advance of the vote that we will take. Did you Yep. I can share my thinking at least. Um so for me this is uh an investment. So I took an approach like an investment
thesis. I said assuming our goal is to um increase the diversity of classes and the opportunities to uh provide classes for our students and then hopefully through that recapture students on campus. you know, we're thinking about
making this these adding these courses and then as a secondary or subsequent thing change the schedule to a a different schedule that can incorporate all these classes. Um so to me this is a part of like what has
to be true um in order to believe this investment thesis. And so to me it was like the subsequent schedule change will bring in more classroom hours back on campus than it loses to people converting from part-time to full-time. Um that's one part of the investment
thesis. The second part of the investments thesis is either by schedule conflict or um desire to be on campus, people will want to sign up for these courses um whether it's the online or or other CE classes. And then additionally
that this investment of this magnitude has a differential or positive overall impact to our enrollment than other investments that we as a board could make such as changing how we staff our elementary schools or something else
that may that we may think would drive more attendance um or excuse me more enrollment. So to me those are some of the things that have to be true in order to do this. And there's obviously some secondary benefits with, hey, we get to hire more teachers. We have more uh interest and engagement for our
students. U we may be able to bring more people in through open enrollment from outside our borders. And maybe there's, you know, the suscept supplement benefit of the pathways um you know, expansion and and curiosity for our students. So that's fantastic. Um so that's sort of
my thought process on this. I think it's a huge risk um financially and for me um it's I'm not super stoked on the timing. Um it's pretty awful timing. I'm not super stoked on some parts of the
process. Um but because I think it's the right choice in the end um I'm going to be supporting it, but it is stuff that I think it's very important that we think about what are the other trade-offs that we're not making to do this.
Oh, that's me. Anyone else? Okay. Did you Did you want to go? Okay. I like see a little bit. I don't want to put you on the spot. That's okay. Um, thank you for that, um, Director Parker, and kind of where you're thinking. I feel like I have
already stated a bit where I, um, where I am at this point, but, um, in terms of the timing, I I know that this has been put off a couple times now. Um we had been talking about this for a couple years and I know last year around this time we definitely took another year to look at it. Um and in that year the
process um of getting feedback as well there there were changes um in how we are um going to be rolling out the the schedule and then of course the courses are going to align with that schedule. So um I think we have given a lot of thought and exhaustive [clears throat]
work into this and as much as timing is always um a question um I do feel comfortable with the timing this time um and that I'm excited to see these move forward particularly the associates degree I keep hearing more and more excitement around that and seeing that on here again um and the courses that
we're going to be hopefully approving shortly um to make that happen for our kids I think will pay in dividends because our kids definitely want to take these classes um and move to the next level of advancement. So I think we will be recapturing some of that enrollment and even if we capture a little bit
that's money coming back to us and there are a few opportunities for us to really have an um a decision that can bring in money in that way. So fingers crossed we even a little bit will be great um and I think it'll be a really good change for us. So thanks for all your work on that.
Great. Thank you. Yes, Dr. Do you want to kind of share the feedback that you guys shared with me um or what other stuff you're hearing in the high school? Yeah. Like about like just like what other people think? Yeah.
I think that a lot of people like are really like liking the idea of especially I've heard I guess I'm a senior so like it's a lot more college focused people I'm talking to but like the associates degree and then also the CNA one it's like the nursing assistant
class um I think people are really liking like those options and I know like me personally like I would probably if I could go two years back I'd probably take the associates degree pathway. I think it's a really good option for either I feel like there's so
many like groups of people like maybe people who don't have as much money for college or even like I know there's people who have gone fully online for college because they want to like become a doctor or a PA so that's just less
like school they have to do in the future. Um, so I think those two are like really strong ones that I've heard a lot of feedback on that people really like. Thanks. Great. Yes. Yeah. No,
thank you always. We really appreciate the student voice. I think that's such an important part of the work that we do and I know Zach, you mentioned last meeting how you same thing. You wish that you would have another year uh to be able to take advantage of that. So sounds like the same thing. So, um, yeah, I think it's a prudent investment
like I've said before. Um, yes, it's, you know, bit of a leap of faith, per se, but I I trust the process, trust the people behind the decisions and all the work that's happening. Um, and, uh, you know, I think it's it's a a worthwhile
investment for a lot of reasons. A, it's really good for students. Um, I think it's going to be really great for the district to bring in um, you know, hopefully more enrollment and increased enrollment, which is such an important part of of our revenue source as a district. And, um, it just offers more
flexibility for students to figure out what they want to do and um, hopefully spark that passion for learning and find a subject matter that they can dive into and become subject matter experts like, you know, Principal Bach and his team. So, um, so you know, appreciate the work
that's being done and, um, and I know that we'll continue to kind of you guys will work through the details and the processes and kind of similar what we did with the the cell phone policy. We didn't there wasn't a policy in or, you know, procedure in place. We had proved the policy, but we had faith in knowing
that, you know, it would be done well. And I think we've been able to see the benefits of that already thus far. Um, of how beneficial that's been, I think, for students. um and um I think you know getting some state recognition as well which is really neat. So yeah, I'm also in support of it and I
think it's a a worthwhile like I said worthwhile prudent investment that I believe will produce um positive outcomes. So thank you again. Yes, at a game recently I had one of the
teachers uh ran a course by me that he was going to suggest and haven't seen it here yet. So now I'm wondering is there a deadline? I mean I think some what what I liked about it is hey there's there's going to be room in the schedule. Maybe I can offer this course that I've been wanting to. I thought well if people sign up for it it's great that you offered it. If they don't sign
up for it what harm is done. Uh can people keep uh adding courses that will come to us for approval at this point? No. Not for this upcoming year. Uh we've been pretty time bound because we need to start getting our registration guide together. So, in the
interest of formality, things courses that need to get approved by the board, we need this approval now because we're literally going to be starting up next. We've actually already started the process of trying to put our registration materials together because kids are going to be registering for these next year. Doesn't mean that we can't go through a a process for the the
following year. So, like I mentioned at the the last meeting, CAC is kind of a an ongoing piece. So annually I'm I'm typically sitting down in front of that group and talking about whatever the next evolution in courses is for us. This particular cycle was a little bit
more robust than than in years past in because it's tied to the the schedule piece and tied to some of the other strategic investments that we're trying to make. Um but that's an ongoing process. But in terms of what will be available for next year, we are saturated. And also just from a timeline
standpoint, we're this. We need to get this and then we need to get cracking. All right. Thanks. Y did you did anyone else? Yes. Um um [clears throat] I'm going to be supporting this. Um, but I uh share some
of uh Director Parker's uh just concerns um uh about the cost um and uh ongoing uh you know just sustainability and um uh but I think the work has been
thorough and it's being done by the people who know this and are the experts and um I think uh you know If this is what is best for kids, then we we we
should give it a chance um to work. So, thank you. Okay. Fine. Peer pressure. Peer pressure. I mean, I I will just say this. I mean, in the end, it's well thought out. Everything seems to make sense. And if we keep doing what
we've been doing, I I think the path is is evident, you know. So, we got to change something. And and this makes a lot of sense to me. So, while I agree the the financing piece is a little scary at the moment, um hopefully the
idea is we we get more revenue from it. So, um I'm certainly in support of it. Great. Um did you guys have anything you wanted to say? I know you're not voting, but if you don't, I just want to make sure we include you before we actually vote.
Um maybe Wait, sorry. [laughter] Just one thing is that we met on Tuesday. Principal Ba came and gave the presentation to all of our representatives. It was roughly like 30 of us and we shared different like things that we thought worked well didn't work well stuff with like the marketing all that and I think we were
able to get like a better perspective and then also spread word of mouth throughout the students to everyone's aware about that. But I just thought I'd share that. We were able to be presented that and have like all of our representatives know and understand and then spread the word through the community and our school.
Yeah, that's that walking billboard that we talked about. So that that marketing is huge and that's why we we trust the staff. You're already on going forward with what we need to do to make this a success. So thank you for that. Um I am going to be enthusiastically supporting
this. Um I love career pathways. I love um I think that we have been I think some of our loss in PSO and online has been a failure maybe to adapt to what families have wanted from their schools and what our students are wanting. And
so I think by listening to our students, listening to our families and looking at the options that they are selecting and why they're leaving um for those options, this is going to help with that. Um, I would love a bigger, more cushioned fund balance. I there isn't a
day in this role that I don't worry about our budget because um you can't underscore how tight we are. But I also know we can't cut our way out of this into a better place. And so I am um supporting this enthusiastically because
I feel like it's a positive way to get us to a better place. It's investing in our students, what we know is right for our students, but also it's investing in um revenue growth opportunities. Uh and so I've been doing spending a lot of time on that and just knowing that we'll
have AA degrees and certificates and partnership with uh businesses and experiences for students. I just think that's going to be invaluable and it's what our families expect, I think. So, um, also I am I I feel like this started
back in 2023. I was looking back at my notes and it started with, well, wow, our sixth period day is just stressed. That was kind of like the big thing is, well, we have more mandated classes. And I'm so happy to see that this has through your process that this has truly
become more of a SWAT that SWAT analysis. I I loved that analysis and I hope that we see more of that from staff because it's so helpful and positive to have an something we can aspire to achieve. So, um it's trust and I think
we've done a lot to build trust at the board table and with our staff and we're hoping that you come back to us and let us know what else we can do to support you in this effort because this succeeding is our district's success and there is an investment that we're making. So feel free to um come to us
anytime. We're here to support our amazing staff and students and families and we just look forward to being part of making this successful. So um with that, I appreciate everyone sharing all their opinions and their reasons for their vote. Uh we have a motion and a
second. Uh all those in favor of supporting this year's course proposals, raise your hand and say I. I. I. Opposed. Course proposals pass. And now stick around because now we're gonna jump into the economics course and see if there's any questions on that.
Do you have any questions or do you have anything more to say because I kind of you know I don't other than just I apologize for going out of order and not and not catching that uh that previously. But yeah, I think that everything with the online course has kind of been laid out and happy to entertain any questions if there are any. Great. This is just a report. We're taking action at our next meeting just
because we want to make sure we give everyone time to see this first. If you have any questions between now and the action item on the next meeting, you can always email Dr. Funk or Robert Bach. Um, yes, for next time, it would be great to see
currently how many people are what is the percentage of people taking this on-site versus remotely or what is our capture rate in this class rate currently? Uh, as of last year, we had about 29 students that signed up for this. So, that would be the equivalent of about
one section. Um, again, we're kind of extrapolating out a little bit because if you remember, I talked last time about there was definitely a spike during semester 2. So again, it depends remains to be seen whether that's a trend or whether that was just uh one data point. But based on last year, I
would say that we could anticipate a minimum of 30 students signing up for it, which would translate to at least one section. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Any other questions? Great. That's all we have for you. Thank you, Principal Bach. We appreciate your time.
Thank you. Okay, our next item is uh the boundary changes. So, we are going to today, just to summarize where we're at in the process, um we are the boundary
committee has been meeting and that's a combination of staff and community members. They're here to report three kind of preliminary options that they're ready to take to the thought exchange and to a community listening session. Um, and so with that with those
completed, then it'll go back to the boundary committee and they will make any necessary adjustments based on that feedback and it will come back to the board for a report and then another meeting for action. So, at this point, this is a check-in kind of in the
process for the board to kind of know where we are before it goes to the community. So, hopefully I set that up right. Correct me if I'm wrong. [laughter] Okay. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Uh, so I'm Eric Simmons, exe executive director of technology. Uh, we brought with us a few members of our boundary committee here
and I will let them introduce themselves and then we'll jump into the the three boundary options that our committee is bringing forward. I'm Heather Murray. I'm a principal on special assignment. Uh Tom Voit uh parent representative on the boundary committee. Hal Delar Roseby parent representative on the committee.
And we have a couple more backwards. [clears throat] Thank you. Thank you all for being here. So uh to start we are going to revisit why we are looking at boundary changes here. And so uh we are preparing for the opening of new Lake Elmo and Bayport
elementary schools. And we're also looking to balance that enrollment across the southern part of the district. And so when we look at which schools will be impacted, it's Afton Lakeland, Brookview, Lake Elmo, and not listed but needs to be is like Bayport Anderson.
And also to review our the guiding principles for the boundary changes that our committee was tasked with. And so this was approved by the board on September 30th. And so we're tasked with making decisions in the best interest of all students. Um looking at that southern part of the district. So
looking at the demographic makeup of the student body um gathering feedback from various stakeholder groups. So we had a lot of different people on the boundary committee as well. So we had a 19 member committee uh made up of community members u across the district. And then
we're also looking at uh transportation. So safe and efficient transportation. Um to the extent possible keep the feeder system within the middle schools. So none of the options in front of you change our uh middle school feeder systems at all. And then to the extent possible, keep neighborhoods together. I think the standard that I kept hearing
in our boundary committee meetings were um if there's a road that you wouldn't want your child to cross to borrow a cup of sugar or something from a neighbor, uh we would consider that a neighborhood when we looked at how we where we're drawn boundaries and then to the extent possible look at having all of our
elementary schools with that minimum enrollment of 400 400 students for programming. We also wanted to start here with this is a snapshot of the current demographics in those four schools. And so as you look at this one thing uh to highlight is that if you look at uh both
Brookview and Lake Elmo, those schools serve students uh from more racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds than Afton Lakeland and Anderson elementary schools. And I want to just stop you there for a second. This is an important factor for the board to consider.
