e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e this better be good well good evening let's call this meeting to order um so chair Sherman is out tonight
on a well deserved Family Getaway so I'll be cheering uh the meeting tonight so uh Joan roll call please director hacker here director kenberg here Dr low here Dr Petri here dror PB ler here
chair Sherman is out you have uh please stand for the pledge allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all uh I will make a motion to approve tonight's agenda may I get a second please uh director laow and all those in uh favor to approve the agenda please raise your hand and say I I
opposed agenda passes um we also have a consent agenda tonight that is going to be up on the screen um so the payment of invoices from May 25th to June 7th of 2024 is there a motion to approve tonight's
consent agenda so moved director pet Tre is there a second yep second director Kellenberg is second all those in favor to approve the consent agenda raise your hand and say I I
opposed consent agenda passes all right so tonight is a study session um so we're starting off with strategic Direction a ensuring that the learning process is adaptable to meet individual student needs so our first
study session topic is qm uh annual report and so thanks to director Luke for uh joining us and uh just a little background so uh per Minnesota State Statute the report must be presented uh to the school board by June 15th of each year include the findings and
recommendations for the program so don thank you for joining us yes thank you good evening all right so am I doing this Johan you can either way I'll have you do it because it's not my favorite thing oh sorry um all right so what is
qm um and again the the um purpose of qm it is an alternative teacher professional pay system and it is designed to help improve student learning by developing professional
practices within our teaching staff so the goal is to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers encourage those highly qualified teachers to undertake challenging assignments that are a little bit different um than just the
typical classroom um and support those roles in improving the achievements of our students and then it does provide incentives to encourage teachers to improve their knowledge and their instructional skills all for the goal of
improving student learning there are four components of qom there are career lad opportunities and those are those different um opportunities for teachers to become
teacher leaders there is job embedded professional development um and tep our teacher development evaluation plan and we'll get into that later and then performance pay after you complete all of these
pieces of of amp component one is rear ladder um positions so our instructional coaches which again last year we had 12.3 ftes of instructional coaches each building had its own instructional coach those
are career ladder opportunities we also have PLC or professional development building leads and again each building has that role and there were 17 of those we had 110 um staff members that served as
teacher mentors to new people coming into the district we have one qm lead which is devb Van cly and then last year we had special education site lisons which there were 12 um assigned to that
so those are those leadership positions that are part of component one yes do you want questions as as we go along or do you want us to wait until the end either way I'm either way okay um I just wanted to to get a little bit
more detail about the mentor um you know 110 mentors that's great yes um and is that for just first year um teachers or is that does that go on for like the first three years that a per that a teacher is here how does that work and
is it formal or informal or how does how does that work it's more of a formal process um in the sense that um The MENTOR is assigned to a new teacher coming into our district and they are probationary teachers so it does go
throughout that three years you get probably more of that ongoing mentorship or heavy dose of mentorship that first year but the um mentor and the mentee meet once a month and go over a variety
of things and it part of it um I think they have there there definitely is training for the mentors and they have um different components that they work with the teachers on it might be what are they doing for their goal in uh tep
um they might work with them on that it might be simple things like how do you use the copy machine and I don't understand what benefits I am supposed to take here you know things like that as well besides um you know the the
teaching pieces of how to organize my classroom and how how to um who should I go to for more support if needed you know encouraging them to use the instructional coaches that kind of thing so typically they're paired and matched
by someone that is you know subject matter related so if I was a language arts teacher I would have a mentor that is a language arts teacher so that we could talk content um that's important as well um but we we try to match them
up as close ly as possible and does that ever get evaluated is is it I mean I I would assume that there are some aspects of qm that do get evaluated is that one of them that gets evaluated I think that is part of that process I'm what that looks like I'm not positive about um but
I can try to look into that for you I do think that there there's a survey at the end of the year that I believe that's given to the mentee and the mentor yeah I'm sure it can be a really powerful thing and you know to improve the program is probably a worthy
goal okay thank you yes can I just ask one more question yes are those numbers the number of Staff um is that how how are they how is that determined how is that number I mean is
it based on workload or is it or just does the the Q comp program say you need to have one one instructional coach per building how how do those numbers piiz yes the the Q comp board does determine some of that once we get our budget and
figuring out how you want to spend it and so a big focus of um the board in the last couple years has been instructional coaches as you know we we have grown that program I think last year was the first year where we had or
maybe the year before where we had full-time coaches in all the buildings but we were supplementing that as well from other areas is and then when we did our priority based budgeting we decided to um pair that down just because we
couldn't sustain one from each building um and what we were you know what was that return on investment kind of thing as we went through that process so um but that that takes up the mentor piece and obviously all of the performance pay
as well as um like all of those coaches were not coming out of the Q comp budget they you know some of the eser dollars that dropped off were supplementing that program okay component two is that job embedded professional development so
again with that Mentor partnership and collaboration the mentor could observe in the classroom and provide feedback if needed one of the things that has been really exciting that I've had the opportunity to observe are the learning labs and we had
78% um participation uh or felt that that was had a positive impact on educator growth um all staff p uh participated in learning labs and that is an opportunity to have the instructional coach and a
cohort of people come into your room observe your classroom and then everyone provides feedback it's really meaningful specific feedback and I think um when we started it last year it was really a little bit
intimidating and scary because you are opening up your classroom and having different people your peers come in as well as a um the instructional coach but as people started going through the process and seeing the benefits and the
Really positive feedback and learning from one another it really has taken off and people really see the value in it um you it's like oh that's a great idea I'm going to try that in my classroom I really liked how you um did that
informal assessment or I really liked what you did in the morning meeting you know those kinds of things so that's been really a positive piece we did have formal instru instructional coaching cycles for all Educators this year there
were 110 formal coaching Cycles where um again the teacher and the coach work together to determine what um they are going to be coached on it could be again revolving around their goal that they
put in their teacher evaluation program or they might you know let's say um the classroom environment is an area that they feel like they're struggling and they might have someone the coach coached them into that area it depends
on what of the 5D r brick pieces that they're really focusing and honing in on so that's how they determine that and then our collaborative action teams which were formerly known as plc's and
again with the survey uh 76% felt like that that had a the cat inquiry Cycles had a positive impact on student growth and we did four inquiry Cycles formal Cycles the goal this year was to have
the coaches coach into one of those we started that but then when we kind of you know the whole process got a little bit overwhelming and we put a pause in January to try to just slow it down and give um staff some more breathing room
um that piece of coaching into it from the coaches um kind of fell off and they just worked on that as um their collaborative action teams so can I just ask a question um so you know we we kind of just ex we expanded Q comp I think it
was what two years ago is that I maybe two years ago so it sounds like learning Labs was one of the new things that came about when we expanded that that approach to improving instruction um did we also expand on collaborative action
teams and the formal instructional Cycles or yes yes because we had a coach in all the buildings so we could provide that formal cycle for everyone and then the collaborative action teams I think got a reboot um we rebranded from plc's
I think during covid most districts struggled you know that was one thing that we could take off the plates is PLC um meetings for teachers and then we kind of had to regroup as we got back to normal business and we really talked
about that from a collaborative action uh or uh inquiry based cycles and we had some um people from solution tree come and do some training um last year and then we were able to have our coaches
and our PD leads and um the cat team leads participate in that and bring that training back to the staff and then we also had all staff participate in that training in January last year as well so
um it was kind of a process that we worked through m okay thank you can I ask a question um about the learning Labs as well um how do how does how does staff determine who gets observed is it only the mentees who are getting
observed no everyone participated in those learning labs and I'll I'll talk about what we're going to do moving forward with a different coaching model because it will be a little bit different but yes everyone participated in that because part of our teacher
evaluation is that a obs ation is part of that piece and that is how we um address that component and just a quick follow um with the peer observation piece is it more focused on giving feedback to the person who is being
observed or is it like what you're learning from that person it's actually both that's the the really beautiful benefit of the learning lab versus just having a peer come in and you know check the box that's what I saw I really saw some really rich
conversations about what they learned and how and then understanding why the teacher did something the way they they did so it was really valuable that way great sounds good thanks all right component three is
teacher development evaluation plan and so part of our TP we call that TP process is the teacher has to set a goal and it they have worked with their instructional coach or their mentor to determine what that goal is and that is
