Um, we have a couple different recognitions tonight that I want to get started with. Um, first we're going to have our district recognition. Uh, Jacqueline, do you want to come on up here with our community, family, and community engagement specialists?
Sorry, they're shy. I don't blame them. Um, the microphone is here, but stand up and Okay. And then they and everyone can stand behind you and we can just kind of We're here to recognize some very
important staff in our buildings. I'll break it. If I do, do I go home? Welcome, Jacqueline. Thank you. Thank you. Um, so I'm incredibly fortunate that I get to work with these lovely people behind me, all of our student, family,
and community engagement specialists. Uh, when I started last year, we were a team of four. Now we have a team of seven. So they do a lot of work for both our st our students in the buildings, um, our families, our staff, like honestly
underrated. Um the connections that they build with the families is amazing in terms of helping them to navigate the school system, helping them to communicate with staff. Um and then students just giving them this really great place of belonging and a safe place to go to celebrate to ask
questions. So we are incredibly fortunate to have all seven of our family engagement specialists. Great. Introduce yourself. Yeah, if you want to intro Cool. I can start. Um, I am Taylor Zarfos. I just started this year. I am
the first Native American uh, student community engagement specialist here. So, honored to be working with all you guys. It's been u just thrilling to work with Stillwater here and just glad to be part of the team.
I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting her to name a but I'm also happy to Oh, thank you, Juliana.
My name is Yanos and I'm so I'm new. So, so I'm doing secondary. Happy to be here. My name is Marian. This is my third year. I'm enjoying with the family, community, coworker. I'm delightful to
have school district employee and I'm happy to have our leader my colleague. Hi, my name is Claria Hernandez and also this is my third year here uh as a engagement specialist serving uh families
uh mainly Hispanic. Uh and I'm based at Oakland Middle School. Uh my name is Sandy Cortez and it's my second year as an engagement specialist. Um, I've been with the district for quite a few years, uh, serving in many,
um, facets of the the building and schools. Um, also am happy to be here and happy to serve our, um, Hispanic families um, at the high school. And we do have one other engagement specialist who's not here. Her name is Nelly and she works with Sandy at the
high school also um, supporting a lot of our Spanish speaking families. Great. Um, did you want to say anything, Dr. Funker just, you know, I think we started this program kind of when I came to the district a few years ago and it is
really um gratifying to me to see the impact that you are having on our families and our students and what you're doing for our staff as well. And um I I can't emphasize enough how
important u you are to our district. And you know, we have u seven, I think, now of you. And I wish we had like three or four times that amount of you. Um, and I think you can probably state that uh you wish we probably had that many, too.
But, uh, you're making a big difference in the lives of our of our students and our families. So, thank you. Great. Um, I don't know if board members have comments or questions. Um, yeah. Do you all have a particular school that you work at or do you work districtwide?
Is there one at each school? I wish we had one at each school. Um they're they're spread a little thin. Taylor uh is districtwide, so he goes into all schools, which is a lot for one person. Sandy and Nelly support the high school, but if they're needed elsewhere,
they go where they're needed. Uh Dilliana is at Lake Elmo, but also helps elsewhere as needed. Uh Yordanos is at Stillwater Middle, uh Oakland Middle, and the high school, so she's helping our secondary schools. Marian is
stationed at Brook View, but if the other elementary schools need support or help, she goes. And Claudia is at Oakland Middle, but like everybody else, if there's a need for her elsewhere, she goes and she supports. So, um yeah.
Great. Any other questions? I guess for me um maybe my only thing is that I just want to thank you all because um I know many pe many of us at the board table have seen your work in action at some of the different meetings that we have
throughout all of our buildings and whether it's the principles just looking to you and the relationship building skills, the language skills, um just that kind of engagement and interaction with our students and families is just something that is um so very helpful and
meaningful. And the way the students respond to you when you are in the building is just something to really be for all of you to be proud of because I know that they come in and they just are drawn to you. Um and so thank you for all those efforts and everything that you're doing
to to help um engage all of our students and families. So thank you for coming tonight. Thank you. Give me the picture before you all run off. You get in there soon. You guys are helping me make newsletters
one smile at a time. Thank you. Thank you again. Okay. And then we tonight we have a second recognition. Um this we're going to turn over to MSBA, but MSBA has an award to give to one of our amazing
legislators. Um I don't want to spill the beans. I want them to be able to announce their own award. So come on up. Um after we present the award, the whole board will take a picture with um what What is MSBA, Alison? Okay. Yeah. MSBA is Minnesota School Board
Association. Um, and good question. And they are here to talk about an award that they have to This feels oddly like being at the Senate a little bit. Thank you, U chairman, and and members of the board for having us here tonight. Um, we really appreciate it and we appreciate you taking your time out of
your busy schedule. Um, my name is Kim Lewis and I'm here with my colleague Denise Dietrich and we make up the government relations team at Minnesota School Boards Association. Um, we work at the capital during the legislative session with senator and house representatives on uh, legislation that
affects school boards across the state representing all 331 school boards across Minnesota. Um, every year Minnesota School Boards Association honors legislators whose work demonstrates a deep commitment to addressing schoolboard concerns and advancing policies that strengthen
public education governance. This year, we're proud to recognize Senator Judy Seabberger as one of MSBA's 2025 legislators of distinction. Senator Seabberger represents South Washington County Schools, Hastings Public Schools, North St. Paul, Maplewood, Oakdale
Public Schools, Monita Public Schools, and of course, Stillwater Area Public Schools. Early last session, Denise and I met with you, Senator, and um over many meetings, we shared the serious challenges that uh school districts have been facing with implementing earn safe
and sick time or ESST. From the administrative burdens to the unexpected wor work workforce impacts, districts told us about the struggle to track hundreds of hours of leave, the cost of absenteeism, and the confusion around part-time and mid-year hires. When we
talked to you, you didn't just listen. You said, and Denise and I remember this vividly, I have a bill for that. And we were so excited because it had been hundreds of hours and meetings and no one had understood us. um you understood that while ESS ESST's
intent was good, its implementation created real hardships um for our schools. Through your leadership on Senate File 2300, and that number will be forever embedded in my brain, you delivered practical common sense fixes,
allowing districts to prorrate ESST for part-time and mid-year hires, adjusting documentation requirements to ensure accountability and fairness, and clarifying reporting and tracking rules to make it administration manageable. These changes didn't just solve
problems, they improved the law itself, making it more workable for public employers and fair for public employees. You have demonstrated a strong commitment to addressing schoolboard concerns and supporting public education governance. On behalf of our association
and all 331 school districts across Minnesota, we are proud to congratulate you on being MSBA's 2025 Legislator of Distinction. you get to ring the bell. That is so cool. All right. Well, thank
you. Um this is really an honor. Um and I do remember that meeting and I do remember um saying yes, I have that bill and I'm working on it. Um I did get a lot of push back. This was not an easy bill to advance. Um there is I'm still dealing with some of the fallout um from
folks that didn't quite understand what I was trying to do. Um and the real need that exists still exists because we didn't quite get everything done I wanted to do. But we did make some improvements and um I'm really proud to accept this award um because we worked
hard together to get this done and and we did make some progress. So thank you. I should add one thing is that Senator Seberger wasn't on the education committees. So this this was even a just an more enormous task for her and um lots of push back from lots of
employment groups and some other groups really were on the same team. But we will be alongside of you um should you choose to move along and we just we appreciate your understanding education and being open to listening to us. So thank you again. Thank you.
Yeah, we're gonna take here for a picture. And I just want to say that the district greatly appreciates your support of our students, our families, and all that you do to work in a bipartisan fashion to to really make things happen for public education. So, thank you so much, and
we're honored to have you here this evening. So, thank you. And honor to have you as a resident of our district. Yes. Exactly. That's right. Let's take a picture. Great. We could do it right over here. Okay. Yes, we get to do no big deal.
Want to get anybody's attention? You just need to bring I know this is really cool. I'm gonna turn it around. Here we go. Always great. You guys look fabulous. Thank you. Now I recognize for everybody to know what
nice to meet you too. We'll be in touch on being the student rep. Right. Nice. Okay, that concludes recognition. Now, we're going to move on to public comment. Tonight, we have two speakers. Um, our
I'll announce our speakers while I read the expectations for public comment. Um, the first speaker is Kate Perry. And really quickly, the school board encourages community input. While comments and questions are welcome, law
prohibits the board from discussing concerns about individual employees or students in a public meeting. The board will not deliberate, discuss, or engage in conversation with speakers. However, the board may ask administration to review the concerns presented. Speakers must present their testimony in a
respectful manner. Vulgarity, character attacks, malice, or specific complaints identifying staff or students by name or implication will not be permitted. We will stop the proceedings immediately if employee or student privacy issues are raised and direct the speaker to forward comments regarding individual employees
or students to our superintendent. And we have Dr. Hawker here who will hold up the time cards for the three minutes. I remember that. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Kate Harry and I'm here to talk a little bit about Title Nine. I graduated from high school in
1972, so that makes me ageless. I was allowed to participate as an athlete in sports. I had my choice, bad mitten or field hockey. That was really exciting. Not I was not able to compete in the way women can now. So, title N
was enacted after I graduated. I look back at that longingly, wishing, gosh, I wish I could have done that back then, but I couldn't. However, I saw many, many females develop self-confidence, engage in positive conduct with others on and off the field, and improve
attendance, improve grades throughout participation in any sport that they chose to partake in. However, recently, the Minnesota State High School League supported biological males being allowed on the same team as biological females, and you have essentially been silent on
this. If males are on the same team as females, the outcome is destructive. Discouragement for females, loss of scholarships, loss of confidence, hope, lack of desire, and injuries. This is destroying sports for females. As
elected officials, you do have and are expected to honor the law regarding Title 9. Honor your fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers. And if we do not comply with Title 9, we stand to lose up to $6 million in federal funding. Honor females, maintaining
separate but equal competition opportunities. Honor female safety and privacy. Protect them by not allowing biological males to compete as females and share the locker rooms with them. What could possibly go wrong? Honor biological females by not obliterating their equal but separate place in sports
by allowing biological males to compete as females. Honor the truth. Biological males and biological females are scientifically different in strength, stature, and abilities. It is not legal, logical, or moral, or right to allow males to compete as females. Today, I
say to you again, and you probably remember when I said this not all that long ago, I never thought I'd see the day I would have to say to you what is painfully, objectively, obviously clear. Stop supporting ideological theories you're enamored with and foisting them
on students that only serves to harm them. I also respectfully ask you to sign on to the statewide letter for schoolboard members supporting Title 9 that you have received from several individuals from the district and also to support a board resolution so it can be publicly debated and voted on. Thank
you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mike McCarthy. Welcome. This weekend, I asked each board member to affirm that males should not be competing in all female sports or invading private spaces. I also asked
that this board take up a resolution on this, discuss it in public, and vote on it. Not one of you answered me. Unfortunately, female students now face more powerfully built male bodies on the sports field. And not only does this result in broken bones and brain
concussions among female competitors, it's simply unfair. Your silence, your inaction on this is a stand against protecting our female students. So, do you support only females and all female
sports in private places or not? Yes or no? It's good time to find out. Second point tonight, please look at agenda item 14A, the first reading on policy 512, new student public on publications. The agenda notes are not clear, perhaps
deceptive. This is a completely new policy and the policy committee actually rejected critical MSBA recommendations that would keep obscene and pornographic content out of school materials. Why? Because this administration's obscenity
standard is quote taken as a whole close quote. Little obscene or pornographic material is just fine. Even for prechoolers and grade schoolers. This is like having your children swim in a pool with poop floating in it. Taken as a whole, it's mostly water. For
parents, the standard is any poop in the pool is bad. Unfortunately, the schoolboard standard is that obscene poop in the pool of school materials is good. It lets kids accept it as normal. As you're given it
tonight, policy 512 on student publications would effectively put more obscene poop in the pool of school materials. I urge you to look at MSBA's model policy to see what's being glossed over here tonight. fix this by reinstating MSBA's recommended language
to address obscenity and pornography. Finally, in yet another strike against transparency, you've stopped letting the public see meeting materials online well in advance of the meeting. This used to be routine. Tonight, nobody can see ahead of time what the 5,000 gift is
paying for, to applaud it, or to question it. Tonight, proposed class changes. Well, we can't see him until after the com uh comment sign up period deadline has passed with no further public comment possible before scheduled action November 6th when no scheduled
comments are permitted. In fact, all the meeting documents were hidden. So apparently only the political insiders get to engage with you before it's a done deal. Also note that policies like 910 being revoked tonight used to post with quote administrative procedures and
regulations close quote available for the public to see. No more operational details are now hidden from the public. We should all expect better and you as board members should do better. Thank you very much.
That concludes public comment. We will call this meeting to order. Joan Rolloff, Dr. Gersovich here, Dr. Hawker here, Dr. Kelsenberg here, director Lowour here, Dr. Parker here, director Theelander here, chair Sherman
here. You have a qu. Great. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Our first item tonight is approval of an agenda. I would like to make uh a motion to modify the agenda. Um the we have two items to add. One is a close session on
the sale of property within the district and the second one was a um resolution to the principal's contract which will be added to as an action item to the agenda this evening. Um and then we can we'll have those details um forthcoming.
So uh with that motion, can I get a second? Second. Great. Director Theelander with a second. All those in favor of approving the motions to amend, raise your hand and say I. I I uh are there any other motions?
Seeing none, um do we I'll make a motion to approve the modified agenda. Is there a second? I'll second. Oh, we'll go with I was looking at Okay, Chris with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say I. I.
I. Opposed. Agenda modified agenda passes. All right, Zach, we're going to go to you with the student report. Yay. Thank you. All right, for our student report for activities, we most recently just had our freshman elections on
student council where we invited eight new freshmen onto the council. So, that's very exciting for us. Also, tomorrow is we're celebrating pink day for breast cancer awareness month where the students are going to be wearing pink and awareness for breast cancer awareness month. And then also, Lily
Lake Elementary had a field trip with Willow River where Aurora chaperoned and was able to go. That was very fun. And then on to athletics. Girls soccer, tennis, and volleyball have advanced to state, which I'm pretty sure soccer and volleyball are tonight. And then tennis was today already. And then boys soccer
fought a tough game last week where it went to um um overtime twice. I was there. It was very, very exciting. And unfortunately, they were defeated by a score of three to two, but they played a long hard game in the rain. And then girls swim got second at True Team State
and they got a lot of new records. That was very exciting. Boys football plays Shakipe for sections this Friday. And then on to academics, the PAT and SAT was last week and then this week. Pathways day is this Thursday, October 23rd, where seniors and juniors can get,
you know, tour colleges, look at different career opportunities. And then overall students had a great MEA break and are ready to go back to the classrooms. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for Zach? Okay. Um, superintendent. So, you heard from a couple of our
speakers tonight about Title Nine. Um, that's what I want to talk about in my report and potential impact on the school district. So, go ahead and pop that up, Joan. So, a couple weeks ago, uh, the Education Department's Office of Civil Rights and the US Department of Health
and Human Services Office of Civil Rights announced that the Department of Education and the State High School League were found to be in violation at Title Nine for permitting males to compete in girls sports and for access to female only facilities. Next slide.