[clears throat] Brookview Elementary as of last year was considered in a racially isolated school, meaning its percentage of uh u student body makeup was significantly different than some of the schools
surrounding it. And this year, the Department of Education has said they're not racially isolated this year, but they're on the edge. So when the board and the administration and committee are making decisions, we have to be taking a
look at okay um you know if we make a decision is it going to throw one of our schools into being racially isolated or not. Can you just for the board's benefit explain when a school is racially identifiable? Does that require action that the school districts need to then
take? So basically what they will tell you is if you have been identified then the district is basically directed how to fix it and the shortest fix is a reboundary. Um so when we're looking at you know 5 to 10 year down the road for
our boundaries that's a factor we want to take into consideration. So we don't want to at at a minimum we don't want to make the situation uh worse than uh than it already is. Thank you for that clarification.
Yes. So we are we are going to uh walk through these three options and then at the end of this talk through process because this is new information for the board tonight. Um we have a number of community engagement sessions coming up as well as to review our timeline of what this looks like as a whole.
And I should say too, the board is invited to attend that listening session and it has been noticed. Yes, we it's been so we're having the listening session is done the 13th at what time? 6. Yes. And so we've noticed it is a school board meeting so all the board members
can attend and uh it's at Oakland Middle School and sit and listen to the uh the questions and the discussion. Thank you. Yes. What date again? November 13th. Next Thursday. 6 PM Oakland Middle School. And uh we will also have an
online engagement opportunity as well. We'll be running a thought exchange to get feedback from our community who aren't able to make it to that. So we'll talk through our first option here, option A. And you as you look at this map, so this is zoomed in on the southern end of the district. Uh the yellow color there is
Afton Lakeland. If you go to the north, that like blue color, purple color is uh Bayport Anderson Elementary School. Uh the red is Lake Elmo. And then on the the south uh southwest corner there, that's um Brookview Elementary School.
And so this first option uh proposes moving that parcel 44, which is part of West Lakeland from Afton Lake to Afton Lakeland, excuse me. And then parcels 53 and 54 are currently a
part of Aftton Lakeland boundary. And I would propose moving that up to the Bayport boundary. And then we talk a lot about this parcel 52 which is down in Brookview Elementary School. And you can see it's 52N, 52 North, and 52 South.
And right now 52 South, uh, believe most of that neighborhood is called Dancing Waters right now. The 52 North is all it's all commercial, but there are residential developments under construction right now. Parts of those will be completed in fall of 26. U, but most of those are slated two, three,
four years out, but they are in progress. So that 52 north is something that we'll talk about in all three options. But option A, it's moving that 52 north which is currently in development to Afton Lakeland. And then that south end um which actually includes Brookview Elementary School
itself uh would continue to go to Brookview. And so here's a snapshot of the enrollment estimates over the next three years across those four schools as well as the capacity. And the capacity for those would be our fall 26 capacities.
So it accounts for the new Lake Elmo capacity and the new Bay Park capacity. Yes. How is um our special programs factored into these uh the gate program and uh the Spanish immersion program?
Yes. Uh really good question. And so when we we run uh enrollment estimates, uh the gate program itself, we manually move into Bayport Elementary School every year. And so we look at how many students live within the proposed Bayport boundary. Those are already accounted for. We take all the students
that are a part of gate that are outside of that boundary right now. And then it uses a um like a cohort cohort survival rate to look at um what percentage of students would be coming from outside of Bayport boundary into years three and four or sorry two and three.
Thank you. Yes. The same for Spanish merch. Sorry if I hit the microphone. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Um [clears throat] uh you mentioned the minimum um 400 enrollment at the
beginning. What does that like translate into in terms of like percentage capacity? And is there like an ideal or like a sweet spot percentage capacity that you're trying to that you that it's good to be at or around? Yes. And I anybody else is is definely
welcome to chime in on this. We as we looked at moving students around on that on the southwest corner of the district. Um you know option A has us moving some students out of Afton Lakeland up to Bayport. See see two other options in front of you. um we were trying to get as close as we could to that 400 number
at least in the Aftton Lakeland. So some of our our capacities across the elementary schools are different like for example Aftton Lakeland the capacity there is 500 um the new Anderson or New Bayport capacity is 600. So I guess maybe more pertinent to your
question uh there's not a set like est like perfect percentage capacity of a building. The 400 is more based on a programmatic capacity. By having 400 students in a class, you can maximize your specialist needs, your classroom
ratios, so everything just cleans up better. Okay. Uh each of our buildings are of a different size, but if you can get to 400, things start to make it easier for scheduling for a principal. Okay. And so that's kind of unique to us. or I mean know the principle is
probably unique is probably standard but for us 400 is the number yeah it again it becomes a specialist issue I you give an example I give you right now is is Bayport you know we're at 300 or less there right now all right so we have got specialists that are
shared you know by multiple schools to go and cover cover down because they they don't have enough students for their own specialist got it the higher we can get that number to 400 or 4 450 the better off we are as far as the u specialist
piece. It's the concept that basically translates to three sections. Yes. About that. Okay. Thank you. Can I ask one more before we go on to these? I'm assuming all these models take into consideration growth you know about like development you know about
not development that obviously is kind of not approved by a city council or on their radar even. So, um, because I know that like for these new buildings, and I'm sure you talked about it, this was a 10-year kind of capacity looking out 10 years hopefully. I mean,
if it would if we could do that. So, just to keep that in mind, too, is we're having the conversations. It's a really good point. We did, you know, on a committee, we did talk a lot about it's easy to talk about the developments that might might come, might be the, you know, the fields that we think might be sold off in five or
six years. We worked with the data and the information that we had. Yeah. Developments that are in progress. One more question. How many how many are students are in um Afton Lakeland right now? Do we know? Uh as of sorry October one Afton
Lakeland is 421 students. 21. Okay. Yeah. About 85% capacity right now. And if we jump forward here, option A. Um, we wanted to get the demographics and in front of you for what this does
um to our four schools in the southern end there with the demographics. Do we have an idea of what the changes that would impact for racially isolated
situation would be? I don't know how to ask that question. So if you're concerned it, so uh one of the committee's tasks was to not create a racially isolated school within a district. And the definition of that by law is you have a protected set of students um non-white typically be the
identifying factor. And any one school cannot be greater than 20 percentage points different than the other schools of that grade tier in a school district. If it is, then you're now identified as racially isolated. You cannot deliberately boundary that
way. You cannot make a school that's racially isolated. They'll pretty much turn around and say, "Go back to the the drawing board." So, we took that into consideration. None of the plans we're going to propose to you create a racially isolated school district with it. Thank you. Thank you.
Any other questions on option A here? So uh options B and C look very similar. Uh the the one difference you will you will see here. So um option B have what that we we are bringing forth here is to move those parcels 40 and 41. So 40 is
Lake Elmo airport um and 41 is just south of there. You can see in the in that purple color. So those are currently Lake Elmo Lake Elmo neighborhoods. uh moving those to Bayport and then that parcel 52 north those new developments that are
currently currently coming uh would move up to Lake Elmo Elementary School on this. And so when we look at demographics I guess first we'll talk enrollment estimates but when we look at demographics of that we can account for the students we know coming in from
those buildings but we don't know um the demographics we use are actual students that we know of in those buildings. So when we move developed neighborhoods that have not been developed at all, just to Yeah, just to jump back 52 north, there's no students at all in that in that square right now. So it's
accounting for students. Um but the demographics don't change at all between options B and C. Yeah. Makes sense. Yes. Go ahead. 52 North. Is that projected to be more higher density housing? Uh that part of the consideration as well, I would imagine. Yes. The developments underway right now
are two larger apartment buildings. like over the next three years 276 units total. Yeah. So definitely move the needle. Yes. And I mean I know that's there's also a lot of talk of to be developed land there but what we know is 276. Okay. Thank you. I think uh just to dive more into that
as well. They're all um like onebedroom up to fourbedroom units as well. This is what the enrollment estimate would look like for option B. So you can see the Lake Elmo neighborhood or the Lake Elmo elementary school a little bit higher capacity than
it would and the option to come here. Here are the demographics with option B here. So I mean one theme that you will continue to see across this is that Brookley and Lake Elmo still continue to serve neighborhoods with more students
with more diverse backgrounds. Option C the third option that we are bringing forward uh same as option B moving the parcel the neighborhoods or parcels 40 and 41 up to Bayport Elementary School up there. And then that 52 north and option C uh is moved
over to Afton Lakeland Elementary School. again that 52 south the south end of that neighborhood stays at Brookview and you'll see as we look at enrollment estimates on this um this option as well it's after Lakeland a little bit higher because it accounts for the growth in
that development again the demographics are exactly the same in each option and here the demographics So this slide here uh gives you an an overview of the estimated impact of
students. So this is existing students today. If students are in developments that are not built where no one lives, we are not counting them as impacted students at all on this. Right. Um so option A right now impacts 135 students. Um then both option B and C impact 39 students. sort of moving that
development to two different neighborhoods. But the the number of projected students is like that that aren't impacted right now. What what is you know I mean when we've run three years out the the
number that our enrollment estimates has given us is 60 students we believe generated out of that. I mean it's an estimate based on you know certain number of students depending on the housing unit. So it gets really granular for each two-bedroom housing unit. It assumes a different fraction of a
student out of each uh it's kind of goofy to think of students as a fraction of a student, but it runs all those scenarios for us. So 60 students total is what it is when that's completed about in about three years. Yeah. Yes.
Um can can you just clarify for the um in the demographics is that a current snapshot? Yes. So it accounts for our current students as we move our current as it stands today. So one of the variables obviously is we need to make sure we have room you know a margin for error you
know to meet the necessary requirements for you know you know more diverse students coming into a school and obviously we don't know what that's going to look like with for 52n is that a fair assessment yes okay Dr. Funk,
you know, one of the things we can look at with 52 is we have some other fairly large apartment complexes within the district across the street. Yep. So, what's our current demographic makeup of those apartments? So, that's
something we we're, you know, administratively we're starting to take a look at. Okay. what some potential, you know, if if they're similar apartments, similar income. All right, what's that going to look like? The the other piece I can
share with you is I mean, and I can talk Lake Elmo here for a second. You know, we know that there are very large developments on the books that they have not broke land or broke ground on yet. Um so again
what we're the challenge we have is okay we have these new buildings we are now prepared for when these developments go in um and we're trying to make adjustments u based upon a what
we know and then you know b what is coming um and so we want to make sure we have capacity for when it comes And that's kind of the challenge that uh that we're faced with right now. I mean, we know these apartment complexes are
going up. Um we can see them being built. There are some smaller developments going up through, you know, around the district. Um but some of the big ones have not really um taken off yet. Is there a consideration for the um
current fourth graders who may want to finish that last year at their current school and not make the change or would they just have to open and roll over? So I can tell you historically um in my
career of boundary changes um the the uh fifth graders um or current fourth graders um have been grandfathered in, meaning that they could stay at the school. There have been no discussions or recommendations on that at this point
yet. Um, but uh that's historically what I've seen and I think that's consistent with what's happened here in Still Water as well. But we we're not we're not there to discuss that yet. I would I would also add to that that open enrollment still does exist. So
that there would still be that option as there's space available and you can see that we're not at capacity in a number of these scenarios. So there could still be that choice. Right. Thanks. One of the guiding principles, and you may not have an answer for this, or I might be getting ahead of the game a
little bit here, but transportation is something we talk about at the board a lot, that we're over budget, we've got an odd shaped district. Are any of these are all of these transportation efficient? Will that is that part of the discussion since it's on the guiding
change? Yes. So, we we did have uh Tom Rizley, our transportation coordinator, part of the boundary committee as well. And so, um, no concerns jumped out as we looked at, you know, where these neighborhoods fell in any of the options that we brought forward. Okay. Thought they could be fairly efficient.
Yeah. Uh, there was a consideration. Um, and most of the the lines that you see follow along arterial roads. You know, you wouldn't walk your across the street as we said. So, buses are typically going down in either direction and picking up. Uh, it was something that we
did discuss about with 52 north, especially when we were looking at B and C. Do we go to Lake Elmo which is physically closer? Do we bring it to Afton Lakeland which is a greater distance but brings other things to have? So yes, we were thinking about
distances. um not always with our budget hats on. But but it also means um you know we discussed as much as if you're living in an apartment complex uh and your availability are you incumbent upon uh public transportation needs and so are these individuals less
likely to attend conferences if it's there's not an option that to get down to a school and so things we tried to take into consideration uh ultimately thought it's our time to bring it to the public to get their feedback. Yes. Oh, thank you. Great. We appreciate you
walking us through kind of where we're at right now. These are the next steps. Yes. Oh, yep. Go ahead. Oh, sorry. Uh, one last question. At at least I think two of the scenarios, um,
Afton Lakeland drops below the 400. Would is it on the table or being discussed how he'll handle the specialists there? Would there be I I don't like the word assurances, but is there something that says no matter what changes, we won't affect the specialist count for the schools that we're
adjusting or [clears throat] that was definitely a question that had come up from a few parents as we talked through uh options. I think what the boundary committee's focus was was trying to get as close to that number as we could. Um you know, it wasn't wasn't up to this initial
boundary committee uh recommendation or options to bring these to bring that forward. Thank you. But then we don't have that the 52n that is going there in one of the scenarios does not have students accounted for in that number. Correct. But I think that's supposed to be done like very quickly.
Is that the numbers are estimated? Yeah, they are in there. Not a 50. Yes, they Okay, they're included in here. They're not impacted because there's nobody there yet. The best time to move a a location is when there's nobody there, right? But they're are they're already in the projected. So, if we're looking at something that's under 400, that
includes the development, the undeveloped area. Okay, that's helpful. Great. Um, so here are the different um opportunities for the community to weigh in both in the thought exchange and in a community boundary conversation meeting.
