WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=uo7nmP9rrvg

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: uo7nmP9rrvg):
- 00:03:13: Recognition of Stillwater High School Wrestling State Champions
- 00:08:47: Public Comment:  The Importance of Outdoor Learning
- 00:13:39: Call to Order, Pledge of Allegiance, Agenda Approval
- 00:14:45: Superintendent Report:  Legislative Update and School Funding
- 00:28:34: Board Chair Report: Wishing Students a Great Summer
- 00:29:20: Approval of the Consent Agenda Items A through F
- 00:29:51: Flexible Staffing Model Discussion: TA Positions Explained
- 01:07:14: Amigos Program Review and Long-Term Vision Presentation
- 01:36:49: Approval: Amigos Cennitos Literacy Curriculum Adoption
- 01:41:22: Middle School Athletics Funding Shift to Community Ed
- 01:58:20: Budget Spring Revision: Revenue and Expenditure Changes
- 02:05:25: Resolution: Membership in Minnesota State High School League
- 02:06:29: Resolution: Rescinding Unrequested Leave for Licensed Teacher


Part: 1

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Welcome. Um we're going to start tonight out with our recognition. We have two students we're here to recognize. I'll um ask them to come up and they can both take a seat, Noah and Audrey. and I'll read

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this little paragraph about you guys and um we'll go from there. So, Noah Nicholson and Audrey Brigotssky each captured state titles at the 2026 Minnesota High School Wrestling Championships in St. Paul, giving Stillwater Area High School a pair of

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individual gold medals. Nicholson won the class AAA 127 pound championship in dominant fashion, pinning Gabriel Ro of Buffalo in just 24 seconds during the title match. Awesome. Um, Regatsky

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secured the girls uh state championship with a 6-4 decision over Allora Wagner of Bertha Hwitt Verndale Parker's Prairie, finishing her season undefeated at 26

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and0. Wow. Uh the performances highlighted another strong postseason showing for Stillwater wrestling which also featured several additional medalists and state qualifiers across the boys and girls brackets. So we want to congratulate you today and take some

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time to recognize both your achievements. So thank you. And we also want to thank your families because I'm sure they had a little bit to do with this too. and um and so they are there as well. So, thank you to the families here who are supporting you. Um

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I wanted to open up to the floor to um ask questions. Yes, Dr. Funk. >> So, the people you beat in the finals, had you wrestled them before, >> you um I actually wrestled the same girl in the finals two years in a row.

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>> Last year I liked Teed in the second period and then this year she definitely scouted me out a lot better, but same results. So, it's fine. >> Awesome. >> Love it. >> And then I wrestled my kid two years ago. I think I majored him that time,

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but it was like pretty pretty easy match. >> He didn't he didn't scout you out this time, huh? >> Yeah. I was going to say 24 seconds was pretty good. >> Any other questions from the board? Yes. >> Well, thanks a lot for what you did in the investment. I know what that uh what

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that room looks like and and smells like. So, uh appreciate the hard work there and uh kudos to the program in general for what it's been able to deliver. Uh question, what's your favorite takedowns? >> Gosh, I don't know. I kind of just like

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see what comes to me. I like to do slide by a lot, which isn't really a takedown, but it's just like >> I'm just a snap down go behind a guy. Just throw him down, go behind him. >> Fair enough. >> Appreciate you guys. Thank you. How >> how long have you guys been wrestling? I mean, is this something you've been

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doing for since you were small or? >> Yeah, since like kindergarten. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I kind of started because my older brothers were doing it and I would kind of just like mess around in the hallways and stuff and my dad would kind of just get sick of me. He just threw me in the rug. >> He knew what he was doing.

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>> Yes. >> I I know you come from a wrestling family. Uh so you probably have wrestled your older brothers all growing up and thus you become a state champion from doing all that. I did go to this championship last year and uh it was amazing. It's the ceremony around it.

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People would not realize there's this whole ceremonial where you all come in together and the music's playing, the lights are flashing and that is something to see. And um I know we have a a lot still the Still Water Wrestling does have a long and successful history

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and it's continued with your championships here. So I would also like to say congratulations. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Future plans. What are you guys thinking down the road? >> Um well I'm a senior so I'm next year I'm going to North Central College in

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Illinois and I'm going to be studying mechanical engineering and business while also wrestling. >> Cool. >> Very cool. No, I'm just a junior. So, I'm going through like the recruiting process right now. Just trying to figure out what school will suit me best. So, >> awesome. Exciting time for you both. So,

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congratulations on graduation, too, here coming up. Last week of school, >> any other questions or comments? >> Congratulations. >> Yeah, just a heartfelt congratulations. We appreciate you making the time to be here because we know it's your your last days. I mean, is there anything you want

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to share with um the community or um us a favorite moment or anything that you would like to share? >> I'll just say that I think next year we're going to bring home team title. >> All right. The prediction is here. It's on tape.

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That's awesome. Anything else? Well, again, thank you for coming in because we know it's a busy last week of a lot of activities for students in our schools and we're just really proud of you. um the po pony community is really quite proud of all your achievements um on the you know in in wrestling and in

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the classroom as well. So thank you for all your commitment. So thank you and thank you to your family too who is there and for coming to support you. >> All right well thank you and congratulations again. All right. Um, and now we're going to

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move on to public comment. And, uh, we have one speaker tonight, Zach Singleton. And Zach, you can come right up here. I'll read the public comment expectations. Uh, the school board encourages community input while comments and questions are welcome. Law prohibits the board from discussing

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concerns about individual employees or students in public meeting. The board will not deliberate, discuss, or engage in conversation with speakers. However, the board may ask administration to review the concerns presented. Speakers must present their testimony in a respectful manner. Vulgarity, character

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attacks, malice, or specific complaints identifying staff or students by name or implication will not be permitted. We will stop proceedings immediately if employee or student privacy issues are raised and direct the speaker to forward comments directly to um to the

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superintendent. So, with all of that said, Zach Zack, welcome. And we're excited to have you uh share your thoughts with us. And we have a timer here for Yep. for three minutes. So, >> we've never done it before, so don't get rowdy. >> Give me an extra 10 seconds.

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>> Well, um, members of the board and Superintendent Funk, I want to thank you for letting me speak with you today. Uh, my name is Zach Singleton and I am a third grade teacher and, uh, school force coordinator at Stonebridge Elementary. Um, I've been teaching in the district for 10 years now. Um, I do feel very lucky to teach in this

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community. Um, it's an amazing community. Um, as I stated, I am the school force coordinator at uh Stonebridge, which means I work with the DNR uh the the city and also a committee of parents, staff, and other community members uh to get kids more outside. Uh

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for the last two years, I have been conducting a a type of experiment uh within the my coordinator role. Over the last 10 years, I've noticed a change in our students. Um I've noticed an increase in um every year in uh behaviors. I have also noticed an increase in students coming to me even

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in third grade with pre-existing anxiety disorders, uh, depression and also an inability to cope with the pressures of their education. Um, I've also noticed a decrease in critical thinking, problem solving, and also mental as well. Um, I

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wondered if, uh, getting outside would help. So, I started bringing my class outside to our school forest more often and encouraging our teachers to do the same. uh indisputably the results told me one thing kids need to be outside. Um

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I want I also wondered uh that if taking kids outside more if it helped more and be uh let them become better learners then why weren't we doing it more often? Um I did after surveying teachers that I know and that I work with, the number

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one obstacle to getting kids outside more was the demand of instructional minutes. uh every minute of the day is already spoken for and it is difficult to find time to get our students outside. After doing a lot of research and collecting a lot of data over the

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last two years, I've kept coming back to one fact. It seems that as though it seems as though there is a direct connection between how much pressure we put on children academically and their behaviors. It is my belief that the reason we see such an increase in

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behaviors and an increase in anxiety in our children is because every year we do put more and more pressure on our kids as it is uh as it has to do with what they learn and um how they need to perform. I am not advocating to never push kids. Um everyone needs to be

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pushed. What I am asking is that we are more conscious and aware of uh where we're pushing these students towards. it is uh is it to get better scores or to become a better well-rounded learner. Um as we are uh are we teaching kids what

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to learn or are we showing them how to learn because they won't be in school forever. At some point they will need to think for themselves. as we uh I ask that we lessen the pressure uh and give kids the space and the time

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to figure out what type of learners they are because children are learners no matter what a state test score might say. Um I'll leave you with just two quotes that summarize uh why it is such a good idea to kids to get kids outside more often uh even during the school

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day. First one is from Nichollet Solder. If we want our children to move mountains, we first have to let them get out of their chairs. The second quote is a little bit more of a practical, simpler quote, uh, but it resonates.