that aligns with our 5D rubric about the com different components they need to have some sort of observation um by the principal and then there is an evaluation there's a back and forth um
feedback loop with the teacher and the administrator and they also have to do a self assessment at the beginning and then at the end and then they reflect um at the end of the process and then the
principal um does the same and provides that feedback um what we're hoping to do some of those pieces are um more intensive our probationary teachers have three of
those observations throughout the year um our tenure teachers only have one and I'll explain what we're going to do moving forward but um the tenure three teachers have a summative a little bit
more their piece is a little more involved where there's a summative evaluation as well so but every teacher goes through that process and it goes back and forth and then we keep track of it right now we're making sure that
everyone has completed it so that we can determine who met their goals and completed all the pieces so that they get their money um based on that piece so what does that sandbox look like for these evaluations and the mentorship I
mean is there kind of guidelines that's in place that set by this you know different mandates or is it discretion of each principal and Mentor how does that work just a big picture we we follow the 5D rubric and so that was decided on with the teacher um
bargaining unit that CA and the principles as well and District administration and so um that is the piece that we look at and so they are determining which of those um dimensions
in in that 5D rubric that they want to focus in on and then that is what the administrator is looking for or really honing in on not to say that you know if they're um looking focusing instructional
practices within the classroom and they notice something in the environment that might be beneficial it doesn't mean that they can't provide feedback but we're really trying to narrow the focus of that um piece and um again I think
ideally in an Ideal World um you have some sort of conversation or written documentation about what you might be seeing going into the classroom and then then you observe and fill out you know the script and then you um do your
wonderings and um observations and the teacher receives that and then they answer that piece and then you come back and ideally you would have a a conversation a formal meeting where you
were going over that evaluation how did you think it went here's what I noticed so that you're making sure that there are um you're providing that meaningful feedback and then um again in the case of a non- tenear teacher you'd hope to
see something maybe you gave them a specific thing or strategy to try for the next time and then you would look for that moving forward you want it's really about developing the teacher and providing that those growth opportunities but giving them the
meaningful actionable feedback so that they can improve their practice okay so those are all components of that good questions and then the last component is the performance pay based on all of those pieces they need to meet the
schoolwide achievement goal um meet the student achievement goal that they set and last year we worked to set Higher Goals those pieces of um the performance pay are not the building goal is a
dollar and um the um student achievement goal is like $124 so those are not big ticket items we want people to set the bar high so that we can move the needle but the biggest thing is they have to complete
that teacher development evaluation process and the cat inquiry cycles and go through the formal um instructional coaching cycle and then as part of that teacher development evaluation that learning lab was a component of
it so what are we um so our Focus here um for 23 24 was every educator was engaged and completed those a formal coaching cycle every educator engaged in learning labs and every educator
participated in strengthening data inquiry processes in the collaborative action teams so that was our focus last school year and then moving forward uh well oh these are the surveys
for from um some of the comments as we surveyed teachers about the different components of that so again I love the learning Labs because I it gave me the opportunity to learn from other teachers I love the quote that says the best PD
is the teacher next door and that person agreed with that 100% um again I've had great opportunities to grow as a teacher reflecting on my teacher with the instructional coach and giving specific concrete ideas to um uh put in place in
my classroom I love the mentor program I think the most valuable thing is when you get to spend a day planning and coordinating with your mentee um here's about the cat teams I felt for the first time in many years that my cat team was highly effective
and supportive we were able to discuss ways to support our struggling Learners and having that dedicated time made a difference in my teaching but also with my students and then the last one their coaching style expertise and willingness to meet me where I was hear what I
wanted to work on and then bring strategies for me to try Pro to be the most supportive experience I've had in my professional growth in the past 15 years so the whole goal of all of this is to really support the teachers um provide
them leadership opportunities and that they're growing and learning and improving their practice so that opportunties for improvement any opportunities this looks solid is the best thing since spread well so are there are there any opportunities for improvement that were
identified um well I I did not conduct the survey when I looked at it um I think you know it you can still get some I think our cat survey or the pieces about cat were maybe the components of
the cat uh process were cumbersome like the the forms that was one of the pieces of feedback we didn't have negative um comments about the learning Labs or the coaching Cycles it was maybe more about
the cat process so question Don yes um how many teachers participated in do you know roughly like our percentage of teachers I mean the goal was to have every educator participating in this um but like thinking about the actual CU comp program and making it all the way
through to the stip end maybe what is the percentage of teachers who made it to the end I would know that as we okay do our final piece because some of our teachers might have retired or left mid year and so then they don't qualify you have to be teaching and complete the
whole process in order to get that um uh stiped at the end okay so out of all of them I don't know that because we were still trying to finish that process up do you know if it's like most or it is most because it's a motivating factor
for people is um I would say it's a high percentage I mean except for the people that actually left um the rest of them pretty much Complete because you know part of before you'll check them out at you know you when we go through the process you have
to have green checks in all those boxes and and that says that you are done with that pieace and eligible so okay yeah can I ask a quick question here yes so the motivation is the styen just to encourage them to
participate uh what is the what is the expected outcome because when you when people are motivated by the money right do they really take anything out of the learning and what is the what is the expectation after the learning and what is what is
the expected outcome I think the outcome is that they meet their goals and that we continue to improve Student Success that it's directly correlated to Student Success and that they're working on developing their craft and the
strategies that they need as an educator to be successful in the classroom so hopefully at the end of this process by participating in the formal observation cycle the coaching cycle and the learning labs and the cat teams they
would have felt that they had opportunities to learn and grow um and that it improves their practice and though and then ultimately that transitions into our students success um
do all people feel that way about all of the pieces I I can't speak on that I think um you know you would hope so that even even the people that are checking the boxes perhaps still learned
something and had some value added to their craft how do you know if they actually took anything away from the learning well I think the the conversations that the principales have with their teachers when they're doing
the feedback would and also especially um our Pro aary teachers you would hope that you'd see some of that come back into play in the second and third observation that you see growth you can measure and see that growth I think for
our um tenur staff it's a little trickier because you only get one observation in um but you would hope that again through that coaching cycle that they somewhere that they were connecting and feeling like they had
that opportunity to develop thank you and I think they can be a little more vulnerable with the coach than maybe the administrator it it's a little less threatening perhaps because it's not quite as evaluative thank you so you mentioned I
think that it's connected with student achievement in some way yeah their goal how do you do that they connect like they might create a student achievement goal that says 80% of my students will
achieve or um get 80% or come to this threshold in fast Bridge or a certain assessment that they're trying to give they create a student achievement goal based on it should align with the building goal that was also this year we
I feel like the building goal and the individual goal matched better you know like if we're trying for 80% of our students are at grade level in literacy how are they what are they doing in their classroom to achieve or what goal
are they creating in their classroom to align with that goal okay so you you alluded to it a minute ago what's what is their goal for achieving their outcome what's their what's their what money do they receive a dollar that's the building goal okay
what do they receive for their individual goal $124 okay how much is the qom stien $ 1350 okay so this is when Governor pente pushed this program forward in
2006 it was considered for performance pay okay so we want to incentivize people to do better and if if your students are doing better we are going to pay
more what still water is typical I've been part of Q comp most of my entire superintend career districts have shifted away from the performance pay where you will receive a dollar $125 in this case but
if you do all of these other things that go along with it you're going to get you know over $1,000 so the original intent to Q comp was performance pay and as administrations have evolved
over time as MD evolved over time it has shifted to what we have today which is we are paying you um giving you opportunities to try new professional things leadership etc etc but has really shifted away from the performance
incentives I think that's why I was um for me the concern is something that should be required in terms of development professional development for teachers in relation to uh student performance uh shouldn't there shouldn't be and the the incentives should
actually be the overall performance not necessarily because you're doing this it should be a requirement and and and and if people are not giving those incentives no matter how important it is they probably won't participate knowing fully well that this is something that
supposed to improve this professional development opportunities but because I'm paying you you do it so you're just coming in for the money but not necessarily have that desire to really have an outcome that improves our students performance it's a concern and
I think uh Governor pente actually had a good I remember I remember the pay performance there was a lot of um um screams you know people were not too happy about it no some districts chose not to participate in