That's November 13th, 6 PM at Oakland. And then the board will have a report on December 2nd with action on a decision December 16th. Um I I know that for board members who have been through this process both either as a community
member or a board member, thank you to the comm to the committee that meets. It's a fabulous committee and like just the options and the considerations. It's it would blow your mind. So, thank you very much for all that time and
thoughtful work that you do and that you're not done doing. [laughter] Um, this is when it will get interesting, right? And um, and one question I had for the board's sake is will the staff or the comm or the committee I know sometimes the committee
makes recommendations, sometimes they don't um, pick a finalized version. Does staff plan on kind of coming to the board with their thoughts? I think the committee's role is to provide feedback. The administration's role is to provide a recommendation.
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you all. All right, our next item is an update on adventure club enrollment and weight lists. [clears throat]
Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity to update you on where things stand right now with Adventure Club. All right, first slide. You've seen this slide before. We've just updated the numbers. So, we're looking at uh where
we were at the last time that I provided a report on on Adventure Club and reflecting on where we are today or at the end of last week. And so, um what's uh important to understand about these
numbers is that they're very dynamic. Each one of those numbers represents a mixture of people leaving the system or finding alternative care and students being added to the system and increasing
our numbers and then students that have left um because they have found alternative care. Right? So there isn't a a really simple way to unpack these numbers. So, I'm not actually a huge fan of these numbers right now because they're hard to explain. But if we go to
the next slide, I think we've learned some interesting things. So, you can see these are the last three years. And as we reflected on not only these last three years at this time, we went back and we looked at various times
throughout our uh more recent history and found in general when you add the students on the waiting list and the students that are in the program we have a need for about 11 a,00 to,00
students in the program. Right? So as we reflected on that we realized well if we were able to achieve uh at least enough room for 1100 students in the spring we would have
some confidence that we'd be prepared to take about 1100 students in the fall. Now we still do get frequent fluctuation in our staff so we can't guarantee that but at least that would be a good starting place. So I have directed the
team to continue to staff up and achieve that goal right let's get up to that 1100 so that we can feel some level of confidence that we are ready to accept the families per hopefully earlier than we have in
the past. In addition to that, we had some conversation about how we are um bringing students into the program. You had a previous speaker that shared some thoughts about her experience uh
coming into the adventure club program or coming to the district and and trying to get in the adventure club program. And what we realized is that there were a couple of things that were happening to our families that probably didn't feel so good that maybe we could do something about. So we started with we
are going to when we do our preschool registration in years past we were not able to place those. We hadn't started adventure club registration yet when we do our preschool. So we are not able to place any of the preschool families. So automatically they were made to wait.
This year our intention is is to place at at least well in we're going to place automatically 10 students 10 preschool students at each of our elementaryaries. So as they register for preschool and this is again a lottery system but as
their they their name is drawn the first 10 at each school will be provided with a placement. In addition to that, we are committing to our current families that if they enroll during our renewal period, we
give a very specific renewal period to our current families that they too will be placed immediately for next year. So they won't have to wait to wonder will I get in or not.
What the effect we're hoping this has in addition to the,00 staffing up to 1100 is that not only will we have shorter weight lists for the remaining families, but we're hoping we're going to actually even be able to accept some of those sooner. Great. Dr. Funk,
define family. So, for example, okay, I've got, you know, first grader, second grader, and then now I've got a kindergartener who's not receiving. So current families are current families whether their child has
attended or not they are accepted. So the family if they add a new student in as unit. Correct. Correct. We do not divide families up. So if we were to have a preschool student and those first 10 students that are placed that has an older sibling
that isn't already in the program, they too would be placed. Again, we follow we keep try to keep family units together. Thank you. All right. So, any questions? Um, I think, and I'm glad you brought up
the public comment that we had with new families. Do we think that this is going to I mean, obviously, it doesn't resolve all of the issues that I think that she brought for new families, but I mean, do you have it will this make an impact? Do you think this will
We certainly hope it will. Uh so we did have someone reach out to her and have further conversation. Perfect. Absolutely. And actually she connected us with another new individual to the community that we were able to have a conversation with as well.
So um uh as you can see some of the um things that we've been doing is to try to help all families. She is representative of those families. But of course, this is that piece about the preschool in particular came to the
surface in part through those conversations. And how will communication be because I noticed she had some feedback on the communication and how it could be improved. Has that been looked at? Okay. Yes, we've been having those conversations about how we could do more touch points in informing families where we're at. Correct.
So, we're going to build out a a communication plan depending upon how the the um those that end up on the waiting list are experienced this year because again, if we can get us ourselves up to 1100 and and have some reasonable assurance that we're we've um
we are going to retain those staff, then we'll feel more confident in accepting those families more quickly. Great. Yeah. Any other questions? Um, and I just probably missed this, but for the shorter wait lists for new
families, is that is that going to be a result of staffing up? Yes. Okay. Okay. So, that as well as um as we are able to place those other students that bring that shortens our weight list, so going to be as far down. Yep. Okay. Yep, that makes sense. Thanks.
I did have one more question. Um I know that uh Sarah talked about how awesome those enrichment courses were that you started this year. How has that gone? Did they get filled? Are they a part of the numbers here? They are not a part of those years. Um and that we have a mixed experience
there. So we we've been reflecting on that as well as we just put together our winter catalog uh which will be coming out soon. uh but that uh we found variability from school to school as to um how much those classes are being
used. So we're still trying to figure out exactly what the sweet spot is. Um one of our greater challenges we've always tried to provide the same classes at every school, right? Because a student might be at Afton and see a class that they want to take at Rutherford, but yet they can't get
there, right? Um however the interest level at those two buildings are very different and so um so we have to also think about what is reasonable for a school to um support because what we
don't like seeing is having to cancel classes. Not only is that not great for the children who lose out on something that they had hoped to participate in, but then also it's not good for the instructors themselves. That's lost wages and opportunity for them. So,
so we we're probably going to continue with that strategy, but modify is kind of what you're saying. We're gonna have to modify it and really have it reflect the building interest more than what our approach was is to have two things offered every day. We're
not able to sustain that at every building. So therefore, we're going to modify it so that we don't have two offerings every day. Okay. At every building. Some buildings. Yes. Thank you. Can I ask you a quick question? Um I noticed that we still have 15
hopefully 15 new staff to be fully um covering the weight list, I'm assuming. Yes. Yes. So, I just was curious if you could give us a little update on how your staffing is going um especially looking at the the new start times um and how that has impacted um maybe kids
in the morning versus the afternoon and how that has impacted your It certainly has um changed the footprint of our staffing that we're much more heavy in the afternoon and and much smaller in the morning. We generally speaking have two staff. So at
minimum we always have two staff in our program and so in the mornings we are finding that that's all that is needed at our schools. In the afternoon of course our numbers have gone up quite a bit. Uh and I'm glad you asked this question because I had intended to tell you right now we have about eight uh
staff that are in the process of coming into the system. So when you look at that 15 that we're hoping to hire, we hope to have half of that solved very soon here, which again is going to impact that weight list. Uh and that it it it's an ongoing process,
right? Staff come and go just like our students come and go. So therefore, we'll we'll just continue at it until we have enough to serve,00 kids. Thank you. One more question. Sorry, I'm like, but
can you explain how the prek spots um that are being offered, how they open up more like 70 spots or something for other people? So, can you explain a little bit about how that prek how that impacts? Uh well, first of all, we have
attrition. So, we have students that age out of the program. So, families make decisions at the end of the year, my student isn't coming back. So, on that end, there are kids that aren't returning. And that gives us some space to add kids to the program. In addition
to that, because we have reached a higher level of staffing this year than we have in years past and again that we're going for the 1100, the coordinating team felt confident that they would be able to take those 70 students and place them immediately.
So, it's kind of a combination of things that we're doing to get to that place where we can accept them. Okay. Any other questions? I mean, good news. I know we're still making progress, but I know your efforts have been tremendous. So, thank you to your you and your team.
Absolutely. Every every family is important to us, so we'll continue until we're serving them all. Great. Thank you, Annette. Absolutely. All right. The next um topic that we're going to have is the board's conversation
around um committee structure as we start looking forward to Oh, thank you. She's Oh, you got to pull it up. Okay. New for me. Okay.
So, I just thought I would walk us through our current committee structure, some of the reasons behind the committee structure, and some of the work that we want um to think about moving into the next year.
Okay, new with the clicker. I just thought this was a fun way to start it out. [laughter] Let's have a meeting to discuss the committees, who will form the task forces, who will then have more meetings. this is what we want to avoid [laughter] but I think we've all been there done
that many times in many lives per of our so um the purpose of tonight's discussion we want to consider the role and limitations of committees review the types of committees and how they are currently used to discuss the
board's current committee work preferences just to see if anything has changed do a little check-in um ensure the board majority's direction is reflected for next year. And you will notice throughout this conversation that policy 213, which is the board's policy
um on committees, just doesn't align with how we work. And it's like other policies, hasn't been updated. So whatever direction we um come to the agreement on today by majority will reflect that in our next policy discussion.
All right. Roles of committees. They serve as advisory to the board. So they study, review and recommend. They do not make decisions on behalf of the board. That only is with us here. Uh they're focused on governance work should remain at the policy and oversight level
aligned with board and district strategic direction. And then the reporting function committees report findings and recommendations to the full board which retains all again all of the decision-making authority. Stress this over and over is with us.
Committee guidelines. Um, pretty self-explanatory. We want to stay out of the um, work of staff. So, avoid operational work. No independent authority resides with any committee. Uh, we are subject to open meeting law, which is why you see that our committees
are um, noticed and open to the uh, community members who are interested in attending. Um, and then we have uh, the collective responsibility to make decisions here at a noticed board meeting. Um I just had attached there that there was a data practice um
advisory opinion um that did uh reference the way several years ago that committees were handled. just as for information for people who wanted to read that types of schoolboard committees and there are several there's the committee
of the whole which is what we um try to do more of uh and we do standing committees which um we'll get into that later ad hoc and then working groups with board representation committee of the whole is essentially what we have here we work together
collectively we review we have reports we have conversations We ask questions and we end up voting. So, um we review challenges and consider opportunities. Uh this has been the board's preferred work style over the last few years. I
think we got a little committee heavy um was the board's opinion um kind of around that advisory opinion time where it was um we had some quorum issues and things of that nature. though. And then business meetings and study session
format allows us to study topics uh as needed. Standing committees, a permanent committee established by the board to handle an ongoing area of responsibility. Policy is the best example of this. It's a regular meetings
um monthly and then they consolidate and gather feedback and have some discussion and bring recommendations to the board. uh in existing policy 213 finance and ops is referred to as a standing committee. Um at the time uh the board felt that this work was redundant based
on having these meetings um and that it was repetitive, wasteful of staff time and we folded it into the work of the board. So much much more budget discussions and priority discussion at the board meeting. Ad hoc is a temporary committee. Um this
is they these ad hoc committees are charged with a specific purpose that is short-term in nature and in our existing policy 213 legislative and community engagement are listed as separate ad hoc working groups. So we actually have combined them but um in practice these
are uh it's one but in policy it's two working groups with board representation and this is essentially when we we have several of these where the board a board member or two serve as a liazison to community groups and that are advising
the board and looking um at different aspects. So, it's commonly used in partnership plan 916, AMSD, curriculum advisory, Minnesota State High School League. There's um a lot that we could name. And then short-term, you saw one
of these advisory groups now, boundary committee, gifted and talented, where oftentimes we will have a board member or two sit and you know kind of observe the work being done. Pros of board subcommittees deeper focus on an issue identified the by the board.
It's a forum for more informal discussion. They can prepare and refine proposals for the board to consider much like in policy. Uh and there is the potential for efficiency. I think we see that in policy. If we were having it as a whole board, it would be probably pretty long board meetings and um
painful. Some cons of the subcommittee structure. Uh there can be an information imbalance between board members. Uh if a fourth board member attends, it constitutes a quorum and definitely triggers certain open meeting law requirements. Uh the
director attendance can be challenging during the workday. So sometimes it can disenfranchise um some board members from participating. Uh so it can create um some burden on a few directors. uh the director interest in certain comm in
certain committees can create competition. Uh it can drift into management pretty easily and sometimes it's a duplication of work which is what we found at the time with our when we decided to do finance and um ops by the board is we were doing a lot of duplication of work
and then of course burden on staff. We don't want our staff sitting in a lot of meetings. We want them doing the work that they need to be doing for our students. Um this is our current committee function. So our standing committee is policy. Our ad hoc is let
us legislative outreach and community engagement. And again ad hoc seasonal short-term um I legislative usual and community engagement will meet if there's a specific reason for community engagement. But also legislative like around this time of year which is on our
agenda today. They they talk about different uh legislative priorities for the board to consider. uh committee of the whole which is what we currently do for finance and operations and um board representative groups. I've kind of listed all the ones that I could think of after doing some some
searching. So now just after that summary I thought we could have some board discussion. Here are some questions. Do board members have a shared understanding? I think we probably do but um what are your thoughts on committees? how we fulfill um how they help us or hinder us
from filling our fulfilling our governance role. Do we want to revisit our overall approach to committee work? Uh do we want to consolidate, separate, eliminate or create additional committees? And how should we measure um
whether the committees are effective in truly adding value? We can start here and kind of share some opinions. I did put um together just based on looking at different committees, I did put some recommendations that I'm sure you saw.
This was just to kind of jump start conversation. Um but you can kind of take a look at this. I think that um we can kind of bounce back and forth, I guess, but just looking for the board's thoughts on committee work.