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Children cannot bounce off walls if you take away the walls. Uh, and that's from, uh, author Aaron Kenny. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. >> Thank you, Zach. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, with that we will call this meeting to order. Uh, Joan, roll

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call. >> Director Gersvich >> here. Director Hawkert. >> Director Kelzenberg >> here. >> Director Lowour >> here. >> Director Parker >> here. >> Director Theelander >> here. >> Chair Sherman >> here. You have a quorum. Great. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance.

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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Our next item this evening is the

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approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? >> I'll make a motion. >> Great. Sarah with the motion. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Theer with the second. Director Theelander. Sorry. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say I.

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>> I. >> I. >> Opposed. Agenda passes. And we'll move on to our superintendent report. >> Tonight, I'd like to provide a legislative update. As the session ended this past Sunday,

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um I would say for education, I'm disappointed in the session. Uh a couple things. Um, we received um the district received a total of $2,142

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in additional revenue um from this past legislative session. Um but our taxpayers throughout the state received $250 million in one-time revenue that they're going to have their car tabs reduced for one year and then that's

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going to go back to the number it was prior to that. So, um it's tough when districts are struggling around the state uh um that we see this in play. Um so, as I stated, uh compensatory revenue, we had some hope. In one of the

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houses, there was a bill that provided more relief for us. Uh the other house did not agree. And as a result, we received $2,142 in additional revenue to mitigate the shortfall that was already planned for from last year from the legislative

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session for 2627. So with that additional $2,000 in revenue, our shortfall for compensatory revenue is down $43,000 for 2026. Um over 26 for the upcoming school year.

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safe schools. We were again in one of the houses we were looking to receive some additional revenue for safe schools. The other house did not agree. Um so there's no additional revenue. They did provide three grant opportunities for school districts to apply for. One is anonymous threat

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reporting as you can see the amount there. Behavioral health grants uh of $12 million and a mental health crisis service grant of $3.8 million. Next slide. um operating capital revenue. We s did see some minor relief here. We are

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allowed to pay for utility bills through operating dollars now um which we were not allowed to do before which will help us out to some degree. Um also in preparation for what sounds like is uh coming down the road an attempt at uh statewide health insurance for

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educators. Uh the legislation is legislation passed that we will have to do a school survey um about all of our health insurance plans that we offer and submit that report to the legislature annually. And then finally of note, they

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are now aligning pair professionals in our title programs which are intervention programs to have the same requirements for special education pair professionals. So that's a change for a handful of people in the district. So,

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subject to your questions, that's uh my update for tonight. >> Thank you. Yes. >> Do you have a ballpark for what the utility >> I don't >> um I mean I think it'll be six figures,

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you know, of some sort. Um so that that is some relief. Um but we're still it's no additional revenue, but it provides flexibility in how we're um accounting for it. Other thoughts >> appreciate uh the education here that's

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super helpful. Uh regarding the pair of professionals is that am I understanding that that's an additional requirement for us that we'll have some people that need more skill sets or more certifications or am I >> typically yeah there's a there's a requirement they have to pass either a

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test or they have to have a two-year degree. Um I don't know what the impact is. It'll be it'll be small. We had to do this a few years ago with uh our special education pair of professionals and it impacted close to a hundred of them. Um so now they're all qualified.

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Um we have far fewer title pair paras. What's that? >> We don't have any title. >> Oh well there you go. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Yep. So we just use it strictly for teachers then. Okay. >> For teachers. >> Okay. So there you go. Sarah,

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>> um, do we have a sense for what the impact would be if if we did shift to a statewide? >> No. >> No. And I think what what the, uh, that's what the legislature is trying to do at this point is gather the data so

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that they can make an informed decision. Um, you know, I think the intent behind it is if we're in a bigger statewide pool, that should balance the the plan out. So, I mean, I I think it's a um

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it's a noble cause. Um we have to just see what the impact is um you know, at the district level. Um and so then the other concern about that is um you know, okay, if we're going to have a statewide program for this, are we going to have a

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statewide program for, you know, salaries? Are, you know, what's what's the >> what's the slope on that going to be? And and so then what's the we have a negotiated contract, >> right?

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>> Does a state can the state supersede that? I >> I that's what we're going to find out. >> Yeah. Um I don't know >> the bill that didn't go anywhere this time because AMSD and MSBA, they are

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coming out not in support of this. um the superintendent association um it didn't the bill itself didn't go anywhere and so there I think there's there was some bipartisan push back. I think that we need to evaluate multiple options not just come with the bill that

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didn't go anywhere this session. um that what are the what's what are the multiple issues that are out there driving this and what are multiple solutions because as it stood we have very good benefits in our district and we would be getting less

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money in state aid than districts who weren't didn't have as good a benefits. So there's a lot of nuance to >> and I think that that's where it's it's hard to pass any judgment on this at this point because we don't have the details. So let's let's see how it's

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going to flesh out and then um you know we can go forward. >> It's something to watch for sure and just um try to advocate for a a solution or for maybe looking into multiple different ways to address the issue, not just coming with one um potential

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solution. So >> but I think we will be hearing about this down the road. >> Yes. The other disappointing thing for me was um and I think for our district as well is just the 250 million in special ed cuts coming not for next year but um for

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the next budget cycle are still moving forward as of right now. >> Yeah. I mean there's a $250 million reduction that's going to hit education someplace unless they do something different. >> Yeah. And and the frustration I've got right now with the with the legislature in general is I mean I can we can use

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the license tab example is a great point. Sure, we're going to do one-time relief of $250 million. Okay. But what's the long-term sustainability of this program? You know, is it higher gas

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taxes? Is it road taxes? is it you know um but to just say okay we're going to give you relief now and not provide any long-term plan um and then everybody else is impacted by that because okay all the relief is going to go here. So

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um I'm hopeful that there's a long-term view u not only for licensed dads but for education as well because the same thing with with the $250 million shortfall. Okay, what's the long-term solution here going to be? >> Yep. Um,

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>> and and then just and it's regressive, too. I I was you started talking about I mean what people that can afford a nice car getting the best break on their license tabs, >> right? >> Yeah. Okay. >> Um, can you explain really quick or

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maybe just because I think as a district we're going to have to start talking about this more. The one thing that did move forward um was the constitutional amendment. >> Oh, for I I missed that. Thank you. >> Yep. So both houses passed the constitutional amendment and again so basically it's the school land trust

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amendment we talked about at the last board meeting and what this does for school districts is it increases our state aid that we receive from uh from the school land trust um um investments that we have. And so for

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this to become a change in the constitution and for it will impact us positively for the following school year, people have to vote yes that they agree to the change. It will not impact their taxes at all. Okay? But if they don't vote yes, it's a vote no. So

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people have got to proactively and we will have to educate the community on that um as far as what that means. Um because again, if if you're going to go into the ballot, you see this thing, I don't know what this is about. I'm not going to vote on it. Um, that's a no vote. So, um, we have to do a really

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effective job of of educating that, uh, the populace on that and it's significant for the district. I don't remember the dollar amount. I talked about it last last month or a few weeks ago, but it is significant for the district. So, and again, it's no impact on on local property taxes at all.

