our truth in taxation hearing. Um we will first present um so we'll turn it over to Marie for the presentation and then we'll open it up for public input. Oh, sorry. So this evening um
Part of the uh presentation is to not only uh provide you information on our levy but also give information on our budget. Um this is required by state statute. Um and then we'll allow for the
uh public hearing um afterward uh with with the public comment. Um we also um this is following the release of the proposed uh tax notices from the county.
So part of the uh calendar is uh before you here um just to kind of recap on what's happened so far. uh September 8th, uh the Minnesota Department of Education prepared the initial um levy
uh that maximum authorized uh dollar amount um on September 8th. They then since then have issued multiple um levy amounts. Um those again will
continue to be uh revised uh again with some adjustments but again our district is pretty much finalized. There may be some minor adjustments but I don't see anything changing. Uh September 30th is when the board
approved the proposed levy amount. uh mid November is when the county um emailed the prop or mailed the property tax statements out to all the owners. And then uh this evening is our uh
public hearing and uh the presentation and then December 16th is uh the school board uh certifying those final levy amounts. So again, just going back to some of the
levy basics. Um the school levy authority is established in law. Um a tax levy may be either set by state formulas or voter approved. Uh the again our school budget is a combination of
state, federal, and local funding. Um that includes the uh voter approved operating bond and tech levies. Um unlike the city and counties, um our uh 2025
payable in 2026 levy, that's for our next year's budget to for 20 uh 2627 school year. So we're looking ahead. This is actually starting our budget process for next school year. and that
levy revenue is approximately 24% of the district's total budget. So, looking at our uh school district budget and we're going to just kind of look at that middle column and then I'll
just kind of talk through some of the uh differences and highlight some things. Uh the revised budget in the middle column is what the board approved some changes at our last meeting. And um what
I'm also showing is the actuals. They're not final audited, but they're pretty close. Um the auditors will be presenting um our audited financial um report at one of our next meetings. So, just kind
of giving you that comparison um of our actuals um to what our uh revised budget is for our current year. Just so you can see just some of the highlights here. So, um, our revised
budget or our current budget right now for our current school year, uh, you can see that the levy, um, that revenue currently is about 46.5 million. Um, again, that's more than
what our actuals were, about two million more um, over what we had uh, from last year. And um again, there's some changes to that that uh does play into it. The tech levy, our other postemployment
benefits, and then we did have some changes in our long-term facility maintenance funds um that did decrease. Um and then our state aid uh is another category that's the largest. Um we did
see some changes overall uh in funding there with the legislature. um those changes we did see an increase of about 2.74% in our uh basic formula. However,
uh though the funds there we did see some decreases in our um aid also due to some legislative categories um some categorical funds um also our enrollment um declined a little bit in that area.
And then our federal funds, we did see a decrease in those in that area. That was some carryover that we did use last year. And so our current year budget reflects just a a decrease of some uh
carryover dollars that was specifically in our special education uh funding we had utilized last year and we don't have it this year. And then our other local revenue that is more of our our grants um our gifts. So
again we we start our year um lower on that uh budgeted amount in our our current fiscal year. We do a midyear budget revision. You'll see that number change as our our grants and our gifts
um come into the district. We'll do a revised budget. So you see that $1.4 million negative right now, but you'll see that change midyear as um we adjust for that. And then the other financing
sources, that's if uh the district sells equipment or uh change that those are sales of equipment, uh inventory, things like that. So overall, that's your general fund. Um and then food service
um just had slight change. Uh same the community service fund um had a slight increase that was for school age care um part of the levy and then our building
construction fund. You'll see there was uh revenue um last year that was not um put into the budget for this current year. that was for interest earnings on our bonds. Uh we are spending those
dollars on building the schools. So we did not initially build our budget for any interest earnings um in the current year because we are spending those dollars on the projects. Um you may see a revision depending on um those
earnings. And then you do see that $80.5 million that includes not only the second iteration of our school building bonds, but also part of the um facility maintenance bonds that we will be uh
issuing um shortly in the next few months. That's that second half of um last year's approved uh levy. And then um debt service fund is basically um what
we levy for to pay back our um our bond issues. And so that overall and then I'll just mention the custodial fund is not a custodian custodial or custodian. This is a trust fund for our
scholarships. And that truly is um not in the district's control. Well, it's more of a flow through a trust for scholarships that we pass through um for students. So, again, it's um a flow through that the district um just passes
the dollars through and um we we do the reporting. So again, these are again preliminary actual data um as of mid- November and um our budget data as of our um budget revision last uh board
meeting. So then on the expenditure side, you will see the again the revised budget. I'll just again highlight some some changes here. uh just some that I'll point out that are um more
significant. The district support services um there is an increase um over our actuals of about 930,000. Again, that was again um investments from our our tech levy. So, we had an
increase in revenue from the levy. Uh we also have that increase in expenditures. uh we're investing in uh levy our technology and then we also had in that same line uh a change that's happening January 1st
which is our tax for the paid uh FMLA um beginning that's a new change in our budget that the employer share of that um so that was again planned in the budget overall and then um again in the regular
instruction um and vocational instruction. That's career and tech. They still categorize it as that. Um that overall increase um there in that line was for planned uh
staffing levels. Again, we have that's your classrooms. And uh overall, we invested in science um art support. Um there was immersion. We also um invested in some other
programming uh within the schools. So again, there's also increases for uh salaries built into all of the you know salary and benefits within all of these programming areas.