Um obviously the board is always going to maintain its authority to establish an ad hoc committee for any reason. Um those ad hoc committees are typically with a specific uh charge from the bo
majority of the board. So um that remains and is in policy today but want to see how things are working today for the board. Um, again, there's inconsistencies in policy with how we
function today. Any thoughts? Yes, and sure. Um, thank you for the presentation. I feel like this was a good grounding and a reminder of what committees are and what we're all I mean, we all live this um to an extent being on these committees and being
assigned to the subcommittees in the community. Um, but it's good to get the feedback specifically for the policy. We really want some direction in how to change this policy. Um, and I just pulled up 213 and right now we do have finance and ops listed in our policy as
a standing committee. Um, because that is what we have traditionally done. Um, but we haven't been doing that in practice. Um, we a few years ago decided that there was so much information coming to finance and ops that the whole board needed um and wanted uh because
it's all budget stuff. So, and um and I believe at that time you were previewing contracts or the things that the staff would then turn around and say the same thing right back to the board. So, it really became kind of a redundant work at the time. Um and I definitely
appreciate having put into practice the um committee of the whole for that particular committee. Um just getting that information. I don't feel like it needs to stay as a standing committee. I feel like it's almost been elevated to the work of the whole board. Um that it
doesn't need to be that standing committee policy. I would recommend keeping as a standing committee just because it's it is a lot of side work, but I'd be curious if other people want to elevate that to the work of the board. Um or not? No. No. Okay. Um I
wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but I'm just for policy. Yeah. For policy. [laughter] And I will say this policy was last updated in 2018. Um policy it was Yep. It was slightly revised. Um but I think we kind of
punted a little bit because we just had other priorities and legal obligations that were legalities that we had to. So now we're kind of coming which is nice. we're coming coming to some of these other policies that don't have time consuming or legality, you know, concerns with
them, but just more of our own um work preference. Yes. Um two questions or observations or thoughts. One, um when I look at just
just kind of a cursory look at other school districts, it seems as though they have numerous committees. Um um and I think every one I've seen has a finance committee in some way, shape, or form.
And so I'm curious to know if um the kind of previous objection to the finance committee and that's just one example um uh just had to do more with how it functioned versus the idea of a
finance committee in general because it seems to be pretty standard. So I I actually did a lot of research on this too and I and there are finance and ops. I think what we have lost that most districts have is this community finance committee. If you look at the third bullet point,
so that's what I was that was going to be my most question. Most districts do have that and we used to have that. Um we just, you know, had a lot of staff turnover at one point in time and so um so that kind of went away. I I do think that it would be helpful, I think, to have that because
again, when we're talking about walking billboards, it's helpful for community members to understand the challenges, how school finance works. Um, and so I guess what I was thinking is bringing that back as a committee that would have a board representative. And that's what I saw in my research of a lot of other
districts. They have a it's a community group that then has a board member that sits on it and kind of observes the work and addresses questions maybe from a board priority perspective. Yes, Dr. Funk. So I I give you my thoughts on
finance and finance and ops here and experiences with finance and other places and and things like that. So finance committees in my history prior to coming to to Snowwater
operated from this perspective. Um they primary things they did is they were really the people who um reviewed the preliminary budget in more detail than the rest of the board.
And the other thing that they did was they looked at the audit. They receive audit information much more in depth than the board. Okay? So the auditor would come and you know the board gets a short presentation. the finance committee gets more more of the details.
Um they're also a uh when you're looking at a referendum um they're also a good committee for that to to bounce things off of in Still Water. How it was structured was we had this finance and ops and so it was fascinating. um
finance and ops would meet and we'd look at milk price contracts, we would look at roofing, we would look at I mean total management stuff and then um
the board with a week later would get the identical agenda items that the finance committee was was looking at. And it was just like, okay, why are we doing this redundant
because it was the way it was structured. And so I I think to Allison's point, okay, um if we're structured in this matter, then why isn't the whole board seeing this information? And so I think that's kind of what happened with it. Um and so
that's kind of where we've landed, where where we're at. Um so that's my experience with that. The other thing I want to just briefly touch base on is the community finance committee is a great option especially I talked a little bit about it um when you're rolling out uh
potentially a referendum or something because then you what you do is you bring key people in the community together and they talk they they get to understand the the financial situation and where the district is at and what the the need is and then they can go out and have
conversations with the wider community. Yeah. So, that's my experience. No, and that's that's kind of um Thank you. That's kind of what I was suspecting. So, um and so I I just I love the idea of the community finance committee. I do too. I was Yeah, I really do think
that that it's time to resurrect that and to have a board representative um serving on there. And just to kind of maybe go over these really quick, I think that I haven't heard a lot the maintaining pol policy just serves itself well as a standing committee that
meets monthly. Um I think that I don't I haven't heard a lot of people saying, "Wow, I'd love to do that policy at the board table." It all comes back to us in a way that I think tells um that still provides for that voice to be heard by everyone. um
the community engagement and legislative. I did have a little bit more question on this because not every district when I was doing my kind of own audit here has a community engagement group. Um we do and we combine it with legislative there. It's two different
skill sets. I mean two different interests. you might be really into let you know and and really interested in pursuing legislative work but maybe not um so much on the community engagement side or vice versa. Also, community engagement. We have a calendar. We do
schoolboard liaison. You know, not every district does have a community engagement. I mean, most have a um finance and usually they're the community finance committees. Um most do have a legislative, they do have a
policy. The community engagement was a little I just didn't see a ton of it. But that doesn't mean that we can't. if we see value in it, we could also have it be more of an ad hoc when there's a purpose. Um, and then I did notice some gaps in our working groups, like we have
a PTO, PTA legisla, leadership group that meets. Um, and it would seem to me to be something that the school board should have a representative much like partnership plan or AMSD. So, I I guess I think that would be a good idea. And then we also have um special education
advisory committee which again to me seems like a gap in coverage that we have in a in an area that we would want to um be in connection with and have a board member attending those meetings just like we do with Sarah. I think right now you're on the community ed group. Yep.
Um I'm assuming it probably functions in a similar way. Uh it's just an opportunity those groups to share what the board is doing, what we're working on, and what's a priority. Um again, just that walking billboard. Um and then one thing I did have as an
idea, and I did see this also when I was doing kind of my audit on what other people do, we do a legislative breakfast. And I think that as we look at how do we partner with our communities and um I think maybe expanding that to uh city councils might
be something to consider. Um, you know, we have I think Mike was when I shared this idea, he's like, "Well, you I mean, we have like 18 or something." Did you say city council? So, that would be really hard and cumbersome to cover, but we could certainly consider ideas like having a um city council breakfast where
we bring we invite city council members together to um I think that could have some legs to that idea. just an idea that I had and I know I think that we were saying that you you had similar ideas. So I I did. Yeah.
Yeah. So just some thoughts. I can say I don't know who served on finance here. I served on finance at the beginning and um I did not find it helpful. I thought it wasted staff time and I much per my my personal preference is that it's we're all fidiciaries of this district
and we all need to have these conversations. So, I lean towards continuing finance and ops as work of the board um w with the caveat of I I do think it's time to resurrect that community finance committee, but that's
just based on my own audit. I just I just on on the finance and ops up front, I I mean, again, have we I mean, are other districts when they have these finance and ops committees, are they
running them differently than we used to. I mean, I guess I'm trying to figure out. Um I don't know. It just seems like there's I mean, some districts have both. They've got the community one and then they've got the board one. So, I'm just trying to
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I I can only speak that the what ended up happening in Stillwater is when you get the everyone wanted to be on the finance and ops. Um that was the committee that had the advisory opinion because a fourth board member attended and it became like
a transparency issue of okay now we have a quorum attending the meeting that can be you know when we talk about transparency you know a lot of it's also the makeup of the board so an example I could give you is
some people want more information okay and they really want to dive in and hey, I want to see the audit. I want to I want to, you know, really dive into the budget and others, okay, you know, all right,
that's fine. You know, I don't need I don't need to see that level of detail. Um but then it's the comfort level of the board with that because suddenly then all right if there's three people on this committee these three people
have more indepth knowledge of how the district is operating than the other four on the board. Yeah. And so I I think there's a tension there sometimes too. But that that's where it's a you know what's the board comfortable with? Yeah. No, that makes sense.
Yes. Director Celinder. Yeah. No, first of all, I just want to thank you for bringing this uh forth for discussion. I think it's a a really great opportunity to figure out what works best for our board. And obviously, I know with the disclosure, it's always subject to change. Um but again, what we've always looked at is what can we do
to create sustainable processes that our board and future boards, you know, can maybe leverage and utilize as a best practice. And um you know just from my own anecdotal standpoint and serving in multiple other boards uh capacities from a governance standpoint um I would argue
I think the the finance and ops committee in a public schoolboard setting is inefficient and not one that I have found to be valuable and I've have served on that um and I serve on finance ones in other boards that don't
have the same restrictions that the school board has from open meeting laws and all those things. You know, those have active community members that come to the board as part of excuse as part of that committee to provide an outside advisory. Um that also consists of
actual board members. And um that's why I do love the idea of that community finance committee. I think that is a really great opportunity I think for you know I don't want us to ever get stuck in our own silo around just hearing ourselves and you know what can we do to bring in these other stakeholder voices.
um and have these representations from all these different you know uh community groups that we're just listening and learning and we can bring that forth for uh discussions and so um I know in a in a perfect world you know I think these uh board committees like
finance and ops can create or you know can potentially can enhance focus and transparency um I I think in reality I don't think that's the case I think it rather introduces the risks of you know fragmentation Dr. funk as you kind of mentioned with that um meaning
there's just more silos that get created um and just um redundancies around um and duplication efforts you know we run a pretty lean administrative staff I mean I don't we don't have a you know you know people on top of people that can help support all the extra work
that's required for committees um and also that reduced transparency you know to what you had mentioned from the previous ruling that's a real concern um and just you overreach of or or you know or getting into management. You know that's the worst thing I think we can do as a board
is to get into management. Let our subject matter experts do what they do best. We can stay at a governance standpoint. And so um I would be in full support of eliminating the finance and ops and instead doing it as a committee of the whole as we've kind of been
doing. Um and you know I think looking to add some of these other working groups I think would be uh advantageous as well. Um again just to bring in additional stakeholder inputs uh from the community. So um so again I appreciate the opportunity for this
conversation and and I would let's kind of focus our time and effort. you know, we don't have unlimited time in a day, you know, and so let's make sure we can be most present and um and not maybe try to overextend ourselves for ourselves and also future board members. So, thank
you. Maybe and maybe the way we can even do this is and I'm just thinking can we come to an agreement that policy is working well as a standing committee and kind of take that. Is there anyone that Yeah, I didn't mention that. I'm fully in support of that being a standing
committee. I mean, otherwise we would have fourhour meetings. So, I think that provides um some good Yeah, we would some good direction. Um right now we have community engagement and legislative as one committee. Um
I think in policy it's two. Do we want to continue it the way it is? Do we want to again, you know, if you look at just when I was auditing what other districts are doing, they don't have um like a community engagement committee. My guess is if they have a
need, it's probably ad hoc like look at this or um I know my first our first year on the board, it was we worked with Carissa a lot to create that community engagement calendar and we had different needs and so we did meet but we it hasn't been a fun you know I think that
community engagement and legislative primarily meets because of legislative Um, I don't want to step in, but I I think having those be separate ad hocs would be something I would be in support of and efficient.
That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, I think legislative and community engagement. I just see them as two different things. And um, but the other point I was going to make fits in here. So, I was sitting with a U Stillwater city council member at a game recently. He's been there for
32 years. And um but anyway, he said, "You're the only board member that I know." And I go, "Oh, maybe we should do something about that." Now, I I don't quite have an answer yet, but I think now we're on the topic. If we could get something to uh connect more with our
cities, and I know we have 18 cities potentially to connect with, but I like I really like the the the breakfast one. they can come here, you can start conversations and then take them wherever they go. Um, but if there's some kind of representation for any of
us to connect with our cities, city council members, mayors, uh, that would be great. Um, now that this is coming up, I'll I don't have an answer now, but I'll I'll work on one.
And we could always start with a city council like trying a breakfast seeing what their needs are and what you know um I I was even saying maybe we have a signup sheet that you know hey this month is a good time and maybe Dr. Funk
we can send him out to different council meetings just to add [laughter] to your calendar. Don't you love that Dr. Funk? Um but you know so it might just be a good way to you second [laughter] that. Um,
but I do think that I I lean towards separating these two committees as well because I think that when you're assigning them that usually people are gravitating towards one or the other in terms of their expertise um and interest just a procedure. I mean when you decide
like we're going to separate these out like who sort of or what's the process for saying okay now here's the charter of this committee and here's you know this one and kind of building that structure. Well, ad hoc would be um well, this that'll be what we do in
policy. A lot of it will be what we separate into how we okay frame what's an ad hoc, what's a standing. So, that will kind of come to the board. But I will say if it's ad hoc, legislative is kind of a standing ad hoc. I mean, we always know legislative comes this time of year and
we have that. I think community engagement is different. It would be a conversation at the board table to say what is the one or two things that we want to look at from a community engagement standpoint this year. Um knowing that that's a committee that involves Carissa, she may have some
thoughts. Um staff may want to guide us a little bit on like, hey, we think we could use the board's attention here. Um you know, I don't think we should come up with something just to come up with something. I think it should be something that is a value ad to our priorities as a district because again
to my little cartoon, meetings upon meetings upon meetings make it hard um for staff and for us. I mean a lot of people here work full-time or have very little flexibility. And so um yeah, so that can be a consideration if you have
a job to to balance with everything. Um how does everyone feel about like community engagement and legislative being separate? I'm hearing some consensus on that. Well, they are separate though, right? I mean, we have [clears throat] in policy it is. In practice, it's not,
but we want to stay. I get we wouldn't modify that. I guess in policy, but we would separate it out. Is there anyone that feels like they would be better if it was combined like it is today? Okay. So, we'll separate that. One thing I'm curious about um with
community engagement versus legislative the way I have seen it work in practice is more legislative work kind of has a standing charge. It's an ad hoc group and that we don't meet regularly but it always we always are working on that um platform for the year. That's kind of
our standing charge. Whereas community engagement is ad hoc. We don't meet regularly but there is no standing charge. Correct. there is I mean that would be meets at the direction of the board and I think we can kind of iron that out in some policy but I do want to ask I mean because part of this is for policy but
also this is a time for us to talk about do we have a charge for community engagement I mean I want that to be a part of today's conversation so legislative kind of does it's very obvious what it is but as I was looking at what community engagement is I mean
do we have needs that anyone has seen And I thought um I know when I talk to board members, some are curious what our school administrators think of our schoolboard liaison um roles and is that value add is that
something that we need to still be doing? Does so I mean we could do something where that committee works with staff to analyze the effectiveness of that. Um, we have not I mean I I was looking
at other district um schoolboard website pages. They all do different things. Pictures of the board committee assignments under the picture. We could kind of look at how that our presence on the district website just our page.