Okay. What we have as a result of that is what I'm calling governmental conflict. Public schools in Minnesota are subject to both federal obligations through Title 9 and federal funding and state obligations v via the Minnesota Human Rights Act and State Education Law. If a
school adopts policies aligning with the state law approach and the federal government interprets that as a violation of Title 9, the school may face federal investigation or funding risk. If a school adopts stricter policies to
comply with the federal interpretation, in other words, excluding transgender girls from girl sports, the school may violate the Minnesota Human Rights Act for protections for generator gender identity under the state law. So the perspective of the Minnesota
human rights mandate, the law imposes obligations around non-discrimination in education, meaning districts must ensure students are not discriminated against on the basis of gender identity in access to programs, facilities or
services. So districts throughout Minnesota right now are in a conflicted operating in a conflicted environment. And so the go to the next slide. So the
uh federal government gave the Minnesota Attorney General's office 10 days to respond to the the fact that MDE and the state high school league have been found in violation. And so the on another issue from
previously uh earlier this winter, the attorney general um actually stated that uh an executive order alone does not create rights or obligations unless there's statutory backing.
Since there is not a law in Congress that has been passed that is in conflict with the Minnesota Human Rights Act, the attorneys general's opinion is that without an order that's supported by a federal law
that we don't have to comply with it as a state. So what they have said most recently on this most recent issue is that they are reviewing the title N issue that has been brought up by the federal government. So basically we are do we follow state
law or do we follow an order that doesn't have any law behind it? And so what our attorneys are telling us and what the attorney general's office is you follow state law because there's a uh legislative action that has occurred
stating that these are this is the law you must follow. So potential impact is the next slide and you heard one of the speakers talk about this. This just was released from the Department of Education last week. We received $5.8 million from the federal government. Um,
and you can see where we get it. It's 4.1 in classroom supports, 1.2 in freezing school meals. Um, it's approximately 58 teacher salaries is what uh that equates to. So according to MDE um probably a little bit less than
that but uh um so that is what potentially is at risk um if the federal government says we see you as still in violation and we are going to start to withdraw and withhold um your payments until you
do something else as a school school district or the state does something else as a uh department of education. or the or the state high school league changes. So, so that is what is potentially at risk tonight. And I
wanted the board to be aware that um we are following state law um and that state law is in conflict with an executive order. So, questions on that? Is there any decision that comes to the
to us? Not yet. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I I think we're I think we're trying to I don't think there's a dis I don't think there's a district in Minnesota that's done anything on this yet. They're waiting to see
what happens between the state and the federal government on this issue. And I what I think in all likelihood, you're going to probably see this go into the courts and then there will be a long court process to determine the final outcome. And when that when that's determined, then I think it's the decision time for the school for the
school board. you may not have an answer to this and if it's maybe just something that you could get back to us at a later time. Um, but I'm just curious, is there state funding at risk if we I mean the state is the prime is our primary funding
source? Yeah, I don't know if there's a flow through Okay, there's potential flow through dollars that are at risk. Okay. Um, yeah, but this is where I mean MDA MDE created this for every school district in the state. Okay. So, that
just grabbed a screenshot of this and put this up there. Right. So, that's their interpretation of our uh uh fiscal exposure from the federal government. Okay. Um for community members that are
uh want to engage on this issue, would I mean I'm kind of telling people as they respond to to go to their state and federal legislators. I mean, this would be nothing that we would be acting on. Correct. you have to follow I mean we have to follow the law right
okay so if people have concerns about it go to the people who make the laws either at the state or the federal level and we will we will follow we can't go off on our own um on this issue so our our legal advice is you follow state
law at this point because there's no federal law that you're you're in violation of there's a federal title n executive director ive saying we believe you're you're in violation, but there's not a a law to back that up. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
Appreciate that update and we'll look for more from you when the time comes. All right. Um I do not have anything this evening. And with that, we'll move on to the consent agenda. We have items A through F on the screen.
Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? I'll move to approve. Great. Director Hawker with a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Great. We'll go with Pete for the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your hand and say, "I." I.
Opposed. Consent agenda passes. Tonight we have a couple different reports. Under strategic direction A, ensure the learning process is adaptable to meet individual student needs. Our first report is strategic investment
high school opportunities. And we'll have Chrissa and Marie. Thank you. Good evening, Board Chair Sherman, Superintendent Funk, and members of the board. Tonight we are going to have a follow-up discussion from our learning session um a couple of weeks ago when the high school was here talking about
new opportunities that they are planning for um Still Water Area High School. Got ahead of myself here. How'd that happen? Okay. Um so we just wanted to do a little bit of a followup on that and allow the the board to have some more time to talk about this. But the first thing we wanted to do is really
introduce this as a strategic investment. And at the school district level, we haven't talked a lot about strategic investments in the past. I think this is a term often used in business. It's kind of a strategy thing that they use. Um, but for the school district, it's really important as well. We have limited resources. That's no
surprise to all of you around this table. And sometimes it means we have to make really deliberate and intentional choices about how we're going to use those resources. And one of the things we'll learn about tonight is um kind of the impact of what happens when we don't invest in new programs and when
competition around us might be doing things that we haven't kept up with. And so we just wanted to talk a little bit tonight about how we can um look to be really intentional in where we're spending our money so that it has a bigger impact and can help us maybe lo prevent the loss of money in the future.
Um so as we talk about strategic investment, it's important to look at our current situation. Um as you know, our fund balance is not where we want it to be. We're at 1.1 as of last year and we're still waiting for the audit results to see where we ended the books
um this this past summer. And so as we know that, we have to look at what that really means for us as a district. And one of the the ways we can do that is through a SWAT analysis where we look at our strengths, our weaknesses, our opportunities, and our threats. And that's what we're planning to do tonight. And it's really around the
context of the high school schedule. As we've been talking about, the sixth period day that's been in place for quite a long time hasn't met the needs of our students. and um might not really be the best way for us to invest our resources because as we've seen and we'll see through this presentation,
we've actually been losing students to com to competitors. There's a lot of competition in our public education system. And so we need to look at how we can maybe address some of that um and identify the the places where we can make some changes. And one of the ways the high school proposed to do that was
through a period seven period day modified schedule. Um, and with that schedule, it's not so much about how we organize the day, it's about the opportunities we can provide students during that day. And ultimately at the end of this presentation tonight, we're going to recommend increasing some
staffing so that we can implement that schedule. So, I'm going to turn it over, I believe, to Dr. Funk to talk a little bit about the SWAT analysis. So, I think probably everyone around the table is is aware of the term SWAT, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
and threats. And so what we've kind of done real quickly, and I know you've heard some talk about six period day, a little bit about the seven period day. We're going to run through some strengths and uh weaknesses of the current sixth period day. Talk through some opportunities with the seventh peri
seven period day. Um and then we're going to really get roll into what are some threats to our current system and what's the impact of of those threats on the system. So, just real briefly, six period days you is your real basic no
frills schedule um that you have and and you can see it on the slide there. It's pretty consistent. Kids see their teachers six periods a day daily uh good incremental learning. There's less overall workload and homework for the kids. Um it's it's
pretty straightforward as far as developing a master schedule. you get some um core electives within the schedule and from a fiscal angle it's the cheapest schedule to operate because you have limited elective options
um which is a weakness of the schedule your students are not provided as much opportunities um they cannot necessarily go in depth into into a uh you know because of the fact you have a 50minute day um you're
you're not as indepth um as we as we are currently ly aware um there's limited f flexibility for remediation. I think uh principal Bach and his team have done a a nice job of trying to incorporate office hours to provide some more time for intervention and support but it's it
shortens that the day that that we we have th those hours. Um we don't have uh support blocks at all with built into it without disrupting court courses. Um since we meet every day and it's the same subjects every single day, staff
can feel rushed to get through. Um much of the material and common planning is pretty limited um with our staff. Seven period day um more courses of course to access. We there's the potential for college and career
pathways and in-depth learning opportunities. And this is the modified schedule. This isn't a pure seven period day. um you have an opportunity to go further in depth because you have longer class periods, fewer daily courses reduces the stress within the school day
itself. Uh stronger staff student relationships, school climate is calmer, opportunities for intervention, um and mental health and it some some opportunities for innovation as well.
Um so some opportunities as we've heard expanded dual credit options um creating stronger community partnership with local industry um more opportunities for additional grants
um can enhance our reputation as a comprehensive and college and career ready district and we can expand pathways which will set us apart um from many of our local peer districts. So those are more district level opportunities. Um current threats to the district and
you're aware of some of these are you're probably aware of all these post-secary education options, online learning, homeschooling, loss of students for other opportunities and the uncertain future fiscal landscape.
Next. So this is some data um these next couple slides kind of a longitudinal view of not Still Water but the state and just to give you perspective on what's happening um within these areas statewide.
So post-secary education has been a pretty common thing for a number of years now. But as you can see from the graph here uh the numbers continue, you know, they they dropped for a few years in the early teens there or the mid-
teens. Um then COVID hit and then postcoid they're really starting to take off. And this is statewide and we're seeing a similar trend here in Stillwater. Um, homeschooling similar, but we're seeing a greater increase here in
Stillwater. Um, so they're saying it's 50% larger than it was at the start of the pandemic. I don't have the exact numbers for you, but I I can tell you from the article I I got this from the Star Tribune, and you can see the sources on the bottom there. I think
they said in the 2017 to 19 time frame, Stillwater had about 80ome homeschooled students and in today's numbers were over 400. Okay. So that is a significant that's
one of the greatest increases I think in the state. Um as far as from when from co on we've had a significant again number of uh students um shift to homeschool um online learning you know it really of
course everybody did it during co or most places did but then they started to see a contraction postcoid and so people thought okay online learning is going away and I don't have I don't have firm numbers for you here um but what the data that we were able to capture is
there's about a 5% annual recovery growth yearly. So we're 5% 5% 5%. So we're starting to see a a significant increase in in online learning opportunities and again this is statewide. Okay. Um and then of course so we have
all these factors I just talked about and then we have got our district capture rate which is about 71% of our resident students. So, we got school choice, we got open enrollment, we got non-traditional learning, we got private schools, we got charter schools, and we
have uh new and traditional methods of competition for the school district. Um, so here's your fiscal update and the one I provided to you initially just had
912 and we had we had a discussion yesterday and we said we want to see what the district-wide number on the capture rate there on the bottom. So as you can see the uh PSO we had 1888 courses last year um a $900,000
cost to the district. Online learning we had 466 courses that students took elsewhere, roughly $580,000. Homeschooling, $419 students, and this is K12,
uh over $3 million, um loss revenue to the district that we're not receiving. And then for kids who go elsewhere and they don't attend school in Stillwater who are resident students, we have almost 2,000
which is a $14 million impact on um our current uh potential revenue that we are not receiving. Marie, you want to talk through that a little bit? So the current financial reality Um,
again, we have unfunded state mandates. Uh, we talked a lot about this um during our budget season um this past spring. Um, again, those are uh things that have tales in the the legislature. Um, again,
that legislation um still impacting our revenue. Uh there were a couple committees uh set up this past spring um from the 2025 legislative session on the special education funding
and the compensatory education funding. So those are continual committees that will be putting together proposals um that will be I think this um upcoming year uh for our future funding. And then
uh we have um inflation uh rising costs um just our normal costs uh within our budgetary um projections. And then um as you um are aware our enrollment numbers currently um currently are stable but
they're they're not uh increasing um currently. And then um also other unknowns currently we're working on our fiscal year um 2025 audit results. So those um will also be part of this
picture final levy certification as we uh proposed our preliminary levy to you. And then uh just that overall state federal picture, what that looks like, those other unknowns um at the state and federal level as we uh go forward again
this spring with the budget. So, we just put some questions on here uh just thoughts on our concept or maybe on our current situation, what you you know, we threw a lot of data and information at you tonight. Um and just
kind of really just kind of turn over back over to you board chair and kind of Thank you. Um so were before we start getting into board discussion were there any questions on anything that was
presented that you need clarification on? All right. So we've you know for a while now we've heard kind of we've seen the working group um morph and also Zach remember just raise your hand and you're definitely we want you a part of this. So, um uh so we've been talking about
this for a while. Staff has been doing quite a bit of work to kind of come up with different strategies on how we can um recapture some of the lost revenue that we have as well as um you know strategic investments to really kind of
increase and recapture some of that market share that we know um those numbers can be better. Uh we also have the fund balance and um and so that I know is always kind of weighing on the board. So I guess I just wanted to open it up exactly with this first question.
General thoughts on the concept. Um and obviously I think people have been asking you know are we going to vote on this? Let me just say before this really the vote in this comes from the course proposals that we're going to be talking about next. I think this is just we're talking about what are our strategic
priorities? Where do we see um the best place to invest limited resources to try to kind of um make some gains move ahead uh respond to what other districts around us are doing. So I will open up the floor for people who have thoughts
question. I'll go first. I I guess I don't have much of a a question. This has been really helpful in kind of reframing this whole concept. Um, I guess my biggest concern and one that we I think we all share is how do we pay for this schedule change? Um, especially when we have a
1.1% fund balance. It's um, it's something that weighs on me, especially because I want to make strategic investments that are sustainable that we can continue into the future. So, I don't want to hope for the money in the next couple years just to not have it.
Um, but what I am learning from this discussion is looking at what we currently have is the cheapest version of the schedule and I'm seeing very clearly what the actual cost is of that schedule that it really is limiting for
our students and they are finding other ways to supplement their education instead of um finding it in our schools. And that to me um is an opportunity and also a concern that um doing it on the cheap has additional costs. So I as much
as I am definitely concerned about the fund balance um I see an opportunity here to use the strategic investment in a new schedule to hopefully recapture even a fraction of those kids coming back. I feel like will help maybe um
help us in our financial footing and maybe even rebuild build the fund balance if we can attract more kids and and keep more kids in our district. Um so I guess this is this has been helpful for me and kind of answering the question of the funding investment. Sometimes you got to spend the money to
make the money. Um and I see this in a in a bit of a different way. So this has been reassuring for me. Um and thank you for bringing the new information. I appreciate it. Great. Anyone else with comments? Oh, yes.
Um, I just want to go off that. Yeah. I think a lot of the other schools around us, I had an opportunity to tour the schools for the different look at the different schedule and the start times. And I think being able to have the 7-day period where you can have all those opportunities would just like make more people want to come to Still Water for
the funding. And then also, I mean, like right now we have a bunch of electives that are amazing, a lot of wonderful electives, but it's just about like if you're able to even take that with the six day period. Like I know there's so many electives I'd want to take, but I unfortunately aren't able to take cuz I'm in whatever like language, different
like stuff you need to either graduate or just so it like looks good on college or if you're stuck in I don't know like orchestra or band kind of type thing. It's going to be hard to try to figure out what you want to do and what you have to sacrifice for that. So, I think the 7-day period would honestly like
draw more people in and then also just all the opportunities people want to come back and just support the schedule. Thank you, Zach. Sarah, um to both those points, um the question
that I I think keeps coming up for me is do we know why we're losing students? I mean, do we have any sort of data or feedback that we're hearing about why, you know,
families are open enrolling in other districts? Is there particular programming they're going for? Um, I mean, homeschooling I I mean, do we I mean, I guess especially with that, do we, you know, do we think we're going to
recapture the homeschooling population? So, I'm just kind of curious to know if we have kind of data on why people are making the choice to leave um that we can tie back to this strategic investment to say we're confident that if we do this, we're going to get these
people back. We've done surveys um numerous times in my history here in 17 years. Every probably four or five years, we've reached out and tried to get feedback from the community to understand why people leave. The most recent one we did was um I think three and a half years ago. it was kind of coming out of COVID. So, those results
maybe weren't quite in in line with what we had seen previously. There were a few different things just because of the COVID um impact, but overall it's a wide range of reasons. Um to your point, there are some places where I don't know that we can compete directly. There are certainly parents who make decisions
because of beliefs, because of um you know, deeply personal reasons why they might choose homeschooling, for example. Um and we we probably won't gain a lot of those back. Potentially, we can. And I think one of the things we were thinking about is how can we partner more with homeschool families to help them understand there are opportunities
that they might be able to take a class or two here um if we offer more college credit courses could they come to the high school instead of going straight to a university. So there are opportunities maybe for us to reach to them um some of our families. Um what we hear I think
can vary. Some people it's um you know they want a smaller environment. Some people it's literally I drive into the cities already. My kid just comes with me. It's the convenience factor. We know we lose some kids because they're on the south border or the western border and maybe they're picking another district that physically is schools closer to
them. So, there's a lot of different reasons why people make the choices they make. Um, I think what we are seeing very clearly with the numbers, especially with PSO, is um people have been looking for something that we haven't offered and that's what the high school shared with us so eloquently is um they can get two years of college
done by going through PSO. That hasn't existed at the high school. they haven't had those opportunities. So, um that definitely will be something that makes us more competitive if we can offer that. And frankly, um we can offer it without having to give up that high school experience. Right now, some kids when they go to PSO, they have to miss
pep rallies and they have to miss some of those fun things that make high school really enjoyable. So, giving kids that opportunity to get the college credit that they're looking for without having to leave the fun um and their friends and the teachers that they've made connections with, too. They don't have to make those hard choices.