And then um in the special education as we I noted back in the revenue side there was a a federal um grant expenditures uh federal revenue. So you have the federal grant there's a decrease as well
on that side. Um but we also did uh change um some of the expenditures within um special education. it was higher in last year's budget. Um it is reduced um in our budget this year. And
then in our instructional support services, there's about a million dollars less. This is where we made some budgetary reductions in our current year budget. Teaching and learning. Um there were some staffing reductions uh in the
staff development area. There were some reductions. We also had some um state and local grants um that again um they were one time only within the budget last year. And then we did use some
operating capital dollars on some technology um and some uh l technology licenses. And then we also had also embedded within that um our uh technology uh levy
uh changes. So there was an increase also built into that. In the pupil support services area, you'll see a slight decrease there. Those were for reductions in staffing um at the secondary level and also um for social
work positions at the um secondary level. Those were part of that priority based budgeting process that we went through last spring. In the transportation um area, you'll see there's a uh
decrease there. Um what took place here is our actuals came in higher in 2024 25. um our budget for 2526 is lower and um what we're doing here is
cost containing transportation with um some of our changes within the transportation budget. So we are monitoring um the transportation costs and making some changes there um for that budgetary amount of um 13.2
million. And then in the operations and maintenance area, this budget again of $19 million uh reflects a lot of different areas within um some of the larger areas, our
long-term facility maintenance funding. Um it includes some of our um capital projects. Uh not the ones that are included in the school building bonds. um those are down below in our building construction fund, but it's also
includes our um custodial budget. Um it includes our grounds, our utilities. So, there are some areas there we did decrease our long-term facility maintenance funding as well. So, that does correlate with some of those
decreases. And then the fiscal and other fixed costs. Um that's mainly our insurance, our property and liability insurance. We had um an increase there. And then the food service fund. You'll
see um our costs there mainly staffing. There were some for um other areas like our our food some of the expenditures there. Um community service fund. Um not just a slight change in expenditures
there. Again um they had some staffing changes within contracts building construction fund. Um you will see that the expenditures are higher. That's due to that second issue of our our bonds
and um those plan changes for uh the buildings. um significantly. The expenditures are going to be ramping up um this uh coming next six to 12 months.
We'll see a lot of activity here and then our debt service fund to pay those bonds off over time. So, um that's the gist of the uh overall budget. Just wanted to highlight um just some of
those areas. Again, this is pretty much um the final for our actuals. We may have some changes um yet with our auditors, but um we are closing in on the final um actuals
and just to see it a different way. I know a lot of numbers on pages sometimes can be just a lot, but just to kind of highlight, you know, our revenue by source and for the community. Um, as well, uh, the levy again, just for all
funds, if you were to just put all of our budget in [clears throat] a bucket, uh, the levy is about 24%. Um and then our state aid, you can kind of just see as well um how those add up.
And then our expenditures by category. Um just some of those that you can see how the capital expenditures kind of skew. Um all funds just for next year. It's [clears throat] kind of an anomaly this
year because of our our bond issue. Um, but just to kind I did a little bit more detail for you. In our general fund, salaries and benefits, which are the the two main categories, is about 74% in
total. So, this only reflects about 40% in total, which is a little skewed because of the the capital. Just wanted to highlight for our general fund, it's about 74% or so. So that's just highlight that.
And then when you hone in on our general fund uh revenue by source, you can see that the state aid um is really the the driver there. Uh the levy then um is about 30%
with then our um federal um being about 1%. Now there's not not a lot um for the district in the general fund and then other which are those you know those grants those gifts and other areas and
then you can see by category um the regular uh instruction just about 41% of the budget um with special education being um that second largest and then
just kind of on that uh pie chart there those different areas. So, um second part of this presentation is just to kind of highlight um the levy and just kind of going through just um
some of those factors. Again, highlighting for the community um impacts to school levies. Um again, changes in the tax base, changes in enrollment. Um if enrollment changes, it
can change uh mainly some of those formulabased levies. Um one that comes to mind, you'll see this in the numbers is our referendum um because it is based on residential uh pupil units. Uh legislative changes
to formulas that that does happen. It has happened. um referendums, uh employment changes that that drive um levies, and then um any type of bonds or bond refundings, which we've done as a
district. I believe we've done um a few over the years, which does uh uh have a savings, an impact on our debt service uh over time. And so, um,
this although small, um, I'm just happy to report that nothing has changed since, um, you initially approved the proposed levy. So, what's before you? I'll just highlight a few of the
again um kind of if I had to just summarize this in a couple uh big changes. What I would highlight for you is the uh referendum
uh those dollars again um they're decreasing um slightly because of our enrollment. So overall, our referendum is decreasing. As you can see by the red in the last
column, there's um our referendum about $124,000 overall. Um there are some other uh areas within the referendum formulas. We have um the equity local optional.
There's some others that are related um that we receive um not only state aid, but there's a formula based um different tiers within our referendum. Um another $400,000 decrease.
Another area that um we're also seeing a decrease in by about 900,000 925,000 is our other postmployment benefit uh levy. And that's due again to um our formula
and our claim our experience uh with our other post or OPED benefits. So uh last uh levy we had about $2 million that we levied for and uh this this levy we're
levying about 1.1. So there's a $900,000 decrease uh for this this coming uh levy period. And then uh the other area um I'll just highlight our long-term facility maintenance funding. Um so we
are uh levying about one you can see the line there. It's about $1.3 million right above that the proposed changes there right under that OPE. Yep. Thank you Joan. And if you go about three
lines down, there's a prior year adjustment of about 1.5 million. So it pretty much nets out. These are again changes um between project years. So again, we're seeing a net decrease of
about three thou $300,000 um between the years. So that is where you're seeing our general fund um levy um overall decreasing by about 1.7 million.
And then just highlighting the community service levy. Um again $35,000 they're in my opinion remaining pretty flat. Um however the early childhood
family education levy is uh decreasing where the school age care levy is increasing. And this is again all based on law what's appropriate um within the funding and what the state allows.
And then last but not least is your debt service fund levy. And um this again is that second um half of the bonds for the school building bonds which is supporting the schools and the projects that um were
approved. And so you can see that second line of the debt service voter approved is for the new school building bond. That second half, I believe it's about 74.5 million. 74.5.
And then you can also see there's about $731,000 difference. That's for the interest on our uh new long-term facility maintenance bond. So the first year we pay interest only. So you can see the
net difference in our um debt service fund of about 2.1 2.2 million overall. So for our uh all funds or our entire uh
levy uh the change over last year is about $426,000 overall. And we'll just summarize it there for you. um that change. You're seeing um a decrease
in our general fund levy of uh 1,718,000 and then a decrease in the community service fund about 35,439 and then uh 2,180,000 roughly. So there's the changes. Your
overall increase is uh 0.64% overall, which um is significantly um lower than I've seen um trendwise here in a in a while.