Um we could not meet. [laughter] I don't know. And I have some thoughts now, but I'll make sure everyone has a chance to speak as well. So, thoughts on community engagement. I did fly.
Cool. Yeah. Yeah. No, so we talked about like the board liaison, the school liaison. Um, you know, Dr. Funk, I know my first year we had a good conversation about that and I was a pretty big advocate around that and you know, and having more time on the board and cycling through now.
Um, you know, I I you know, I I don't know how effective it maybe is. It's it's a great opportunity to see the schools, but my concern is you want it's easy to get down the slope of creating silos again, which we're as a board we're trying to get away from from a
productive governance board. Um, and so, you know, I think if there's something, we already have a community engagement calendar that Joan keeps tabs of, and I think that's a great way of saying, "Hey, this is a way that for, you know, as your schedule allows, you can attend those and and people can pick and choose
and and everyone's getting representation at different schools throughout the year, not just like that one semester, which maybe that's a busy time or something. There's nothing really happening at that school. So, um, you know, I have kind of changed my line of thought and and now and having three
years under my belt and being like, I don't know how effective that is and I would be open to looking at that as well. Dr. Funk, from a systems angle angle, is it totally inequitable as you've stated a number of times tonight, people are busy
on the board and some of you are more busy than others. And so if you have, okay, I've got Aftton Lakeland as my school this this semester. Okay, well great, but I'm I I don't have time to go to Afton Lakeland this semester. So therefore, they're not getting the
representation that maybe somebody who's got Stonebridge who is a lot more time. So it it really is an ine inequitable uh process. Um, so that's my two cents on that, but you've probably heard me say that I don't know how many times over
the last uh three plus years. But the other thing I want to just touch briefly on is if you go back and you take a look at your strategic plan or our strategic plan. All right, strategic direction D is develop strong partnerships with
communities we serve. Okay, so what are we doing to reinforce that strategic direction from the board level? Those are my two cents. Good point. I would also say the, you know, the
school liaison role. I've noted in addition to some of what you guys have um already shared, I noticed that I think that if we have representation to the PTO, PTA leadership group. I think that will help with that because that
seems to be the one thing that I do think is valuable is going into um that that school and if we have a liaison or two and if there's a need for that PTO PTA to have a board member attend a meeting and talk about a priority there
is a liaison there that can do that and or ask for help from board members. I mean we are a team. I just think that it it does become sometimes you know sometimes you go in and someone meets in the first semester with a PTO then someone else comes in and they are
meeting again and so it's hard and then also when we were listening to our building principles um and we talk about their lack of time for leader instructional leadership I always feel like I am one more thing on their list when I email them and say hi I'm your
liaison would like to introduce you know I I I just feel like it might be adding a little bit more um to-do for them. And that was com that was created at a time where we didn't have the community engagement calendar.
Um I I've had mixed reactions on being the liaison where I tell one principal, hey, I'm your liaison. Okay, get here tomorrow. I want to show you some stuff, you know. And I have other ones that said, "Yeah, and um you know, I'll try
to get on one of your PTA meetings." Okay. Yeah. So there there is different levels of enthusiasm depending on where you're going. And I also think along that, you know, to your point, some of some of those concerns is it it there is a power dynamic. You know, I think the
principles have always been very gracious, but it puts them in a really tough spot where they feel like they have to, you know, oblige and take time out of their already busy schedule. as you said that at the end of the day I'd rather have them focusing on their staff, their students, their schools
versus trying to make time for us to you know do different things when we can learn about them in different ways like when you know Dr. Funky brought in the rotation of all the elementary schools. That was great. And it was all done. We're all hearing the same thing. You know, that's to me a much more
sustainable, better process. So just hearing this conversation, it sounds a little more like community engagement is really more the work of the board as a whole um in reaching out through our calendar um to go to different events, especially if we're not going or it sounds like we're moving
in a direction of maybe not doing the school liaison. Um but that would in um entail the rest of us paying attention and looking for those community opportunities um which are on th that board engagement calendar to attend um and really get out into the community as
a whole but not necessarily be assigned to those particular things. Um and in terms of thinking of what a committee would do to facilitate that um I don't necessarily think there is much work at least not at this time. Um, but again,
we can always call an ad hoc if if a project pops up um that we and that's I guess what I was thinking a little bit more like if as a board as a whole we think there's a need for a community engagement or staff reserves the right also to say hey I think we need we have a reason to have an ad hoc
committee on this topic. Can we discuss that as a board? Um that's always an option too. So it's it's it can come from either direction. the community engagement calendar. I I do like that. Um I I do use it. If if I
have the evening free, I'll look at that calendar, see if there's something going on, and and go there. I think there's probably a lot of stuff that's probably not on there that probably could. Um and I don't I would just encourage anybody to put it on there and then but maybe there's a way to highlight
something if they really want somebody there to either speak, maybe put an asterisk or highlight that item. Um, and then also when we look at it is to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Make sure we're getting all the schools covered and that, you know, not everybody's going to Brookview all the time because more of
us live that direction." But, uh, so I encourage that. I think that, um, maybe staff reminding, uh, like Carissa and her, you know, her team reminding staff that we have that
calendar, getting us events. Um, I know I have admittedly gotten out of practice putting my name on stuff. I mean, I go and I just kind of look at the calendar without putting my name. So, I think as a board, um, just committing to putting our name so that we can keep track of,
hey, there's four people at this event. That's great, but we have no one attending somewhere else. Um, something that we could look at as a board. Yes. So maybe does the committee does there need to be a committee to organize
that? I mean we're we're kind of all doing it but somebody to give a little direction make sure that I think I think if we you know if the committee itself what I end up doing is like if I hear about events I send them to Joan. She puts them on the calendar.
I think that's an easy thing to do is to send if you're hearing of events or seeing things to put them on the calendar. Um, I think that if staff is reminded to send their events, um, and that that they can be added, but then I think, uh, for us it's just a reminder,
use that calendar. Um, go back to I think the first year we did a really good job putting our names on there and then and I have I don't know about anyone else. I it's been a long time since I've like I look at it, but I don't put my name even if I'm going and I just don't know why. I look at it and
I'm like, am I going to make it? Am I not? and I just I'm uncommittable and then I go and I forget to put my name back on there again. So maybe just being more intentional with putting our names on on that. And I think when the you know with Dr. Funk
and your leadership team providing the the weekly updates to the board. You know, maybe that's a way that we can kind of commit to each other that maybe every week that that gets sent out, we also then log into the board engagement calendar and just kind of build it into our habit. [snorts]
Are there any community engagement needs that would rise to the level of forming an ad hoc? I don't know, Dr. Funk, that would include you too. Do you have any? The only thing I I would say too, you know, you talked about that strategic direction. I mean, we don't we have
partnership plan. We don't really formalize anything with um community like any other nonprofits. Maybe we need to look Are you suggesting we No, but what what I'm saying is if
community engagement is important enough to be in our strategic plan. All right. And and again, it's not to say that community engagement is not happening. We're doing something administratively, of course, um in in reaching out and be being engaged with the public, but I I
think the discussion is well, what's the board's role in that, you know, and and what do we you know, I think Pete, you're on to something with uh the the local u cities and townships that uh um that exist. Um, you know, the breakfast
that you talked about, a community breakfast, I think it's a great idea. You know, I think one of the things that, uh, we've talked about a little bit, and I don't know if this came up on the legislative committee yet or not, uh, but I think they used to have a, you
know, Stillwater Day at the Capitol, um, or something there. people would go. And so is that something we could do is okay, not only Stillwater Area Schools, but okay, the communities that encompass the schools and then have membership from, you know, different entities come
and try to um you know, be seen and and heard at the at the capital. So, um there's some different ideas there. Um and then the other piece of course is the more you are engaged with your communities and the more that there's a
fiscal or financial need or ask in the future uh you know the better off uh everybody is because you're seen as working together. I mean, maybe um again, I don't I don't want to uh create a committee work, but
maybe if if everyone likes the idea of engaging with city councils and getting something scheduled, I don't know if that's something that we want to charge a community engagement committee with kind of planning that out, looking at what that would look like. I like the idea. it'd be an ad hoc
committee to start off and then just to just to have a meeting. I don't think it's a long term, but I think that just that's probably literally a meeting that then Carissa and her team can kind of um and Joan can work with to figure it out. But maybe just to lay the parameters out for what that might look
like or how that might function. Um yeah. Okay. Is there anyone that wants to volunteer for that ad hoc to just talk about the city council because we're if we separate this? I'd be glad to.
I do you want to do that tonight or I mean I think we're going to be setting committees in January. So this is just Well, is that is when do we I guess to me we should probably plan it. So maybe I mean we can go with Cararissa and if you have an interest in being on that
email me um in the next you know couple weeks or whatever and we'll get that on the books. Is there um because it sounds like I have on there that we're going to separate um legislative will be its own committee. Policy will maintain its own committee. We'll have a community
engagement committee. We'll we'll have people identified for that, but it'll meet on an ad hoc basis um when the board decides there's a need. Does that sound like the majority direction? Okay. Um
how does everyone feel before we go back to um the finance and ops? How does everyone feel about expanding the work groups to include PTO, PTA, and then the special education advisory committee? That is an an added
obligation for the board. But I think especially if we're getting if we're going to eliminate the school liaison, I think that the PTA PTO leadership group would be a good place to be. Before I was on the board, I was on that
one. So you have a every school or every elementary school has a PTA then there's lesser versions at the middle school and then the high school has its building leadership team which includes one parent by law or parent representative on it. All those people got together, I
think quarterly, and either with Annette Salman or [clears throat] sometime the superintendent to talk their issues and um I think that was a productive group, but there was no board representation on that and that would be a I believe a good idea and I would suggest a couple board
members just so you're not somebody's gone that that Yes. Yes. Do we have any idea how often they meet? I think it's quarterly. your PT. You're down to twice a year. Okay. Are you still doing it by Zoom or Okay.
Okay. So, kind of like community um engagement or twice a year. Community ed. Sorry. The special ed advisory committee. How often does that one meet too? I don't know. How often does the special ed advisory committee meet?
So about four times a year. Okay. Four times a year. Okay. Okay. And Paul's in policy so we can ask him about this, but um if he sees value in that representation, that's something that I think would be good. It just seems like maybe it got
missed. Uh lastly, going to the finance and ops. Oh, all right. Can I ask a question before um we move there um on the policy one? Um just is there a model in general or or ever um where there are
like different policy almost like maybe subcommittees that focus on different policy areas and bring in more like subject matter experts and maybe they like go up into like a bigger policy committee. But I'm just curious if that's something we've we know about or have looked at or if that's something
that's even done. I have not I didn't in my kind of like looking at what other people do it just as policy. Now I'm not seeing like how internally how it's done but that's not something I'm familiar with. Mhm. Not to say it can't. was just curious because I mean the one
I mean I the one thing about a single policies covering a lot of different areas and a lot of different you know just I think and you know and I think some one of the things we've even found is like sometimes you're you know you're trying to find the right people
to be you know reading them and signing off on them and just wondering if there's a more structured way or model out there for some of that work. I do think that Paul is trying to work on that like with some of the just so the
board knows um Paul is really leading Paul and Joan are leading policy and they've come up with some good internal routings so that we can kind of streamline some of because I agree with you just streamlining some of that staff input and feedback and knowing what
they've looked at and you know what that means when someone says they've reviewed it. Um so we can see how that works in the next you know several weeks. See if that okay where I have seen it is
if you have facilities policies or facilities group some people have a facilities working they'll look at the facility side of things. Yes. Yeah. or if it's fiscal related or and there's a finance committee they will that's what I'm wondering if those some
of these things that we're talking about that have gotten into management is there a a policy place for some of those that that's how I've seen it in some other places is if you have a a facilities group okay and it's something facilities related they can look at it before it gets to policy
okay but they but policy policy is the kind of the overall umbrella of everything but you may have other committees that take a look at it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But like right now with policy, if we have facility related policies, those
are going they're starting usually maybe with a brief discussion at the policy level, but then they're going to Tony and Mark and um Mike and who and Cararissa and Paul and Joan are routing those to so that when we see them at the board meeting, they've seen the appropriate
owners. But we can certainly ask too and um we have like the MSBA conference coming up. Um we can certainly talk to other boards and see how they handle that. Yeah, I'm kind of curious. I I feel like
having um you know people who are involved in some of the day-to-day kind of looking at the policies might be just helpful um in a more structured way. So, okay.