it but I I think it's um it's if it does show um the quality of opportunities for teachers uh you get you at the end of the day but you know from the shift it looks like I just want to collect the money regardless of the desire or passion to be a part of it or
required you know to want to see students improve um I don't know I'm I'm not sure I I think that's a definitely a question um and I think um promoting and
shifting that needle so that people do see the value in it I think um because some of these pieces like the learning lab and um the collaborative action team where they can actually see success and
value just because they're participating not just for the money that's what we're trying to do so we're trying to make those pieces um worth their time and effort and that they can see those pieces but
it's yeah well I mean I think that you know now we're getting into the philosophy of the of the program and MH and I agree with you that you know you are going to have um teachers who are hungry for self-improvement and they are going to take every opportunity that
they are offered to try to make themselves into better Educators and but you know you people are not all alike and not everybody is going to do that and the other thing is that is that you
know if you are measuring this program based only on student achievement well I mean you know students are not blueberries right I mean that that's that's a whole you know argument about
they're not widgets right and so you know and teachers are not the only input into whether students are going to achieve so you've got these two approaches these two philosophies on this whole thing and you know you're just trying to find that middle ground
you know that makes sense because you want to give the opportunity to to teachers to improve their instruction and you want that teacher retention so you want to support teachers so they want to remain in the profession so that's another measurement I think is is
who is staying especially those probationary teachers that they're going through that whole cycle and continuing to stay with our district because that helps um our students you know as to have that continuity
um and I I believe that every teacher wants to learn and grow I think there's a lot of Demands on teachers in order to do that and again um you know we're working to try to develop a process that provides them the support to take those
risks and try to get that growth and student achievement so but it it is asking good questions one of the interesting things that that you just mentioned is achievement there's and in my experience with Q comp there's nothing that
ties a teacher's goal to necessarily achievement it could be student growth so for example if kids come in at here and students goal or the teachers goal is I want my kids proficiency every
individual in my classroom to increase proficiency by you know 10% of wherever their Baseline is then that becomes a doable goal because oftentimes you get teachers who say Okay 60% of my kids are
reading at grade level and in the previous grade now I'm supposed to get measured on get them to 80% so I I think it's really um incumbent upon the The District administration working with the teachers to really identify okay what
are some reasonable proficiency or growth goals that we can achieve that aren't aren't just going to be yeah we're going to be at 80% when when and that's why you see I think a lot of places well they're not
going to reach 80% so we're going to reduce the amount of what we were going to um compensate them for for uh for their goal and so they put the money elsewhere so I think it's it's really important for the district to okay
identify all right is student growth going to be a a measure is student attend it's going to be a measure what are what are we going to take a look at that we can you know that we can at least have some influence on um knowing that there are a number of external
factors out there as well so that's just part of the um process to include some sort of survey with your students and how they're feeling in the classroom that's part of the teacher development evaluation process as well when you're
at that summi of can I throw it up sorry yeah both of you have a question so um hopefully I'm not stepping too far out of the fence here um the endgame is the students improving
right and that's measured a lot in their uh test scores Maybe by attendance parent feedback whatever and a lot of things that we've discussed over the days months years is these things that improve students you know bar the schedule changes the calendar changes
block scheduling curriculum review all with the same intent the end game the how do we know which one is having the actual effect that we're W that's a very good question I I'm not sure how to tease out all of those when you're looking at all those
different components yeah that is a but there's research that says teachers have a significant amount of influence probably more than more than all the things you just mentioned right um on student Improvement all right thanks but
to say if you know if you're a bar school and you set this goal and you had some other component happening which one made the biggest impact you know again we the teachers we know that their work is super valuable but then how do you
tease out those other components and what kind of a difference and impact it's making is tricky in education sure thanks okay thank you um all you guys are kind of bouncing ideas off that I I'm having as well um I think the the
big takeaway for me is I feel like we need a little bit more data um to kind of measure how this uh program is improving our our it sounds like our Workforce our teachers and their professional development um and maybe not so much on actual student
achievement tied directly to that seems like that's not the model that we're um we're going for which as a former teacher I can definitely value that um that amount of time and effort that goes into the teachers's
ability to improve themselves and how there aren't very many opportunities to get paid for all that extra work right and this is well the district provides all kinds of time for professional development they can always provide extra pay for that professional development so I like that this program
incentivizes working with um colleagues and improving and using data to kind of reflect on your own teaching um and providing a stipid um for that for that work so I do value that piece even if it isn't tied directly to student
achievement but I still feel like we need to measure something here um to figure out and I think Dr Funk was throwing out some ideas and um director kelzenberg too um of kind of what what we can kind of track to figure out how well this program is um
impacting our our Workforce yeah and again you know that retention data along with survey and you know more concrete pieces so I will take that back to the cuon committee so that they have they can think about that as
they go forward appreciate that thank you okay the 24 oops question yeah sorry no um I really appreciate what you all said uh because I agree I I think if we if we align um such learnings
professional development where teachers to students achievement who might be missing the mark there uh we're talking about a change process regardless of what the change is something that's positive for the student and sometimes it doesn't have to be test scores right right you know so I think we need to
reframe that and I think that was where the confusion is a lot of teachers do great things um like um my colleague here said what they have said it's not necessarily all of the teachers responsibility when it comes to student
achievements we parents are also a part of it um our community is a part of it you know so it's how we engage ourselves or involve ourselves in the process so changing the the idea of it being just student achievement will be great um in
some cases you see Behavior changes that's also a positive Improvement uh teacher my child's life uh might see uh confidence building a sense of self you know confidence and all that might be a change uh where a student actually that doesn't really talk much gets involved
in either speech debate or whatever that's a change these are some little positive things that might lead to something else so I think changing the narrative in terms of what the expectations are or what it's supposed to be in terms of goals will be I think maybe that's how we should approach that
and I just want to make sure you know when we look at the 5D rubric that we use for teacher evaluation you know student engagement is a piece that they could choose as a a component that they want to improve upon classroom
environment and those are all important pieces we learned that last year that you know out of the desired daily experiences everyone wants to feel safe and valued and that they have a voice and choice and all of those pieces are really important in order to get to the
learning so those are pieces that are devel veled within that process um especially like those learning labs and um even the teacher evaluation process when the principal is going in and observing they're looking for all those
components not just the achievement piece so um that that's a really good point okay 2425 Focus because we have um we have developed the centralized coaching model so we have six
districtwide coaches that will be working with all of our buildings we're excited about that model as far as what it's going to look like and it's still kind of evolving but what we do know is that all of our probationary staff will
still engage in a formal coaching cycle we feel that's really important um we still want to continue our data inquiry processes within the cat teams um um to for inform instructional decisions so teachers will
still participate in that um what we're trying to do if you heard me talking about in an Ideal World about that whole teacher development evaluation process we're looking at the state statute T1 and T2 tenure teachers will engage in
that learning lab or a formal coaching cycle they'll get to choose because you have to have some sort of peer observation or formal evaluation as uh part of State Statute but we're trying to limit what
our principles are doing in those formal observations to the probationary which is by law we have to do that three times a year and then our T3 teachers would have a formal observation and what we're
hoping to do with that is that we would definitely have those uh post observation meetings and really be able to provide that valuable feedback specific and actionable so that teachers feel that they can take that moving
forward and that our t one and T2 the tenur staff will engage in more of that learning lab from peers and the coaches in a less um formal process so um another thing that we're going to do is
our centralized coaches will push into our building in instructional leadership teams they're all assigned to um one of the schools as well as our teaching and learning staff so that everybody kind of has a person that can as we um meet with
coaches and teaching and learning staff that we can figure out what the teachers need to support their goals in their building and their teaching staff in those processes so that Focus will shift a little bit in um that not everyone
will go through a coaching cycle um and that we're um trying to hone in on that our t3s will get that formal evaluation process where the T1 and t2s will go through the learning lab and formal
coaching cycle to choose so that's that's where we're moving and I will definitely make sure that we um that they talk about some way to track you know that progress in different ways um not just test scores
and how that's helping them grow as Learners and how it's helping our students in different components of the 5D rubric any other questions other questions comments okay thank you yes appreciate
it thank you uh moving on with the agenda uh go to a strategic dire ction B fostering a safe welcoming and inclusive environment for all staff and students uh Chief of Staff Chris keer will be join us to discuss some new state legislation around uh cell phone policy and the