So, um just to kind of um highlight some of the other uh factors that impact uh school taxes and again this is just the school taxes um overall um changes in values of um property um the total
property within the district. Um it can decrease um based on local needs and costs, voter approved referendums. Um, there's a lot of other factors, too. Um, again, there's a four-year comparison
that I'll highlight here. Again, it's based on no changes to property values. So, individual properties that have changes, it may not be exactly [clears throat] um
reflective of what's happening in each each um individual's property. Um, these are just examples for property in the city of Stillwater. Um, again, they're preliminary estimates. They could change slightly.
These were provided by Ellers's, our, uh, financial advisor. So, just to kind of highlight, um, we're starting with a $300,000, uh, residential homestead property. And, um, just going to highlight these
numbers. Again, we're starting it's a four-year comparison. Again, no change in property value. Um we're starting with um 2023 and you can kind of walk across, but you
can see the change there of $952 and it goes um across. As you can see, you know, we've had changed to,62 and then we're back [clears throat] um basically to where we're,62 again. So
we went up in 2025 and then back down again. So, um, for a $500,000, uh, homestead property, uh, back in 20123, that example, um, 1,615,
um, you went up and then, uh, we're back, uh, down to that 1,840. So, you'll you're going to see a trend. you're almost back to the 2024 levels um of of property, you know, property
taxes. So, pre uh what we had as an increase last year. And then again, similar with your your commercial and your apartments. Um again, these are at the million dollar
uh levels for both. and um they're slightly higher also. Go ahead. Mhm. So I think it's important for people to see the highlighted no change at the top of these slides in property value
because oftentimes what happens is we may see a slight reduction based upon consistent property values from the school district. Um, but a local taxpayers's property value may go up according to the county. Their taxes
then will then go up and so they they will ask, "Well, why are my taxes going up so much if if the district is is flat as they are?" So, it's important to note that the no change piece. Correct. And again, this is just to highlight
again the district's uh portion of the annual property tax impact. Um overall, again, these are the different ranges of the residential homestead, the commercial and the apartments. And you
can see the changes overall, the estimated um from last year to um the estimate for next year. and that change and overall you can see the range um that decrease.
So again, the levy timeline um before us, the truth and taxation um meeting this evening and then um the final levy certification on the 16th and then um we have a
deadline to um certify our final um levy to the home county auditor at the end of this month. So thank you very much for that presentation. Um as a part of our truth
in taxation, we are not only required to have this presentation but also make the floor available for community members who are interested in speaking uh to the board and to staff directly. So, at this time, if there's anyone in the room that would like to speak,
did you Okay, feel free to come up. Okay. Um, I do not see anyone here to speak. So, with that, we'll conclude truth and taxation. Thank you very much, Marie, for all that work. Thank you. Great work. Thank you.
All right. And with that, we will call our regular [clears throat] study session meeting to order. Joan, roll call, please. Director Gersich here. Director Hawker here. Director Kelzenberg here. Director Lowour here. Director Parker here. Director Theelander here. Chair Sherman
here. You have a 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. All right, I will go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's agenda. Can I get a second, please? I'll second. Great. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say I.
I. I. Opposed. Agenda passes. We have a small uh consent agenda, just an a payment of invoices from November 15th to November 28th.
Um I will make a motion to approve tonight's consent. Is there a second? Great. Second. Director Kelzenberg with a second. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your hand and say I. I. I. Opposed. Consent agenda passes unanimously.
Tonight we have two reports coming to the board. for review one our first one and welcome Mark I think you're going to get comfortable and you're involved in both here we're going to talk about the calendar proposal good evening chair Sherman superintendent Funk member of the board
tonight I'm here to share uh a draft calendar of the 202728 um school calendar um this calendar here is the third year of the early start time so when we adopted this a few years ago we talked about a three-year pilot so this year with the early start this
is the first year. Next year will be the second year and this calendar of 2728 will be the third year. Now that we've started this early start calendar, now we're kind of see that, you know, do some evaluation, kind of see where we're at. So at the end of this year, we'll start to do some evaluations with surveys of of families, students, and
staff, as well as look at some of our data, some of our achievement data, attendance data, etc. to to kind of see the impact that this had. I know there's a lot of changes that have been going on um the last couple years, but really try to see if we can pinpoint what impact this calendar has had. So this year specifically is the third year um of the
new calendar. Now when we do a calendar, there's many different considerations. So this I'm just going to highlight a few of them. There's other considerations that goes into it, but just want to kind of go there's some state statutes as well as some contractual requirements that are required in each of our calendars. So um for us with our contractual um
agreements, we have 192 teacher days. So as I go through this, and I'll go month by month here, so we'll walk through the calendar, but you'll notice there'll be 192 total teacher days. there'll be 172 total student contact days. And then within that 20 uh 20-day difference,
nine of the or nine of those are PD days. So you'll see two of those PD days are before the school year starts and then as we talked in previous calendars, seven PD days are spread out through the year. It's kind of once a month um to kind of professional development ongoing throughout the year. Six of those are
grading or workshop days. You know, two of those are going to be at the beginning of the year during workshop week. The other four again contractually are the day after each quarter ends. So you're going to see a grading day after the first quarter, grading day after second quarter, so on and so on and so forth. And then there are five holidays
within that that contract. In addition to that 20-day difference, you'll notice the first three days are new staff workshops. So any teachers that are new to our district have an additional three days with our new teacher workshop. Now on top of that, there's state requirements. So the state requirement says we have to get a minimum of 165
days in, which we do. 172 with our student contact. They also have a hour requirement as well. And you can see that differs by grade band. Our kindergarten is 850. Our 1 through 6 is 935. And then our um 7 through 12 is
1020 or that,020 hours. We bank our schedule off of that,020 hours. And so it's kind of a complicated formula. They don't include lunch. So actually our,020 gets us to 170 contact days. So when you talk about, you know, a couple snow days built in, our 120 hours gets us to 170.