Um, it seemed like there was support for creating a community finance committee with a couple board representatives on it. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. So, what what is the charge of the
community finance committee? I mean, is is it strictlyformational? is is just they're take getting a snapshot of what the the numbers look like is yeah it it isformational. It's really educating the community on here's our
structure as a district, here are our um opportunities, here are some concerns we may have. Um so that um really it's education. It it is and the other thing that I think is nice depending on who
who's who's on the committee uh you can get some insight into you know well have you looked at this or have you thought about this you know somebody coming in from different sectors um so it's a um
it's it's the district having the ability to share information um and educate but at the same time um it's an advisory committee that okay we can provide expertise and so um
that's my that's my my experience with it and there's usually when I was out doing this research there's usually a application that is um obviously our finance group would look at like that they're soliciting what background do you have
what um why are you interested so and again it ties in the community engagement. It really does. It's just okay. We're being transparent with what we're doing. Um and uh I think it's it's uh beneficial for for uh those involved
and for the district overall. Um so I think that we can establish that as part of finance and operations that we create this group um this community committee with a representative from the
board or two that would kind of stand as a liaison for that group. Um we have been in the last several years I think I think this change was made um when director Petri was chair we did move to
finance and ops being discussed at the board. So more the audits come to us as a report. We then vote, you know, we talk about budgeting priorities. We talk a lot about fund balance. We talk about those things as a whole. I
don't know if people feel like, hey, if I want to have that as a whole board conversation. I want that to be a subcommittee. Um I know Andrew and I have spoken to how how are other people feeling?
I will say though my only I mean for me I I can probably live it you know it being all here I I wouldn't but I wouldn't want board members that want more information more detail to be able
to get that to be able to get those numbers. So, you know, if if it takes a specific, you know, an actual committee to be able to dive in deeper, then maybe there's value to it.
That would be my, you know, my only concern. I will say when I started paying attention to school and school board, I was pretty shocked that we don't have a finance and ops committee or an audit committee. um that kind of [clears throat] blew my mind coming from
uh a corporate background. Um and even the nonprofits I've served in um every one of them has a finance committee or subcommittee. So that kind of blew my mind. Um I'd say my time on the board has sort of confirmed the need and the
want for that committee. Um we've finances have always been tight. Finances is literally like the two things that we are uh tasked with from a board perspective. The top two priorities are policy setting a vision for the district and or I guess top
three things setting a vision for the district policies and then finances. Um we have a committee that we're ad hoc committee that handles vision every x number of years. We have a very active policy committee and we don't have an
active finance and ops committee. So I I find it uh it my time here has just reinforced that uh over the last few weeks and then tonight with uh you know Dr. F Dr. Funk's point about the um you
know historical uses of a uh finance and ops committee of having the deep dive on the audit, having the deep dive on the preliminary budget. Uh those seem incredibly relevant um for our district uh considering our financial situation
and and just even if we didn't have a financial situation, our financial size um and the complexity of school finance that having a group that can really lock in and deep dive and then have a full discussion and a full review at the
board, but have that deep dive and and develop some expertise as we do on the policy committee. um and create some more engagement for that those board members that are not on the policy committee um I think is incredibly
valuable. I would go so far as the recent events in safety around the nation and in our state um reinforce the need for further engagement um and further specialization for the opportunity to talk about safety at the board. uh and the subcommittee seems
like the right uh right venue for that since we can have a high level conversation at the board. We can have a more deep dive conversation at a subcommittee. Um I think the arguments against having the subcommittee to me fall completely flat. having the
separation of of knowledge. Uh to me, we already have that with the policy committee having a separate um level of engagement with the district and a separate level of knowledge about the district uh information. Um I think the argument of um that we all as a board
have fiscal responsibility also false that has yes of course we all have fiscal responsibility but some of us need more information and and to be quite honest to have if we were doing our jobs to the level that I think would be necessary as a board or meetings would be four hours long for our f if we
were talking about finance if we were really talking about our fund balance on a regular basis. When we say we talk about fund balance, we talk about it by saying, "Hey, we've got this fund balance." We don't ever talk about what are we doing about the fund balance. So, to me, it is 100% appropriate to have that uh committee on that. I mean, we
spent 20 minutes tonight plus talking about community engagement. Um, you know, maybe 25 minutes. I I don't I have to take my look at my watch but uh having a having a deep dive into finance and having understanding especially around that budget time and
around the audit I think would be invaluable and to be quite frank the fact that we don't do it I think leaves us a huge exposure um on if something does come up as problematic that we don't have this. So, as a board, are we covering our butts by
having a deep dive on these topics and have people that really care about this deep dive into it and have responsibility to do that? Um, so I was passionate about it before I got here. I was that has been reconfirmed and I think the further
information tonight just even further that I think I'm 100% for that we need to have a finance and ops committee that is a standing committee that meets regularly for the reg review of our finances and for the safety of our children. Yes, director theer
appreciate you sharing that. Can you just share more insight? What does that look like for you then you're having a regular cadence of a finance and operational meeting? you know if that's a two threeh hour meeting um you know again balancing that
governance versus management and you know I think I get the balancing that strategic oversight but also um you know just respect for the superintendent's operational authority as well and staying in our lane so I would just love to have you elaborate more
sure so the question is what would it look like as I understand the question the question is what would it look like to have a finance and ops committee and what would that those meetings look like? Okay. So, I think what uh uh Dr. Funk said would be 90% of it. We would look
at the budget on a deep dive. We'd look at the audit on a deep dive. I think we'd have a quarterly review deep dive on the finances, which we currently don't have. I don't have a good perspective on how we would think about where we are come springtime. If we're going to have to make cuts or not, I don't know. And I think that if we had a
quarterly review of that, we'd have a much better understanding where we stand on the finances. Um, so to me that meeting would have a quarterly look where you'd cover where you are for a variance analysis of of your finances. One, two, you would uh have a depending
on the time of year, you'd either do your audit deep dive, a budget or a budget deep dive. And then three, at least quarterly, I'd want a safety update from uh our ops team on what are the key issues going on with safety and what have we done about it.
Does that answer your question? It does. you know, does that stay out of the lane of management? Okay. It it it it it's earing towards, you know, again, my concern is being mindful of that, you know, the superintendent's operational authority and the and the
our CFO, you know, authority. And, you know, my point and I mentioned earlier is I totally understand where you're coming from with the business and other nonprofits. I I agree. I think there's the time and place. My concern is the school board is a completely different
animal. I mean, we're publicly elected. I mean, I'm not a CPA. I mean, no one on the board is a CPA. And really, without that strong accounting background, you know, even with an MBA, which I know
you have it, I have one, it's still not the same as having that, you know, subject matter expert. And so I think it's this really slippery slope when our current board and future boards are trying to dive into the details of all things school finance which I agree that
we need to be thoughtful and intentional and really uh be engaged and ask the right questions but [clears throat] getting into the details of say you know what do we need you know kind of Dr. you mentioned before what you know what
needs to be ordered how can you create more efficiencies with these things I mean that's was mentioned though I apologize for redirecting but he's he's directing the question to me so I'll respond and I just those were not direct those were not at all what was described in what I set up was it
what I described was I just want to encourage I just want like let's take the temperature down just a little bit we're just having a conversation so let's just be respectful and people can have different opinions but we don't need to judge other people's opinions. So, we can we will eventually go with just a majority rule,
but I just want to be careful that we're everyone's doing the best job that they can here in a limited role and we've got talented staff and talented board members with different expertise. So, let's just I just want to cool the tension a little bit here um as we continue this conversation. So, if you
want to redirect, go ahead. Okay. Uh I guess this is I I don't like having words put in my mouth about what is being said and not being said and this is you know this is the third meeting this has happened
in the last few weeks. So there was no mention of of um looking at an Amazon book order or a uh contractor. I I I don't even know what the words were because I didn't say them. um
quarterly review of the finances, look at the preliminary budget, deep dive, deep dive on the audit, deep dive on safety. So, um just going back to because I think this is a good
conversation to have. This isn't working now. And thank you for the opportunity to have this conversation. I think it's important. Um hold on one second. So the only concern because I if if we decide that we want to have a deep dive on certain things these meetings I think
director theer brought it up these are open to the public. So one thing that came up when these me these subcommittees met is that sometimes these subcommittees then end up having people in the public that are at them that know more as unelected officials
than the board themselves. That's just something I want to throw out there that if we're doing a, you know, deep dive on the audit or a deep dive um differently than what we do here, you're going to have community members aware of that information, doing that deep dive along with the board that
four board members wouldn't have. And so I just want to put that out there as a consideration. Doesn't preclude us from pursuing this, but it is a sign it did bring up issues in the past. Someone had their hand. Yeah. Um, I I actually see right in the
middle here a compromise. You know, uh, a finance committee probably would not be solving all the finances of the district. We have some experts that do that. But when Marie comes to the meeting here, there's a lot of complex stuff that uh, goes over my
head, but I'm trusting what she's saying. But perhaps a committee then would meet with her and I know she stepped out um and she would explain it to a couple board members to the point where you could understand it, you know, in a more casual setting say, "Oh, I I
get that." And then you come to the board say, "I've had it explained to me and I'm comfortable with it." Um I I see a committee doing something like that. Are there concerns with um because I know I don't love the idea of um if we
have a fin I think right now finance and ops is Pete me and Chris I think Pete me and Chris not me um are we okay with a finance and ops
looking at the audit that the public would be able to attend? How would the four people not in on that committee feel about that? How would future boards feel?
Um, and again, uh, Director Parker, I don't mean to put words in your mouth in any way, so please excuse me if that's, you know, um, I didn't, that was not my intentions. So, um, but my my point was being is just it's a slippery slope, you know,
and I think we have seen this historically in Still Water where the best intentions go in the drain pretty quickly. Um, and that's been the challenge and it takes a lot of work to get out of that. And so that would be that's more my my point, not not so much directing towards you.
So again, I just wanted to clarify that my concern with maybe some of those um to your point is again that creates silos and it creates redundancy. Uh again another anecdotal example from when I first served on it my first year
is when we had the discussion with solar you know Pete Allison I think the three of us were on that and they had a presentation ran through it we asked questions and we literally did the same presentation all over again with the same information and the same questions despite the board members that
didn't attend in the first place and it just creates redundancy. Um, and so it just was it helpful for me to hear it twice? Yeah. But it wasn't fair for those other board members who did not have the opportunity to hear it twice. And so I think that would be my concern would be just that is that it does
create some inequities of information. Um, and you know creates some challenges which again I I believe wholeheartedly that's a different ex than what the policy is. I mean policies is a really its own unique
um use of time and and obviously it's really important and I'm appreciative of all everyone that serves on that because I know it's a big responsibility um and again that would help to a avoid some of those things and then we have three you know or multiple reading
sessions for policy which again if we need to dive deep into it I would love to have it be dive deep into it in a public setting where it's just transparent for the public. It's recorded. We all can go back and rewatch it then if we miss something. You know, I have found that to be helpful, you
know, personally. So, that would be my thoughts. I mean, I will say one way of looking at it is silos. You might also think of it as building expertise. I mean, or or you know, having a certain group of people
from a finance standpoint you taking a a greater interest than maybe some other people would he when everything's going over his head. [laughter] I mean I mean I'm out. Um but no the you know so I mean I
I it's hard for me because I I think you know there there is value I see value in in the idea of having it uh you know having a finance committee and and certainly from an operational standpoint the the safety side of things I think
that that's that's interesting as well. I don't know. I'm I'm trying to like safety I think is absolutely everyone at this table is extremely concerned 247 about safety. I'm just trying to think of, you know, at a meeting that the public
can attend, what would there be to truly what could we talk about that would be of a minority of the bo the threeperson board and I think we always have to I think it was director theer this isn't kind of like a
nonprofit where this is there's open meeting law there's every time we have a committee It's noticed, it's open to the public, the public can attend. I think I would prefer I see the value, but I just know logistically how how it has played out
historically in our district and by my own personal experience that if we need a deeper dive on the audit, then we should be working with our auditor to provide that information here
um to everyone because I I mean I personally think it's incumbent upon upon all of us to learn more if we want to about our audits or our finances. Um, I will ultimately go with the
direction of the board on this. Um, but I just I feel like we could be I mean like for again I'm looking at futurep proofing the board. So I'm you know what happens when we have community members? I could keep going back to that. Like that makes me very uncomfortable. If I'm
not on finance and ops and we have two community members in there that are knowing more about our audits and they're not even charged with voting than we are, for me that's problematic. That what did you want?
Um I mean I think for me this keeps coming back to what does this look like in other districts? How are they structure? I mean because it's clearly something that is seems to be the norm. So are they I guess it would be helpful
for me even to maybe watch some meetings or get some information um or maybe I can't watch them if they're not public but just understand more you know how is this looking and is there a model that is productive and is um you know out of
management and because I mean I think two I mean the the whole sigh of relief uh from the board members who aren't on the policy committee and are grateful for all of the deep diving that people on the policy committee do. For me, I
am not a finance person and I am not going to be like gladly digging in to numbers and and trying to get all of the detail, but it's still important and so I would breathe the same sigh of relief. Um, you know, but you know, obviously,
you know, we've got that expertise at the district already, so that's not the question. But I think the kind of translation to the board is important too. And so if there is sort of that mechanism, I don't know that it's a bad thing. Um so I guess I I see the value
too. Um but again I think it goes back to how it's done and is it being done in a way that is um productive and that is not going to be um at risk of I think falling into some
of the problems that we saw um previously. So, I I just feel like that it's worth looking at more and um it makes me uncom a a little uncomfortable to say, well, it didn't work before. Um so, we should just get rid of it
without maybe exploring if there are different ways to structure it going forward. So, uh first, thank you. This is a great example of challenging conversations that I want to have at the table. So, I really appreciate that opportunity. I think clearly I need some more practice
at doing it so that I do it better. So, I apologize for for uh probably some lack of decorum, but I appreciate this is what I want to have these types of conversations. So, I I'm grateful for the opportunity for this. when you brought up safety, I think you brought up a great point of what does
what is the benefit or what how can you handle a safety a deep dive um best and I think upon reflection it may mean that that has to have be a close session for the whole board. We just asked for the close for a quarterly
close session for the whole board where it's not uh something that is ad hoc. It is scheduled. It is something that we go over and that the community can expect that we are having it a um an expectation that we are on top of that.