timeline and process that uh we'll have in place so chrisa thank you good evening members of the board superintendent Funk last month uh superintendent Funk presented some new legislation and some of the updates that our legislators put in place and one of those was a school cell phone policy
they didn't legislate what that policy should be just that we do need to have a policy in place we currently do not have a Schoolboard approved policy so this would be something that would be brand new to our district and because cell phones are quite a big deal right everybody's got their cell phone if we have uh students in our lives kids in
our lives we know that they are kind of connected to those cell phones it's a really important part of their life and so this is kind of a big conversation we want to have with our community what does that mean when we look at our policy moving forward should we allow cell phones when should they be allowed
um should we ban cell phones what does that look like there is a lot of conversation about this on a national level you've probably read newspaper articles about school districts who have banned them or if they they have different policies in place to um kind of dictate when they can be used and not used so our plan going to the next slide
is to have a conversation about this with our community um we want to make sure that we're hearing from our students themselves from families from our staff this is a big issue for staff um I think if you talk to our our staff and we've had some conversations already
they will tell you that cell phones can be a distraction to the school day definitely uh kids have become addicted and adults too it's not just kids we're all addicted to our cell phones so we don't always even know that we're on them I I've heard teachers talk about that where they they tell a kid to put a cell phone in their pocket they do and 5
seconds later it's in their hand again and it's almost like where did that come from they don't even know it's just a part of them so because this has such a an impact on our entire Community we want to get feedback from everyone um that has ideas and and wants to give us their thoughts so our plan is to go out
uh do a little bit of research see what other districts are doing how people are handling it what implementation might look like if we were to put some policies in place that would restrict the use of cell phones because it is such a a big issue how could we actually Implement that well um gather feedback
from our community have some surveys focus groups um online conversations to get people to share their ideas with us of what they think a policy would look like ultimately it's up to the policy committee working with Administration to come up with a draft policy and then like your usual process we would bring
that forward for a first reading allow the community to give some more input on what the actual policy looks like and our goal would be to try to approve something later this winter maybe in December with a possible implementation uh for some sometime in semester two the policy law that they put in
place is that we need to have something and adopted by March 15th of 2025 um so we could adopt a policy and then the implementation is still up in the air of when we want to actually put that into place but we do need to do this work in the fall and the winter so open to any
thoughts or ideas you have but this is what we're proposing is kind of a community engagement timeline to get feedback from our community sure um you know with a lot of our policy discussions and whatnot I tend to ask what are our neighboring schools doing the thing is they're all
probably having the same discussion right now too having to come up with policies and I think some of them do have policies already so I would suggest going further out you know other schools in the nation yes that have had policies and that have shown success or failure
and any feedback from that and that's really the first stage is that research stage so for the the summer the next couple of months we're starting to do that work of looking to see what are some good practices others have adopted what are some policies that are out there that we could look at um so that's already kind of happening I think
there's there's research out there about um kind of the the pros and cons around cell phones right like we know that there's a mental health issue um that we're seeing because of cell phone use our schools are telling us that there's behavior issues that are happening just because kids are connecting and
sometimes not for the best reasons and they're planning things and they're leaving class and and it's kind of creating some discipline behavior issues too so there's definitely some negatives to cell phone use but there's positives as well right I mean we have kids who use um medical devices that are on their
phone they can track their blood sugar I mean there's there's real reasons why kids need to have cell phones so that's why we want to engage with our communities is to really understand what it means here in still at schools concern about implementing a stringent cell phone
policy it's only as effective as the weakest link so you know I Know A District near us that has just said already okay boom start August
of or September this year we are going to ban cell phones well okay that's an edict coming down from on high but again it's only as strong as the weakest link so teachers get pressured
and then suddenly this teacher lets it happen so and so lets it happen and then you got a problem so the approach we're taking here is we want this to be a wider Community discussion and we want to hear the the impacts as as Carissa
was stating about cell phones but at the end of the day we'll have significant Community input and the board will make a decision on whatever that looks like and then we will turn to our staff and say the
community and the Schoolboard have spoken here's where we're at and so really it's putting more of a not just okay the superintendent said so but okay okay this is a robust discussion that if we want to start to limit cell phones
this is good for kids and this is why and this is why you need to to to enforce it so whether that's completely successful or not well that remains to be seen but that's kind of the methodology behind having a bigger um longer discussion on
this um I seem to recall that when this is going through the legislature um another corollary to that was that they were calling on secondary principles to come up with best practices um do you know what their timeline is because this
is kind of a quick timeline here so is that even gonna be a factor in our decision making it could be um you know and it it could this is just again this is a concept at this point um I would imagine
they will have something out this fall because I mean this school board's deadlines are going to be you know March and so they're going to want to have some time to discuss okay what this could look like um I can certainly ask that question of other districts and
find out where where they're at on it but I would imagine there should be a working group that would be starting off fairly quickly here like in the next month or two now yeah um so I think there's some hopefully we'll get some best practices out of that but I think the Nationwide discussion on
what other districts are doing um nationally are I think that are probably ahead of Minnesota is just as valuable thought on this um first of all thank you for giving us this timeline this is helpful to kind of see the big picture um and it from what it sounds
like we are trying to take more of a holistic view um so it's not just a policy that the school board would pass and then everybody has to follow it sounds like we're trying to do kind of a Grassroots um attempt at understanding what the values are what the the needs
of our teachers and staff and our students and our families and our community expectations so I appreciate kind of that big picture view um and I appreciate also it sounds like you're going to be collecting some practical tips along the way of the implementation piece kind of the procedural piece um so
we'll pass the policy but then there will have to be a whole plan for how this is going to roll out um and I hope that that can be very much part of the plan so that whatever policy we create actually can be implemented de so we don't have those weakest links and so
that it that there is that buy in um so that we can create um hopefully something that feels very inclusive um and is useful in our schools um so I think you guys are on a great track in plan that's why the conversation needs to happen early on so we can understand
what are the challenges we might run into what are the concerns or or questions that people have so that as we're developing a plan for whatever the policy is we know how to best implement it great thanks thank you other questions otherwise yeah no thank you for your work on this and uh one
thing I would I would love to see is I think we've done a really great job around some of these other big discussion points of uh school start times and um the calendar and and having those websites and those resources and bringing in Dr melter for the sleep study I love that approach that we've taken in the past I would love to see if
we can replicate that in terms of having a um kind of a source of truth of information that we can direct people to so good thank you for that feedback I'm glad that that has worked well um we do have a lot of good examples of things that we've done in the past and I think there's even some things that we can improve bu um based on what we've
learned from the last couple of years great thank you great great all right U moving on to uh strategic Direction C utilize systems and align resources in an efficient manner to support learning uh joining us
will be Mark drummer Housen director director of operations uh to provide a report on the district's long-term facility maintenance 10year plan so mark thank you for Jo good evening um there's kind of two parts to this um presentation the first one is the 10year plan and then is also be the projects
for fiscal year 26 or the projects that'll be happening next summer summer of 2025 um as we put the the 10-year plan together um it's always a balance of Trying to minimize taxpayer dollars but also try to keep our fil facilities up to date and and keep them as as modern
as we can so as we go through this we're really trying to balance the taxpayers as well as our facility needs um in each of these areas this 10-year plan is a fluid document So today we're just here just talking about all the projects we'll be coming back at the next meeting um looking to take action on their
10-year plan when we take action on the 10-year plan we're really just taking action on that first year of the 10-year plan because as things shift and move um that number of projects in each building can look different from year to year for instance if you look back to last year's
um before a referendum passed we had projects for Lake Elmo and for Anderson listed um now as you look at our 10-year plan we don't have projects for those facilities because we have replacement buildings for both Anderson at Lake Elmo moving forward so it's a continual fluid moving document from year to year is our
10 year plan when you look at the 10-year plan also um you'll notice that it's colorcoded and so just to kind of give you an idea of some of the bigger ticket items by schools um you know if there's a couple million dollars spent there just to give an idea of what it is
it's not that specific dollar um amount for that so for instance if it's um an orange color means it's mechanical whether it's boilers or something mechanical that's being replaced um if it's uh yellow it's a roof and some buildings it's a bigger amount because