Contractually, we're at 172. Every district in the metro and every district in the state has different requirements from a teacher contract day. Some have more days than us, some have less days than us. Same thing with student contact. So when we're looking at calendars between districts around us, um it's not quite comparing apples to
apples. Everyone kind of has unique requirements based on whatever district they're in. So as we convene the calendar committee, and the calendar committee is kind of one feedback loop that we have. And so, um, the past, I don't know, eight, 10 years since I've been doing this, um, I've come with the calendar, have a draft done because as
you do calendar, it's a huge game of Tetris. And like I say, every single thing works. You want to have school in one day, great. You want to have that day off, great. Everything works. It's just what are the dominoes to make that that happen. As a as a district, we've tried to condense our school year as
much as we can in terms of, you know, elongate the summer. And so as we look at doing that and we bring the calendar to group, the draft calendar comes to the committee and it comes to other feedback loops. So I'll get there in a second. So the reason we do a draft is because once a draft is done, you know
it works. There's a number of teacher days, there are number of student days, number of holidays, PD days, all these things are done. So as you talk about, you know, what if we moved to PD day here, a PDD there, spring break here, spring there, you're moving pieces that you can talk about. Okay, if we move it there, then you have to take these five days, move it down. and you kind of talk
in real terms about if you do this here's the implications and so as we go through it that's one group um one way that we look at the contract so or the calendar. So as we um convene the committee there's really kind of three things that the committee looks at. So looking at because this is year three
looking at the start date was not you know one of the conversational pieces. It's really looking around our placement of breaks you know when first quarter ends when second quarter ends how that that looks. also looking at spring break, also looking at culture and religious holidays, and then looking at our PD days, you know, and how do they
align, you know, a lot of PE people like the PD days at the end of the year, but you really want your professional development at the beginning of the day of the year so the staff can use those teaching techniques and um things that they learn and really implement them within their classroom. So that's kind of the calendar committee's role and the calendar committee is only one feedback
loop. Um we look at multiple ways. So another one that we had is we brought it to our QSC which is our qual quality steering committee which our SCA leadership team and in that group you know we brought that there what I'm going to go through with you here in a second I've went there you know there were no questions or comments from that
group um as well. So it's really um what we're trying to do is get feedback from multiple sources and then really kind of see where we land and then as administration we bring that calendar here forward to the board. Tonight we're going to bring it here as a draft to kind of talk through it and then we'll be looking for approval at the next
board meeting at December 16th. So any just questions on that before I kind of go month by month and highlight the calendar here as we go. All right. So looking at um the calendar and you can kind of see that just there's some highlights on the screen. Um but let's just start in August. So looking at August the 3rd, fourth and
fifth are those new teacher workshop days that we had talked about. Um the next week the 9th through the 12th is the teacher we call it teacher workshop. So on Monday the 9th and on Thursday the 12th those are grading days. Those are no meeting days. Those are days for teachers to work in their classroom. There's no meetings from a district
standpoint. There's no meetings from a building standpoint. Those are time for them to get their building ready. The little sunshine days on the 10th and the 11th those are PD days. So if you look at the 10th that's kind of the district welcome back where a lot of you come in the morning where Dr. funk greets everybody as a staff and then typically that afternoon they go back to their
building and they have a principal has the kind of opening staff meeting within a building. That's kind of what Tuesday looks like. Wednesday then is more of a PD day, kind of that first PD day to kick off the school year from the teaching and learning department. Then you look at the rest of August, um there's no days off. You look at
September, September 3rd is a gray day. So a gray day means there's no school, no nothing for staff, nothing for students, nobody has school. And typically when we've done early start, whether it's early start now or before, we've been going before Labor Day for gosh almost a decade if not longer.
We've typically always had that Friday before Labor Day off to kind of have a 4-day weekend heading into Labor Day. So that's um traditionally why we've had the third off. September 6th is Labor Day. Then as we look at September, the first PD day during the school year, September 27th. Um we looked at that day
specifically. Um a lot of our elementary staff right now are doing letters training. that will be done by then. And so they have swim meetings and you've heard a lot from the buildings talk about the swim meetings. Look at the intervention data from both a math standpoint and a reading standpoint. That'd be a time to have those um swim meetings so you don't, you know, have
subs and be pulled out of instruction so you can maximize the the number of times that teachers are in front of students. As you look at October, you can see it's clean up until October 19th is the last day um of the first quarter. The 20th is that grading day we talked about the day
after the quarter ends. there's a grading day contractually. The 21st and 22nd are MEA and then the 25th coming out of MEA is a PD day. Then moving to November, um there's five day weeks um until you get to November 24th um which
is the PD day before Thanksgiving and then Thanksgiving on the 25th and then 27th. Another thing that I wanted to highlight that I didn't in looking at this another key tenant in here is try to maximize the number of five day weeks. We don't want to have you know Fridays three Fridays off in a row type of thing. We want to maximize for family
sake and for consistency of learning as many five-day weeks as we can. So that was another priority in putting this together. Then looking at December um kind of December there's no days off. The last day of the quarter and first semester is December 21st and then you have the grading day on the 22nd and
you're looking at winter break. Um for students winter break starts the 22nd. For staff the winter break starts December 23rd. Um, and then coming back in January is a PD day, that Monday coming uh right after break. And then January 17th is Martin Luther King Day, which is a PD day. Moving to February,
there's quite a few five-day weeks except for the 21st of February, which is um President's Day. Also looking at holidays, Eid falls off on the weekend of February. So February 26th, 27th is where Eid falls. So we try to um keep that in mind as well. Um and then moving
on to March. So looking at March 9th is the end of third quarter and then you can see that Friday is the grading day after third quarter followed by spring break. So kids will have Friday off and then a full week off um of spring break that 13th through the 17th. And then um looking at April, April 14th is Good
Friday and then looking at May, the last day of school for kiddos is um May 19th and then staff comes by back the 22nd. And I also want to highlight that we um aligned our quarters to natural breaks again. So end of first quarter is before MEA. So they go into MEA first quarter
is done after MEA break which is a few days they come back start second quarter clean. Second quarter or first semester ends the 21st right heading into winter break again. So you end the semester have two weeks or a week and a half of winter break come back after winter break. Start fresh with a new semester
and new quarter. Same thing with third quarter. The third quarter ends right before spring break. So again they go into spring break. So that theme of of having our quarters line up to natural breaks um was something that we want to be cognizant with this calendar as well. So that's a high level and a very quick level here of the calendar. And so with