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>> Yeah. And multiple studies done that the fund is is remains preserved and available for generations. Yeah. That's a solvent program. So, but again, it'll be kind of a back of the ballot probably second page kind of question that >> I forgot it on here.

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>> Right. >> Great. Any other questions for Dr. Funk? >> Yeah. On that first page, that $2,000, I mean, we're we're looking for millions of dollars. 2,000 statistically, that's zero, right? >> That's not 2,000 per anything. >> No. As a matter of fact, when I put this

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together today, I sent it to Curus at a proof read and she came back at me and she said, "Is that a typo?" You know, because that is so little. >> You're not missing a zero or anything, >> right? No, it's $2,142. >> Okay. >> Well, but here's the here's the worst

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part. All right. There is a So, there's 10 million total. There is a charter school that is receiving $1 million of that 10 million. So, Yeah.

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>> Oh, so okay. >> And then like St. Paul's receiving h 100,000 which okay I get that but there is a charter school out there that is receiving a million dollars of that 10 million. >> They separated out one school for the money. >> There's some calculation that's being

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used that and I'm not sure. So the 2,00 whatever we're getting is that amongst all districts all getting a similar >> some are getting I think St. Cloud's getting $5 million. >> It it really depends on Okay. Wow. Okay.

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So it's different per >> not five million but but they're St. They're not getting that much of an increase but they are getting a significant increase. Um >> yes >> because they fall under a different formula or is is it specifically to that school? I

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I I don't know what the rhyme or reason is. >> Okay. >> Uh but it is some some districts are really um winners in this and some are really they're not being helped at all and we're kind of in the middle. I mean

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we're not uh >> our numbers look our impact actually looks good in comparison to some how hard some districts are going to get hit. I mean any hit is is a cut. Um, and so I don't want to make light of the fact that it's a, you know, $50,000

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hole, $45,000 hole here, but there are other districts that are >> Yeah. So, I mean, what I meant when I said St. Cloud, they have a their change in revenue is $5 million more or $5 million increase. They only got a little bit more with this thing from the uh

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from the legislature. Uh but yeah, I mean most districts are 5,000, 16,000, 41,000. Um and then you get down to the charter schools and the charter numbers are pretty

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unbelievable. Here's one for 367,000 um 1,94,000. Um 162,000. So I'm not sure how they calculated this. Um, another one for 588,000.

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>> Director Parker, >> would you be able to share that with the board? >> Yeah, I can send I'll send you the spreadsheet. >> I just sent it. >> Okay. So, see it >> was also I think AMSD I think shared it too with some other items. So, I just sent the spreadsheet, but there's some other details.

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>> Yeah. So, um, yeah, some So, yeah, we we are, I mean, down 43,000, we're doing pretty good compared to some of our, uh, um, peers out there. >> Yeah. And we'll just have to kind of hit that

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constitutional amendment pretty hard. And it may be a reason for our um legislative committee to convene and just kind of talk about >> strategy >> strategy on to how we can um help educate the community and leverage. I mean there'll be materials both from

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MSBA and AMSD and a bunch of other um firms that advocate for public education that we can you know take advantage of and leverage. But great um thank you for that update. Uh and uh

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with that we'll go to the board chair report and um the only thing that I have and this would be on behalf of myself and the entire board is it's the last week of school and just want to wish everyone a wonderful summer uh break and

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it's always you know an exciting time to have this last week of school and so we want to thank our uh students for staying engaged and our teachers and our principles and our paras and custodians and nutrition and um all the different counselors and staff in our buildings uh

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as well as the families that are there to support our students and and keep them uh keep them hanging in there till the very end here. So, um on behalf of the board, just want to thank the community for another great year and uh and hopefully what will be a great

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relaxing summer for everyone. All right. Um with that, we'll move on to the consent agenda. We've got items A through F and I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve consent. Is there a second?

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Great. We'll go with Director Lowour with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Motion passes. All right. We're going to start off with a report this evening under strategic direction A,

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which is ensure the learning process is adaptable to meet individual student needs. Uh, Caitlyn is gonna come up and talk to us. And before we get started here, I just wanted to give a little Oh, and Chris, welcome Chris. I didn't mean to. You weren't on the agenda. Um, I

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just want to explain a little bit of background. This is um, in part uh, in response to some feedback from internally from staff on the multi-aging um, model that we did this last year and

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just some feedback that maybe it wasn't the best solution that we could do. And so our staff took a lot of time listening to our educators and what was working, what was not working, and some better ideas were formulated. And we're here to get an update on that today.

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Good evening. This is um certainly not the first time you've heard about this model um as we talked about it throughout our priority based budgeting conversations, but Chris and I are here to talk about it um in in a little more detail. and I'm here to represent the learning side of the model and she is

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here to represent the staffing side of the model. So, um we will be happy to answer questions as we go as well. Um so I think as um you probably have understood before the staffing is currently based on um the approved ratios um and when enrollment exceeds

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the range um then we add another teacher um and classroom section. um this kind of generates um small small changes in enrollment can really you know boost our staffing um you know across a number of buildings if we just are right really

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close to the edges. Um so with this new approach um we still start with the board approved class size ratios and then as enrollment exceeds the range we have a couple of options. And so instead of only adding a

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classroom section, we now also have the option to um add a teaching assistant position um you know with the goal of maintaining student support and allowing us a little bit more flexibility. So these are examples of what this could

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look like. Um we gave a primary example for early elementary and upper elementary grade example. So, for example, if you have 52 incoming kindergarten students with a class size ratio of 25.5, which I always find intriguing. It's not

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like we're dividing kids in half. Um, that old model or are using the board approved ratios would necessitate three sections. And what we've discussed with you previously is is having flexibility to consider when

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we're in a situation where you're talking about two students over those board approved ratios. What is a um model that allows us a flexibility and staffing but keeps the integrity of instruction in place and adult support in place and

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comes with a lower price tag. So uh this is an example of how we could have um two sections and maybe in one section you have 30 students with a adult to child ratio of 15 to1 and another class of 22 students and there's room for

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growth um a little bit within that as well. So, and similarly at the upper grades where those class size ratios are a little higher, pushing those sections a little higher. And in this in a incoming

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um 63 students at fourth grade where we have 29.5 as our ratio, we could look at having teacher assistant supported class sizes of 31 and 32 students. So again, we're really close to that. you know what we

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talked about earlier is that like sweet spot about 14 to 17ish to one. Um knowing that no there's no one size one right answer for every scenario. And so we're always uh

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looking at what's our overall enrollment, what's the academic and behavioral needs of each class, what is the special ed ratios within each class, what's the overall classroom composition, all of the like there's so many variables. So we're not necessarily just looking at a spreadsheet and

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saying, "What are the numbers and here's our standardized response." We're going to have conversations with principles and conversations about what are the dynamics. um I have the benefit now of having a foot in the special education world as well. So kind of looking at what is the makeup on the special ed

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side and how do we need to respond. So it really is about giving us flexibility to meet the needs of kids in a couple of different ways which I I kind of just addressed. I previewed this slide as well. So I

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hope what you're hearing is that we don't want to ta our way out of this. um but we also want to be able to make responsible fiscal decisions um that still keep the integrity of learning in place.

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>> So I've heard already okay you are not going to add sections. Okay. I have heard you're just going to add continually add TAS. Um I've heard that in different pockets throughout the district. Do you want to address that? >> Yeah, that's an inaccurate narrative.

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So, we're going to look at both. We're going to look at both scenarios. So, when we're looking at numbers, we're looking at, okay, if we were to add a TA or two to these sections, what would the class makeup be? Or as opposed to if we add an additional section, what does that do to the overall class makeup?