the whole roof's replaced at once some of the larger square footage size buildings the roof is being repaired um in Cycles so it's kind of a third one year a third the next and so forth so just to give you an idea the color coding of what those bigger ticket items are um in that 10e plan moving forward
so I'm going to stop here at the 10-year plan and kind of ask questions the next part of it I'm going to get into next year so the FY 26 and it's kind of the individual projects by building and answer questions from the individual project standpoint so any questions on the 10-year Plan before we really dive
into the FY 26 plan so anyways we can always move back to that if you need now moving into what's up on the screen and what you have in your packet is kind of this the summary list list um I'm not going to go through them one by one building by building but you will notice there are projects at each of our building except
for like I mentioned before Anderson um and Lake Elmo these projects are put together in collaboration with the many different groups of individuals so um it's our District staff in collaboration with our building principles in collaboration with our head engineers at each of our buildings with wal our
construction team excuse me our architect team and K Anderson our construction team to kind of see what the needs are and what's most urgent from year to year so just some of the highlights um the total for all the projects is 10, 64370 just a few sample of just kind of
the highlights of some of the things that are happening as we're continuing the um classroom remodel at Lily Lake um so we started the last couple years just kind of working our way around the building there's eight classrooms that are kind of getting a refresh and refresh means ceiling lights carpet
casework sinks um piping etc those sorts of things that l lake at Oakland Middle School um there's a boiler and this is intentional so as we go into um next summer now we'll start to do with the bond project start to do some of the addition at Oakland as well as some of
the remodel and so as we're doing some of the remodeling and we're opening up some of the ceilings and doing some of the work there it's intentionally that where replace the boilers at that times to kind of um be efficiency with our costs um as well as replacing the um pool ventilation unit in the Oakland
swimming pool um Rutherford as a rooftop in the gym area there's there's uh different areas but the rooftop gym at Rutherford at the high school our track this one that kind of got moved up a little bit with just some of things that happened this spring with our surface at the track we had to move that up a couple years that needs to be placed
sooner than than we anticipated so we're resurfacing the track at the high school um and then replacing the Press Box and sound system in Pony Stadium as well at the high school as well as replacing the ceiling and lights uh in the cafeteria and then you'll notice quite a bit of parking lot work seal coating at Aton
Brookview The Early Childhood Center Rutherford Stillwater Middle School and the high school so that's just a sampling uh open up to questions specifically about any building or any projects that you may have but want to give you just a quick overview of kind of the process of the 10year plan but then also more specifically we're
looking at that FY 26 or next summer projects really in detail right now and then next week when we or next meeting we come back for Action so with that I'll open it up yes okay here's kind of a silly little question but kind of jumped out at me replace chalkboards at
Lily Lake are we replacing them with chalkboards or we replacing them with whiteboards they will be whiteboards but we do H nope so it can't be technology so it's so we do have chalkboards that we replac with whiteboards we can't replace it with a technology but it will replace with whiteboards um that way yes
we do have chalk boards chalk boards correct yes okay how many other chalkboards do we have in our there's a smattering around I mean this is a s this is a silly example um when the high school was built in the early 1990s the teachers who it wasn't uniformed in terms of were putting whiteboards and
everything it was really the teacher that was there had a choice of do they want a chalkboard or do they want a whiteboard so there is still a smattering around so as we do some of the classroom refreshes that we are replacing chalkboards with whiteboards so we have to buy erasers then
too I'm not sure how much they're used but they are there some of them are covered up you know with bulletin boards and those sorts of things but they are still on the walls so uh this is just a a reminder okay so we have a sign out here that says Elementary School MH so probably
want to since this is Oak Park Learning Center we can I know if we can get that done this summer if if you look at Oak Park it says exterior um replace the building signage part of that is to to replace this here with Oak Park Learning Center so that is in the plan right here and and then uh Aton Leland
sign um we are working on that okay yep it's on our list we have not forgot about it that is on the list okay just REM we're talking summer work so I thought I'd ask yep we got it other questions right thank you and then
um so and then U 916 yeah yeah Mark you want Mar quick with the 916 yeah so um you just want to run through that but uh there's a need to so I'll be quick sorry about that um
I forgot I had two items so the second one is a similar process that we go with our district we do have a collaborative of 916 that goes to the same process as well so there's 13 member districts um with 916 and as they go through their process they kind of the costs get deferred to
the 133 different District so their total from a 9116 standpoint is $467,900 our portion is 10% of that so for us we will pay $ 46,5 44 2916 that dollar amount will
show up when we come the next meeting with our 10-year plan with our expenditures and revenue our pass through of the 46,000 that goes to 916 will appear on our um mde application for that amount for 916 so each of the 13 member districts have to approve it
at a board meeting go through the resolution and then once all 13 members approved then 916 can move forward with their ltfm projects for FY 26 you said we're 10% but there's 13 districts is that just because we're a larger user or larger no um Marie's a
lot smarter than I am and putting it this but there's there's two components in doing this um half the rate So based the it's a percentage base so half of the rate is based on the net tax capacity of the district and the other half is a ratio of ADM utilization so
it's not a straight you know that we have 10% of the population so we pay 10% there's a more complex formula to derive who pays what percentage all right thanks other questions otherwise this uh there a need
for a resolution to approve the Northeast Metro 16 long-term facility maintenance budget I will make a motion to approve second all right Dr Hawker with a second and then uh this a resolution Joan roll call
please Dr Haw yes Dr Kellenberg yes director lower yes director Petri yes P Benny yander yes resolution passes thank you Mike all right next up is uh Director of
Finance Marie Shu provide an update on the fiscal year 2425 preliminary budget so Mar thank you for being here thank you good evening board members superintendent um this evening uh will
be the um fiscal year 25 um the second to the last um budget update for this year um I was just listening to mark and um just thinking wow he's already doing fiscal year 26 so I'm behind a little
bit um so with that um I will um just kind of highlight a few things here um our priority based budgeting framework again uh we're focusing on um
putting together um our resources and aligning that to literacy uh School culture equity and inclusion and also social emotional learning and mental health those are our three uh strategic plan priorities for uh this upcoming
school year uh again uh looking at those projections for our current year um and also being mindful of those expenditures and that fund balance um that's currently still um at that projection of 1.1% um with the
unassigned uh though the enrollment again impacts has a large impact on our Revenue um and then also be mindful of that class siiz building capacity which in a couple years uh we'll be able to uh expand that and um contractual
settlements um again this budget does account for a lot of contractual settlements that um have occurred over the past couple months and uh legislative adjustments um as we continue to see those um one that came
out of uh the recent legislation again re act as we continue to hear about that um will update our budget accordingly and then Bond ratings again um they do have an impact on the budget um an
indirect impact um as we know uh with interest if um our financial picture uh waivers and then funding that's one time only and um that's one piece that impacted us with the uh federal
dollars so with that just highlighting our unassigned fund balance history again um as we close um our fiscal year 24 in the next um couple of months we'll give you updates accordingly um right
now we're looking to be stable um but we are closing um the fiscal year um in a positive um which which is always good but um we'll continue to update the board on what those results look like
and of course we'll give you um some additional Financial results over the summer um again where we sit today with our priority based budgeting um we will have a budget publication or what we call the preliminary budget book um that
we hope to um get to the board and the community um either Friday or Monday for publication so that has a lot more detail than the presentations you've been seeing um with a lot of the uh
different activity and the different um Investments um Maria are you talking about this Friday yes okay yes all right good we've been um trying to get that put together with some of the changes and additions that we've um been adding
with different contract settlements things like that just making sure it's updated most up to date for you and then uh again this just highlights the Strategic um initiatives um for next
year and then just bringing us back to um our process with priority based budgeting um again taking that step back on our four different um methods the expand
um just highlighting bar Amigos unidos literacy and also what we um just some of the areas uh keeping the contingency Staffing in the budget um social emotional support Pathways these again
highlighting just some of the areas this is not all inclusive um fixing replacing um the instructional coaching model um as Dawn had mentioned um we did eliminate some
FTE there um some were funded with the um federal covid funds uh achievement and integration and data analysis um those ways uh the models there um just
changing um the way the service and um different um ways of uh providing that service for the district and then Esser and ARP positions um there were um couple student engagement Specialists
and um another position that went to another source of grant funding uh additional Staffing there were Middle School model positions and some additional FTE that were added with enrollment which again uh
resets um during our fiscal year process uh we also did with additional Staffing we did add a MLL teacher multilingual Learners uh teacher for next year um to support the uh growth in
students and um with our transportation services we did have a reduction in our route services so that was a reduction so that total um reduction realignment you see there is just shy of 1.8 million
of reductions and reallocations um overall in the priority based budgeting process uh that we went through this year and then just to highlight big picture um as you look at our uh revised
budget to our preliminary budget uh we are just shy of um 150 million on our Revenue side and then our expenditures um are 150.2 Mill ion that balance there