that, I'd like to open up to any questions or comments that any of you may have. Great. Sir, um I'm noticing here, and you touched on this, it it looks like it feels like there are many more five weeks, like
full five weeks, than I feel like I've experienced in the past. Do you have like a comparison or do you know like compared to like this year or last year um or even next year like how many more five week and how and if and if there's a difference how that was accomplished. Um I haven't total that before but that
has been a theme that we've tried to do for a few years. This isn't new this year. That has been a theme we try to do because there's some years you know I can think back a few we used to come for a Monday a random Monday then have conferences on Tuesday and then you go into I mean just it was kind of a weird scheduling thing. So we tried to kind of look at that holistically and really
redo it. So, it's just year by year and again it really depends where holidays fall. Sure. Of how this aligns as well too that um really has an impact of how long winter break is, where things happen to be. Um every year's just a little bit different. Sometimes you have leap year some I mean just there's
little nuances that aren't huge but do change these things quite a bit. Okay. Thanks. No, good question. Yes. Sure. Um, so going into this early calendar, I anyway heard a lot of opposition to it and actually voted
against it at the time. But I know that the tradeoff is this quarter breaks right here. I I believe that's the biggest benefit of this calendar. So now we've had our first instance of a quarter break coming before MEA break. Has there been any change of attitude
that we've been hearing on the benefit of that? Um, not a lot. So most of our core most of our courses are semester or um full year. So the only quarter courses that we have are the the middle school sixth and seventh. They have a wheel course that goes through by the quarter. Most
of them are the semester and the um full year courses. So we really haven't had a chance. We haven't surveyed people either. They kind of let people get their feet wet and get into it. The big one's going to come at semester where you really have that two weeks or a week and a half depending which which year the the calendar falls in that you don't have to worry about finals coming
afterwards, you know, and this is the first year where you do your finals kind of like that college schedule. You do your finals and now you don't have to worry about studying. You don't have to worry about homework. You don't have to worry about those pieces over winter break. You can enjoy your family, relax, and then everybody has a fresh start coming here beginning of January, right?
Then also, so this time next year, I'm sure if the schedule, we'll be looking at the 2829 and that'll be after the three-year trial period, but we'll only be a little over a year into the trial period of these of these three years.
What are we going to do between now and this time next year to get feedback on whether this is the right thing to do or not? Did you want to You have a decision. you'll have a decision you can make at that point because because what we're doing right now is
[clears throat] approving calendars a year and a half, two years out. Okay. So, um the decision point for the board at that point will be do we need to approve it in this time next year or can we wait till the end of the school year and approve it because
because your one for next year's will already have been approved. So it may be an option this time next year just to push just to push it back a few months. Give it a little more time for data. What's an option? The latest I will caution the latest you want to approve it is kind of fall late fall of the year before because
typically you want to give people winter break to start to kind of think about their plans and those sorts of things for the following year. So we can wait and push it out, but you don't want to go past that winter break standpoint to give families the opportunity to start to plan for the upcoming school year. And I know that that's a year away, but
also between now and then, I just want to be able to gather some kind of input. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Other questions? Okay, seeing none. Um, thank you, Mark, for this. You're not going anywhere.
Um we will um and just so the community knows the board will be voting on um on the calendar at the next meeting. So if there are questions or comments you can continue to I guess email them to Mark
um for answers. Okay. So now we're going to talk boundaries. Um just um and I'm sure staff would do this but I kind of had taken some notes here. We introduced the boundary process September 8th just for the community to know. Um we approved as
a board uh the guiding change document on September 30th. The community for um we formed a boundary adjustment committee which thanks to those members for their participation. uh those those committees met several times and presented to the board on November 6th
and then we had an opportunity for the thought exchange and to take place and for a community meeting to take place on November 13th and then we are having a report tonight with action scheduled on December 16th. So that just kind of is a
long summary of everything we do related to boundary changes. So with that I will turn it over. Well, thank you for doing my intro. appreciate that because we [laughter] cut off the first few slides here. We got that taken care of. Um so yes, with that being said, um we're here to talk about our final recommendation here for the boundary um
process. Again, as we look at the boundary process, this is the initial final recommendation. We're looking for a vote here at the next meeting, December 16th. And again, um in our eyes, it's it's crucial that we get it done before winter break so families can see the boundaries, see how it impacts them because there is a January 15th
open enroll deadline, which I'll touch on here in a second. So just timing wise, you can kind of just see how this all fits together. I do want to take a moment real quick and real quick and just go over the the guiding change document that was approved here in September, just so you can kind of see what the base of our charge as a committee and what their role was um
moving forward in this process. So as we looked at this, we created options that were in the best interest of all of our kids districtwide to make sure that the schools in the southern part have the capacity to meet the current and future needs. um consider the demographic makeup of our schools and and implications with potential boundary
changes. Gather fear uh various feedback loops um both here at the board thought exchange um community conversations which we'll get into here in a second. Um keep transportation in mind so we have safe and efficient transportation systems and to the extent possible is keep our feeder schools to the middle
school. That really wasn't a conversation here because we just focused on the southern schools that all feed to Oakland. the the middle schools wasn't a conversation because we didn't have any um neighborhoods crossing between Still Water and Oakland. So that was something that um this group here in years past we've talked about it but
this group here didn't. Um the next one is extend possible keep our neighborhoods together. Um and then lastly is something um we try to do is to to see if we can get our schools to have a minimum of 400 students. That doesn't mean it's mandatory but to the extent possible try to get all of our
schools as close to 400 students as we can not only next year but in future years. So um I just want to recap here. We had three options and again the role of the boundary committee. So the boundary committee's role there's representation from every school um elementary wise all
seven elementaryaries both middle schools as well as district personnel and community um members as well. And the role of the committee was really to generate options that meet the guiding change requirements to bring to the board. So as the group met through our meetings we actually generated 11
different options. And so through that option process of generating options, we kind of did a pros and cons of different options. And when before we came here in November, we actually took a vote um of those options and there were three that really stood out and we had a different numbering system. But then after those