Thank you. Yes, Andrew. Yeah. Um this is a good uh you know good uh presentation and kind of a good discussion. So appreciate the opportunity for us to uh you know talk through this. But yeah, I mean I think for me um you know from my background
you know sometimes incurring certain costs um is a necessary and strategic component of you know an organizational's sustainability and future growth. And I think for our school district, it's it's no different. And I look at is this is this something that we can afford not to
do. I think we're all in agreement from what I've observed is that the current schedule is uh insufficient and it's not what's best for students. Um I know there's a lot of background work went into the 4x4 or the 7x2 modified and I appreciate the work of principal Bach
and his team and um I'm sure that was fully vetted. I know there's details that still have to be worked out. Um, and I think it's, you know, bit of a leap of faith and I think in a in a prudent way. Um, that I think is something that it's important for us to
do. And, um, I think what or maybe our district's history has shown is it's sometimes really easy to tear things down. Um, and it takes a lot of time brick by brick to build it back up. You know, in the vesting world, you know, there's analogy. It's um, elevator down
and stair and escalator back up. It comes down pretty quick, but it takes time to get back up to the right direction. I think that's just going to take a lot of efforts. Uh I think the work that we're doing um around um you know, school start times and you know
the bell start and um you know all these different initiatives, the cell phone policy now with the schedule change opportunity. I think these are all things that will hopefully make a difference in the community. Um, and at the end of the day, it hopefully makes us a really attractive place for
families to decide to send their students. And I think it, um, I, you know, I think it's something that's necessary and important for us to look to do and, uh, and support just from from my perspective. Oh, go ahead. Back to to Sarah's question. So, I
think, you know, we're we're talking schedule as a potential vehicle here tonight, but I think there's some really other opportunities for us as a district. And, you know, when we I I can share this with you. Every family that chooses to
um homeschool has they send an email to my office, okay? And so then it gets processed through enrollment and etc, etc. So the the question I have is when we get that email, all right, what are we
doing proactively to reach out to that family and have the discussion and you know whether it's a exit interview or whether it's what can we do different? How can we improve your experience and u and please consider us um in the future
you know coming back. So, one of the things we're really looking at and in and between Cararissa and Annette in community education, um, we're looking at a welcome center process, but we're also looking at a
really a marketing and retention. Okay? How do we how do we really promote because we because again, I mean, I think when we're talking here, the threat piece is it's a real threat. I mean, go back a slide to the dollars. I mean,
this is I mean, this is insane. Um, and so, okay, what are we doing to if we're losing kids to online learning, okay, what systems are we putting in place to meet their needs?
Um, and you know, at the end of the day, this is about relationships. And so, I I think that's an important emphasis for us as a district. These aren't just numbers. They're they're real kids and
they're real families. And how we um put processes in place to help meet those needs, I think, is just as important as it is to uh u create a new schedule.
So that's my thought on that. Um, if you go back to the questions and I I wanted to bring this up because I know cost and the investment is weighing um on directors. Uh, the last question you have, we talked a little bit about efficiencies that we might be able to
find. I think um I think it Andrew it was you that was like we're good at kind of tearing things down and I agree with that versus like really in strategically mindfully investing in what is going to build us up. But I think we also know as a district that we kind of do a really good job starting some things and then
if they're not working, maybe they still are kind of going and where can we find efficiencies? Whether it's I know transportation is something we talk a lot about. Um special ed is something we talk about. Maybe some programs that you know sound nice but haven't been proven
effective over the years. Um reinvesting those dollars and that investment. Do you have any thoughts on that? You know, I don't have any thoughts beyond the I mean, the biggest opportunity for the district and this has been a huge loss leader for us since
my arrival is transportation. All right. And we we have some plans that I we're putting in place that we're not ready for prime time to to enroll yet to to share with the board yet in the public. But um we have some definite
efficiencies that uh we believe are going to come there that it's going to be some release relief to the budget. Um so there there's an opportunity there. Um that's the biggest one. I I think we're you know I mean our class sizes are
pretty tight. I mean they are as as a district. They're some of the highest I've seen. Um so that there's not a lot of opportunity with that. Um I will say and again this isn't operational but this is something that uh um
you know I think from the leg from the legislative perspective okay they need to provide districts and I showed you the chart last spring you know I don't know how many hundred million dollars metro districts were cutting okay the legislaturator's got to give us some
flexibility um at the local level to with like local optional revenue or other things um to to increase our our funding for us locally. Um they should they need to provide an increase to the safe schools levy which would allow us
to um redirect some general dollars elsewhere. So I those aren't efficiencies but those are some things that we could see some potential relief on if if uh we had some assistance from the legislature. Thank you.
So, uh, thank you all very much. I I really appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation. Um, so first off, I I think that the what we've seen from the various schedule opportunities are is very positive. Uh, especially the the seven 7 by two is is very positive. I
think some of the things that have been missing in the conversation to me are trade-offs and discussion of some of the assumptions. Um, on the trade-off side, like for measuring the effectiveness, we're not looking at the test scores or attendance. Um, I think that's
problematic when we look at our main goals as literacy and, you know, SEAL, um, diversity, inclusion, and there's some opportunities that that benefits, but if we're taking time away from core classes, um, that seems problematic to
me. Um, so just on the on that one premise of of test scores and and and uh graduation rates, maybe it helps graduation rates because it keeps kids around. I don't know. Um, but I think those two should be measures of effectiveness. Um, the other trade-offs
uh are what other dollars if we can find those dollars, where else could they be used? Um, I think you know we are at the bare bones at the at that at the state maximum for many of our transportation requirements. Our school class ratios
are very high as Dr. Funk brought up um or or or high. I shouldn't say very high. Um so and we are making decisions in in elementary schools and other and other areas that maybe we could make other decisions if we had um more
staffing or or more dollars. um or use those dollars there. So, I you know, we haven't had that discussion of the trade-offs and that's that's problematic to me. Um I am one that doesn't understand why this wouldn't be a vote. Um seems like something of this magnitude would be something that we as
a board vote on. So, I'm a little bit I'm confused by that. Um other things I think on the assumption side Sarah brought up, we don't know why people are going to to uh homeschooling or making other decisions. I think it was uh yours. I you know I think the same as on
PSO. I think we're making an assumption that people are making the decision based off of availability or whatnot. I think some of it is do they want to get guaranteed college credit versus um the AP class or are they are taking the AP test or is it that they can have more
flexibility in their schedule so they can have their sixth hour off so they can not be on campus for that. Um so there's we don't know what the assumptions are. My assumption, my my understanding is people that are taking the fulltime PSO is actually rather small and the vast majority of the PSO students are taking one to three classes
in PSO and the rest of the time they're on campus. I thought it was a very small number. I may be wrong on this, but I thought it was a very small number that was fully off off campus. So, um I like the ideas of the AA. Um I have an AA. Uh so I think it's a really cool pro
program. Um, I again on the trade-off side, what is what is what else could have we done with those dollars or what else could we do with those dollars? Um, additionally, the uh when Sarah brought up the why are we losing or why are the people making
decisions to go elsewhere, I think that um there's a lot to do with change um in our district. We've made a significant number of changes over the last 10 years and over the last four years uh that has been high as well. Um is this something
that would exacerbate that? Is this something that would um that would that would benefit it? I don't know. Um and then the last thing is just on timing. Is this something where um does it need to be done now? Um I think the
assumption on that is doing it now fixes by bringing people more people back in than it costs us. uh and change and cost us in in risk. Um I am very nervous about the fund balance. Um we have made zero progress in three years to back to
the state the our our board mandated 5%. Um and this is not going to help with that and we are at risk of not only increasing our interest rates with our debtors but also you know saturary default. So that I'm incredibly nervous
about that. So, the investment um in the classroom right now, this proposal is that $800,000. Um just for perspective, and I know I'm not because I know fund balance is something that people think about. And so, I just want to kind of put this in
perspective for the board um and for the community. So, we're at So, I know Marie, I'm putting you on the spot and I really apologize. And if you need to do this outside of this meeting, that's fine. Do you know about to get us to the board policy, which is this? The policy
says strive to hit 5%. Um, so while we strive, it's incredibly hard to cut our way to a 5% fund balance. If we did that, if as a board we said our priority was to have to meet the 5% fund balance,
would we be cutting like five million six? Chair Sherman, I believe we did this analysis, I want to say six months to a year ago and it was around four to five million at the time when we
were looking at the numbers then. And I I feel like that is what I can provide those again to you. Um that would be helpful. But let's just say for math purposes five million. Um we have I mean I'm do trying to do the math. If
six teachers are 800,000 do the math on five million. So because really at this point the vast majority of our budget are salaries and benefits of people.
So 75% of that, you'd say 76% is going to come from letting people go, which is going to increase class sizes. And I mean, I'm just roughly is that like potentially 40 teachers? I mean, ball I'm just doing it in my
head, so I don't know. I mean, is that something the board wants to consider as a priority? is getting to that fund balance immediately and doing what is necessary to make the
cuts to get to that 5%. Is that do we think that that's going to better the situation that we've been presented with in terms of threats, capture rates, loss revenue. If I may, um, Chair Sherman, I it's kind
of goes back to the analogy that I use about it's been easy historically to tear things down and I think that would be another example in my opinion. Uh, I think there's some better ways. I I get where you're coming from. I totally understand and I think it's um I would love nothing more to get that fund balance and have some wiggle room where
we don't have to be doing, you know, some of these various priority based budgeting that we have to do now. Um, but I just think, you know, as we look at what can have the greatest impact, I mean, 800,000, I mean, if if I'm correct, and I'm not going to minimize
that, but you know, just reducing a class size in one grade across the district, isn't it a million dollars per kid essentially? Is that I mean, that's for one student in every class in in a grade. I mean, that's I mean, that doesn't really do anything from my
standpoint as a parent. Um, and so I think for something like this, I think is a is a much better opportunity. And um, and I just think as we look at this, you know, this even on the website, you know, talking about like home schools. I mean, that's a crazy number. I mean, that's a 420% increase in homeschooling, but you look at that is, you know, get
the best of both worlds. I mean, it's a way of resonating and one of the main things is you have so many unique electives, which I think, you know, we have some really great programs, but we don't have the flexibility to give those students a lot of electives. And so I think if we can offer more it makes it more enticing for something might
resonate. And I think you know looking at that career pathways I think it's also just a decision. Do we as a district value pathways because I think it's not going to be a prude investment in its current form based on the limitations. So I think it's important
to say if this is something we value which I happy to say I do. I think it's important um you know this is something that I think is going to be necessary to allow that to thrive in the way that will add value and hopefully be you know something that pulls in students from
other districts. So just kind of my my thoughts and wanted to share that. Okay, just really quick, anyone else? I just want to make sure that everyone's getting a chance to otherwise I'll go to Did you had you raise your Yeah, I was
just I mean I was just gonna say I I think we probably don't, as much as we talk about the fund balance being a problem, I don't always know that we focus on increasing the fund balance, keeping that as a priority. Not necessarily a, hey, tomorrow, let's
let's make it happen because that's not realistic. Um, I don't think this is a problem that we cut our way out of. It's a problem we grow our way out of. And that the the the chart with the with the where where all the money is the potential money is. I mean it shows you
that that that was very instructive for me. I mean the the home schooling piece is part of it but you know it it's more the the kids that intend to go other other places and then there's the PSO part. I mean, I think a lot of what we're doing this year for, you know, the
college and the schools and all that that can only help on the the PSO side. Um, but then where, you know, other places that kids are going, you know, I mean, some of it's going to be my parents went to Hill Murray, so I'm going to Hill Murray. whatever that that's fine. But if we can make a, you
know, put a 10% bite into that into all of you into all those categories, well, there's a good chunk of your money right there. So, and I I think it's going to take some investment. I agree that that it's scary and and I it would be nice to
know you know further what what you know efficiencies you see coming from from transportation and all that you know any obviously we want to get as lean as we can get on the operational side you know but you know directly do I do I
think we should you know get rid of 40 teachers or whatever the number is no I mean that that doesn't that doesn't to the five. You know, we talk a lot about but I I'm a little bit more I like the analogy of like growing ourselves out of I mean we've cut for the last few years
for a lot of different reasons but it's just different philosophies. Okay. I don't see anyone else. Parker, thank you. Um so yeah, this isn't something that in fact I was actually going the opposite way with the immediate cuts. I don't think I said
anything about cutting our way to 5% tomorrow, but I was actually thinking more about the the math that you brought up to um uh to Marie. What like $800,000? What is our
uh difference today for that 1.1% to go to statuto default? What is that? How many $100,000 is it to get to a stat default? Our 1.1% was about 1.6 six million last year. So,
so without getting other safety, other efficiencies, we'd go halfway already past the 80% of the way that we're already to statutory default from our regul regulation, we'd get us another halfway to the goal, the statutory default.
If what we're talking about tonight are priorities. All right. So what the what the statement I'm hearing from you is hey if we if we maintain the same cost and for everything else we
were doing okay then we would be reducing our fund balance by half okay but what we need as an administration is guidance on all right if this is a priority because Marie and I between the
two of us have probably 50 years experience experience in school finance and neither one of us has been in statutory operating debt or anything like that in our careers. Um so what we
need to hear from the board is if this is a priority okay got it. we will sit down and we will you know as as we we look at things u okay where are some some operational opportunities for us
which we will owe you and we will come back and and and share that with you in a few months and then as we roll into the spring and the winter we will show okay here are some areas we are going to reduce operationally and here are some you know investments that we think we're
going to move forward So that's but worst case scenario, yeah, we'd be looking at about going from a 1.1 or two here to probably half of that um if we did nothing else. Okay, thank you.