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Again, using multiple variables to make that decision. Um, so it really isn't a if this, then this response. It's an if this let's sit down and have a conversation with the right people on what what's the the capacity and what

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are the needs and then make a decision about TA or add a section. And we're doing that right now because enrollment is so variable. We're we're looking at those numbers weekly and saying let's watch this grade level at this spot for

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a few weeks and see what happens. um because we'll gain a kid and we'll lose a kid and we'll gain two kids and we'll lose one kid. So, it's we're just monitoring and then we will respond um accordingly and that could be an additional section. >> Director Parker,

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>> um I guess it's sort of two questions. So, I'll start with the first one. historically uh like pre 2024 would we sort of hold a certain number of teachers aside and then uh sort of distribute them or can

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you talk about that? >> Um I they weren't held aside. Teachers were assigned based on the staffing ratios and it was it was pretty pretty pretty much this is this is how it goes. So, we would add sections over the summer. >> And where would those teachers come

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from? >> They would be hired. >> They would be hired. They'd be new teachers. And I'll give you a great example. This is probably happened in 2024. In one of our elementary schools, we were watching it all summer. In late July,

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they passed the threshold and it was a kindergarten class. And we finally said, "Okay, add the teacher." within a week of adding that teacher, hiring, posting, hiring, whatever, we

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lost about seven kids in that grade. And so we had class sizes of about 15 um in that school for kindergarten. And so that I mean that's the reality of what

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happens when we have to add a U licensed teacher. If that were the case, okay, we could have hired a pair professional to help us reduce it and and it would have um provided us more flexibility and it would have been more fiscally responsible, I think. So, but that's

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that's what happens. And so, the problem last summer and everybody's talking about the uh you know the combo classes, we didn't have any additional funding at all after the legislative move. And so rather than as class sizes are shifting

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where we normally would have hired additional staff, we have no funding to do it. So that's where we said, okay, we're going to have to instead of having really large class sizes, we're going to try some of these combos. So um that that's another example of where we're at. >> Thank you.

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>> Y >> we currently do not have any TAs, so this will be a new thing. Is there a new category? I mean you got paras, you got teachers. Does the TA fit somewhere in the middle there? >> So the TA the parah teacher um assistant

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position is a parah position. Um so it's within the bargaining unit. Um but we do have um an MOA with the PAR unit to make this a pilot program so that um we're not long-term obligated to the position if we've decided that this is this is a

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one-year thing. um but that um they are within the parah unit um and so they will be subject to all of the parah um contract terms. >> So talk about their qualifications. >> Um yeah, the qualifications are a little bit different. Okay. >> Um so they do have to have a four-year

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college degree. Um and then they do also have to have experience working in a classroom in like one-on-one support or small groups. Um and then they are also um we are also requiring them to participate in the science of reading training. um over workshop week.

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>> Is their pay going to be the same as a parah on that schedule? >> Um so their base pay, yes, would be on that par schedule, but um they will also receive an additional $2 an hour. >> Okay. >> Because of the um because of the overall qualifications and the differences in the job.

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>> All right. So, I again I hope you hear that we're we're not trying to to say we're going to TA our our way out of this. Like we're not going to solely look at, oh, we're over the class size ratio and automatically say it's a TA. We're going to sit down, we're going to have conversations and we're going to decide

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is a TA the appropriate support or do we need to look at adding sections? Um, it does allow us to be more flexible like in the situation that Dr. Dr. fun shared where we we do have the ability to to be more responsive to those enrollment

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shifts, especially those enrollment shifts that happen so close to the start of the school year. And so I I'm excited about the opportunities that this could provide with allowing us the ability to really respond and respond quickly where

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there are needs within our um enrollment. It's not only at the enrollment shift the start of the school year, it's throughout the school year. So we can have sometimes I think we had one school we had 10 kids come in in one grade level this year.

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>> And you know trying to u hire a teacher midy year um is very difficult where we think we have the flexibility to be able to hire a teaching assistant. uh much

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easier to uh to adjust. >> I jokingly had a conversation with maybe one of those teachers that was impacted by the incoming 10 students and she said, "Well, next year will be great because if I have this number of students, I'll have a TA." I was like, "Okay, great. Glad I'm glad you're

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looking at it that way." Um so um what we have is this proposal and we are asking uh the board to authorize um a little bit more of a flexible staffing support model. Um the staffing ratios are currently listed on the screen for your review. Um but we

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hope that this model will provide us with the flexibility that we need um to address both the start of the school year as we talked about and the midyear changes that happen. >> And I do think oh sorry that's okay. I do think it's important like when you're looking at the high end of these ratios,

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that's what we're looking as a decision point. And so, you know, for fourth and fifth grade where the high-end is already 32.42, those, you know, when you look at that, that could be an intimidatingly high like large classroom. Um, but but we're

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not we and we haven't said anything about caps, but I do feel comfortable saying we're not going to have a class of 40 kids. Like that's not going to be a thing. So, we're really trying to look at the the student to adult ratios and what makes sense for the needs of that class and what are they, you know, what

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is that class size ratio to begin with. >> Well, and I would assume also it's making it fair within the team of teachers so that the one that doesn't have a the ones that maybe don't have a TA have less students than the ones that have that that pair of extra hands kind of helping out.

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>> Right? So in like that kindergarten example, you would have a class of 30 with two adults, but then you could have a class of 22. So right, we're trying to keep the non-Ted classes towards the lower to mid-range of those ratios. >> And as we tour the new buildings, you

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know, we noticed, you know, we talked about that they have um set aside collaborative space um and just more space in general. So um and open concepts and things like that. So the the slightly you know adjusted numbers you know upwards is um account

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accounting for those spaces and for the growth that we >> do we know yet um how many classes that were like do you have an estimating I know you're evaluating it but do we have a number now or something you could share? >> 22

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>> yeah it's about 22 >> 22 >> 22 sections >> across the seven elementaryaries. >> Okay. So like >> and would require a TA like based on today's numbers. >> Okay. >> We're looking at about 22. 22. Yes.

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>> And that's K through 12. >> K5. >> Oh, that's K5. Okay. >> Yes. >> Does this require us to vote on a policy change or how does our uh studentto staff ratio currently exist? And is it

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staff or is it teacher? like is there a is there a semantical thing and a number thing that we need to do or how how's this work? >> It's a that's a great question. It's a currently it's a I don't know if it's considered staff or student but uh or teacher um

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>> right there's the current >> it's so the staff ratio and I think it depends on how you define staff. Okay. So what the proposal is if is if it's a if that were considered a teacher ratio. Okay, we are asking the flexibility to

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hire teaching assistants in some cases and go over that ratio. Um so that's what the that's what the proposal is. Um, but I mean you could, you know, I know

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one of our competitors, they advertise that they have a 17 to1, you know, adult to student ratio. Uh, but they use a TA model. Um, so it depends on how the what the board wants to do with it. That's totally up to you. Um, we can bring you

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a couple different proposals regarding that. >> Well, and I mean we could per because this is the first time we're doing this. Um I and obviously there's flexibility within staffing ratios as I mean on an

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on and any year right I mean how you address it I don't know I mean like we multi-aged this year and then we didn't I don't know if we want to take a lot of time developing a policy um you know like I was thinking originally this would just be one year of flexibility

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come back to the board tell us what worked what didn't work what you see um if we want to have a firm policy. I just don't want to limit flexibility. >> Sure. >> During when you need it to be responsive, but I am open to what the board >> but those those are your staffing

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ratios, right? Those are board approved and they've been that way. I don't know for years and years. >> Yes. I mean, I don't ever remember them being addressed. I guess a different way to ask that question is if we're going to break policy, do we just say, "Hey, we're going to break policy for a year or like can we just do we can we as a

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table just vote and say, "Hey, this just doesn't matter for this year or do we have to change the policy for a short-term?" >> I don't even know. >> Isn't there Yeah. Is there That's what my question is. >> I I think this is just a >> The board approved this as an action

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item years ago. I don't think there's actually a policy. So yeah, I think the board has complete flexibility, right? Uh to what to do what they want here parameters. >> Yeah, that the way to say it, >> right? And I think if we did offer some flexibility um for this year, we would

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want to have a report back to the board um to see how did this model work, what were the key learnings. I mean obviously with the multi-aging um it staff feedback significantly impacted this new direction and so we wouldn't you know we would want to have

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the ability to pivot again if necessary I suppose um but hopefully the the the key learnings have are have been kind of thought through and are reflected in this TA model. Um, but I guess the way it was here, it was going to be

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flexibility for the one-year to address the TA model and you know, similarly to but I just we wanted to acknowledge it's going to be a little different than the flexibility staff currently has um within their staffing ratios. But um but yeah, more of a one-year kind of

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granting the flexibility and then check back in with the board um to see how things are going along and and obviously you you'll be providing updates, I assume, as the school year starts. >> Absolutely. >> I have an answer for you on this.