numbers, we kind of made it to A, B, and C to kind of clarify here for the board. But as those three really stood out and they as a committee kind of had very equal um votes at that time to say these three really meet our requirements and we want to get future feedback on that. And so that's where option A, option B,
and option C here come forward. And so um a y after the that at November 11th, we got a lot of feedback here in different loops. So um Chrissa has put that feedback here and we'll share some of that um feedback here with you guys. Good evening, members of the board. Mark
had the hard part, I think, of having to work with the committee and look at all the options and I had the fun part of engaging our community and we held an in-person community conversation at Oakland Middle School. um in November and we had about 30 people um that showed up for that event, maybe a few
more than that um to learn a little bit more about the options. We had committee members there to help explain their thoughts and what went into the process, which I think is always a very valuable piece to have them. So, thanks to those volunteers for showing up. Um and then we asked our community just to give us feedback on what they thought were
strengths of the proposals or what concerns the proposals raised. And we had a great conversation and got good feedback. Um, as you can imagine, the people in the room were people who were impacted by these changes. Um, obviously these are kind of hitting home for them. So, they obviously were concerned about
anything that was going to impact their child having to move to a different school. Um, so their biggest concern, I think, was the disruption and just making sure that we were really being intentional and trying to minimize the disruption as much as possible. There was certainly more support for options B and C, which impact fewer students and
families. Um, so they did share that and they were looking at the long-term capacity needs of the district, making sure from a parent perspective that we weren't going to be right back at the drawing board two or three years from now and have to change boundaries again. They wanted us to have kind of a long-term plan. Um, some of the concerns that came up were about things like
adventure club and transportation, just those logistical pieces for families. Um, they also talked about the impact of um, family life, right? You know, I I'm used to the schedule now. I have to come up with some different arrangements. So that's always challenging from a school standpoint. Um the good news is people
love their school and so to think about moving to a different school is is difficult and they they love their school community. They have friends. They have um connections to that building and so that came up as a concern and they wanted to minimize that. And then just the impact on the school as a whole too. I mean, it came
up that some of our PTO groups are, you know, impacted by these changes and what happens if that leadership is gone and what happens if school enrollments change and now staffing looks differently. So, those are the sorts of things that they talked about and really left there just asking us to make sure that this is intentional that we're
taking those considerations into um or taking those concerns into consideration as we move forward. So, that was a community conversation in person. We also opened this up to our online thought exchange and asked people to give feedback there. And we had about 264 people that participated, which is
great. And one of the things we did on Thought Exchange was ask them if they were impacted in which school community they came from. No surprise, about 90% were from the four impacted schools. So 90% of those 264 people were from the highest number from Lake Elmo, then Aftton Lakeland, then Anderson and
Brookiew. So again, the impacted families are the ones that you're hearing from here. Um about 57% of people said that they actually lived within the affected boundaries and 22% said they weren't sure if they were in the boundary or they didn't they didn't quite know. Um but again, I think that's important just to understand who's
responding on this thought exchange. Um the graphic that you see up here shows um the way thought exchange works. It kind of shows you what are the key themes or ideas that people are putting out there. people can read other people's comments, kind of star the ones that they agree with. So those sort of
move up the list, and it gives us all the key themes that came out. And then in this graphic, it's showing kind of the two sides. So of the feedback, there was one side that said option A is kind of the one that they maybe understood or felt more comfortable with and others said option BC. Those were the differences in the key themes. And then
there was some common ground. So I think it's what we talked about before, minimize student disruption was the common ground. Everybody felt like that should be the main focus. um of those who supported A, they felt like maybe this is the longer term um addresses geographic and enrollment
considerations. That said, there was more support for options B and C because of the impact. They felt that it was a lower impact. Um I think those are the key highlights from that. Very much similar concerns raised as we heard in the inperson session. Um just the impact on the
school community and the families individually as well. Um, I think one of the things that's important when we get this feedback is when we look at this, we're not looking like, oh, there's so many people who said this option and so many that said this option. We're looking at more of what are the concerns
and how do we as a district address those concerns. So, with something like Adventure Club, that came up as one of the major concerns. We came back and talked to Annette about it, and their staff has committed that anybody who's currently in Adventure Club will continue in Adventure Club. even if they're in a different building, their
spot will be reserved. That was one thing we can do to help support families. In previous boundary changes, we we've also worked on transition planning and how can we create opportunities for families to come to their new school, get to know staff, get to tour it, have some events and activities. So, there's a lot of
transition planning that goes into it to address some of the concerns, too. So, I think it's important for the community to know that we look at this and while it may not be the decision that you wanted us to make because everybody kind of has different opinions, we're really looking at this of how can we support families through these transitions, what are the major concerns and what can we
do to make sure we're making it easier and finding solutions for those problems. Thank you, Kristen. So, in looking at all the feedback and and all the data, administration's recommending option A. Um, option A best balances the cap the capacity in the
southern end and sets us up for future growth. Both growth that growth that we know that's going on right now, but also potential growth that be could be coming down the road. So, looking at a um there's a couple different moves. One is moving parcel 44 from Lake Elmo to Afton Lakeland. Um, I just want to take have
you take a peek at the screen here real quick. If you look up rightand corner, that purple is Anderson. To the left Anderson, that green is the Rutherford boundary. Just below the green that peach um below Ruford that is Lake Elmo. Down the blue in the bottom lefthand
corner is Brookview. And then I'll call it yellow there in the bottom right is Aftton. So just you can kind of see this is not as we do today. This would be with option A with the with the moves made. So if you look at parcel 44 right there currently that's a Lake Elmo school and option A that would go to Afton Lakeland. The second piece is
moving parcels 53 and 54 from Afton Lakeland to Bayport. um those historically had been Bayport for a number of years. Um and the 2017 um boundary changes, those moved to to Afton Lake at that time, but historically they were Bayport for quite
a few decades um ahead of that. And then the other move was taking 52, 52 is where Brookview is right now, and splitting that in half. And so the southern end is where Brookview lives right now, the 52 um south, the 52 north right now, there is nobody in there.