So to me that that would be a a welcome change to what I said and just have the team focus on any operational issues at a quarterly basis and then deep dive on preliminary budget deep dive on um the other thing. I also to the question of
the um having a community member that knows more about the budget than I do. Um I struggle with that. That that would bother me to be quite frank. Um that would bother me. However, I think that's something I would have to deal with um
in order to accept to enable the team to have that deep dive opportunity. Um it's another step of transparency which a number of us have highlighted as as a priority for us. So if the if the if the downside is we have a huge community
engagement in trans in in our audit and in our in our um finances like yay like we've got people that care. Um they're there listening. They're they're not there participating. Um and that's a that's a wonderful thing that they can learn more about how we're doing things.
So um to me that's a win. I I would have to eat some pride on that that I was not hearing the same information to be quite frank. Is there an opportunity to have and this is just a question maybe to Dr. Funk and
to the board if we could have that deep dive as a committee of the whole at the board table. Is that possible? It's possible. Let me weigh in on this. A significant concern I have
isn't the committee itself. I think like I said the concern I have is I have a team of four in finance. Four people who are really running and really one of them is purchasing. So
three people who are running aund200 million dollar organization. We are as thin as we can possibly be. And now suddenly, okay, we believe it's incumbent upon us that
we now need to have quarterly meetings where you need to start showing us variance analysis of what you are doing so that we can feel comfortable as a board. All right. I think that is a lot to ask
of our team. I think we have had some discussions um with Marie and I over the last few weeks on how we can provide through the update board information um such as you're
asking Parker on on variances. So I think that piece of it is is doable. Um, you know, we talk about community members, if we had a finance committee knowing more than individual board members. Okay, that might be the case.
My bigger concern is they're knowing they're knowing more than the board as a whole, right? That's a concern. Okay. Um but I concur with you on the as I said what I've seen successful is
uh when the budget is being developed the committee looks at that when the audit comes in they do a deep dive on that um we as I stated we have a thin team we're providing information twice a month to
the board on uh prior to our meetings um which is which is a lot in itself Um, so I think what the board has to take into cons, we will do whatever you ask as a board, but I think they need to take into consideration the uh potential
burnout u of our finance staff as as we are as thin as we are. The other thing I want to talk briefly about is safety. All right. As superintendent, ultimately I'm the one who makes sure that our schools are safe and secure. Um, and I
report to the board. By having a report quarterly to tell you what we're doing, safety and security, I think is overkill. I I think uh I think are we doing it for public relations reasons or are we doing
it to make us feel good or or what why why we have that need? We have a safety committee that um at the district level that meets uh quarterly. We also have safety committees in every single building. why suddenly we need to have a safety committee that reports to the
board or safety. I I I know school shootings and terrible things are happening. Um but I don't know how that makes us more safe if if we're having u more close sessions on that. So those are my frank thoughts. Jump in on this. Um thank you for that
Dr. Funk. kind of confirmed some of the things I was already thinking um particularly around um what we are asking of staff and in my experience especially when I first came on the board we did run committees much more regularly um and [sighs]
it felt like it really was a lot of staff time it was a lot of board time too board members showing up to it but we weren't the ones even preparing what was going to be presented um and there definitely were points where people were coming together with stuff just to give
to us at a committee meeting. And I really really do not think that that is a good use of our staff time. I know how thin we are um administratively and that is a function of our finances too. So, I
don't want to I would much rather have our staff really focusing on the work of the school district than working with us as board members in smaller committees to then come to the board as a whole. Um, unless that work is very very directed and purposeful. And that has
not been my experience um with the majority of our committees with the exception of policy which is just a lot of work um that needs to be worked through. Um, so I personally like the way that we've been doing
finance and ops where we really have been bringing it to the board. I understand that there is a lot of interest um in doing more of a deep dive, but even the term deep dive makes me nervous um because we are elected officials. We are not hired for our
professional expertise. um we are here to oversee the what is going on in our district and we need to have a level of trust for the professionals that are hired in this district to do their work and we need to keep our our work as
governance officials at the governance level. So I feel like the people who are most drawn to doing that really going in deep are waiting into management territory very easily. Um and I and I will admit I am I can do that myself
with policy a little bit um and being an educator um and being interested in curriculum stuff like that that's my area of interest but I know I have to pull myself back um and try to stay at the governance level when I have that that other interest. So it is a challenge that every board member faces
um that we are not hired for our professional expertise. Um so I I am in support of reooking at this finance and ops committee. Um it's clear that a lot of
people are interested in keeping it in some form. I do not like the way it was run before. It cannot be that form again. Um but if there is some other option or way that we can figure this out to come to a consensus um I am definitely open to that. I do like the
idea of potentially bringing in making it more of a community focused group because then we actually do get more engagement whereas board committees are just us talking but people can come and listen. So it's just a different structure. It's
also not um broadcast like doing stuff as a committee as of a whole. We televise our meetings and we record these so that everybody including people in the community get the same information as the board. So, um I'm processing trying to figure out
where we're going to go with this, but um I appreciate the conversation and um look forward to where we're heading. Um I just don't want to go back. I mean, does there have to be a decision on I mean, if the I mean, is it
something to review further and look at and then make a decision or is are we hoping to We don't have to make a decision tonight. um unless we feel like there's you know a consensus for hey we want a finance and ops and what that would look
like we can ask staff to see what that would look like if we want to maintain it as work of the whole board but maybe have the give different direction to the auditors who come in and present to the board if there's a different um way of
presenting that information um our finance uh our CFO has a plethora of experience in other districts. We could um ask for her thoughts and recommendations um in I would really actually yeah I'd love to
hear from Marie's thoughts on this because I do worry again to Dr. Funk's point of a thin three-person staff. You know, it's not a small task to form a community finance committee. So if we are going to have our own subcommittee
plus we're putting a community committee I mean we we're essentially taking her from not having to always reporting to the full board to then having the full board responsibilities a committee of the a subcommittee of the board responsibilities
and then the community advis group's responsibilities and it just that I I do worry about staff burnout Um, but we could, you know, I mean, the way I see it is we could do options. We have a a finance and ops committee. We can
try a deep dive on the audit. See how that if there's any value in that, um, bring it back to the board, see how that would work. We're at that time of year. we could just simply as a board short term ask for more information from the
auditor as a committee the whole. Um I think that is a decision though that I would like to have tonight. I mean the future of the committee we can talk about but I mean I've always found our audits to be I'm always more than able to ask
questions. I'm always able to gather that information. Yep. Maybe I would ask Director Parker what obviously, you know, more information would be good.
Is there a way to get that that doesn't need a full-fledged to get to your level of satisfaction to get to without a quarterly
you know, full-blown committee action. Sure. I think a starting point would be there's I would have to imagine any software that we're using would have an offtheshelf quarterly variance analysis. Even a monthly I would have to imagine just for cash flow purposes, we already have have this uh with a push button. um
that might be overestimating um the system, but I would imagine most reporting uh systems would have something that has that exact capability. Um so that would be one thing that would be just we get that dumped into our Friday output once a
quarter and we have the opportunity to ask questions if we need to um in our normal channels. So that might be one opportunity to do so. I think that having that deeper conversation with the auditors might be a good way to do it. I I don't know if there's benefit to also having that conversation off camerara as
well to be able to have a more informal conversation. Um if there's benefit to that or not, I don't know. I have not thought through that as a as a separate opportunity. But I would think that those would be two ways that we could um get to a similar level of information or
similar level of conversation. um maybe not the same level conversation but same level of some amount of information sharing um that we could get through the committee. So an al committee alternative would be that you know a quarterly report that's hopefully
near push button if not um I don't know and then uh or something that's already not maybe not push buttons but something that already exists because of just daily operations of the district of somebody going through and checking and making sure that we have money um would
incorporate. So, and this is just a a question to the whole board um because I do think when I was looking at you know what other districts are doing and I I shared an example um with Dr. Funk that you know we have our
print out that is kind of I mean those are all for ex that's for bills that we've already received services and goods for. So it's really that's how all districts do it. bills payable. We have to vote to pay the bills. We don't vote to pay the bills. It's not a good look
for a governance board. Um so we have this big print out and it's super cumbersome and it's just hundreds of pages. Um I think that we could roll it up by like a code. Um I I've looked at
what other districts do. I think that that's part of the conversations you've h have been having with finance and how we can maybe do that which would be something I think different than we get now and I would be all for that because the big behemoth report gives me nothing. Um
just couple thoughts on that and and what you had to say as well Parker. So yes, I think we're looking at the start of the year January um coming forth with a report like that.
So basically it would be here's what we spent in teaching and learning, transportation, etc., etc. And so you see the roll up and then it so you don't see the check register of okay, we paid this vendor $67 for this. Okay. Um, but
if you have a question, okay, then yep, the check register is available to board members who want to see it. So that's something we can do. One of the challenges, we have a super antiquated finance system. And so,
you know, as far as the uh the monthly rollups, yep, that's something we're looking at providing the board. our system is just a challenge we're working through right now. So I I I know that uh um our
procurement Jamie when purchasing and Marie are are working to figure out okay how can we how can we do this? How can we we do it? So I think there's a solution coming but you would think it would be just you know roll it in here and hit a button and print. we can do
that with the rollup for the um for the board's approval, but on the on the variant side of it, we're we're we're working through that. And so and the and again the big picture um our antiquated system we're looking to
replace here in the next couple years because it's so old that they're not going to support it anymore. Um so but so that that's real world as far as that side of it. So, but we are that's one of the things we're work we're trying to work through so that we can provide you guys that information on a on an annual
basis in the in the update. Thank you. So maybe the um the answer for now is to table like just to kind of table the finance and ops piece of this conversation, see what we can do um from
a staff perspective, knowing that we're short staffed, lean, leanly staffed. Um knowing that maybe our systems aren't as modernized as they could be. Uh knowing that it's important for all of the board to have the same information. That's my
main concern is we're as effective as we are when we all are operating from having a similar amount of information. Um but could there be opportunities for doing something different? That maybe is a Marie question to ask where is that best done? Is that um audit deep dive?
Is that done? Can that be done at the board table? Does it need to be a standing committee? and she can maybe put she has experience like I said she's been doing this for forever and we're we're fortunate to have her um and her uh team so we'll maybe lean on her expertise and then I can report back to
the board with what we can find out. She's okay. You can give two her two cents. Hi. Well, we've already committed you to starting a community finance group. [laughter] Done those. Okay, now we're going to invest two more
cents. Okay, so on the audit deep dive, um I guess my question would be what is um we already do an audit presentation that's a pretty detailed presentation of some of the
overall analytics of the um kind of the fiscal year results. And there's also a management report that's provided um along with our um financial statements. So I think
um that aside, I don't know what else um you know, unless we get more of a kind of an idea of what more you'd be looking for as far as a deep dive, more explanation into the financial
statements themselves. Um we kind of do some analytics throughout the presentation. Um the management report has a little bit more deep dive in that summary book. Um
you know I guess it would be kind of you know what the board would want. And I time flies. Have [laughter] um Sarah and Parker have you guys been through an audit presentation yet? I don't think so. Have you only as an audience member?
Right. Okay. So, they do and they do open it up for questions and right you know and we do provide the materials in advance. So there's all of the materials are provided and
so I mean do we want to let from my experience to to one of the points that Parker made was when the commit when the finance committee meets and receives the audit it gives them a time to just have a back and forth discussion with the auditors
that's not in the in the public realm. So that that is a I mean that's where I see the the finance committee folks getting more value added because we could we can just have this okay can you tell me about this or that and so it it
that's where I think the depth goes a little bit more Dr. Would there be any reason why a board member wouldn't be want to I mean anything they ask in that meeting they should really ask in public right I mean in theory right thanks guys. Um thank you guys.
Thank you so much. Um yeah I mean I I think so but I mean maybe some people are more comfortable. Yeah. And and one other point you know I guess u Maria one thing I'd be just checking with the auditors. you know what's an enhanced version that maybe they already
are doing that would be a value that we could try to replicate. I mean that would be I think a good start and if we can outsource some of that work towards our third party partners and and not have it fall on you and your you know
small team. I think that would be helpful as well. I mean, there's a lot of statistical information in our financials already in the back of the um the ACFR. I mean, there's a lot of information in that book um that has a
lot of um 10-year statistical information I on, you know, anything you're looking for um for analytics. I mean, I think it's telling the story of the district um in a historical
way. We do a lot of um analytics, which is what we're in the process of doing right now as part of closing. Um that'll be presented in about another month or so. So, I mean, I guess I'm of the opinion if we think that we are not getting something
that a subcommittee could get for the board and report back to the board, I'm all for it. I tend to be agree with director Hawker in the fact that I personally for just efficiency and for commonality of knowledge and efficiency
and taking into consideration staff time. Um I I prefer to have as much here as possible and have it be I mean we all are responsible for you know fund balances and for um all of
the concerns budgetary concerns we have transportation costs that sort of thing. I don't know. I mean I know that I've always felt very comfortable calling the auditor or working through Marie at the time of an audit to ask a couple questions. I always, you know, have something that I and I've gotten really
good feedback and answers and sometimes I ask those then at the board meeting, sometimes I don't. Um, but if Dr. Funk, if you think that there's value in having a subcommittee for a deep dive on the audit, if you have more maybe more experience with that. So, here's my experience from from that.