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Somebody who's been here for a while. >> How many does it take to >> Good evening. we look at this, I don't think it's a specific policy where this is built in as budget assumptions. So when they build in the the revenue and expenditures for the year, they talk about this school board approved ratio is kind of built into what the

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expenditures will be for the following year. And so kind of it's been I want to say probably mid 2010s 2014 15 16 probably somewhere in that range is probably the last time we've came back to take a peek at this in terms of a board and have the conversation. But it's not policy specific. gets built

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into our budget assumptions as we make the budgets for the following year. >> And we have and we have went to like when we've looked at um budgets, we've asked what do you what to the community, we've done like surveys, Morris Leatherman surveys that have said what do you think about the class size ratios

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which which areas seem high to you low just about right. So we have kind of that anecdotal feedback but it's just a really it's about the most expensive thing you can do to adjust to lower class size ratios. So, um, I think that's probably why it's stayed the way

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it's stayed for so long. >> That's one sort of I guess practical, you know, implementation thing. So, you I mean, this is a great tool. It's just a tool. You know, maybe you use it, maybe you don't. Great. If you bring on a TA and

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three months later things change and you don't need that TA anymore, how does that how does that work practically in hiring people and retaining people and getting new people when you need them next time?

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>> Yeah, I think you know I think that's going to be something that we kind of have to work through. I mean, initially, um, my anticipate that, you know, if we don't need them in this spot that we very well may need them in another, um, and so we, you know, would like to have the flexibility to kind of shift them,

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um, to another spot if that's if, if that's the direction that we need to go. Um, but I would suggest that um it's less likely that we're going to, you know, not need them um or that we wouldn't be able to find a spot for them, >> but it's a lot cheaper than adding that

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teacher >> for sure. >> Yeah. >> And then the kids, you know, go away or go somewhere else. >> So, I I have been corrected again by somebody else who's worked here quite a long time. Um 2012 was the last time uh 1213 school

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year was when we did the uh the budget revision to these staffing ratios and that was part of a budget cut. >> Right. >> Um I guess one worry I have is that this is a spreadsheet approach to uh fixing some problems which may be fine but I'm

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want to look at the boots on the ground. Okay. You're you're a teacher and I'm just imagining this because I have not talked to any teachers about this. Uh you're the teacher now. You're going to have a TA come in. You might be thinking, wow, I got extra help. That's

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great. Or you might be thinking, I have this extra load now. I now I also have to supervise a TA as well as teach these kids. Do we know what kind of feedback do are you getting any feedback? >> Yeah, absolutely. Uh first I want to be clear that the principal is the TA

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supervisor. The teacher will provide work direction and there is very specific training that we can provide to both our TAs and our teachers on how to how to have that collaborative um teacher TA relationship and and I'm

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working on that with our teaching and learning supervisors currently and planning for that. Also, to your point, there are some teachers that are going to view this as an opportunity and some teachers that are going to be like, "Yeah, no thanks." And our principles

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know that and are working to try and make appropriate assignments based on interest um and and kind of working relationships that are already in place. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will work always that we can accommodate everybody's request, but principles are

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um acutely aware of of who's like all in on I would love to try this. I would love to be a part of this pilot or like I'd like my colleague to try this and be a part of the pilot. Right? So we're we're trying to make those accommodations because generally I think

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things are more successful if people are invested in them being successful. So it's a very important thing to consider placement. >> As a followup to that, um the teacher that's going to have the TA, will they have a say in their TA since they'll

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really have to work closely with that person or is it just their relationship with the principal that will determine who they're going to get? It's their relationship with the principal. We're in the process of hiring TAs currently and and many of the principles

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are hiring pair professionals that are already working in their buildings. So they they know, oh this individual has worked closely with this teacher off and on for x number of years. I already know that could be a good match. Um so a lot

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of these are known entities. Of course, you know, we might have external candidates and and then it's a little bit of where you think it will work the best and um and really the the right person to make those assignments is the principal because they have the kind of

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scope buildingwide of what the needs are by classroom. >> Okay. So can I ask just backing up because we're here in this model because well one I mean we're in a budget situation that's familiar across the state. I mean there isn't a district

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that isn't looking at I think I just read an article that um a neighboring district was going to multi-aging next year like we tried last year just aren't one of our neighbors. So these are strategies to try to best serve students um protect the integrity of the

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classroom but also acknowledge the real financial challenges and burdens public schools are facing. Um the there was feedback from staff that the multi-aging did maybe just missed the mark. Correct. >> That is correct. Multi-aging can be done

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and can be done well. where it's done well is often a multi-year commitment with a a much longer amount of time to prep for that. So, you're looking at like, you know, we're definitely going to commit to this for the next two,

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four, six years. And a lot of times they're looking at it in ways where they're very creative with a curriculum structure. Like they're providing maybe some looping. So, I have a K1 class, a 23 class, a four or five class, and I'm going to >> creatively build a curriculum that

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includes those kindergarten and first grade standards over the course of two years >> as opposed to now I'm trying to hit both the standards from kindergarten and first crammed into a year. So, it can be done and it can be done well,

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but with with our new curriculum adoption for literacy and all the additional literacy um professional development that we've done and rolling that out and moving into the need to do similarly with math, the feedback was very strong of like I want to be able to

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do literacy well like that's important. and I want to be able to move into this math implementation well and to do that and multi-grade seems like too large of an ask >> right >> and I agree which is why we're like what is another creative solution we can consider >> I also think that we do have a

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competitor that uses this model and they are a strong competitor of ours and they are very successful and they're getting really good academic results so you know let's let's learn from them and and see if we can get a similar outcome.

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>> So, it's not just a spreadsheet solution. >> It's not just a spreadsheet solution. >> Yep. >> Well, and I appreciate the fact that you've listened to our teachers of what because that actually explains it really well that multi-aging is a commitment

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and this is more going back to the to maintaining adult, you know, well-trained, highly trained educators with to the students. and it's a little bit more there's a there's you can plug it in when there's a need and do so quickly.

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>> Um so I think that might be I'm excited to see what this does. >> Uh if we're approving this for a one-year um trial or I don't know the words you use. >> Not tonight. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Uh would we when would we look at

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extending that trial or um making it more permanent? >> My ask would be as we go into next year's staffing conversations. So um >> next >> next >> late winter >> late yeah late winter. So, February,

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March, maybe I feel like we'll have a reasonable amount of uh anecdotal information and we could have even um some initial academic screening data by that point and then have a conversation about continuation. >> Thank you.