What else are people thinking? So, we had an opportunity to talk about this as an administrative team, all the directors and principles yesterday, and it's kind of fascinating because we were looking at that chart with the numbers on it, and
I don't know who said it, but somebody in the room said, "You got a lot of threats here, but there's something you're missing." And okay, what what's the threat to the district of
doing nothing? And what's your what's your potential opportunity cost or risk if we don't do anything? because I think I've heard people say you're not going to cut your way out of
this and the only your only two options are okay we can try to grow our way or and retain or else you know potential operating referendum down the road I
mean those are all things within our control and again where I'm some of the things I want to share with the board and you heard me say it already. What are some levers at the state legislature that we can pull to provide some more
opportunities to to reduce some some mandates elsewhere that would provide us more flexibility to use funding. And just a historical context here, I've been in the district for quite a while and we've had this capture rate 7172 is
not new. We've been there the whole time I've been in the district and one of the things we've talked about is how can we invest in some programs and do some things different and one of the challenges we've had is for example we invested in a Spanish immersion program but it was in a school where we had no room to grow. I am really excited about
the opportunity next year to bring people into our district through open enrollment into a building that has room for them. We already have some extensive marketing campaign materials we're putting together to try to reach into some of our surrounding districts to bring kids into Lake Elmo for Spanish immersion. We've talked about we need a
pathways program, but then we didn't have a schedule that let kids take advantage of the Pathways program. So, it's been frustrating for kids and parents to have all these classes that they can't take. Um, so again, another thing we're trying to do to grow that we haven't actually been able to see any real impact from because we haven't had
the ability for kids to experience that. So I think right now we are leveraged because of our new buildings and the investment we've made in those because of some of the new programming that we can do um with a change like this to actually be able to bring in kids which we haven't been able to do before. So I'm excited about that and I see that as
a real potential and an opportunity that hasn't existed in years past. So, a lot of this comes from that proposal for proposal for uh 72 schedule and I've talked to a number of teachers as I do and um I've heard from some that
are against it and money is just one one reason, but I've also heard from a lot of teachers that do like it. And so I respect both opinions, but those that are in favor of it, um it's not just the money, it's um this this would happen in 10 months. So if this starts at the
beginning of next school year, there's a lot to get ready for. It's not just a matter of doing it. It's a lot of preparation. The teachers got to change a lot of things in the way they do things, change their course syllabus or whatever. And um this might be a
question for somebody else, but are we ready for that? I think when Rob comes up to talk through about the courses, I think that's a great I said it loud enough so he would hear that question. So it's a great great lead in for him. So
thanks comments. I want to make sure because truly when we identify, you know, our priorities as a board, that's going to dictate where we invest or cut the budget. Um, and so I want to make sure
because, you know, we're not kind of um voting per se on this, but we are voting because we're not going to approve the course schedules that are coming before us tonight if we're not going to do the schedule. Um so you're kind of indirectly this is something we are
voting on. Um and so I want to provide the time to make sure we thoroughly address um kind of the SWAT analysis here and ask staff the questions that we have and talk about things like fund balance and what would it mean to get to
5%. You know what would it mean to um if we lost the entire $800,000? I don't think, like you said, we're not going to um there's efficiencies to be had and priorities that we can work with um to balance that, but um I want to make sure that we're looking at these questions
and being intentional about it. I do think um I do worry with the increase in our state in the what the state is mandating our kids to take in terms of courses. I worry about the impact further erosion
of electives because I feel like when we have more classes that are coming, more that we can maybe see that are probably going to be coming, um people might not be even able to take a foreign language or it might be a reduction in kids that can um take a music or an art or a
theater or um a class like that. So, I think as we as our schedule gets tight, that six period day is really tight and getting tighter with the increased mandates. And then I look at what what stuck out at me and I know this wasn't a
part of the SWAT analysis, but we've been presented with this and I look at what neighboring districts do for their schedules. Um, you know, we talk a lot about um like Forest Lake is on an 8 by two. Um, Southwash is on a 6 by3 a
trimester. Um, Roseville is on a trimester, 5 by3. I'm just kind of looking at other East Metro scale schools. Um, White Bear has two high schools and oddly on different um, schedules. One 7 by2, one 6x2. So, I, you know, kind of a wash there. Mameidi
um, is 6 by two. St. Croy Prop, one of our major um, charter competitors is 7 by two. Um so in terms of looking at what the compet I think we have to be public education for me is changing a little bit. People have that choice.
People can go to PSO, people can go to neighboring schools, they can go to charters, homeschool, um private, public, what and those are great, but how are we differentiating ourselves? Um, and in this case, I don't know if it's so much a differentiation
or are we falling so far behind that we are at risk of um, you know, losing more than we are currently than that chart puts today just by not investing that $800,000. Um, those numbers I fear could look
worse if when we look at what our competition is doing in surrounding areas. That's why I put the statewide up there because, you know, again, PSO statewide is going up up online is going up. The homeschooling is really, really
going up. And so, you know, as a district, we have, you know, you say you've been here 17 years. I mean, we've had a few initiatives in the district. You know, we've had Gates since 2008
and we've had AU, but that became that was a building level initiative that just kind of started on its own. And so what have we done historically at this board district strategic level?
Okay. To be purposeful. Yep. We've said pathways is a good idea, but again, as you stated, we didn't provide the schedule to support it. So that's where I think it's important for us to take a look is okay, what are the
things that are happening statewide and what's in our control here to try and make a difference locally um while still trying to be fiscally responsible while we do it with an investment. And for me, and I just want to I I really strongly support the Pathways
program. I see other districts doing it. I fear that without a platform to properly um flush that out in a meaningful way for our students, I think that these numbers that we're seeing and the attrition and people making other choices is going to go up. Um it's just
something I think that we are going to miss um if we just say pri pathways is no longer a priority because I think if we stay on the 6 by two I don't know how we really can truly say we're operating a um a a true meaningful pathways
program. Um so I guess I would also say that for me personally pathways is a priority I have. Can I piggy back off that? Um, so I in previewing these questions, I was writing down some of my priorities as well. And one of them I have is
opportunities to make learning relevant and meaningful to students and give them the best 21st education, setting them up for success once they leave our system. That I feel like is the whole point of our system is we want to make learning important and meaningful to our students and the pathways program has been a very
strong move in that direction but as we have discussed is also limited um by our schedule. So, I feel like this does kind of connect the dots for me in providing that meaningful education and opportunities for our students within
our um within our schools. Um, another big opportunity um or um what was I going to say guiding principle um going back to the fund balance piece, I know that in the past we have as a board said we need to not drop below that one 1.1%
fund balance. And I feel like that for me is still a very strong indicator. And I recognize some have differing um positions on how quickly we need to move in the right direction. And I completely support moving in the right direction, but for me it's let's not drop below
that. That's still really important for me. Um and also making those strategic investments that um that impact as many students as we can. And for me, again, with having the one high school, this is an opportunity that will touch every kid in our district as they metriculate
through our system. So, um, for me, it's connecting a bunch of dots, um, in the strategic investment. So, I I still definitely do support it. And just to make sure that my position is crystal clear, I actually like the 7 by two. I actually am for the strategic investment in it. I just think that we
should vote on it for one thing. Second, um I'm actually, you know, I made it I brought up the the fund balance pretty pretty hard. Um I just I'm actually for it and I'm actually okay dipping under 1% even to do this. Uh I just want to
make sure that we're transparent that we're playing on the line and there's we're dancing. So, uh let's just all be real transparent that we're dancing on a line. I'm actually for it. I want to dance on that line. I think it's worth rolling the dice to get the growth and and uh to create better outcomes for our
students. Um but I I think I would be heavily we as a board would be heavily remiss if we did not talk about that trade-off and that risk. I also think it's important and I think about like how do we get ourselves to a better place because we I mean it's
something that has we walked into as a board and you know you can say I mean the transportation I can't when people talk to me in the community I just had no idea even coming into this seat how significant that
was for our district. I mean to even think that we could have five million more every year in our budget had we not had that whole situation not played out the way it did. That's a hard pill for me to swallow every time I come in on
into this board table. Um but and I look at like I I talk to people and I know I think that it was either Parker or Andrew had said you know class sizes I I mean we can't do that. It's such an expensive investment um to even and even the kind of investment that we would
make to do that, it wouldn't be enough to really make an educational impact. Um but I look, we can continue to cut. We can try to come up with a strategy that's going to recapture some of that lost revenue, maybe with a renewed focus at improving those capture rates because
I think they can be improved um with some focus. I I love your idea of when we get notified when people go to homeschool to proactively reach out the welcome center. Um but then also I think we owe it to taxpayers before we start
talking about an operating levy to be able to say what did we do to try to increase revenue here and what how did we what did we do to invest to try to improve and try to work our way through this to grow our way out of it. um like
I love that director lower to grow our way out of it I think is a good way to say that so that when we go at some point to taxpayers which is um probably inevitable in the state of all school districts across the state have we done everything we can do here to be very
thoughtful and strategic about what we're doing um I think my one of my comments too would just be again I'd love to see some more um some like a a good framework around how we're going to measure and report back
success of this initiative to the board. So, um you know maybe after one year it's like you know sorry go ahead John you're gonna have to move us. Sorry.
Did you have something? It's like six slides now. There you go. Okay. So yeah. So, so again, okay, are what are we what's the shift we're seeing from kids were paying to go up to PSO,
keep them in house for college credit opportunities? That's first one. Online programming. Again, these are these measures are basically countering what our threats are. Are are we doing things to impacting the threats,
reducing the the loss, uh capture rate, enrollment, um internships, community partners? Um again, I think that's a real opportunity for us. How are we, you know, I think Bob Manning within the
Pathways has got a great small internship program now, but we don't have the pathways behind it because we don't have a schedule to do it. So that's an opportunity you know regarding uh some of your comments on uh you know
graduation rate um you know the uh test scores um I would say ACT is a is a in my opinion is a measure of effectiveness we want to take a look at more than what we're seeing at MCA at
the high school level. That's just my my personal opinion on that. But I mean, those are some ideas. Um, but again, I would say it's over a three-year period. It's we're not going to see change overnight. And, you know, I had and Sarah asked me, okay, what if we're
not what if we're not seeing change? What if we're not being effective? and and the question becomes or or the answer is okay then if if our strategic investment has not worked all right we relook at our priority and we reexamine
how we're going to operate moving forward whether that's a a shift in schedule or or shift but but we have to give it you know a three-year period to uh to try something uh to be effective. So those are some ideas and those are just you know in general those aren't
that's not the all end all list. Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. One thing I I know just this keeps rolling around in my head that because we're talking a lot about what we're what we're missing right what we're losing where we're the
opportunities are. one, and this isn't necessarily even in this in this vein, but 71% or whatever the number is that that we capture are happy to be here.
How do we turn all of those families and students into advocates for bringing more people in? And this that isn't about the money that we're spending here. What I mean, that's more of a marketing thing probably. So I look I look at you as I say it, but um it is I mean I think yeah we're a proud proud
pony family. Happy to talk to talk to anybody about it, you know, and maybe maybe there is a you know a a road show, you know, let's let's get in front of people that that that are maybe on the fence, you know, that have ideas about being other places, you
know, you talk to them why it's great to be here. I I don't know. Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing of course and I think we do have as you said I mean 71% of people are choosing to be here they're having a great experience and um I think encouraging them to tell that story.
We've talked even about using testimonials more in our materials making sure that people are having that opportunity to talk about the good things and the experiences they've had as a family to counter the narrative maybe that we're not doing things right here or there's not good things happening. Um, I I would encourage
anyone listening who's having a good experience to share that. You know, go talk to your friends and neighbors. As the community grows, um, when you have new people moving next door, talk about your experiences in the school district, they're going to be hearing from a lot of different people. So, it's really important for us to be sharing those positive stories,
especially as opportunities grow, right? As we assuming we move all this forward, you know, that great. Let's let's get the word out even even more, which is another reason why this is important. I mean, we have kids at the high school who are here. they chose to be here. Um, this is exciting, I think, for them to think about the
opportunities to take more elective courses, to be able to experience more of those pathways, internships, and um, we've heard it from our students that there's there's really a lot of positive potential here. So, if they can start talking about that and then when they experience it and the more that they can share that with friends and neighbors.
Yeah. So, so this is an interesting story. I don't know if you saw this in the news clippings. I won't say the school district, but in the last day or two, there was a school district in the state whose board uh last summer voted not to go out for an operating referendum that
was sorely needed. So, the reaction of the administration then was, well, we cannot afford to maintain our current schedule, which is a seven period day. So, they recently had a board meeting where a number of
students showed up and said, "Don't make us go to a sixth period day. We're losing all sorts of elective opportunities and this is going to impact us as as students." And so, kind of a reverse uh discussion of of
where we're at, but the kids were actually coming to the board saying, "Please do not do this because you're taking opportunities away from us." And so my question is our kids don't even know what opportunities that they've they've missed because we've been on this schedule for so long.
Marie was just tapping my shoulder saying this when we talk about what's going to get families excited. Y I mean if you look at this that idea of that AA degree um the real benefit of this is to what Director Parker said earlier of kids are maybe choosing PSO because they know it's guaranteed college credit
where AP classes haven't been. This is guaranteed college credit um that kids can take with them. They can take it right here at our high school with our teachers. Um the high school talked about the fact when you have that relationship with the teacher um it's more powerful than a professor who doesn't know you who's off campus
somewhere and never meets you in person. Um look at the potential savings for a family. Um a student who can start college two years in and not have to leave with that tremendous debt over their shoulders. That's a huge return on investment that our families can be
excited about. Um, and even the concurrent enrollment courses, uh, those are also college credits. You might not choose the AA degree, but you can take a few courses that will help you when you get to college. So, those are real savings for our families, too. And I think that's something that they can all be excited about.
Director Theander. Yeah. Oh, uh, Director Low, I appreciate the point that you brought up. I think that's such a good, um, point of emphasis. I know, uh, Dr. Funk, you've mentioned this before and used the term ambassador. I mean, we're all ambassadors of of our school district and it starts with the board, starts
with the leadership, it was teachers, staff, I mean, parents, families, students. I mean, we're all in this together. And I think it's something where um, you know, we have this great opportunity to help kind of shout from the the rooftop all the great things that are happening and especially all the new things that are coming down the
pipeline that I think is really important. So, um, yeah. No, it's um I'm excited for what that might look like and I know it's g be a lot of work and some there's some prudent risk, but I think it's a a a necessary risk that I
think that will yield some productive investments down the line. I also think and I I thought this came up at our last meeting on on the topic of schedules, but I do think it's important as we communicate what happens here even with our staff to really kind
of talk about the investment we're making, the why behind the investment that we're making, that it's better for the organization, um better for the budget, that there's a you know, it's better for our students, it's better for them. I mean, all these wise to share that and I think Dr. Funk, you've always
said like what's the why? That's what we need to constantly be sharing and um knowing that our staff, they are on the front lines. If they're getting a inquiry from a parent on PSO, um how can they pivot that request and say, "Okay, you know, let's have that conversation
about PSO, but have you looked at what we can do here as well?" Um and it's that ambassadorship that starts at the board table, but it it trickles down to everyone in the in our buildings and in the community. So, um I think if we do approve these courses, thereby making
this kind of that priority, I think it needs to be a commitment that we're all making um top to bottom as an organization. Did anyone I know we had those questions. Were there other um
I mean this is the time to kind of there's more presentation. Yeah. No, but I'm talking about the just this part, the SWAT analysis and um because I want to make sure that the board is having these um these questions answered and that we have the ability to talk and share.