So, I I've had previous boards who want as minimal information on the audit as they can get. Okay, you get 10 minutes and that's it. All right. and then but the subcommittee or the the finance committee is going to be doing the deeper dive. Okay, here we get some
pretty decent information. So, you know, again, it's it's depends on the what the want and the needs of the board are we and we'll react to it. And I would say that I want to be careful because we have to keep in mind that our job is out of like kind of that
high level. So sometimes the more information we get and I think that's what kind of director Hawker was saying. What are we going to do with that information for decision making that we're charged with making here at the board table because I know that you're constantly doing probably a deeper dive. You're man, you're the CFO, you're the
CEO. Um and we delegate that authority to you. Um well the actuals from your audit are they inform your decisions and and [clears throat] kind of are your baseline for you know, your future budgetary
baselines. I mean, you you look at that to inform your budget for Can I ask again, you have experience and um have there been audit committees that you've worked with as a board? I mean, seeing what you see here, do you
recommend or see value in the board doing that? I would I would see value in a like a community finance committee that has specific charges from the board and the
superintendent on areas that are, you know, and and more of an ad hoc also on areas that, you know, the reviewing the audit or, you know, informing the budget or things areas like that. um
or or other topics where you give a charge of looking at something um but having you know some type of purpose um for the committee. Yes. I'd say one other opportunity for the subcommittee
um to add value to the district would be in helping shape the conversation or shape the story. If there's an opportunity to say, "Okay, I'm hearing this information. Um this might be the way that this can be shaped or help help
the narrative and help people understand it better and translate it to the community. that might be an opportunity for that subcommittee to help be the first draft of it or to be the uh a sound either a sounding board or someone that actively helps shape the the conversation. I don't know if that is um
stepping into the management realm or not, but it seems like in in previous boards that I've been on, the subcommittees really helped steer and shape those conversations for staff. I think the the only hesitation I have with that and this is an experience I had on Still Water's committees before
is that they would gatekeep information. So again, if you're saying a committee is shaping the narrative, that's probably a conversation that the board as a whole has to have from a majority standpoint because um I mean I
remember being both on as a community member and on as a community member more specifically where they would look at different like RFPs and filter what the board would see and wouldn't see or look at certain projects and filter what
would be and so it it kind of borderlined on being a filter per se for what the board I think how we have approached as the board in the last couple years to have it be no this is the the the group's decision- making um not that it can't be but I just again I
want to be careful that the authority that rests with a committee is very narrow um the authority is really here yes I think the the intent tonight at least when we put this on the calendar this last summer was to just have a discussion on board committees. I don't
think in my mind my intent wasn't to bring this to the board to have decisions about this tonight, but to get feedback on it as we prepare for the reorganization in January. So I I mean that's my that's my two cents on
it. So um we can certainly work continue to work behind the scenes if we need time to kind of think process what I don't know that we have a a true hu I mean we can kind of go
who supports a subcommittee who supports continuing as a whole and we can do a vote like that and then go from there and then the committee can bring back recommendations if if we want to do a subcommittee. Does that sound sound acceptable
or do you want to just think about it and come back at another meeting? I mean there was I don't think there was an intent for any sort of action item coming out of tonight. So no just direction for the policy because we need to write something right now. We
have finance and ops as a standing committee that doesn't function. It's we either need to, you know, have it meet or go back to ad hoc or and kind of cauterize the fact that we are doing this work. Recently, the board's
preference has been to do it as a whole. That the work comes before the board. I think you currently have a finance and ops committee that has members identified on it if I'm if I'm not Yes, we do as a standing committee. We can move it to ad hoc and then decide ad hoc purposes for it at a later time, but
it's not a standing committee as it reads in the policy right now. So we can it could be like community engagement. We assign members to it and it meets periodically when we decide we want the committee to meet with a specific
charge. Maybe the audit is one specific charge that we look at, especially if we feel like, you know, as you experience kind of as board members the audit process, if it's something that you see that you don't think is going deep enough um at the board level.
I think for me just I I mean understanding more about what at the because I I love the idea of a community finance committee. So, and I think we're all in agreement on that, but I don't know exactly what it what that means, what it looks like. And so,
without kind of knowing that more, then it's I think it's harder to know if if the separate subcommittee is necessary or just redundant or like are there, you know, sort of different scopes or I don't I don't know enough at this point to know what's what or how they would
work together or not work together. So I just I don't I think I just have more questions. So I mean I think that like Dr. Funk said we didn't come we kind of wanted to get reaction to the idea and staff can look at I mean I know Marie has done community groups before. Um it's a
common thing that most districts do have. So we could explore that as our first priority in the guise of not overwhelming her team. Um because that clearly is something she sees value in. And that's partly what I would I want to have her team get value from the process
as well as us. Um we could start there and let her get her head above water on that and then decide something else. Could move it to just an ad hoc and then we can at any point in time charge the finance and ops committee to
you know revisit something unless we can agree today that we want to do an an audit. deep dive. Yes, I would recommend you just maintain till at least till it I would maintain finance and ops in its current state until
we come forward with a proposal of what the the uh um finance community engagement piece will look like and then I think in January when you reorganize then you can make your decision on what you want to do with finance and ops. Okay,
I like that. Could do that. Do we want to wait? All right. Sure. Okay. Um I we will work I'll write some some of this up. We'll meet as a policy group and then we'll bring it back to
the board for consideration. Okay. All right. Last up is our legislative committee met. Um who is gonna be handling this? Is this Cararissa or? Um
Carissa is sure. So I would say like um much like policy, community engagement had its first meeting um community engagement legislative had its first meeting. Um and so what this is is as a starting
point for the board and just like we do in policy um will review it today. The people on the committee can um share their thoughts. I already sent an email to staff um with some of my thoughts for the committee to review. So, it doesn't have to be ready for prime time
discussion right now. It's something that you can email your thoughts to Carissa and Mike and they can pull it together for the next committee meeting. Um, so we'll introduce it and go from there. Okay. Well, thank you um, board chair Sherman and Dr. Funkan, members of the board. Uh, we did meet with our legislative committee for the first
time. This is actually earlier than we normally meet. So, I think that was a good opportunity for us to just be on top of this in light of our financial situation. And I think more than ever we are just really aware of the legislative impact on our district finances. So we wanted to have a good discussion about what our priorities are.
So um if you don't mind just clicking for me Joan. Um we talked a lot about funding priorities in light of our financials. And we also talked about um as we looked at past platforms both at the district level and some of our organizations that we work along with um the Association of
Metropolitan School Districts, the Minnesota Schoolboard Association. There's a lot of things that have been on those priority lists over the years and so we looked at those as a starting point and then really decided um and you can weigh in with me but I think what we talked about is what are the most important things for Stillwater. We
could go with a big long list but we really thought it was more important to focus on the things that would have the biggest benefit for Stillwater schools and just kind of even shorten that list a little and really have some targeted messages that we wanted to share with our legislators. So, we started with funding priorities um and the ones that
we talked about that were really important to us. Um some were from previous legislative platforms like the special ed cross subsidy and um that has been something the legislature has addressed in recent years and we're very thankful for that but there's still a long way to go. So, we thought that that was important to keep there. The local
optional revenue piece is an opportunity for us to bring in some more revenue. Um and there's a potential there that could could help us quite a bit. So, we talked about that being a priority. So, I'll explain that. So currently it's either 714 or 724. 724 is the amount
that the school board has approved at your level for local optional revenue to support operations. So we get $724 per pupil. That number I I'm going to go back I think it's been the same since 2013 and
it has not been there's been no inflationary adjustments made. So what they are asking or what we are asking is to increase that and this is from AMSD is asking this as well from $724 to 947
which would add $220 whatever dollars per pupil um to the uh school district to operate with. So, if you were to ask me, uh, this is the number one priority that I will be
pushing at the legislature uh, this upcoming session. We districts, I showed you the numbers. How many hundred million are we cutting in the in the metro area and schools this past year? If we get this, uh, this is a significant difference maker for this
district. So, that is a a super priority. The second the next one there is increase the safe schools levy. Um we are we receive safe schools dollars. They pay for our school resource officers. Um other things and we are underwater on
that. Uh there's just not enough and so I think hundreds of slight ask for that. I think we should I think actually I mean that's what AMSD is is I think recommending. U something we want to even ask for more. Um, and I think the environment with what's going on with
school school safety is is uh there's an opportunity there and AMSD is leading with that school safety because it's the conversation at the capital and it's just a of a primary concern. So, um, school sparity aid, I've testified
on that two of the last three years. Um we are a huge sparse district and so the more we can increase that aid uh the more we can uh um reduce the deficit we have currently in transportation. Thank you.
You did not steal my money. Thank you for that. Um we also talked about some of the policy priorities. Um we talked about just providing more local control and giving the school board the authority to um renew an existing capital project levy for this is this is our tech levy.
Um, we approved that, our borders approved that a few years back, and it's a 10-year levy, and the idea is that we would just be able to automatically approve that without having to go back to voters. Um, this would allow us to really be able to sustain what we have um without having to potentially lose that. As you imagine, that tech levy is
really helping us to um have kind of a replacement schedule and and do some things that we need to do with technology, which is obviously a big need in the district. Um, modernizing the hours of instruction. This is more about just giving flexibility so that if we have kids that
are maybe doing learning at different times of the day, online learning, if they're doing internships, things like that, it would give us that opportunity to get away from the seat requirement. Um, we've talked before about the non-exclusionary disciplinary. That's
kind of the the fancy way that the um legislature has talked about it, but really that ability for teachers and um administrators to handle kids who are really disregulated and maybe causing some issues in class and how can we handle those situations in a way that still keeps learning happening for our other kids. And so there's some work
that we are hoping could be done there. And then the um MCA, ACT exam. We know that our high school students don't take the MCA quite as seriously maybe um when they have ACT test or they have advanced placement or all these other tests that they have to take and some of them can
get them college credit or get them into school versus an MCA. So just maybe making that not the requirement and being able to switch the focus on a different test that's more meaningful for them. There were a lot of other things that could be on that list and uh again if you look at past platforms you'll see
others and we can certainly weigh in and give us feedback on what you think might be important. That's just where our initial conversation took us. Um we will be meeting again I think the beginning of December after AMSD has met and had their conversation and MSBA. Maybe we'll have some more conversation too. Um and
that gives us time to just kind of be watching the landscape and see what other people are talking about and what we think might be priorities. But again, I think that idea of really being focused in what are our top priorities that are going to make the biggest impact, as Dr. Funk said, um, would would probably be where the committee
was wanting to go. Anything I missed from committee members, great job. Thanks. I mean, other than the girls winning the soccer tournament, which Yeah, we did get our playbyplay from Parker during the meeting. [laughter] One of us might have been watching the game and giving updates while the
meeting was going on. Can you go back a couple slides? I want just want to get some understanding on the Yeah, this one right here. Increase local optional revolute 947. And you explained it, but maybe I didn't grab it.
Um, if this was to pass, we could then as a school board as a as a school board raise this money and that would be a property tax, not a state leveling. What this would do is this would go into our levy that you're
approving next. So like if they approve this 947 at some point next summer, you as a board would make a motion to increase our 724 to 947. That information would then flow into
our local levy that you approve um you know truth and taxation that you're going to approve next month. And so that would have an impact on the size of the local levy. I think there's some equalization that from the state that goes with part of that so it wouldn't
all come on the local vote taxpayers. Um but um it would authorize the board to to increase that um which uh is very rare because normally we don't have that that authority and so um that's how that's kind of how the mechanism would
work and then we receive the money for the following school year. Okay. Thanks. Yep. And just some followup on that if it's okay. Sorry. Apologize. I'm getting some bad habits over here. Um I watched a number of districts uh
recent meetings on this and Minnotonka is pushing for this. You know, every school district that I watched was talking about uh increase in local operational revenue. So uh so it is a common thing across. Okay.
Um, any other comments or questions? I just had one that I wanted to discuss as a board. Um, LTFM reform Superintendent Funk. I know that was on one of our past um platforms. Is that not as much of a concern anymore or
I I have not district? No, not for our district. Okay. It was on a platform that we had. So, I was I didn't I didn't know if where that was going or I'd have to look into that. I I emailed that. So, it'll be fine. I was just curious for my own as I go to AMSD
tomorrow. I'm going to throw some um extra information on the sparity aid for transportation. I think people might understand is you get so much money from the state for transportation based on how many students you have. But if all your students live within 20 minutes of
school, that's not a whole lot of transportation you need. But if you're us or Forest Lake, you're spread all out. I mean, we have bus routes that you you have an hour and you're picking up 10 kids and taking them to school just because they're so far apart. That would balance that out.
And and both, you're correct. Both Forest Lake and and Still Water spoke to this a couple years ago. We had a slight increase in sparity aid, but but I still think it's like 32% as opposed to I think we want to get to like 70%. Um so
there they did help us a little bit a few years ago but nothing last year. Sure. So um take a look at the draft priorities and um I this is this is early. I'm glad we're having these conversations now. MSBA is going to be
having its um delegate assembly. So that information will come back to the committee too. I think right now there's four of us. I think this whole side of the table is on the delegate assembly. Um they approved us all. So they I just got in. Yep. Yeah. Um so we'll feed that information
back to the committee as well through you. Yep. [laughter] Yep. I'll take notes. Okay. All right. Um again, just keep send that email to Cararissa and Mike. Thank you. Great. That's it.
Oh, that's it. That's it. Believe it or not, we're ajourned.