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>> Yes. >> Yeah. Uh so, thank you for bringing this back. Um as I mentioned last time, you know, I'm really excited about this. I think this model can work really well. um having a spouse that's teacher. Uh she's taught historically both in a multi-age classroom. She's taught also

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uh with the you know TA type of model and like you said I think both can work really well. It just takes a commitment and and what I'm hearing uh and what I appreciate is you know something that we talk at a board level is wanting to have more localized control you know from a you know from what we have to work

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within. And I think that's what we're showing. you're listening um you're giving control and empowering the different elementary school principles and the teachers to figure out what's the right model for them and who who may have a TA uh or not. Um so I think that's a really thoughtful uh and

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helpful approach. Um so uh I do think this will have a good outcome and I know last year we were you know due to some timing uh concerns and enrollment uh issues that you know we had to pivot and I think that was a great way to pivot and and under some challenging

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circumstances. Um and I think now having a little bit more of a runway I think this will be a really helpful model that uh I do think will be helpful to support unless you know the data comes back that is maybe not working or whatever the reason. Um I think that we need to make sure that we're staying flexible to meet

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the realities as you know chair Sherman you had mentioned um there's a lot of headwinds that we're facing but there's also a lot of opportunities and you know what can we do to put our students in the best position to be successful and having another highly qualified adult in

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the classroom I do think also is helpful. you know, if a the main teacher is out maybe on on leave or other circumstances, well, you have that consistency and I think that consistency is really important uh for students as well. So, um I appreciate the work that you're doing and um you kind of

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mentioned with Chair Sherman was a question of, you know, based on the um um multi-age um uh kind of um classroom last year. um you kind of answered that well and um and I appreciate your willingness to

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pivot and find new ways to do things better and I think as a board I think it's good for us to continue to make sure that we empower u the subject matter experts to who are boots on the ground to put forth what we think is going to be best and if we have to pivot next year

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we have to pivot because that is just the reality of what we're facing and I'd rather be proactive than um and find better ways to do it than than not. So, thank you. >> You um I will add one more thing too that we um have been working with thece and then also with the Perry Union um

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throughout this process. Um so, we've had lots of conversations about what this could look like, what are their concerns, what are their expectations. We just had a QSC meeting where we talked with the teachers again. They gave us all kinds of things to think about different scenarios and how we might address those. Um and so we didn't

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have all the answers for them yet, but it was really good to have that conversation to be able to think of, you know, oh, these are the things that we hadn't thought of yet and how are we going to address those? So, um that um that collaboration has been really good and the PAR unit um has had lots of

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questions for us as well and so we've been working with them all along to to answer their questions as well and problem solve. I'm also glad to hear we have current paras applying for these jobs because it it is kind of a a a potential for a track of development and

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opportunity within the organization. So that's nice too. >> Dr. Hawker, thank you. >> Um I apologize for coming in late. I was actually trying to listen to you guys as I was driving over so that I'm a little bit caught up. So, um, the question that

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I had sent ahead, um, was around the staffing ratios and, um, particularly if we're going to add a cap. And right as I walked in, you're talking about we're not going to add a cap, which is a good answer, very clear answer. But what I was also understanding is that we're still shooting for the kind of 14 to 17

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um, student to staff ratio um, and that we really want that flexibility um, especially for this first year to try to figure out what works. Um, and I really appreciate that you guys are looking at it holistically and that we don't want to be necessarily pinned down to a number first time around. Um, and just

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to echo what a lot of people have been saying, um, the little bit of feedback I've been getting from our U staff who've done multi-aging is please don't do it. So, >> me too. >> And and I appreciate that that we are pivoting already and I I understand the whole context of the budget issues last

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year and it it seemed like a great option. Um, but it really in retrospect seems like something we want to do a little more intentionally going forward. It might still happen some someday in the future, but this feels um like it is more of a um budget friendly adjustment that hopefully will be more sustainable

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going forward. So, I'm I'm really excited about this new model. Um, and the one teacher I was talking to, she was like, "Yes, this sounds great." Like, I don't know what it'll be like, but um, at least it's a new direction to try. So, um, I appreciated that open-mindedness and and I appreciate all the work that you're doing. So, am I

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understanding everything okay? >> Yes. >> With Okay, excellent. Just here. >> Okay. >> You have your hand up. >> Yeah. Um, how common is this? Does this happen in other districts? Is it a lot or a little? >> Um, well, I know of two. One is a larger

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metro district that does this and I will tell you that they don't push the TA lever until significantly higher than we're pushing the TA lever. And then um one of our competitors >> in Bayport >> in in Bayport uses this model and always

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has and boasts on their website that they maintain a 17 to1 studentto adult ratio. So um yes, it is done. >> Thank you. Great. >> Did you? >> Yes. I just wanted to um kind of echo um

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just others thoughts that I think you know we're not living in a >> in a perfect ideal state and and in and given kind of the constraints and the the limitations of of just the broader, you know, landscape. I just am really

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impressed with just the level of receptiveness to feedback and research and thoughtfulness and creativity. And it's like data driven. It's um feedbackbased. I mean it's it's it's all the things you would hope um I think for

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creative solutioning in a challenging situation. So I think this looks really promising. I'm excited to see how it plays out and just want to thank you both. I think it's real important that we are

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very purposeful and we are we already planning to be purposeful in the roll out. And by that I mean two things. One this is going to look different for our teachers. All right you may have you know early younger elementary teachers with you know over 30 kids in their

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class. All right. What is that going to mean for that teacher? All right. Well, the biggest thing is they're going to have another adult in the class to help them and help the students be successful. So, it's real important for us to ensure that our teachers who have

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TAs are prepared to receive them and have uh understand what best practice is and utili utilizing a TA. And then it's also important for us to onboard our TAs properly because you're not another parah in the classroom where you're just gonna watch these couple kids. All

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right, you are a partner with the teacher. So if we're going to be successful, I think it's really u taking a methodical approach to to onboarding folks because this is going to look different. Okay, now all right, I mean this one of the things that came up in

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QSC last week. Okay, now I have 31 or 32 kids in class. Well, now I'm going to have 32 conferences. Yes. Okay. So, what's that going to look like? And and how are we going to support those teachers like that for ready, set, go conferences? Uh, but we already have

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enough time for, you know, that many in in the older grade. So, I mean, there there's there's things we're we're going to be mitigating. But again, I think it's being purposeful, developing the plan, and ensuring that a the person who's receiving the TA, the teacher, is

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as comfortable as the TA is in in operating in this environment. And so that's uh again, the we're going to be intentional about this. >> Is there anyone at the um board table who has an issue with just um kind of a one-year just offering some flexibility

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to staff? you know, obviously checking in along the way throughout the year and then really hitting a a solid check-in um prior to the hiring season to see if this is something that wants to be continued because at that point then maybe staff has an idea of what you know

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how they're pulling the lever in in a solution like this or if it becomes necessary. This may be something that um knock on wood, our school districts can kind of get out from under some of this um budget deficit that's going on. But

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um how I guess I was just assuming one year. Um let's gather some learnings and have some flexibility and >> yeah, our MOA is for one year. So that's what I would that's consistent with how we're >> okay. Well, we'll bring

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>> We'd be back in two weeks to ask for that. >> Yes. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yep. Great. Thank you for this update and um if anyone has any other questions, they can go to Mike and and Caitlyn and Chris. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. Our next report for

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this evening is an amigos program review. A new face. New face. >> Hello everyone. >> Hi. I wanted to start this evening by taking the opportunity to Hannah Reyes. Hannah is currently a first grade first

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grade teacher in our amigos program and she is transitioning maybe faster than she wanted to into the role of our uh K8 uh immersion coordinator districtwide. So, um, selfishly, I'm extremely excited

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to have her on board to support with our, um, Amigos Cenitos program districtwide. So, she's also here to help me tonight present some of the the findings from our recent, um, program review that we hired a consultant to do.

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And I don't know if you want to share anything else about yourself. >> Yeah, I've been here for eight years. I I was started when the program was two years old. And so I've really been here through all the the growth and change and um I'm really excited to take this on. We've already started um we have some plans going for onboarding new

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teachers etc. So it's been great. So thank you for having me. >> Great. So this is the um amigos program update. We did employ a consultant this year to kind of dig deep on what are our current practices, what's working, what's not working and best ways forward.