Just real brief about the AA. I just think it's really really amazing. Like I'm honestly super jealous and I wish I had that opportunity. But I think I'm personally taking PSO classes and if I had that opportunity for the AA degree, I most definitely would choose that over PSO just because I have all these like
loose credits when I graduate just from everything. And then I also took like different AP other classes, but it's like I have all these random credits, but I don't really have the degree for it. And I also know certain schools may not accept different PSO credits if they're not more of like a core class.
So, I think that AA degree is like guaranteed success, guaranteed saving in money, and then also just I think it's a win-win for everyone. And I really wish I had that opportunity. I think it's a great great opportunity. Yeah. And I don't want to put you on the spot, Zach, but um did you you know, you
obviously were at the last meeting. You go back to the high school. I don't know how it's not students aren't watching schoolboard meetings. I'm not thinking that they're up right now. Um they're studying, right? Um so they're watching the girls soccer game. Yeah. But have you heard anything about has this been a topic at all that you've talked to students about? Is there any
kind of feedback that you've heard or concerns or support? I think I mean I've only heard either like neutral or support for this, but I've definitely heard support for the AA degree and then also like people saying like their younger siblings how they
want to make sure that their siblings and they're like, you know, word of mouth, they're telling their siblings about it. So then if it becomes a thing, they'll try to get their parents to, you know, get them to do it. And then I think about the seven like the seven by two, I believe. I've just heard either neutral or good,
like cuz the mo the main thing that they've heard is just that there's more elective credits and there's more availability to take more classes. But then the only I would say the only negative thing I've heard is the worry about PSO for students especially like upper classmen is mostly the people that are taking it. But they're just more
worried about more of like leaving school early. I feel like is the main like draw for PSU is the people that I've talked to. And then even for me I'll be honest like that's the reason why I did it. But if I had the A, I definitely would have stayed at school. but more about the flexibility and also
working and having sports during like the school like middle of the day when you would be in class but you have the flexibility with PSO. Great. Thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that. The other thing I do say I did like about this strategic investment is that
we know our kids need that extra scoop of support and this is finally something I feel like that gives the staff the ability to push, you know, push into class, pull kids out, get them that extra support that our current schedule
isn't allowing for. And um I don't know that we've really talked about that, but that's something that really is important. Um especially as we start talking about, you know, improving benchmark performances like ACT or MCA or whatever. It starts with making sure that they're getting that extra support
that they need. Well, good discussion. Um, not seeing anything else. So, we'll move on to the next phase of this, which is that for Rob to come up and talk about Okay, thank you.
courses. So, this is um a followup to this conversation. We're we're going to be talking now about course proposals. And we have Rob back. And feel free to if you've heard this discussion and I'm sure you were sitting there having lots of thoughts. If you have anything you
want to add, feel free. We're we're informal with this. Well, if there's one thing I uh appreciate, it's the uh thorough nature with which you guys tackle your work. And so I think that the questions that were asked are excellent, outstanding. I think the points that were raised um
critical to feeling good about whatever direction ultimately we wind up going. Obviously, you know, I've been here presenting before. I feel that um our students need and deserve um something different currently than than what's being offered. And I think that that's part of how we revamp and retool the
whole entire high school experience for them. And again, I think that that's something that's needed. And I think that it's been framed very very well here by Dr. Funk from the standpoint of that's a that's a strategy. That's a strategic piece. It's something that we need to do to set ourselves apart. um
and to make sure that we are delivering on the highest quality educational experience possible. That's what our kids need. That's what our kids deserve. I think that's what our community expects. And um certainly that doesn't come um just willy-nilly though. And
again, the the points that Director Parker um raised, Director Gersvich, um the questions that are out there are exactly the kinds of questions that need to be asked to make sure that everybody feels good and and on board with whatever the decision um is ultimately that we wind up going. So appreciate the opportunity to be here and happy to
answer whatever I can too as part of that process. Great. Thanks. Well, we'll move on to the course proposals. It may vary and to you know having Rob here is awesome. So we can maybe um talk a little bit about the proposal in front of us. So Sure. I'm excited to be here tonight to
outline um a number of new course proposals that we are um looking to offer at Still Water Area High School next year. The courses that I outlined for you tonight represent a lot of work that has taken place over the course of the past year by a lot of members of our
staff. Um, some of which you're probably familiar with a little bit already. Um, but I'll kind of give you an overview on things and we'll kind of maybe try to tackle it department by department and if you have questions um, feel free to stop me kind of as we as we go. Um, just in a general sense, the the courses um,
and the course proposal process is kind of a natural evolution. I mean, schools should probably be evolving and thinking of new things to to offer their students. Um, but I do think that we probably have uh a record number of pieces to to put before you to to
consider. The reason for that is um not just because we're again throwing things out willy-nilly, but we've tried to be really really strategic with our efforts and um with what we want to offer our students. And so this ties into the presentation that I delivered about two
weeks ago. Um, so yes, a number of this is is kind of tied to some of the pieces that we've talked about with regard to the associates uh arts degree, the transfer curriculum. Those are two different um things, but both of them represent uh money in our students pockets and our family's pockets. Um,
and really what this does is the in a nutshell, our our strategy with the the courses that come before you tonight has been to ensure that our kids have access to higher and higher levels. That's really what Pathways is. You know, if anyone still continues to have questions around Pathways, Pathways is not just a
trades piece. Certainly, the trades are incorporated into pathways so that students have access to that, but it's designed to make sure that students have introductory level activities, intermediate level activities, and advanced level activities. And um you know a kid just if the kid wants an
internship opportunity, they shouldn't just be hopping into an internship with a very very very extremely basic level of of skills and understanding of what that experience is really going to be. And so the courses that we're outlining for you tonight, um kind of like we talked about last time are designed to
make sure that we have robust programs of study that are complete from start to finish all the way through. So with that, um oh, and I have the clicker once again. Is it working? Um, in the English department, there are
a number of new courses um that are proposed. All of these are either concurrent enrollment or college in the schools courses. So, these are advanced courses. And the strategy really behind these courses um primarily has been to round out the associate arts degree. Again, we talked about that a little bit
um at our at our last meeting. We're close um because of a number of the courses that we currently have in our curriculum, but we need to develop a couple more. And three of those courses um or opportunities, offerings would come in the the English and language arts department. So, there's a
concurrent enrollment course on the research paper, which is pretty self-explanatory, but it outlines the research process um and takes students really really in depth with that to give them a a preparation for uh for college. CIS basic communications has an emphasis
primarily on public speaking and so it addresses um not just the skills that are involved but also just some of the psychology and getting students comfortable with the idea of speaking in groups working in groups. Um, CE, introduction to literary studies, literature in the environment is uh
another course that's required for the the AA degree or a part. It's a component um of what would be needed to to round out um our ability to offer an associates arts degree. And the CIS introduction to healthcare communications, it's listed in the English department, but that is um part
of the healthcare endorsement, which we also kind of outlined at our at our last presentation. We talked about um having a program of study within the healthcare and human services um pathway and this is one of the ones that is emerging both from labor market trends and in terms of
student interest um that students are indicating an area that they want to go into. Um so that really is kind of the impetus behind the the four courses that are there. Um and again if at any point in time you have questions on anything stop me. Otherwise I'm gonna I'm gonna
plow through. Um, in social studies, um, we're offering, we're proposing to offer a new CIS course. Again, CIS is college in the schools. There's, um, college credit that's attached to that, but our teachers have to be accredited for that. It's an introduction to healthcare ethics class. Again, that one lands in
social studies because it's ethics-based. So, there's a little bit more philosophy and reading that's associated with that, but that also um would be a class that fits the the healthcare endorsement program of studies. In science, we're proposing two new courses. One of which is CIS
introduction to physics. Again, CIS college in the schools. Um, it's proprietary to specific post-secondary institutions. Right now, we offer AP physics. Um, again, we would have we have a teacher who is ready um to be trained specifically on the CIS aspects
and get approved um through the University of Minnesota. Um, but the CIS is a piece that's recognized for that AA degree. And so while again the rigor of that class wouldn't necessarily shift for for students, it does open up opportunities for students because now they have easier access to the associate
arts degree. Um we'd also like to propose a concurrent enrollment introduction to forensic science class. Um, if you're fans of the CSI TV show, um, you know, these are things where we use chromatography, distillation, all kinds of, um, chemical processors or
various science processes, um, to, um, deconstruct crime scenes and solve mysteries and solve problems, whether that's through DNA or, like I said, chemical separations, things of that nature. I keep forgetting I'm driving here. in world language. We have two new
courses that we're proposing. Uh the first one, teas globales. This is intended to be a bridge course for a pretty specific audience. This is a course that we are proposing um to help on board our students who are coming to us um and have been involved
in the Spanish immersion program. So those students when they come to us will be in ninth grade obviously because they've been in Spanish immersion. their fluency with the language, their speaking ability in the language is going to be pretty well advanced. Um,
and yet coming into us as a 14, 15 year old, they may not necessarily be ready automatically for a CIS or an AP level, college level um, course with some of the other rigor that's associated with that. So, the teas globalis course um is a course that's designed to continue to
give them introductions to to culture, continue to build their language skills, but also kind of give them a bridge so that they've got something to prep them before we hit them right off the bat with a college level um CIS class or an AP class. um the Spanish for heritage
speakers. Heritage speakers, if you're not familiar with the that term, um heritage speakers refers to um speakers who speak Spanish primarily as their their language at home. Um we have a number of students and an increasing number um rapidly increasing number of
students who come to us um maybe with different language skills but also oftentimes without formalized educational structure. So again, these are students who have the speaking skills. Again, maybe they speak that at home, but maybe they haven't had the formalized education to build on
grammar, sentence structure, writing, um some of those pieces. The analogy that I would offer um on this particular course is it's like you and I, those of us that speak English as our as our first language, we take an English class, right? And we study literature, we learn how to write, we learn how to compose.
Um and this there is a growing need for that given the number of students and the increasing number of students that we're seeing coming into our school um with those skills in health and fied uh two new course proposals. One of them is a concurrent enrollment lifetime um fitness and
wellness again that's part of the pathway for the AA degree. Our wellness through movement um is a revision of one of our current required courses. Um we're talking about revising our current fit for life class. Um, in a nutshell, the wellness through movement course is
a course that's designed to be somewhat maybe more attractive for females in our school. Um, emphasizes things like yoga, things like Pilates, um, things that haven't necessarily been as enticing um, to female students coming through um,
along the lines of a team sports or a weight training or things like that. So, that helps round out our curriculum there. In music, um, we're looking at offering a beginning guitar class. This one I think is particularly exciting uh because it branches out a little bit from the very traditional offerings
which we have in orchestra, band and choir. We all know that our music program is the crown jewel in Stillwater and our top orchestra, top band, um top choir are amazing and my unbiased opinion the the best in the state. And
yet for students that are not in one of those three areas and yet are interested in a garage band or interested in starting up um any kind of other course um that's a that's an entry level piece for them. Universal electives these are electives
that apply um kind of outside of are not necessarily department specific. Um we're looking at offering an Eastern philosophy course. Currently we offer a um philosophy course that's just called philosophy but the kind of inherent uh assumption there is that that's
primarily western thinking. So Eastern philosophy um talking about Dowoism um Zen some of the the other aspects of thinking. How do we go about approaching problems and thinking about um problems that are outside of our own culture?
Ninth grade seminar is a course that we've talked about here before. That's something that we would like to offer and actually require all of our ninth grade students coming in. Let's teach them how to organize themselves using binders. Let's teach them how to take
notes, things that apply universally across any content area. Um, and make that a requirement so that we're really teaching them how to do high school, how to use a planner, some of those other things that are kind of nice and we try to teach them on the side. We'd like to integrate that and make that a more integrated part of the high school
experience. I had one question on that. Would that be a class that you could actually start teaching them about the different pathways that exist in the high school and help them kind of select where Thank you for bringing that because that's absolutely intended to be part of that course. So yes, we'd be introducing them to the concept of personalized
learning plan. We'd be onboarding them with some of the self- assessment tools that they do where they start to learn about themselves. What are their likes? What are their skills? What are their talents? Because all of those things are the things that we want to build upon as they go through the pathways experience. Yeah. No, great question. Thank you. Um,
the two other courses in the universal electives, um, the CNA and CIS internship, again, um, that's an advanced level piece. Um, and the CIS introduction to healthcare, both of those are pieces that round out the healthcare endorsement that allow us to be able to offer a a full-fledged
pathway within the uh, the health and human services piece. And then we also are looking at offering four classes in digital technologies. Um, obviously digital technology is an area that is emerging rapidly. Um, with the advent of AI, everything from cyber security to
data science. Um, Python, if you're not familiar with Python, um, I'm going to try to sound like I'm a tech guy here and yet I'm not. See if I can buffalo you, but um, Python is one of the most popular coding languages um, that's out there. And again, some of the introduction to computer science and coding classes that that are on there
and the the programming with Python, those are also good bridge classes because right now we currently offer AP computer science and coding. But if a kid's never been introduced to coding, that's a tough jump to just jump right into an advanced placement level
course. So, this is something that's designed to kind of onboard them and give them the um the skills to be able to to do that well. And then the last section here um we've talked about before uh but we have a number of courses that we are proposing
for online. These courses uh if you recall from the presentation I think I delivered back last spring. We ran an analysis once we noticed um second semester of last year that there was a sharp spike in the number of online registrations um where kids were signing
up for for courses online. a vast majority of those courses fell in required courses, not so much in elective areas. So what we did is we ran an analysis on the most commonly registered for courses. Um so things
like English 10, English 11, English 12. Um in math, things like alge 2, algeb politics, and in science, um chemistry, those were the most popularly um signed up for or registered courses online. And so our teachers spent a ton of time this
summer. Um again, I'm going to give kudos to Rachel Style for leading the the teachers through professional development um related to online instruction. We have to we have to train our teachers on what good online instruction looks like. Again, it's not just as simple as taking our existing
algebra 2 course and throwing it on Schooly and calling that an online course. There are standards that are associated with online instruction. Our teachers have started that process. Um, and we'd like to continue that with the idea then that if students do continue to opt for online, they're doing that
through our entity, they're doing that with our teachers. Um, I think I trotted out the the statistic the last time I was here that um, we're noticing almost a 19% failure rate with students who sign up for an online course outside of
our entity. When you look at the failure rate of students inside our entity, that number is down around 2 or 3%. And so our belief is is that with our teachers delivering this instruction, if students really are clamoring for the flexibility that's associated with online, if we can keep them with our teachers where we
have the relationship, where there's obviously a different level of expectation associated with outreach if a student is falling behind and things of that nature, um we think that that's absolutely going to be a positive for our kids. So, just and just to clarify, I think
you've answered my question, but just to make sure, um, so for the online classes, it sounds like they'll be like live online and not or or would they be like self-paced? Like I could take ELG 3 over the summer or both or
um, sort I'm going to try to interpret this. The class itself would be asynchronous. So, one of the top pieces that came back in the survey that we did with students was students desire flexibility with this. They they don't want to be time bound with this. So, if
we don't offer that flexibility, we're probably not going to capture them. The second part of your question though, that being said, we're going to try to confine that flexibility within a grading period. So, the idea is is that a student would sign up for this class during semester 1. So, they'd have a start date, they'd have an end date.
they're flexible with how they meet it during the course of that time, but we would look potentially to move away from some of our summer offerings. Right now, the only summer offerings that we do are uh online FIET and health. And again, those are pieces where again, I think we
would like to take the summer component potentially away if we're able to expand out our online academy and find better ways to build this into the schedule. Okay. All right. Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome. Was there any feel for you? So, you looked at these classes, the core classes, as being ones that kids were
trying to take online. Was there a feel for how much of it was flexibility, maybe to have a job or something like that, uh, versus wanting to make more space in their
schedule for electives or other other types of classes? I mean, was it any idea? Um, I don't know that we drilled it down quite to to that degree. I mean, those are maybe two different things, both of which came back on the survey and so weren't necessarily linked. Um, flexibility came back as the number one.