is we are using some of our operating Capital dollars uh we are investing in some of um we have some plan capital projects and we are also investing in a wireless network project that we have to
um we allocate the funds up front it's um eligible for some eate funding but it's um on the back end we get reimbursed but um we will be doing a wireless network project um over the
next year so what you'll see there is a uh proposed uh balanced budget um and I'll just highlight some of the different areas and um Clause if there are any questions after each slide so first and foremost is the
general fund um Revenue again the first line is uh property tax uh the ly uh that was last December uh when that was approved by the board uh the larger increases there of the 4.8 million again
highlighting that technology Levy that was um just over a million dollar increase and then the other larger area would be our referendum that um as your enrollment um and the inflation with the
uh referendum there are larger increases um that um continue uh with that um that Levy so those are um just some of the things that contribute to um the property taxes State AIDS um that's the
uh per puple funding formula that changed from 7,138 to 7,281 uh with our legislative session last year uh that's the larger um component that's about 1.3 million of
that 1.7 million doll increase um and then we also saw a slight increase in our special ed um component of our revenue and then the third area up there
is our federal uh grants and title programs again we will be utilizing some more of our federal specialed um uh entitlement uh about 863 th000 and then our federal um on a
separate line the covid funds um those are going away um they expire in September we are uh utilizing the rest and spending that down through June and then other this is just our
miscellaneous uh Revenue um gifts and those stay pretty stable um throughout the year so with that um just about $6.6 million um overall increase from our
revised budget um earlier this spring and then on the expenditure side um you'll see this is by category um and I'll just kind of run through some of these uh the administration is um more of the um
areas that uh support um the uh programs uh so that is just shy of 100,000 District support services so that would be um for example
HR Finance um any of the programs that um are are supporting districtwide um about 800,000 and that's not only salary but all of the uh uh
other areas that go with that so the next couple um the regular vocational and special education instruction that is all of your support for students out in the buildings um that's your
instructional side that includes um uh MLL multilingual Learners that is all your instructional that includes salary materials so that's um just shy of about 3.4 3.5
million that is the increase um majority of that as we look at the next side is going to be in salary um and that that will you'll see that theme throughout the the presentation in a lot of these different
programs structional Support Services um that is going to be more of your teaching and learning um area you'll see that that there was a decrease there that's because um of the coaches um more
of the uh area that was a priority based budgeting uh area that was uh a reduction people support services um that is more of your uh social worker counseling area uh you'll see a slight
increase there and then transportation um we had not only inflation in the transportation but we also had a reduction in our routes so that almost netted um even um but the transportation
inflation there um was pretty significant um so again we had just about an even budget there sites and buildings um this is where your operations your fixed costs your utilities
um all of the uh items that Mark just presented with your long-term facility maintenance um about $1.1 million uh increase that's um where that fund balance is being utilized and then fiscal and fixed costs
um will be coming to you at the end of June with our insurance and that's a renewal and so there was um an increase in our insurance overall for the district so um again just highlighting it that way um
you can see some of the overall changes um about $5.8 million and again we're we're not even with the revenue because we're starting at a higher point with our revised budget um we use some of our
fund balance when we revised our budget um earlier the spring for some projects so just showing you that or pointing that out because Revenue and expenditures um do not equal and that was mindful because we're using some of
our fund balance with our Capital your Capital fund balance correct correct I have a question so um I was looking at the percentages on each of these line items and they're all pretty consistent within like 2.5% to 5% which is pretty
much what we can expect from um inflation these days but there were two outliers um one was fiscal and another costs and you just explained that insurance um which is just kind of insane out there these days but the other one was
99.4% on District Support Services can you explain a little bit more why that was an increase and also my other question is are we going to get detail on that line item when the book comes out you will get line by line detail okay yes yes it'll be in the back of the
budget book okay do you do you have any thoughts on why that one went up almost 10% the district Support Services um does support the overall um the opb's in
there the insurance lines um some more of our uh tuition billing is in there along with some of the levies that we support for um the um the 9116 Northeast Metro
so it could be some of those areas that I know had cost increases overall so I can certainly provide that detail to you um in advance so that you okay that you have that PSO went up
significantly yes yes that was the cost that for our students who are are going toer um so that that was significant increase that um the tuition that we saw so that's I don't that's the line that
comes on that line item it's like a tuition out category okay but I can certainly provide that detail to you thank
you and then as um you look at the um another way of looking at this is salaries benefits purchase Services um Supply materials and um other you'll see that salaries are um the
major component of uh the increases in the budget um looking at that last column about 3.5 million over um this current fiscal year with Benefits being about a half million and uh due to the
plan change there were um just just about a half million dollars of um that projected increase uh purchase Services again um the larger components there will be those capital
projects um and the ltfm and uh the supply materials and other that's where insurance is the major component there along with the uh tuition rates was the other piece or the career in Tech um
PSO um postsecondary enrollment options those were the the areas we're seeing significant um increase of students um enrolling at those uh the college opportunities which is um does have a
cost to it for the district um um but a benefit for students so those were just some areas that we notic overall Mar um forgive me if this is a um question but how does that work with PSO
how does that become an expenditure in the tuition piece um are we paying to the universities does that come out of our per pupil units uh like how how does that work just in a short summary high level there's a contract that um the
district has with different colleges and um we pay a very reduced rate for the students um there's there's different um we pay a reduced rate per credit for students to um enroll one for example a
Century College we also have college in the schools where there's actual teachers that teach in um the high school and students can gain credit that way where there isn't um a cost um but
there there are options where students do enroll in for example Century or um other colleges where we pay um per credit but it's very reduced who gets to count the student um well it's a joint effort we
confirm the student enrollment um with where does the state where does the state aid flow the state aid flows um to the district right so the state aid flows to the district so we get to count the student but then we pay tuition correct for the student to
attend so if more kids are going which happened this year and this is why our budget is going up is we are now paying we're writing a check basically for our students to go to college somewhere else or go to college and not um be in school
okay so the district is paying for the credits that the students are earning at a reduced rate but but we are paying but we get we get to keep the state aid um so that's the that's the good thing about it but then we're we're paying it
so one of things that really Marie and Mark Marie and both of them uncovered this year is okay if we're seeing a significant increase in our numbers going out then that should impact our staffing
allocations at the high school because if we have say we have 200 more kids going postsecondary well then we have 200 less kids at the school we have to sta for so we're starting to catch up with that say okay when we're we're
making you know budget adjustments and plans for the future um that's how we can mitigate some of the cost impact by by reducing staff do we have any idea why this year we had such a increase was there a I don't know greater effort to
recruit kids to go to PSO or I'm not sure but um I think one of the things we're looking at with the different schedules we've been looking at is okay we can now provide some maybe more unique opportunities here that they wouldn't necessarily have to go
someplace else for um so but I don't have a quick answer for you on that okay thank you can I ask a quick question absolutely I know we also teach some college classes here is there another way do we how do we pay for those so
there that's a that's even a cheaper route to go so basically we have an agreement with the universities that our teachers are certified or Li by the colleges um because of their level of
Education to to uh teach a college in the schools course kids stay here um I think that's even a reduced rate because it's our teachers doing it um but that's another opportunity for our kids to stay here in in our building and uh in ear
credit and so one of the mentions in in secondary schools these days is um do we continue to add more College in the schools courses do we continue to go down the AP route as far as advanced placement which um you know AP CL AP
credits are much more Universal um most colleges take them College in the schools credits they they're taken in accepted in Minnesota maybe sumon Wisconsin but they're not Universal um so that's part of the
discuss discussions that are going on and then last uh slide that I have here is a projection of all of the funds and um just putting together that big picture um what you'll see here is just
a projection of um our July 1 uh fund balance and again just highlighting uh the general fund um overall I just put some information down um on the bottom of this slide um because the fund balance is more lumped
together as a total when the Auditors report it and um you'll see the the categories um as of uh July 1 um just putting that projection together and incorporating that that um fund balance
that we use this year for the capital projects um 9.5 million overall um but if you pull off those first four categories they um they report on gby governmental Accounting
Standards Board um the nonspendable is more your inventory um fund balance um restricted is where that operating capital or your ALC fund balances um assigned are for categories
um that we have as uh say District initiatives and committed is usually where your Severance Falls I think we have Severance in our assigned um but those are more um things that are are set aside and that that's projected at
7.9 million where our unassigned is or board policy um is um staying stable at that 1.6 million or 1.1% um so we're going into our next
year budget at that 9.5 million and as you can see that Top Line as you walk it across um our Revenue uh less expenditures and the the use of that fund balance is coming off of that 7.9