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>> Great. I just want to >> Yeah. So anytime anyone hears consultant, okay, why are you spending money on an external entity to come in? So I want to address that upfront. So we originally posted for a 0.5

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coordinator for the program um last year due to the uh minimal applicant pool that we received because it was only a half-time position, we we didn't fill it. So we had budgeted uh half of a

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teacher salary u for that position and rather than fill it uh Dr. Akbamu um has a colleague who is an expert in immersion programs that she knows from St. Paul. And so we hired this

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consultant to come in. I think she cost $18,500 um to to really take a top tobottom look at the program for us and provide us recommendations because again for those of you and Hannah just mentioned it, we

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have just kind of built this program. The airplane's been flying and we've kind of putting it together. Um, and so this is really the first time we've had somebody come in and say, "Okay, how can we, you know, we're doing a lot of good things here, but how can we really take

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this to the next level?" So, that's what you're going to hear tonight is really feedback from the consultant, and she had she talked to teachers, she talked to parents, um, I'm sure she talked to kids, um, I met with her. Um, so really

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uh just a lot of uh insight into our program and how other emerging programs work. And so that's that's kind of the background of uh of this report tonight. >> I appreciate you saying that because I did ask that question. So I know people I appreciate the public answer of it. So

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thank you >> and I think it has been the best thing that we've done in a long time for our program. So it can really lay out what we need to do in the in the coming years. So I'm excited about it. >> Thank you. Okay, so we've we've kind of talked about this already. Um, so current

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context, this program launched uh 1718 uh with the intention to grow it K through 8. Uh some of the things she highlighted as really great strengths that we already have in place that we can continue to leverage is that we have very talented, knowledgeable, committed

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staff. Hannah can attest to that. She works with many of them daily. Um we have a fantastic very engaged uh family community group um and students. In fact, we presented this to families >> last week Thursday.

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>> Yep. Oh, a week ago. Yeah. Yep. And the media center was packed. I mean, it was >> 65 65 people were there. >> So, like I'm usually like scrging to get 20 25 people to show up and it was

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great. Um and then she also identified for us what are our gaps that we have gaps in resources that we have gaps in alignment and you know we we've talked uh recently about and I'm here tonight also to ask for action on the Amigos Cenito's literacy curriculum and that was definitely a gap um Liz our

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consultant did participate very actively throughout the entire literacy adoption committee process and this is you know we we're also having a lot of enrollment conversations and this is a program that brings us enrollment. It has an opport we have the

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opportunity to grow and expand and we do capture a good amount of out of district that's within this program. So again she included she looked at student learning she looked at language development she talked to parents and staff um she evaluated our program

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structure our instructional model how many minutes we're teaching in Spanish versus English at the different grade levels and how that aligns with best practice. um and just to things that we can put in place to ensure sustainability um for future.

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So the vision is really that K8 dual language program our 20 uh and then having you know there's a lot of conversation right now because our our initial cohort of students from that program will be ninth graders next year. That's really exciting and also really

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scary for our parents because they have very much voiced like what happens with the K8 program when our eighth grader goes off to high school. So having those highlevel uh Spanish experiences which we'll address a little bit more as we we go through this content um with the goal

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of having our 2030 graduates and beyond be bilingual biiterate biiterate culturally competent and academically strong. and we want all of our kids to be college, career, and global ready. Um, I think

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dual language instruction does a really nice job of setting students up from from day one to to be that. So, our focus by level, um, when you're looking at what should be your focus within dual language instruction in those earlier grades, K6, you're really

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looking at developing strong Spanish literacy skills. As students metriculate up, you want to increase that focus on explicit writing and academic language instruction. And then the ultimate goal is to have students graduate with a seal of biiteracy. So meaning they can read,

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write, speak, and listen in two or more languages. Uh, one of the things I really appreciated about her um work is this this five-year plan. like how do you take all of these recommendations and

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make it something that is feasible that we have the capacity to kind of take micro bites at a time and and continue to work towards. So she really gave us a good idea of like where to start. Start with alignment. Start with and that's a lot of professional development and a

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lot of procurement and alignment of resources and then um that's a lot of what we've already started to do this year and then moving into launching those nth grade courses next year and then again as the students metriculate up it's an opportunity to continue to

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expand that. I am really excited about the opportunities that are the timing of moving to a block schedule at the high school with our eighth graders moving up for ninth grade. I mean like it's like meant to be. If things were faded, this

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was faded, right? Because one of the difficulties that we've had um in middle school is students really do need access to Spanish language arts and English language arts. And so students are faced with that hard decision between do I

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give up an elective um and so now when they get to high school they won't have those they'll have more electives available to them and they can continue to take these courses without um limiting maybe passion courses.

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So areas for improvement K5 and you will see professional development throughout her recommendations. We have not had a kind of district-wide look at professional development specific to dual language instruction. It's one of the first things like when I met with

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Hannah to tell her she got the job before we even left that meeting she was like so can I put together a PD plan like yes you can. >> It's what our teachers want. They want to learn more and want to learn new research. So that's our first step for the summer. >> They are hungry and it's exciting. Um,

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and then kind of second bullet, not surprising, is we needed a literacy curriculum. Um, and we need consistent student experiences. Again, some of the resources that we're starting to adopt and get in place will allow for that. We

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continue to need to look at how we can better support our special education students and our ML students within Amigos Centos. And then just an overall understanding of dual language immersion. So for our immersion teachers, yes, for our teachers on the

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English side who are colleagues within the immersion program, um, and for families, just understanding what are what are the appropriate expectations to have developmentally as students metriculate through a dual language immersion program. So next year, we've kind of already hit

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on some of these. We're looking to adopt the benchmark adante program. So that will come with additional professional development right out the gates. Um, planning time is a huge, huge thing. As we already commented on, we have amazing

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staff already in place. They come from lots of different places in in America, across the world, and we need the opportunity to give them time to leverage their expertise and share that with each other and kind of train each other. Um, so those to me feel like I

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call it lowhanging fruit. like we can figure that out without a sub substantial cost finding the time for collaboration. Um we have a teacher already at the middle school who is super passionate about creating collaborative student

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experiences. So, it was super fun to hear her make that recommendation because he's already building out kind of a curricular scope and sequence that allows our eighth grade students to come down and do some mentorship type um integration opportunities in the fourth and fifth grade classrooms at Amigos

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Cenitos. And thanks to um the partnership plan and with help from principal do we were also able to secure a grant for additional uh Spanish language texts within the media center. That was a huge need that was also

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identified through this work. So for the middle school similar there's I kind I sort of addressed that there's this English language arts and Spanish English language arts gap. Um, we're we're currently providing spang Spanish

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language arts and we're trying to also embed ELA within that. It's it's working, but there are areas for improvement there. So, we're going to start looking at how can we be more creative, whether that's with scheduling

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or creating a a scope and sequence within um English language arts and Spanish language arts that allows for a little more fluidity. And then uh we have to develop some spa Spanish social studies curriculum. I believe I saw an email like that's already in the works

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for the summer. Um we offered this year the stamp proficiency assessment at 8th grade and our students performed above the national average which was great. Um they also performed above the national average in fifth grade. >> So >> So is stamp specific to immersion then?

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I don't know if we've ever heard as a board heard. It is a Spanish specific. >> It's to test your reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills just to make to see where you're at in those different levels. Um, and our kids did wonderfully. So, >> and it's nationally normed. So, it gives you an idea of like here's at this grade

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level, developmental level, what are most students scoring? >> And then we have to start preparing and we are for that transition to high school. So, this is just another way of of looking at kind of what we've already addressed. We need time for staff

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training and professional development, planning, time for collaboration. Um, and we've already created some some really good things in place this year. One of the things that we were able to do as well at both elementary and middle was create a late entry assessment. So,

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if a student maybe moves into the district or shows interest in a family shows interest in having their child be in a Spanish our Spanish immersion program and say they're in third grade, you know, usually we're we're kind of like, well, we don't know. Do they have the Spanish language skills to get

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dropped into a third grade Spanish immersion class? So Hannah with a couple of representatives at elementary as well as as the middle school staff at middle school were able to create an assessment to say, "Yep, you are you have the reading, writing, speaking, listening skills that would you would need to just

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pop right in maybe midtrack." Um, we've already used it for we have some gate students who were in Amigos Cenitos and then left and went to Gate and are now returning back to their um, middle school and we were able to use that

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assessment to say, "Yep, plug right back on in." So, it's exciting. >> And I would like to say we never would say parents, we don't want you in our program. This is just the information we can give you based on that assessment and this is what your student is needing to do to be successful. So, just want to put that in there.