Um, I think the the biggest part of that flexibility is that students want the ability to be able to think about that at times outside. We are required um to offer a space in school for students to to do online for so for students who do
sign up online. Um but knowing that we'd also have students also have the flexibility potentially then to to have that hour off. So they they have that where they could do it um in our entity. We also have a kids who would structure their online class potentially sixth
hour and maybe they go and maybe they're doing that at Starbucks or maybe that's their ticket to to get out to go to their job early but there's still a class holding a space in their in their schedule. Thank you. Could they take that online as an eighth
class? So, Zach's got seven classes. Could he take an online class just to get the extra credit? That's a great question. I don't think that we have um delve too deeply into that, but my initial indication is going to be no. Typically, right now, um students are not students can take
online um courses outside of our entity for private. So if they pay for that um but if they pay for that on their own and then you know we see a transcript coming in we accept it they've they've completed that but in terms of MDE and
ADM status that's based on the number of class periods that your school is offering during the course of the day and our students are designed and intended to be enrolled in seven courses. I had one. Oh, I just was this was online. Um, an online question. We
talked about like failure rates and sometimes online if there is there going to be checks and balances in place by teachers to kind of I know my one of my sons took online a lot of online classes. He did fine, but I know that some students do
struggle and they if there's not a check-in periodically, is that in place? Independence is a great thing until all of a sudden it's not right. Um yes, there are absolutely checks that are built in. You know, that also came back from the some of the survey work that we did um before we before we started
building this last year. We surveyed not just students to find out what they wanted, but we also surveyed families. And while students may want unlimited flexibility, parents and families are are wanting more of that check and connect. And so that's part of the
standards of online instruction that I referenced earlier and part of again just the expectation that because this is our staff, you know, we they hear from me all the time. We are expected to reach out proactively to engage parents. It's parent teacher conference time right now. Start talking with your
parents about, you know, if your students are behind behaviorally, academically, those are conversations that we are obligated to have. That's our responsibility. Other outside institutions maybe don't have quite that same level of expectation, but certainly ours do. And so, yes, our teachers will
be checking in on a weekly basis and and having that community. And I do feel like that is a differentiation because there are kids that get into trouble on these online classes because they're expected. They don't know that they're a p like a high school student taking a PSO online class. So you're kind of treated like
you're just a college on college campus kid whether you're online or in person. So that safety of kind of a parent being able to know a teacher's there to kind of you know make sure you're turning in those assignments and get getting prepped the right way I think is a huge advantage.
I think that's part of the reason why again we don't totally know what we don't know yet right. Um, but I think that's part of the reason why what we've seen in other districts for other districts that have launched this and started this. Again, they've done it for the same reason that we're looking at. They were losing a a large number of
kids wanted to try to retain them. They weren't too sure, but they found just like if you guys are baseball fans, Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. And once they built their own, a vast majority of the students that had been going outside for those
online stuck around within the district and and stayed. And I think it's for exactly the point that you bring up, Director Sherman, um or Chair Sherman. Um I think other districts probably have a similar expectation to what we do, which is that their teachers are going to be good communicators and look after their kids, right?
Yes. First, uh thanks a lot for the confining it concept at least to a to a grading period. I think one or both of my kids might have taken two or three years to finish gym. So, exactly. Amen. So, that seems like a really good idea.
Um, so thank you for that. Uh, how is this going to impact um teaching ratios like since it's self-paced and it's asynchronous like can we have 50 students to a teacher or 100 student students to a teacher? We would look at least initially I mean the initial
thought um numbers may not be quite exactly the same but we would be looking to keep it somewhat comparable right now to our regular staffing ratio. Why? Because that it's going to be that's how we allocate. So that's going to that's going to be that's how we're staffed as a school. So that's what determines the number of sections that we wind up
offering. Okay. So again, kind of like we had talked about before, you know, if we're staffed at 33 to1, if you get 30 or 35 kids that sign up for a course, that's a pretty easy decision administratively. We're going to offer one section. If you get 65 kids
to sign up for it, that's a pretty easy decision because then you have two sections. If you have 45 to 50, you have some decisions to make. So, can I promise you right now that there would never be a section with, you know, a higher number than the than the staffing ratio? No. But usually that's what
starts a conversation then where we're sitting down with the teacher and saying, "Hey, this is the dilemma that we have. We've got to get all the puzzle pieces to fit together. Let's talk about what makes the most sense approach-wise for this particular section and how do we want to do this?" Thank you. Yep.
Sorry, I had a second question. Yeah. Um, how this seems like an area where generative AI would be significantly problematic is the asynchronous education time. um how do you deal with that? It's a great question. Um and I don't
have my right hand uh Rachel style here to be able to to speak to that specifically, but I know that that's one of the pieces that they have talked about um again with the standards of online instruction. Um they've got some built-in filters for that or in terms of how you
design um some of the assignments and things like that. um she could speak better to the specifics on some of that stuff. It's a great question, but I I don't have that right here. Thank you. Yep. I know there seems to be a lot of interest in the online, but actually I want to go back uh a few phases. You
don't even have to. But the um the AA degree and whatnot. Uh couple questions. Well, the teachers that we currently have, can they teach that and get college credit? Do they have to get a further certification? Some of them, but some of them are going through that process right now. So
again, part of the professional development that we've been sitting down with teachers and kind of taking them through is making sure that they've got the certifications to be able to do that. Okay. So then the student graduates with an AA degree. So then they go to college the next year. Are they actually starting off as a sophomore as an
18-year-old sophomore when they go to Mano State or wherever? And will it be recognized? I Yeah, as as a junior. And will it be recognized by other colleges? Well, the AA degree is recognized even outside of colleges. I mean, it's a it's
a degree. And so, you know, it's up to the student to decide how they want to put that to use. Some students, if they're graduating with an AA degree, you know, again, because that is a two-year degree. Maybe maybe that's it. And maybe they're starting out, they've got what they
want, and they don't now they don't need to burn two years of of school to to get where they to get the job or the position that they want. a lot to your um other question. A lot of schools will recognize that coming in. A lot of students, again, I think also will use um the transfer curriculum. Transfer
curriculum is actually a little bit different. I think I noticed up there on a slide um that it may have been listed kind of interchangeably, but again, transfer curriculum is think of like, you know, in our day, we used to call it your generals, right? And so you're you're walking into the University of Minnesota or something like that and you
have to take a social studies course and an economics course and a this course and a that course. Those are the pieces that are taken care of for you so that you can burn much more quickly into the pathway or the major or whatever that you want to do and you've saved yourself
a boatload of money along the way. And so either of those are options that I think yes our kids will have. Okay. Thanks. Um, I just had a question and it's not really related to the courses per se, but I think it's and I know you've shared this before, but I think it's
always helpful for families that are even watching because we have these electives, we have our class size ratios. What happens when like let's say you know you've selected a beginning guitar and you think that there's interest the it comes along and during
the enrollment process maybe you don't reach that maybe only 15 people sign up. Sure. And you can't offer that class because it would be expensive. And how does that whole process work? Sure. Well, that's how it works. Okay. You just notify them and say we have again we have to look at the
staffing ratio, right? So if our if currently right now we're staffed at 33.1 to1. So that's the that's how we are allocated staff. So that's a good number to start with, right? We don't treat it as an absolute or a magic number, but generally speaking, once students have registered, we need to
look at right around 30 as a magic number. If you're much below 30, we're going to have a difficult time offering that course. And so, um, to your point and one thing that I didn't hadn't necessarily talked about, but I'll mention here, you know, we have 20 courses here in addition to the online
pieces. Online, think of separate because again, that's um those are courses that are currently in the books like kids are going to sign up for those. But we have 20 new courses that are going here. That doesn't automatically mean that 20 new courses are going to run. Kids do have to sign up for these and um and register for
them. And in part, obviously, is we can all do the math here. That's part of why this is linked to the discussion around a new schedule because a new schedule assumes that kids are going to need more classes to sign up for. That's we know that with a new schedule, we have to offer some new things. That being said,
part of my messaging to staff also is as part of the registration process, we need to take a look at what courses maybe have been on our books but maybe haven't formed for the last three or four years. Because if you're a department um say that's offered three
other electives and eight kids sign up for this one and 12 kids sign up for this one and 15 kids sign up for this one and six kids sign up for this one, you've kind of inflicted death by paper cut. None of those courses are going to form and in the meantime all of those
kids have gone. Whereas, if you consolidate, if you got rid of some of those courses that aren't going to form, offered one or two that are potentially new, all of those kids might go into that bucket and that's enough to get a a course to form. So, one of the first things that we have to do is we have to
look at courses that are below the staffing threshold and make some choices as to what courses are going to end up on the cutting room floor. Because as soon as we do that, we have to take those kids and redistribute them back in, look at their alternates, what did you sign up for? because that impacts
then the the rest of the numbers that we're looking at to try to make sure that we've got good numbers. Thank you. Anything else? This is just a report today. So if you have questions um submit them through Mike with a CC to um
principal Bach and he can get those answers for you between now and our next meeting. Yeah, happy to to talk through more. Um, one other piece I didn't mention, but um, goes without saying, these courses also were introduced. Um, I met with the district advisory council uh, last week.
So, that's a group comprised of educators throughout the district, administrators throughout the district, but more importantly, community members and family members throughout the district. And so, that group also has had a chance to kind of vet some of these courses, ask questions around what they might entail. Um so you know the
the community does have an avenue to with which to to be familiar with the um the directions that we intend to go and happy to entertain any other questions between now and the the time when you all are ready to take official action on voting yes or no. Did you get any feedback that you could
share with the board on what community you were um you know the meeting time was pretty tight I'm not going to lie. Um but the my sense in the meeting um just anecdotally was I think people appreciated the strategic approach and so from that point standpoint um there
were no hard questions. I mean let's put it this way if people had a had a concern they're not going to let time be a factor they're going to let me know and I have not heard any of that. I don't think there's anything that's overly um controversial. Okay. With the the courses it's laid out very well. I mean you guys
did a really good job strategically kind of laying this out. So I appreciate the board appreciate. But again, any questions that you guys face from community or whatever, feel free to send them to me or to to ask on their behalf. I'm happy to happy to talk more. Great. Dr. Funk, I can have Caitlyn provide you an update in the weekly update.
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate being here. Okay. All right. Our um next report we're going to bring Mark Drummerhausen up here, director of operations, executive director of operations to talk about
this is the direction B, strategic direction B, foster a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all staff and students. We are having a report on district safety. Um, and so I guess I just wanted to start this off saying um,
we just renewed our policy for um, related to the school safety um, procedures or not procedures but policy. And so we renewed that and we just thought it would be a good time to talk about this topic. We get a lot of questions from the community. What do we
do? How do we notify people? How is it perceived? Is it effective? And so Mark is gracious to come up here and talk to us a little bit about that. we should feel free to ask questions and he's here to answer those and we'll go from there. Thank you, Chair Sherman, members of the board. Um, tonight I'm here just to kind
of review our safety systems and and procedures that we have here in place. Like Chair Sherman said that please stop me. We're going to go through slide by slide, but if you have questions, don't wait till the end um because they all kind of build on each other. So, please feel free to to kind of stop me as we go along. So, the the kind of the purpose of this is kind of a couple things. Talk
about some of the preventive measures um and reporting system that we have. talk about our standard response protocol, which is kind of the systems we have for our drills. Um, we kind of build fire drills and those sorts of things. Talk about our run, hide, fight protocols, and then also what's the family communication, some of the resources we
have for our students and families uh here within our district. So, I know I'm going to spend a lot of time talking about our procedures, but I I'd be remiss to kind of stop at the first one. So, we talk about different things to to mitigate um things within our schools, but research has shown over and over and
over again the number one thing that you can do is the preventative m measure that you can have is the relationships you have with your kids, the relationships that you have with your families. It's the culture you build within the schools. It's a culture you build within the classrooms. Those personal relationships, those one-on-one connections are the best things that you
can do um to to provide safe and secure and welcoming schools. Now, this is not an expansive list by any stretch of the imagination, but just wanted to highlight a few of the um systems and and um things that we have in place currently that we're doing at all of our levels to try to create those warm and
welcoming schools. I do want to highlight the last one, the see something, say something on the bottom of all of our websites is that link there. Um and that link um can be accessed by community members, by students, by parents. Students can
report in person to a staff member. They can also do that see something, say something. Last year we actually had 83 forms um that were filled out. Once those forms are filled out, they do go to um admin. They go to our chief chief of staff. They're all reviewed. They're all investigated. Sometimes it's a
concern. Sometimes it's complaint. Um sometimes it's around students. Um you know, I even had one last year that there was one of our schools the the property line had a tree that fell into their property line. So they want us to come remove our tree that fell into their property line from a storm. So that um see something, say something
does get used for a lot of different things um within our schools. Can I just ask a quick question about that one? Um is that anonymous or is there an option to report? I can see students maybe feeling worried about it's both. It is.
So you can be anonymous. You also some people do want to put their names attached to it. You like for instance I have we can follow up with them but there are times that you can be anonymous. Okay. Thanks. Um so kind of overarching just our focus on safety is we have a number of different committees both at the building and district level. So each
building has a safety committee that is comprised of members of all different groups from the office staff to teachers to custodials to pair professionals to nutrition services. And then at that area each each both the building and district meets four times a year and they talk about a variety of different
things. Yes, there's security issues that things that rise, but there's also conversations about chemical storage at the high school. There's conversations about workers comp claims at the district standpoint. Um, different building issues, you know, ice buildup in the winter,
that comes up as a thing. Um, if there's heaving pavement out at the playground or the sidewalks, just different safety things that come up. So, it starts at the building level. If there's any things that needs to be addressed from a diff district standpoint, they send those concerns up to us. And then at the district safety committee meeting, we
talk about those concerns um from each of the buildings and then districtwide to address those as they come across. So overarching, we do have um safety committees that are already in place. Can I ask a question on that? Do we have are students at all included in any of this or do we get their feedback at all and
safety issues in buildings? Um from the district level, there's not the students reps. Um some of the buildings may include that. I don't have a complete list, but he may be at some of our our sites at our older or secondary school does the site. Okay. Thank you. And then also kind of each day, what are
some of our protocols each and every day? So, our exterior doors are locked um all the time. The only time our exterior doors are open is the beginning of the day during carpool/bus arrival times. Each of the doors that are open does have a staff member assigned to it to kind of check see who's coming in and
out so they can ver visually see who's coming in and out of our buildings. and it's for a short period of time at the beginning of the day. Other than that, all our exterior doors are locked all the time. We do have controlled access into our main office through a an aphone or a video system or a buzzer. So, we
have a vestibule. The first um doors are open and then they come into the vestibule and then the doors are locked to go in the office and the vestibial doors are locked to go into the hallway. So, they do have to be led in through a buzzer system to come into the main office. Once they get to the main office, they have we have a visitor
management system where they do need a photo ID and then would get uh a badge or a sticker um that would signify, you know, why they're there. Also, all of our interior doors um are locked within all our sites and we do have SEC security glazing on uh strategic windows
um throughout the district. Now, luckily with the bond that passed here a few years ago and as we talk about the buildings and some of the new additions and remodels that we have going on, some of the other things that don't get talked about as much but are just as important are some of the additional safety measures that we have. And so
there'll be a um um a process here coming forward. We're going to go through um a formal bid for these things. But just to kind of get ahead of it, the first one is security strobes. So at our schools in places that are hard to hear from an intercom system. So, think cafeteria, think band room, think orchestra room, think
gymnasium. Um, in the kitchen where they're actually cooking the the food. Some of those places that it's hard to hear an intercom. If there is a true emergency or there's a lockdown, there's something that we need to get everybody's attention, there's going to be a strobe, kind of a blue light flashing light that would distinguish if we're in a lockdown or if there's
something we get attention. Also, it would flash outside as well. So, people that are outside or buses beginning the end of the day would be able to alert her that there's something going on in the building. So, we'll talk more about that, but we'll have security strobes coming this summer that will be in place for next school year. Also for next
school year is add additional camera coverage and replacement of old cameras. So, we're having a process right now of looking at our buildings of what needs replaced and what areas need to have additional coverage. We're not able to get every single spot um but really prioritize what are the the highest need
places right now for that that bond camera addition. Same thing with the um security glazing. We do have security glazing around the district in strategic spots, but again, we want to add some more security glazing. So, there's going to be additional to that. And we're going to upgrade and replace our radio communication system, otherwise known as
walkie-talkies. Um, our walkie system is about 15 years old. Um, it hasn't been replaced. So, this is a great opportunity for us to get a new system and and get that updated. Again, all of this is going to be happening this fall or this spring in place and ready to rock and roll next fall.