There's two housing developments about 500 units um that are being developed right now. That parcel would go from a Brookview attendance area to an Aftton Lakeland attendance area. So, it's really looking at four moves 44, 53, 54, and then that 52 north. Um, with option
A, here's the enrollment estimate of um, school for next year with the housing developments that we know are on the books, not the ones that haven't been approved or haven't started yet, with the ones that are in development to try to have some of those numbers and those figures um, into these projections. This
option A really looked at our capacities and really balanced it as best we could in the southern end of the district. And then now just kind of the rationale or kind of the reason why A was kind of the one that we chose. It solves our longer term capacity needs, ensures buildings accommodate projective enrollment over
the next five years. And looking at our cities down there, looking at Bayport, looking at Woodbury, looking at Lake Elmo of what's on the books, but also looking out a few years to say, "Yeah, this isn't on the books yet." But in talking to city administration that things are going to open up. For instance, Woodbury has a pocket that
when talked to city administrator, the phase three of around Brookview hasn't been released to the city yet. And so when I talked to him, said, "What does that look like?" He goes, "Well, 2030ish." you know, so okay, so looking at possibly what things could happen there and potential moves of looking into the future. So it's really taking
those city conversations into this um recommendation as well. Balancing our enrollment um create consistency within our schools so we don't have overcrowding or underutilization of our buildings prepares for the growth which I talked about um with some of the housing developments and population
increase now and in the future. And then with that planning ahead, minimize future disruption for our family. So we can do this now and really get through, you know, a boundary. We say we want to get through the life cycle of of a of a student. You know, really that five, sixyear mark um and then after that we kind of reassess of where we're at.
There's been a lot of change um with our housing over the last few years. You know, I always give the um give the example, you know, I was a kid here and when I was a kid, Highway 36 was the dividing line, meaning half the kids live north of Highway 36, half the kids live south. Now, our dividing line is
close to 94. And you know, I grew up as a as a kid, my parents live in Croywood, you know, so obviously Craywood, you're right next to Lily Lake Elementary. And so Lily Lake is where I went for elementary school, but back then my junior high was Oakland. And so, um, you think about that and where where
Craywood is, you know, by Target, by Cub, that's how far Oakland went. And now, as our population has increased in the south, that boundary line has moved farther south south. So, as a district, we have to kind of adapt and adjust our boundaries based on where our students are living here and kind of be nimble
and flexible as housing developments and and families change or where they're coming from. And then lastly, there's been a lot of talk about impact on families. And so the first piece I want to talk about is legacy students. So looking at kids who are in fourth grade currently who will be fifth grade next
year, we're going to call them legacy students. So they will be automatically into the stay into the school that they're at right now. They will not have to go to a new school if they want to stay there. They'll be automatically guaranteed a spot to finish out their last year. Kindergarten through third grade students currently would have a
decision to make whether they stay in the school that they're newly assigned to or they fill out an open or excuse an alternate enrollment form to come back. Now, with our legacy students, there's a transportation component to that as well. And there's been a lot of talk here about looking at our routes and looking at efficiencies um from an
financial standpoint that we're really digging into our transportation right now. That hasn't been complete for next year yet. So, it's too early to talk about whether we can provide transportation for legacy students or not. But, if there's a costneutral way that we can do it, we will provide transportation. But, we just can't we're not in the the spot right now to have
that conversation. So, more t details will be here um coming up this spring. Kids in kindergarten through third grade um can stay like I talked about in this new school that they're assigned or they can fill an alternate enrollment form and then their um enrollment decision will be based on per school per grade
level. And this is where I talked about at the beginning with that January 15th. It's really a state deadline that that January 15th that everybody who gets their enrollment in on or before January 15th becomes that first priority priority. They're all in that same bucket. Doesn't matter if you get it in
December 3rd or January 12th. They're all in that same bucket. Anybody who goes after January 15th, then it's time, date, and stamped and kind of first come, first- serve basis after all the January 15th enrollments have been processed and and gone through with room
or not. So, we really um want to stress that to families. That's something you want to do to be mindful of that January 15th deadline. And then lastly, um Chris had talked about Adventure Club and guaranteeing them a spot. Also, Adventure Come is had conversations about timing. So I I had a conversation
with Adventure Club as well. Um last year they did enrollment in February and so the reason they did in February is just with the new start time. They wanted to make sure they had enough people and so they wanted to kind of get a sense of where they were at. This year instead of February they're pushing it back to early April. So by then a lot of
those alternate um enrollments will be processed and families will kind of know where they're going. So they're guaranteed a spot. And another reason they pushed it back was they did it in February but a lot of families didn't have their arrangements set up yet. So they end up kind of doing double the work. they end up having conversations again later this spring to finalize, you
know, because people just say, "Well, I need care every day, not knowing what that looks like." So, by moving it back later, they can get a better idea of what days they need it, who can accommodate, and those sorts of things. So, really be more targeted with our adventure club enrollment process. So, a
lot of information's been thrown at you here in a short amount of time. Um, and it'll open up to questions or comments that you may have for any of us. Great. And I know um this goes without saying, but I just want to thank the community members and the staff members and yourself and your team who put a lot
of time and work into this process. And um I think it shows. So thank you for that. And these are always really difficult conversations. I was remembering back as I was like looking at the deck and I remember we had this choice and it was right after COVID I think is when we last did the boundary
changes. And so, um, just remembering how it is challenging for families and we do a really good job anticipating those concerns. So, I appreciate that work that you're already starting. So, um, with that, we'll open it up to questions or comments. Yes.