or that restricted fund balance our intent is not to use unassigned um it's it's using some of that operating capital or restricted uh dollars not our unassigned um for that
1.1% and so it it does look like um our fund balance is decreasing but it's a mindful or or planned um spend of some of our Capital dollars um that we've had over time um for some of those capital
projects so just a couple points of clarification so you mentioned we were going to take some Capital dollars for wireless okay so then the wireless a a portion of that a I don't know what if it's 40% what what
the percentage is is reimbursable through the federal government so that will flow right back into Capital so that that basically protects the tech Levy and we allow it to be utilized for other other pieces all right cor the
other the other piece here is you know you're looking at a $1.6 million fund balance as of you know this coming July as we're closing the books out um so I'm not asking you to be a prognosticator
here but I'm asking you to be a prognosticator so when uh when the auditor comes back in November and says okay we've closed the books here's where things are going to be you are you very confident that we will
be at that 1% as a fund balance I'm I'm being conservative because that's my Approach I think will be a little higher but I'm I'm being conservative because I haven't seen the
last six payrolls hit with all of our um different right but that's why I'm asking but the board can feel Comfort I like to tell the board that in a cons conservative way or very cautious way that will be at the 1.1 but I'm I'm
planning that will be a little higher so what I want the board to hear because is that we are at rock bottom and you don't see us going any lower with that unassigned and you know in a in a
cautious manner you have you're hopefully optimistic that we will see a slight increase to that as we close out the books correct you just passed a test there you go I like passing tests
question uh what will be the biggest impact or influence on these numbers that that might change them or tweak them along the way let me just guess you know new housing and whatever um if there's any I'll just say
if there's any surprises or residual um invoices from the past I'll just say if there's anything that yeah we've had a number of surprises over the past uh 18
months that we on plan for um as we're identifying things that have occurred prior to our coming here and so with that caveat I think uh you know I think we be are becoming more and more
confident moving forward that we've uncovered most of everything um so um but I to your point what my my biggest uh impact on the on this is our
student enrollment okay okay so if our enrollment continues to Trend um at projection um will be in in decent shape uh but that's uh that's the biggest thing that's hanging out there
um so T tied directly to sure okay and then how about the from the state I mean are there still some some legislative yeah things hanging out there you know I think one of them and and Chris and I
were just talking about this I think earlier this week or late last week you know we have this new um it's not safe in six time but it's it's the other one it's the what is itl where the
family medical leave can can take place so you get 20 they can get 20 weeks so there's a I think it's Point what is it 08 or used to be 7even something percent now it's 088 and you know when they talked about
at the legislature they said well this going to be split between the employee and the district and so my impression was employees were going to have to pay 044 as a payroll tax the District would have to pay 044 now come to find out
nope you need to negotiate that so now that is a going to be a piece of negotiations that uh um was not necessarily planned for um and that we have another year till that comes into effect but that's just another um the
other one is We are continuing to see significant spikes in summer unemployment for hourly people it is now come the word is out okay you can do this and so there's a cost to that that we really haven't fully realized yet and
tied to that is the state's allocation for that summer unemployment I think it was only $27 million or something it wasn't very much I think that's going to run out very soon if it hasn't already so then the districts will be totally holding the bag completely on
that one one other one I'd like to add um to the superintendent on the legislature is the redact um there is about $300,000 um of funding um it's not included in this um proposed budget
because um we're still waiting to hear how um they are going to apply all that information so that'll be part of our revised budget when we go forward so as we get additional information um we'll build that um into
our Revis so there is a piece from the legislature um there that was actually my question because I was wondering how that was going to get baked into this coming year because and again thank you because you
know I mean this wasn't a funding year but it's you know they don't finish until the third week May and then you have to just go like a hamster in a wheel trying to figure out what our budget is going to be like for the coming year and so thank you for doing that but I was just curious about what
you were going to bake in for um for the react for the coming budget there two components to it and you might have already might already have one of them in there but one of them used to be the literacy aid for third grade so now they're saying that is now part of the
read act and then the other piece of the read Act is what they're going to give us um for professional development and then you're going to have to make an agreement with your your bargaining units on how you're going to compensate your teachers for professional
development and that money will be utilized to do that so I don't think you're gonna I don't think in in a general sense we're GNA see an additional a lot of good Revenue coming out of it because I think it's going to be tied up
to M us and and the other piece of the react is money we already received through lit a they're just re renaming itre just to um highlight just the other funds uh Food Service um from last year
um just over the current year we have um they're seen an overall increase about 600,000 um in state aid um that again um is being offset um significantly by
salary increase um community service again um they're seeing an increase of about 500,000 on the revenue side and um a lot of that again is um mostly salary and benefits um on their expenditure
side building construction just highlighting there you will start to see uh the fund balance of uh the bond issue that we sold earlier this year so when you see that negative 36,000 uh change in fund balance don't worry
that is the bond money that uh we are now using um we had a meeting with our um Financial um investment advisor um or financial um one of them our adviser and
we'll again um start to determine when we're going to issue the second half of those um bonds um and then again Debt Service again has your escrow activity and the bond schedule payments so again those are just paying off that those
Bond uh schedules and then the custodi custodial account is more um for those um uh the flow through of the student um scholarship funds so again uh
we just hold the funds on behalf of the student um activities so again with that um you'll see that uh the district's budget um is now 29.9 million so we have gone over into
the 200 million Mark um this fiscal year and that um brings us to um the timeline um on the 25th um I'll be putting together a brief presentation um
for the board to approve um within the next uh few days you will receive the um again the budget book uh no later than Monday is our goal to get that to you we want to make sure
that you have that at least a week to review um the information with that that concludes tonight's update other questions or comments so what we'll be approving next
meeting is pretty much what we heard right now just there shouldn't be any significant changes you mentioned the budget book that'll be coming up soon yes Monday the latest no later than Monday this coming
Monday great other questions I have a quick question yeah um kind of going back several slides um um the only thing in the reductions category that I think might impact directly families would be that Transportation reduction do we have
any idea when decisions are going to be made um for that impact on families the we want to we want to identify the individuals that are going to be impacted before we blast out an announcement saying okay
people are going to be impacted because then they're going to start okay is it me is it me is at me um so I would say within a month we should have U an answer on okay routing uh it's part
primarily at the secondary level okay so sometime this summer yep so people have plent there some gate families asking questions that um we'll have we'll try try to roll all that out at once okay great thank you yeah thank you m appreciate
it all right up next is uh Christine carlston Executive Director of Human Resources who will review the terms of the principal Master agreement so Chris thank you for joining us good evening board members superintendent
um yeah we are very pleased to have reached a settlement with our um with our principal group um so this is the highlights um you've kind of seen this before but um we did settle at um 4% in year one and that's for half the year um
similar to the teachers um so they'll have retropay on half of their days worked and then four and a half percent in year two um steps in both years um the same medical insurance changes that we made with the other groups apply to
uh this group um principles already had longevity in their agreement and so um we did inre increas that from 500 to 1,000 at 5 years and from a th000 to 2,000 in 10 years um increase 403b uh percentage contribution with a cap of
550 um both of those are um slight adjustments up um and then we added the elementary AP position um to be aligned with the Middle School AP position so they're in the same Lane so now we have actually a defined spot for
that um so when I looked at the comparators for this group um there were about seven in the area and um I took a high and low average because with the principal group we are lagging a little bit behind um the group so when I looked at the high and low average and where we
landed now we are very much aligned with that high and low average we're a little bit lagging still on the low end but we're right in there on the high end any questions is comparator a word is comparator a word I think
soor I'm just curious who are our comparators I mean not all like the ones that we compared ourselves with mountains view 622 South wash white bear Forest Lake Centennial and
Roseville okay the nearby schools yeah oh and how many AP ele APS do we have one it's a split position between Brookview and Lake Elmo okay other questions
for otherwise this does um require board action so is there a motion to approve the uh principal Master contract Dr Penny uh second all right director low all those in favor of approving the principal Master agreement
raise your hand say I hi hi I opposed all right motion pass thank you for your work thank you next up is our regular attendee uh Paul Le uh executive director of student support services and
uh sounds like first up I was first reading of uh several policies exactly uh good evening uh board members and superintendent uh yes so tonight we have we have five policies that we're bringing for a first reading um to share with you um we can W
we'll kind of look at each one um briefly and then um then these will be brought back for a second reading um at probably at the next board meeting uh for consideration at that time and uh input between uh those readings are