Now we get into our standard response protocols. This is a national um company. It's called I love you guys. The the um crisis management policy that you just approved earlier today actually refers to I love you guys quite a bit in their policy. And so some of our
procedures follow lockep here which I'll highlight some of those things as we go. But there's five things that that we use. There's a hold, a secure, a lock down, evacuate, and shelter. So I'll kind of go through each one of these pretty quickly. Um the first one, evacuate. Think of evacuate as the old
fire drill. So when we do an evacuate, um evacuation drills, if you look at the policy or if you think of old fire drills, the policy wants these to be unannounced. Now granted, there are certain populations where you want to give them a heads up, whether it's younger children or students with special needs or that may be sound or
have have light uh sensitivities, but all all in all, our fire drills should be unannounced to both staff and kids. and and talking to to staff and building procedures around where do you go? What's a safe evacuation route once you get outside the building? Where do you go? A safe spot that's 50 feet away.
What's the process for taking attendance, get student medication, all those sorts of things. These are drills, but as we do drills across the district, we do practice like it's the real thing. So, if it ever were to come, we have that muscle memory ready to rock and roll. So, we do tell the kids these are drills. They are practice, but yet as we
practice these, we practice as if this was a real event. So, an evacuate is pretty much the same thing as a fire drill. Shelter is pretty much that we have a severe weather or the old tornado drill. So, this happens in April at 1:00 in the afternoon. There's kind of a dis or statewide um tornado siren. And then
there's one at six o'clock at night. Again, each building has a different spot. That's their safety shelter spot where they would go and practice um a shelter drill if there happened to be a tornado or a severe weather event. Any questions on kind of evacuate shelter? Now the next part is you get into hold.
So kind of hold, secure, and lock down are kind of the lockdown drills which we'll talk about here in a second. The first one is a hold. Hold is used quite often within schools means there's something going on in the hallway. Whether there's a student issue or oftentimes there's a medical emergency with a student or an adult and just for
the dignity of the child or the dignity of the adult, it's just best for maybe 5, 10, 15 minutes, whatever it is, we're just going to hold in our classroom. Even if it's passing time, we're just going to hold for a few minutes and we can continue class as normal. Kids can get up, sharpen their pencil, move around the classroom, but just nobody's going to leave the classroom. Nobody
comes into the classroom. We're not going to use the restroom. We're just going to stay in our classroom until whatever's going on the hallway is cleared, and then we'll continue with our our our daily routines after that. The second one is very similar. It's called the secure, but the secure is within the school. So, something's
happening outside. there's an animal outside or there's police presence or there's something going outside that we just need to stay everybody inside. So if we have a secure and there's kids outside, we're going to bring them in. Whether they're outside for FID or they're outside at recess or whatever that looks like, we're going to bring
everybody inside, secure the building, and there we can have passing time. Kids can go to lunch, they can go to FID, they can do anything they want within the school. It just nobody leaves and nobody comes in once we're in that secure area. And then once whatever's going on outside is cleared, then we'll
continue um you know, kids in and out if need be or going back outside for recess or physical education, whatever that looks like. But hold is kind of holding within a classroom. And then secure is securing within a building. So they're very similar, but there is that little distinction there as well.
And then the next one is lockdown. And so for years we've done the locks, lights out of sight. And for, you know, 20ome years, as far as I've been here, that's kind of been our lockdown procedures. If you hear lockdown, you find a spot, you shut the lights off, close the door, find a spot where the person can't see you, and hide and and
really trying to spot where you can't be noticed. In the last year and working with law enforcement, we've changed that to more of a run, hide, fight philosophy where the hide component is the thing that we talked about before is the locks, lights, out of sight. But if it's
best for that situation, because if there's an an actual threat in the building, every staff member is in a different spot and a different decision to make depending on where the situation is, depending where their classroom is, depending where their space is, they make a professional judgment. And in that moment, is it best for run and for
me to get my kids and we're going to run and we're going to leave and we're going to find a safe space blocks away from school. If that is the best thing to do, staff have the professional freedom to run. If it's best to saying, you know what, I don't really know. I think it might be out here and we want to hide and do that traditional locks lights out
of sight and that's the best thing to do, then hide is an option. When hiding, there is an option to fight back. And so, as we talked with staff and we talked about um what that looks like, we went through some different systems and and ways that that fight back could look. And you don't have to. And again,
some of that may be age appropriate or the um willingness of the staff member to to fight back if that comes. But the thing that we really try to instill and and when law enforcement went over this with us, the thing that's really important, I said this over and over and over again. Whatever the first thing
that comes to your mind in that situation, do it. Don't second guess yourself. Don't think about what this, that, and the other thing. Time is of the essence. Whatever that first thing comes in mind, it's best for you to run, run. If it's best for you to hide, hide. And then while you're hiding, if you want to fight back and you want to think
of ways that to do that, that is an option for you as well. So the one deviation we do have from the I love you guys is when it's in a lockdown, staff does have the autonomy to run, hide, or fight. So I'll kind of stop here if anybody has questions on the hold, on the secure, the lockdown, or the run,
hide, fight kind of protocols. I had a question on the the run, hide, fight. First of all, I'm so glad they're here now because I think this is so much more um there's so much more empowerment and situational spec specificity in ter because really the goal is to remove
yourself from the from the danger if you can. If there is a if it's recess for example and this is going on, do we have like a a designated place for every school where you would run to? Yeah. So, I'm giving you the abbreviated
version. This fall, I went to every building and spent minimum half hour. Some buildings I was there for 45 minutes. And as we went through each of those five was really talk specifically about, okay, in your school, in your setting, what does that look like? A, where's your evacuation site? Each one has one. It's in a different spot. You
know, if you're going to run and, you know, think our evacuation spots across the street, you know, and if I run, if there's danger between me and getting across the street, I'm not going to run there immediately because we're not going to put our our students in danger. So, we're going to run the opposite way. And then once you go there, what's the procedures, protocols for you to know
when it's come back, when it's safe. And so we really talked about scenarios of different things for all those five different things. And really, it's specifically evacuation site, run, hide, fight. Staff ask questions, really get in depth and in detail because every spot is every building's different. Every building has a different spot.
Every location of where classrooms are, but there was a lot of great open dialogue with all of our staff members around this area and really had good conversation. So, um, don't want to get too much specifics here, but we really had those in-depth conversations with each of our buildings. Perfect.
Um, earlier when you had like the five different options, the secure, the, uh, whatever. How is that communicated to a teacher? So, your teacher in the class, you got to do something. How do you know what the situation is? Um, so it's over the intercom. Everything's over the intercom except for possibly a lockdown. So, if there's,
you know, a fire, obviously the fire alarm gets pulled and you hear that. Okay. Um, if it's a tornado drill or something like that, it' be it they'd be on the intercom or there'd be announcements some forth. If there's a hold, there's um language that you'd use to say there's a hold in there um in the classroom. Same things with secure that
the hold's going on. The hold's not over. You start the secure start, that's over. In a lockdown there, the only re way we're going to use a lockdown is if this is truly an active threat within the building. So, if there's not really an active threat, we aren't going to use a lockdown. And in a perfect world, we'd get on the intercom, but if not, we
talked about other ways that we would notify other people within our building through different ways of communication. Okay. Then adding that to the the strobe lights, you know, when it's noisy and you won't hear that intercom, is there any signal system with that strobe light
to say a certain flash pattern is this or that? The only time that would get pulled is if you're in a lockdown situation. Okay. And there's a buzzer that would be pressed at at a designated spot that would alert that.
Um so uh chair chairman to your point you kind of is there like designated space and obviously you know those discussions were had internally um how is that done in terms of just age appropriateness? You know look at elementary school a fifth grader versus a preschooler which is elementary
schools are completely different. So the one and we're kind of getting to the end of this, but the one thing we did, so we we started this run height fight last year. And so I went around to each of the schools and kind of introduced it and just said, you know, this is this is concept that just for a staff that want us to think about kind of mentor prepare. What does it look like at the
beginning of the day if something were to happen? What does it look like during lunchtime or passing time or at the end of the day? Just kind of put yourself in different situations that you're at through the building. But we're not going to have conversations with kids. We're not going to have conversation with parents, but just kind of think about professionally what you would do in different situations. This year that
we were really in intentional about reviewing all of this with staff, but taking it to the next level around parent communication as well as student communication within a building. So, we had district communication go out from Dr. Funk in September kind of saying we're highlighting we're having these conversations within a staff and then
between October 1st and and MEA break as each building have Oh, there we go. There's kind of our timeline. As each building had their next lockdown drill, there was communication sent out from each principal to the schools the day ahead of time. So now lockdown drills have to be announced at least 24 ahead
of time. 24 hours ahead of time. We talked about fire drills are kind of unannounced spur of the moment. Every lockdown drill has to be at least 24 hours notifying kids, notifying staff members. There are no surprises in lockdown drills. So, in that when they did the next one announcing that, there
was a video, an age appropriate video from preschool all the way up to high school, as well as a conversation guide that kind of gave talking points for staff members could use to talk with kindergarteners, first graders, as well as high schools, high schoolers about what would you do in different
situations. And so, the conversations look different, but we're starting to have those conversations with students about what would happen in in different situations. She kind of got to my next slide already. So it kind of our so he kind of talked our timeline is you know I had the staff training September 15th to
26th and then Dr. Funk send his message out midepptember and then with the student conversations were the 1st to the 15th and then those safety drills are ongoing throughout the year. And with those drills just reminder we have to have five evacuation drills. Same thing as fire drills each year. The
one nuance with a fire drill is one fire drill has to be done the first 10 days of school. So it always seems weird that like the third day of school you have a fire drill and everyone's like why are we doing this so early? Just by law you have to have one in the first 10 days of school so people kind of know those evacuation patterns but then after that
there's kind of a mix throughout the year maybe once a month once every two three weeks whatever that looks like of kind of mix matching between evacuation drills and safety drills. and the safety drills are a mix of that hold, secure, and then lock down. So, we're kind of transition from there.
Anything more just on those drill specific before we get into to parent and family communication. So, the next piece of it is is if there is a hold or a secure or something going on, there's different levels of family communication. So, is it low impact, is
it a moderate impact, or is it a high impact? And so if something's going on, the school reaches out to the district and decides what type of impact does it look like based on the impact. It's based on what communication could be. You know, whether that's an email home, it's a phone message home, whatever that looks like. And kind of who's owning the
message. If it's a low impact, the school does. If it's a moderate impact, the school works with the the district to kind of say, "How do you want to do this?" And kind of combo it together. And if there ever was a high impact incident, the the district would take over communication and take over kind of what next steps would be within our
buildings. And then lastly, if you or if others want to learn more about our emergency management systems and processes in place, um there is a website here that you can learn more information or if any of you guys had questions, please contact me. So, I know this is quick and brief and we did a lot more details um
within each of our staff, but I just wanted to give you kind of high level some of the conversations that's been going on here the first quarter of the school year. Great. Dr. One thing that, you know, Mark has talked about what our internal procedures are and how we're training staff and and working with our our
families and our communications. The other thing that I really want to emphasize is uh the great community partnerships we have with law enforcement. I mean, we have three entities we work with in the district. Um, Still Water Police Department, uh,
the Oak Park uh, Police Department, and then Washington County. um sheriff's office and Mark and I um have had meetings with Washington County. I've interacted directly with with Oak Park
Heights and uh and in the Still Water Police uh on a fairly regular basis. And one of the things that uh um you know we're looking at and and I can I can share this because there's a state grant
available for this um is um really uh mapping software. So if there was ever an event that happened, um we would have uh really mapping software, video footage we could provide our our law
enforcement partners um to to respond to to help them um react that much more quickly. and and so um I think developing those strong relationships with our uh community partners u are
going to help us out in the uh the event that we have a uh some sort of uh high impact event happen in the district. So, I think in addition to what we're doing internally with our staff, I want to just uh uh commend Mark and and uh and
Annette Salman who's working with emergency management from Washington County um on some of the partnerships we we have and those are just going to only pay dividends for us in the future. And just to piggyback on that, we have three different um agencies we're
working with, but they all communicate together. So if something happens, they're all in lock step together kind of on that same radio frequency communicating back and forth. So it's really a great partnership and it gives us additional resources to use depending on which agency we have. We can lean on others to make sure that we have all the trainings and things for our staff or
things that we need within our buildings. Oh, go ahead. Thank you for uh all the work and helping uh keep our school safe. feel greatly appreciate all the work you've done this fall especially and thanks for helping create all the relationships and and nurture those relationships with the
the different resources in our in our area. That's incredibly important. Um, one question I have is when what is our sort of regular SK do we have a regular schedule for when we will get updates on incidents or on procedures or what is
our sort of operating rhythm currently for how the board will get updates on how things are going for both safety and discipline? you know, I think um we can share, you know, I think Mark could probably just do this in a board update,
but I think one of the things that I think might be of interest to the board is um he conducted a survey um feedback from his presentations to staff on the impact and how comfortable they are with this whole concept, the red runhide
fight and he's collected the data on that and I think you could share that with them in an update. I think that would be really helpful um to see what uh because again I think just this whole concept of of autonomy with the runhide fight thing is different because forever
and a day people have been taught okay let's if we lock down if there's a lock down I'm going to lock down and I'm going to get down and you know hide and the federal government has done a lot of research into this and they're they're the ones who came up with the they're
the with the name, run, hide, fight. And that's how they train f federal employees. And basically, we're telling staff, you're the decision maker to keep you and your kids safe, and we will support whatever decision you make. And
so, if you know, something goes off in one end of the building and they they're on a completely other hallway, okay, I'm going to get my kids out the door. Um, and that's that is fairly new and it's not necessarily comfortable for some people. So this is where where Mark has
just done a great job going and and talking through this and talking through some scenarios. So that is a a shift in mindset, but I I think it's uh I think we'll be safer for it in the long run. Thank you.