Yeah, I would just echo um, appreciate all the work that's being done. Um, I know it's not an easy task. Um, a question I did have and one was kind of a a theme from the community conversation was around that 400 number
being like the target. Could you shed some light on that of of why that's the target and you know uh cause and effect for example like Aftton being below that and would you mind just sharing some more? There is no hard and fast data. You know some people talk about specialists and some of those things. There's no hard and fast data that 400. Um what we try
to do is really utilize our buildings both capacity wise and utilization and around that 400 mark really kind of give us the most efficiencies as as at least we can. We want to try to do more but you start running below you know in that low 300s 200s type of thing you really be inefficient staffing building
utilization and so some of that is you know we have the estimates coming up with our new housing you know we may get more students than we project we may get less you know and so it's kind of waiting out that and we have future moves to kind of counteract depending on where things come out from there. So there isn't a magic 400 number. We just
wanted to utilize all of our facilities as best we can and try to get that number as close as we possibly could. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Um I too have been thinking back to the last time we did this, which feels like it was just yesterday, but um we're here again. Um
which uh one thing that I definitely heard the community conversation was um the desire to not do this as often. Um, and I feel like that is um, very much something that is I mean this is a tough process for all of our families um, who are involved no matter how many or how
few. And this time around we really don't have as many families at least compared to the last time we did this um, impacted. So I appreciate that this is a much more narrow focus. Um, and in that last process we really did try to minimize that impact. Um, and as a
result we are doing it a couple years later. So, um I very much appreciate that we have an option here that is one that will be hopefully extending it a few more years. Um that it is looking out for that capacity piece. Um and one
thing that I remember in our last time um we also I believe were moving some parcels that were not developed. Is that correct? I know I'm pulling back. Um the last time we did this there were a few undeveloped parcels that are now. So Yep. Um if you think north of County
Road 5 there that parcel part of that legacy area had not been developed now where those houses are going just right you know right across street from Lake Elmo school. Yep. That was a parcel that was moved that wasn't developed in 2122 but is now under development now. Okay. But but those numbers were taken into
account when we did it before. Same thing here. There's some Lake Elmo developments that aren't on the books yet but we know are coming down the pipe. Same thing with Bayport too. Got it. Okay. Um, so I guess what I'm trying to figure out here, um, one of the results of our last boundary change
is that Brookview ended up as a racially isolated school. And it was not looking at, and I I learned this at the boundary committee. It was not because of anything we did wrong in in the previous boundary change. It was just in families moving in um to that area. So it's
something that that is at the top of my mind and I'm wondering if this particular option option A is probably the best option given that we don't know some of the parcels that are being developed where where we'll land that way. Is does do you are you confident that this is going to make sure that we
do not have that racial isolation in any sets us up we don't know how things are going to to shake out but this here does not give us um areas that you know we're we're concerned about percentages being close or not. Okay. So we have enough wiggle room correct in all of our schools to make sure that this will be a safe
option. Now again we who knows what's going to happen down the road people move in or out but as we sit here today our percentage and our projections set us in a very good spot. Okay good. Thank you. Sorry that was very longwinded. Thank you Director Parker. Just wanted to follow up on that. U my understanding is all three options that
were presented don't provide a change in racially isolated issues. Okay. Okay. So, ABC, correct? No racial relation. Okay. Yes, that's fair. [clears throat] And to follow up on that, um, uh, one
thing that I'm sure is probably very obvious to people who have been more sort of in the weeds on this, but not as obvious to me. um is I mean can you just sort of like at a high level explain um
for some of the things that option A is going to achieve in terms of longer term stability um why that's more the case with option A than it would have been with B or C. So and just really high level so looking at A and I'm getting B and C mixed up a
little bit here. Um, but looking at option A, you can see we have our schools that are over, you know, for the majority always over 70% of capacity and looking at really balancing utilizing that. When we look at B and C, we have schools that fall and I don't think it's going to show in here, but um, as you
fall, you can kind of see Lake Elmo and options B and C kind of fall down to that lower 60% number. Same thing as Bayport. Bayport kind of trickles off in there. and to really try to get us into an even 70 80% capacity. Option A really kept us at that um utilization capacity
threshold better than the other options. Okay. All right. So, it was like kind of the 7080 sort of correct the most even distribution. Okay. Director Parker, uh just to follow up on that, when we set our guiding principles, we didn't really talk about capacity. We talked
about the 400 number and this one is the only one that dips below 400 where you're talking about how it balances capacity out but it actually doesn't go against it. It seems like it goes against our guiding principles of staying above 400.
So the 400 is to the extent possible we could. The second part of the the guiding change document talked about um utilizing and our capacities in southern end school and setting up for future growth. So, it's also looking at some of the areas that we know are going to be developed, you know, that 2030ish, and
giving us wiggle room to say, okay, in a few years, 2030ish, whenever that comes, to say, okay, how did that development 52 North come? Are there more kids than we thought? Are there less kids than we thought? And then as that next phase opens up, then we can really make the decision and say there's more here, there's less there, and now we can make
a decision about where that group goes, you know, one way or another based on where we come. So that's where we don't hit the 400 mark right now, but it sets us sets us up in the future to looking at things that we know will be coming down the road to kind of make a more informed decision as we go versus you have more students at one school.
There's actually more kids that come and now that gets really high and then now another school's high and now we're in a a tricky spot that we have to do a bigger boundary change because our numbers were higher than we projected and we don't have that wiggle room moving forward. Thank you. Other questions and comments?
Great. Yes. What uh what was the committee's feedback or recommendation? So the committee did not do a final recommendation. The committee's role was to be an option generator. So they created the 11. From those 11, we said, "Okay, which ones we feel comfortable
moving forward that meet the guiding principles?" That's where option A, B, and C. So that's kind of where their role stops. That's when the we get feedback to say okay what do we want from here there and whatever Chrisa talked about and then as administration we take the options that the committee generated the feedback that we got and
then now as administration we bring a recommendation forward here for the board that we talk about and then looking for approval at the next meeting. Great director. Um, you know, I'm sure we all have. I know I have gotten some feedback from some people and generally
the feedback is I want to stay at my school. Has there been any other feedback beside that in any way? We had touched on a little bit like adventure club transportation, legacy students. There's been conversation around specialists, you know, wanting
that that that may decrease or not. Um, you know, right now we only have a couple schools that have full-time specialists. you know, you need around 600 kids to have full-time specialists. Okay. Um, so the majority of our specialists already travel. So, every school kind of have a main specialist like they do right now and then pick up the other
piece of their time every everywhere else. So, that part won't change. It just there may be some adjustments about a class here or there. So, as a child, just a personal anecdote, you know, as a elementary kid, I I never was in a school for more than two years. As in a military family, we moved state to
state, country to country. I don't remember any trauma from going to another school. It's just like September came around uh or in this case August comes around, we just go to the school that we're dropped off at. And uh so if it helps at all,
no trauma stayed with me as I lots of other traumas did, but not that. [laughter] Any other questions or comments? Great. Thank you very much for this presentation. Very helpful. And again, thank you to the committee and to all the staff that is doing the heavy
lifting on this. And even what what gets approved, there's a lot of work behind the scenes that happens as the followup goes on. So, thank you again. All right. With that, we are adjourned.