welcome um from um anyone and the public um so the first the first policy is um um this is a revised policy it's a policy that we do have currently on the books but there is a revision uh to it and that's a recommendation from msba it
is a mandatory POS policy one that we we uh need to have as a district uh the title is search of student lockers desks personal possessions and students person the change is found um in our current
policy in item or section three and in the recommendation um as you can see there um that section three is going to be deleted um from the policy um and crossed off and that's the that's the
only change with the policy and this section um directly addresses can9 detection um and that's a process in which you could bring in a canine and they sometimes call it can9 sniff um to randomly walk about the building or the
parking lot um smelling for anything um that's not allowed within the school um we did have this reviewed by our secondary principal group and our SRO uh colleagues that that work within our school and they recommended that this be
taken out of the policy um I believe the reason why msba is kind of recommending that this be removed and they don't include it in their model policy is that kind of under the Fourth Amendment there's there's been some different legal challenges it is allowed
technically but it does kind of put the district at a kind of undue risk and it's not something that we do currently in the district so it seems um like the appropriate thing just to remove it from our policy so that's the only change uh
with that as a first reading you have any questions with that we can move on and um certainly answer questions at any time so the second uh policy this this is a a brand new policy the title is school resource officers
policy 507.00 um and then some training that's required and and you probably recall back um in the past legislative session there was um some legislation and statute around sro's in the buildings um
and I know that the I'm not an expert in this and Dr Funk probably knows more than I do but the the community of the police forces and sro's came together with the legislature and they they found kind of a ground to make it safe for the police officers to be in the buildings
and they have their personal protections um as it outlines in this training so um this is a I think a very positive policy for us to consider adopting into our district um it was reviewed uh by Mark drummer Housen and with looking at our
current contracts with SRO and it's certainly consistent with those so it wouldn't require any major changes so we can move on to uh policy 51 four and bullying prohibition policy um this is again a policy that we do
have on the books it's a mandatory POS policy there were some uh kind of minor revisions added um in 2024 um and and they're recommended by msba um where they exist is um in
section s under training training and education um there's some minor language changes that and they state for that consistent with its appical policies and practices the school district must it it used to say shall must discuss this
policy with students the students is added it used to just be school personnel and volunteers but now it needs to be discussed um the posy with students um for and for um and provided the
appropriate training for all school um District Personnel to prevent identity identify and respond okay to prevent identify and respond to prohibited conduct of the policy and then it states that we must it used to say shall we
must establish a training cycle for school Personnel um that is on a three-year cycle so it just clarifies um some of the wording about shall to must and it and it emphasizes making sure students understand um the policies and the
protections that are within the policies for them the second component that that has some minor changes in wording is in uh Section 8 and that's on the notice um basically it adds language that um that we would need to uh post a summary that
the policy and summary form within our administrative offices and school district offices um and then it clarifies um that they we also need to distribute the policy to our staff and independent contractors and they clarify
contractors to regulated interact with students so again just getting a little more specific a little more specified on a couple of those components for that uh that policy which is a fairly robust policy if you if you read through it and it's something that we um have lots of
procedures around regarding bullying in our schools the next one is uh policy 530 immunization requirements uh this does contain some of legal requirements that we want to make sure we're in compli
with um we don't have a policy on our books for this um we have many procedures it's in our uh Health Services handbook and things like that but this puts it into um into policy for us um and so it's uh it just kind of
lays out what the requirements are for students to have immunizations within the district consistent with what is in statute um and so that is something you could take a look at and consider there again was reviews by by our health supervisor um feels that uh would be
recommends that this is a policy that we consider putting adding to our policies uh the final for the first reading is policy 535 service animals in schools this is a
this would be a new policy for us we don't currently have this policy uh in our books um this one originated in 2019 um in this policy and I think we're recommending that it be adopted um it it
kind of in the general statement of the policy states that individuals with disabilities shall be permitted to bring their service animal into school buildings or on school grounds in accordance with the subject to end of this policy um we do allow service
animals uh in our buildings I that oftentimes comes across my desk um I don't we had one last year I'm not sure that we had one this year I know we're going to have one next year um as a service animal but that that the policy is really nice for that purpose it does
fit with what we've provided for families when they're asking or requesting that their child uh bring a service animal so it's very consistent with that um it defines what a service animal is um which which is service animal is a dog regardless of the breed
or size or a miniature horse I always like to mention that just because I think it's kind of kind of fun fun that you can have a miniature horse um we haven't had that but um so it lays out what what what does constitute a service animal um and and what defines that and
the criteria in which um in which that's permitted and it's pretty clear it's you know one is that the service animal is required based on a disability that the person is presented with and that they work they they perform work or a task for that person so it's very different
than a um like a therapy dog or a comfort animal that you might see on an airplane um this is different it's it's a technical service animal so um again I think it's a a good a good policy to have there's a
little bit you you might want to be interested in a little bit on some liability you know that the um the owner is responsible for any harm or injury that could happen or property damage so there's a little bit of that language in there too just to clarify that for for those of
families so that concludes the first reading the committee has reviewed these as well um and so um so these will be brought back but if there's any general questions about those yeah you maybe you answered this one so the service animal who determines
that uh and I I was thinking like the emotional support animals that people on airlines complain about all the time that's not going to happen in school right right we don't allow that right in in the schools um so it's determined it's determined by the school uh there
is kind of case law and statute that says we will look at it very broadly so I think in under OCR or anti-discrimination law they want us to be more inclusive than exclusive um I'll put just put it that way um with that um
but there isn't like a requirement and it's true under OCR like to have any kind of formal certification um but you do have to show that the individual has a disability and that there is a work or task that the animal performs for that person and
would we be subject to Legal challenges like if you say no then it comes back at you hey you were not fair and you're sure I yeah I think I you could be um and I know when we we did have one case that was a little bit we weren't quite sure and we consulted with our attorney
on it um and we did end up you know having the dog um come um and again it was very successful for that for that student um so again I think it's this provides more
prescriptive criteria for us which makes it easier for us okay to defend ourselves if somebody challenges us yeah yeah I would agree then my other question was back a few pages um the searches uh do cell phone where does
cell phones come into that you know if there's a battle going on between some kids in school be allowed to search their phones for bullying Behavior or anything else we can ask somebody to open their cell phone if they don't do it um and we
suspect that there's something um on that phone um we have reasonable cause and if they say no we can then turn it over to the police because if they're telling us no then it becomes okay probable and then the police can get
involved and and then it becomes a more of a legal issue U but we can ask kids to um you know if we suspect something on their phone we can ask them to turn it they may say yes they may say no right and then that just elevates it
right depending on what the seriousness is of the allegation other questions on the first readings all right otherwise uh I think you have several second readings we do so we're going to return to uh three policies that we uh reviewed at our
first reading um at the our last meeting so the first policy for a second reading is policy 420 uh students and employees with sexually transmitted infectious infections and diseases and certain
other communicable diseases and infectious conditions I know at our last at the first reading we talked through that a bit um this is a revision to a policy that we do have on the books with the updates that um were discussed during the first reading
so I haven't heard any input and I don't in the committee met before this and hadn't as as well so that was one the second one for a second reading um is corporal punishment and prone restraint
uh policy 507 this is a new policy it does contain legal requirements um and it uh just kind of lays out the definition and what's prohibited um within um that corporal punishment and
prone restraint are prohibited um within the district um so um so that's the second reading no input um additional input from that one and then the final one is uh policy 508 extended school year for certain students with
individualized education programs again a new policy recommended I recommend that we have this um in our policy it's a legal require it contains legal requirements um and is certainly consistent with our current practices for our extended school year programming
that we provide for students with disabilities so very consistent with our practice and no additional input that I'm aware of so that concludes perfect any questions on the second readings Dr Haw yeah try to connect some Dots here for
um so for 507 which is the corporal punishment and prone restraint um that specifically ties to our own employees and agents of the district but it excludes our resource officers so then one of the new policies this
507.00 public input on policies 420 507 and 508 say seeing none uh we'll move to take action um is there a motion to approve the aforementioned uh three
policies moved director Petri with the motion uh Dr pereni with the second all those in favor of approving policies 420 507 and 508 raise your hand and say I I
I I opposed right policy's passed thank you for continuing work on that otherwise there's nothing for strategic Direction D so unless there is anything I think meeting is adjourned thanks
everyone for