Can you talk a little bit about um how parents are informed other than maybe the handbook or I mean and I would encourage every parent community member to go on the website. There is so much information under the emergency management tab um including students who
are interested because this impacts students you know greatly but the reunification information is extensive on there. Um what do par what are parents told about reunification and how are they notified? So if if an incident were to happen, there is a communication
plan set up, you know, Washington County, if there's an incident that comes through, Washington County kind of takes over and would would help assist us with that. But we do have plans about where parents would go, where to meet them. Um we actually had a practice reunification walkth through uh on Monday during our um no school day. And
so we went to the two different sites of, you know, kind of the where the parent site is, where the student site is and kind of walk through what that experience would look like from an affected site to where the students go to where the parents go and kind of walk through that partnership. So if something were to happen that we would give parents the instructions of kind of where to go, what that timeline looks
like and what those processes would be. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I think from my standpoint, I'm always just I mean, this is a really hard topic, right? because it's every parent's worst nightmare and every staff
member or students worst nightmare. Um, but I think the more that we can talk about it and just inform families what we're doing, I mean, I'm sure that staff never probably feels like it's enough. I mean, it's, you know, it's it's one two things and I always start every presentation with it's never enough and there's never a good time to
talk about this, right? You know, there's and unfortunately we just have to talk about it, you know, and it's kind of the way they start that there isn't a good leadin. We just have to do it with the things that have been happening the last few years. we just need to start and then kind of it's on a continuum. Here's where we are right now. What are some steps we need to do as a building or as a district to keep
moving forward to help keeps our kids safe? And our our thought process and our job is to get as many mitigation strategies as we can with our students, with our staff to help eliminate some of these things that could potentially happen in the future. Yes.
Um um earlier this year I think you did something um and I think it was just sort of making sure a protocol was in place and it was so simple. Um I think it was making sure uh internal doors
were closed and then they they they're locked from the outside. Right? Those things give me as a parent such peace of mind because there isn't a day where I don't send my daughters to school and think about
the worst thing happening. Um, and so all of those little things that um they they almost seem they seem minor, but I mean every second matters and all of those barriers matter and they add up. Um, and they give me so much peace of
mind as a parent. So, thank you. Absolutely. And that and to be honest, that came through what Dr. Funk was talking about, our partnership with law enforcement. Yes. You know, and and talking through that. Does it change some of the day-to-day procedures within a building? Yes. in terms of flow and how that looks. But on the the rationale behind it is is we
talked to law enforcement and they do a lot of these studies and looking at past incidents and what can we learn from them and the information that they have is to their knowledge, no one's breached a locked door. So again, it's just that one more layer that we can put in to help keep our students and staff safe.
Yep. So simple and so effective. So yep. I also think from a board's perspective, I always think what are we doing from our governance role? And I think that you know the legislative impact that we can have with advocating legislatively and you'd mentioned proactive measures
addressing behavior culture and um I know in our legislative platform last year uh we had increasing safe schools levy um because we are obviously and rightly so spending more than we're getting reimbursed from the state but
you know working with legislative partners and I think that there's an opportunity there to even bring studentu students um and parents and community members to help in that advocacy because it's something that fortunately our families are always very supportive on
um safety and security measures in the schools. So anything else? Great. Thank you very much for this overview. Appreciate it. All right. This was one of the um agenda items we added. Uh this is an action
item for the board. Uh princip 2527 principal master agreement. Chris. Hello. Good evening, directors, chair Sherman, Dr. Funk. Um so I am here today to report um some
what I hope is some good news. Um we have um reached an agreement with our principal um um union. Um so what I have to share here are just the highlights. Um we met um I think it was seven
meetings um to get to our settlement. Um and so not a lot of language changes but just the insurance language representing the first um the first six and a half% of any annual increase will be paid by the district. The second um 6 and a half% will be paid by employees and then
uh we will split anything above 13% evenly. Um elimination of the short-term disability benefit with the launch of the paid family medical leave. um step advancement in both years um 2% to the salary schedule and then adjustment to
longevity pay um and so really that's it um so just in collaboration with principal association we've provided the updates and changes um and we are within board parameter so um I've come to you tonight to make a
recommendation that you would approve principal's master agreement so are there any questions. Okay. Is this a roll call or do we can we just vote? Doesn't matter. Just vote. Whatever you want to do. We can just vote. We don't need to do a roll call. Okay. If there are no
questions, we'll just go ahead and vote. Yeah. I'll I'll make a motion to approve. Yeah. You got to have the motion. Yeah. Exactly. I'll second it. Okay. Yeah. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving the master contract for principles, raise your hand and say I. I. opposed.
Motion passes. Thank you for all your hard work. You and Marie and the principles themselves. So, thank thank everyone involved. Yes. I just want to make sure that I said that as well. I think to my team, Marie and Ashley Jeang were um very instrumental. And then just the collaboration with the principal group.
Um they are amazing to work with and I really appreciate um our this isn't always an easy process, but um it's easier because of them. Well, can I quick ask a question? How many principles do we have? Um 19. Okay.
That'd be one at each school and then all the assistants assistants. The assistant principles are on there. I think we've got two post two principles on special assignments. Stephen Gordy. Okay. And then Heather temporarily this year uh for the new schools opening up. All right. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Chris.
All right. Thank you. All right. We're moving on to our policy section. So, we'll welcome Paul and I guess we'll just kind of go one at a time. We'll start with our first report, which is a first reading on policy 512, student publications. Um,
this did come up in public comment. So, I I'm sure we can address that at this point, too. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be a good time for that. Um, and good evening, Chair Sherman, and members of the board. Uh so yes, for our first reading this evening, we're uh going to be looking at policy
512, uh school sponsored student publications and activities. Uh this is a mandatory policy. Um MSBA updated this policy in the spring of 2025 following the passing
of the new voices legislation that was passed in May of 2024 um and is codified in statute 1218.8. So our old policy uh was uh amended last
amended in 1985. So it was 40 years old. Um and this is though reflective and it's pretty much a new policy. So um and it's based off the MSBA model policy um and reflects again that uh new voices legislation which was um a very
important uh piece of legislation. So um just as a first reading um the purpose of uh this policy is to protect student rights to free speech and production of official school sponsored publications and activities
while at the same time balancing the school district's role in supervising student publications and the operation of the public school. So I'm just going to highlight a few things as it is kind of all new language. But in the general statement of policy, it indicates that the expressions and representations made
by students in school sponsored publications and activities are not expressions of the official school district policy. Faculty advisor shall re shall supervise student writers to ensure compliance with the law and school district policies.
In part B, it it indicates in the policy that students who believe their right to free expression has been unreasonably restricted in an official student school sponsored media publication or activity may seek review of the decision by the building principal and the principal
shall issue a decision no later than three school days after re review of that request. So it then moves into um definitions um and I'm not going to go through each definition but I can um indicate the uh and these are all definitions that we'll
find later in the guidelines of the policy. So they are important as far as defining these these terms. So the terms that are defined are distribution material and substantial disruption. A minor has to do with the age of the
person um the student. Um obscene to minors. School activities, school sponsored media, student journalist, student media advisor. So we can move into the the guidelines
here in part four. So part 4 A indicates that except as provided in paragraph B below which we'll review, a student journalist has the right to exercise freedom of speech and freedom of the press in school sponsored media.
I'm going to skip a little bit down but a little further in that paragraph. Freedom of speech includes freedom to express political viewpoints consistent with paragraph B below which we'll review. A student journalist has the right to determine the news, opinion,
feature, and advertising content of school sponsored media. The school district must not discipline a student journalist for exercising rights of freedoms under this paragraph or the first amendment of the United States Constitution.
Part B. This is the so student expression is an official school student expression in an official school publication or school sponsored media. A yearbook or school sponsored activity is prohibited when the material number one
is obscene to minors. Number two is defamatory. Is profane, harassing, threatening or intimidating. Constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy, violates federal or state law, causes a material material or
substantial disruption of school activities, is directed to incite or producing imminent lawless action on school premises or the violation of lawful school policies or rules, including a policy adopted in accordance
with Minnesota's statute section 121.03. Um in the two more additional advertises or promotes any product or service not permitted for minors by law and finally advocates sexual, racial or religious
harassment or violence or prejudice. Uh the next Yep. So what was our speaker talking about tonight? And that's why I'm glad we're highlighting this because I don't You said we were we took out the obscene language, right? It we did not we did not.
Mhm. I believe I'm guessing here, but I believe he's referring to section three definitions. Um, sorry, excuse me. I had it here. Yeah. Section three definition uh definitions and then part D number
three. It's D3 in definitions, right? That's in D3 states um seen to minors means means the material taken as a whole lacks serious literary artistic that's only one of three but yeah artistic
political or science scientific I guess just based off the quote that he said was that could have been yeah and one thing I did want to mention is that the this definition D obscene to minors is the same definition that you find in policy 505 the distribution of
non-school sponsored materials and I I know I think as we uh correct me if I'm wrong other policy committee members but we had that reviewed by our attorneys and legals and their opinion was that is the language this definition is the language that has been shown in
different case law um and so it's a standard language that is used to um define obscene of minors or obscene y so all right so uh under guidelines Part C. The school district must not retaliate
or take adverse employment action against a student media advisor for supporting a student journalist exercising their rights or freedoms under paragraph Above or the first amendment of the United States of the Constitution. So, it protects our staff
um in that way. Um and then D um that it indicates that nothing in this article inhibits a student media adviser from teaching professional standards of English and journalism to students. um student journalists and it kind of just lists what those are. Um and then the
final component is just that it uh the statute requires that um that this that we adopt a policy and that that a policy is posted available to the public um on the district website which all of our policies are. So
and I always think it's worth just remmening that we share this with staff the appropriate staff. So staff has looked at this and reviewed this and made their additions and comments and those are considered by the policy committee as well. Yep. Absolutely.
So this is just a a first read. So feel free to review um make sure you understand the policy and if you have questions you can send them to Dr. Funk and um Paul and we can get those answered before the next meeting.
Great. Next policy is our second reading um for policy 620 credit for learning. I'm not aware of any comments that have come in. No. And I have not received any comments and uh it's it's pretty um on topic with our topic tonight and with uh principal
Bach sharing uh his his thoughts and plans. Um and and again as we talked in the first reading uh principal Bach had reviewed this and it's it's very consistent with our current practices and our it'll serve us well for our future practices as well. Exactly.
Are there any before we move to action is there any questions related to this policy? Okay. Seeing none um I will go ahead and make a motion to approve policy 620 credit for learning. Is there a second? I'll second. Great. Sarah with the second. All those
in favor of approving policy 620, credit for learning, raise your hand and say I. I. Opposed. Policy 620 passes. The next is an action item for revocation policy 910. And I'll let you
explain that. Sure. And just for clarification, will we go through each one and then have a vote on each one? Yes. Okay. That that sounds good. So um these are all policies and the committee reviewed these um and looked at them at the last
meeting and there is a recommendation for revocation of these policies. Just want to mention that of the policies we're going to look at um they range from from 53 years old uh to 21 years
old. So they're very outdated. Um and as you'll see, so we'll just start with uh 910 publication in creation of materials. Um there's this is not a a a policy that has any reference in statute. It's not a recommended uh
policy by MSBA and it really is replaced by policy 409 uh which is employee publications, instructional materials, inventions and creations cover um cover the content within this very very
short uh policy. That's the whole policy right there. So very old very old and very outdated. Yes, I think you could probably be okay to have him just go through one and make a motion to approve revoke all revoke all of them if you want to go ahead and do that. We can revoke all if
you just want to quickly go through. Yep, I will do that. Yep. Okay. So then, uh, positive relationships uh policy 911, same thing. Um, no legal requirements. It's referenced in other policies. It's very short. Uh, 912, respectful
behavior. Um again this is um no statutory requirements references not in MSBA um again uh hasn't been approved since 1997. Um and it it we do have other policies that address um the behavior of
students and staff in more detail for sure. Um the the next policy is called copyright and this actually goes back to our SR um which was standard for I think statutory requirements um 1.1. This this policy um is replaced by policy 409 that
we've already um um adopted um which is employee publications instructional materials inventions and creations covers the copyright requirements um SR1.21 21, development of parental involvement policies for title one
programs. Very outdated. This was replaced by policy 612.1 development of parent and family engagement policies for title one programs. The updated language for that. Um we got SR 1.5 which is the final uh trans
transportation operators drug and alcohol abuse policy. Uh this one again is replaced by um our policy 416 which is drug and alcohol testing which includes transportation operators.
All right. So we have all those very old outdated policies just a part of the the committee's ongoing efforts to clean up and remove outdated policies. Um, so, uh, we can still ask questions if you have any, but I'll go ahead and make a
motion to revoke, uh, items E through J here. Um, is there a second? Got it. Okay, Pete with a second. And any questions before we vote? Does the policy committee make the
recommendation for all these? Yes. Yep. Yeah, we review all these and then bring them to the board. I just make one small comment. This is kind of the end of the dust bin that we are very excited to Exactly.
bring forward um because they are very very outdated um policies. So yes, enthusiastically endorse this. Thank you for all your hard work. All right, so we have a first and a second and boy are we excited to get rid of those. So, um, more excited than we
really should be, to be honest. All right. Um, all those in favor of revoking items E through J, raise your hand and say I. I. I. Opposed. Okay. Motion passes. Thank you.
All right. And I don't see Nate Cox here. So, is that going to be It's a procedural resolution. Okay. So, um, we have an action item. This is an annual um procedural resolution for the Minnesota State High
School League. Um something we do every year. I don't know if there's any questions for doc Dr. Funk, but um basically we have access to funding for for kids um through this foundation.
So by by supporting it, we're part of it, right? Um I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. Okay. This is a resolution, so it'll be a roll call vote. Joan, Director Gersovich, yes. Dr. Hawker, yes.
Dr. Kellenberg, yes. Dr. Lowour, yes. Dr. Parker, sure. Yes. Director The Lander, yes. And Sher Sherman, yes. Resolution passes. Great. Thank you. Okay. Um, with that done, now we have
our last action item of the evening. uh schoolboard meeting dates for 2026. So, this is just a calendar of our scheduled meetings. Um I we didn't hear that anyone had any that there were any um issues with a
quorum. Um obviously people miss meetings and life happens, but um we just want to make sure that we're always at a quorum level to conduct the meetings. One item to note that that was in bold so you guys probably saw it was that um on February 2nd we'll be meeting
on a Monday which is right very we did that for you Dr. Um so yeah so that is a study session that we will be doing that. Um were there any questions or comments?
Okay. What's February 3rd? It was restricted. I think there's an election day. Yeah that's what I want to say too. So, um, with that again, um, if you look later on at this calendar and notice that in advance that you're going to be
gone, feel free to let us know. Um, but I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay, Katie with the second. Uh, all those in favor of approving the 20 26 meeting dates calendar, raise your hand, say I.
I. Opposed? Motion passes. And so this gets posted on our website. Okay. Now, under strategic direction D, develop strong partnerships with the communities we serve. Um, we have nothing. Ah, we have a close session,
though. Sorry, it's been a long meeting, guys. Okay, so let's read this. Um, the next item on our agenda is a close session pursuant to Minnesota statute 1305, subdivision 3C3, which allows the board to go into close session to develop or consider an offer
to purchase or sell real property. I will u make that motion. Is there a second to go to closed? Great. Director Theelinger with a second. All those in favor of moving to close session, raise your hand and say I. I opposed. We will take a short restroom
break and see you in close.