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>> Thank you. >> And then high school, the much awaited what happens when you go to high school. Uh, so we need to continue to work on course development that includes authentic text from Spanish authors. Um, and that we're aligning these to the

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test for language profic proficiency targets. Um we when we are scheduling our students from amigos we're looking at cohort scheduling so they move metriculate through their class schedules as a cohort. um

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looking at uh providing assessments to kind of just check on how they're moving with their language development at grades 10th, 11th and 12th so that we are not surprised at 12th grade when they take that um test for this seal of uh bilingualism

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and then continue to just look at what is how are students entering and if they're exiting why. So kind of monitoring those things. >> Oops, Dr. Parker >> can can go back to the last side. Sorry. Thank you. The um what is the purpose or

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or need for the cohort scheduling? Like I would assume once they're at the high school level, they would be sort of integrated into the high school. Can you talk about the coh what what's what do you mean by cohort and what what why is that? >> So there's specific courses that are being developed this summer um targeted

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to the language proficiency skills that our eighth graders are coming in with already. So, our eighth graders from Amigos Cenitos are coming in with Spanish language skills that exceed their peers in their same grade level. Um, and so in fiscally, it's very

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responsible of us to to schedule them together so that they have access to we don't have to run two or three sections of a class. We can run one section of a class because we're not talking about a high volume of students. talking about a cohort of I think 35 students

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>> right now and then we are growing at the elementary so we will get more students in each cohort as the years go on >> and then to your point it we may be able to have more you know um cross-pollination for lack of a better term >> thank you

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>> can I ask follow up on that one um so are AU students then um registering and expected to stay in the program or is this an opportunity for exit it. Um, how will that work? >> We always lose a few along the way. I

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mean, families make choices. Um, students are certainly still going to be faced with the choice of do I take, you know, um, tennis school globalis, which is a social studies content class taught in Spanish aligned that we're going to

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be offering to nth grade, but it is an elective credit, so it does take an elective spot. So yes, those are like pressure points that students and families um might have might choose to do something differently. Although

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they're very invested um by the time they get to nth grade, they're they're very invested. So I don't anticipate we'll lose a lot. >> We're certainly not forcing anyone to do anything. Okay, that was just something that I was thinking about in previewing this was how are we going to have enough

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students since it is a very specialized group and if we're creating all these great new classes if kids are deciding they want to choose something else will we have enough kids left to continue these great new classes to that is yes because if you look at how students are

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metriculating up every class before is larger than the class ahead >> so I think are we up to we have three kinderg kindergarten sections this year. >> Four actually this year. >> So when we started it was just two sections and now we're up to three to

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four depending on the grade level. >> Um with a weird little >> COVID bubble in the middle where there's little but >> okay. Thanks. >> Can I ask how many students do we anticipate seeking the seal? Um is that

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the ultimate goal for for students? I mean, or is I don't I mean, I know we don't know because they're just coming into nth grade, but >> it carries weight for college. >> Y >> um and I believe even some college credits associated. >> Absolutely.

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>> And also when parents really put their kids in, especially in the first cohort, they really had the belief of this will go till >> getting the seal of legalism. So, okay. >> I think we have invested families and students. >> Okay. And just one other question, the class size ratios that we just

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discussed, I mean, we don't have any that they would follow the same ratios that we have established, correct? Okay. >> They will. >> Yes. Sorry. >> So, getting into this program, any kindergartenner can choose to go into

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this, right? >> After that, they either got to move up or apply of some sort, especially anybody open enrolling. So somebody wants to open a enroll, they're a fourth grader, they would have to apply, right? And they have to have enough proficiency

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in Spanish or else they got to open enroll for something else or not open enroll, right? >> So kinder and first grade, we allow students to come in without any previous knowledge. Um, and then second and above, we do like to see what their proficiency is just to be like, family, this is where they're at. This is what they're expected to do, and then they

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can make that choice. Um because by second grade it really is you are learning in Spanish and you're no longer learning I mean you learn Spanish the whole time but it's it's become more rigorous by second grade. >> We would have to turn some people away right unfortunately for them. >> Yeah. And I mean yes I don't want to say

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that but I for your student to be successful and by second grade you need to have some sort of Spanish proficiency. >> And how many open enrollers do we have that we might not have if it wasn't for this program? Uh I want to say last year we had about

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13. I think we are looking at around 15 to 16 this year of open enrolled students that are not Stillwater district students that are coming to us for >> and that's a higher number than a non- Spanish immersion program like your normal 14. It is a Okay. >> This isn't right. This is an enrollment

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opportunity for us. >> Okay. Um, so I at kindergarten it's like, yep, come in. >> Great. >> We were limited by space before too. >> We were. And now that we are moving into the new beautiful Lake Elmo, the

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limitations environmentally with space are are going away. So we have even more opportunity for growth. >> That's good news. So currently we're continuing to evaluate the needs for high school and develop those course descriptions and scope and sequence. Those courses have

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gone through the district curriculum advisory committee and were put on the registration guide in advance. The work this summer is really building those out. Um and I'm super grateful that we have Hannah to do it because I do not have an expertise in doing like >> So you'll see those sometime this fall.

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the board. >> Okay. And that was and I apologize if I So these are all net new 9 10 11 12 >> all the ninth the 9th 10th 11th. So our incoming first class ever will be ninth graders and we're going to offer a course called teas globalis

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>> right but like AP Spanish that's new and that okay >> I believe we've had AP Spanish um before >> college in the school Spanish five and six. Sometimes these things are dependent on enrollment. Sure. >> We don't typically necessarily get kids that have metriculated in that are at

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that level. We're anticipating that changes now that we're we're seeing our um amigos students move up to the high school. So, we're preparing for that. >> Um we have a little bit of time >> to prepare prepare for that. But I do believe we have offered AP Spanish

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before. Tennis globalis one and two will be new brand new >> and the focus of development this summer is one for that ninth grade. Um, also new is having more of a district level look at this, which Dr. Funk addressed. um is it's really been a

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grassroots kind of Lake Elmo movement and it's grown and grown and grown which is a good thing and it's required us to really have a systematic look at how how do we better support our amigos program

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hence the addition of a coordinator this coming year which is super exciting and then looking at um what does it mean to have more uh immersion leadership or more an advisor a more formal like immersion advisory group. These are all things that Hannah and I will continue

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to have conversations about and and build into the plan. And then uh recruitment and hiring of strong bilingual staff. I think we've been fairly lucky, >> very lucky this year >> or in the past two, we've been very lucky. >> And I I think Chris might know all of

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our most if not all of our immersion positions for next year filled are filled. We're still waiting on the 0.5 I believe. And then um we're working on dedicated and sustained funding for curriculum writing which I feel very confident we can provide.

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So takeaways is we value this program. It is an important program at Solar Schools. It is important to our families. It is been a an opportunity for us to grow some enrollment for outside families. We have fantastic teachers um in place. We have a good

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foundation to build from. We were lacking that systems level look at it. We are lacking that alignment and we were lacking just coordinated resources. So those are all the things that we are focused on now and into the future >> unless you have questions.

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>> Yeah, questions from the board. >> One more. Sorry. >> Um I apologize. I should probably understand this better than I do, but can you help me understand what the difference between the AP Spanish language and culture versus college and schools 56? like they seem like that they would have a high overlap and cannibalize each other, but I I just

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don't know enough to understand it. >> I don't either. >> So, one is college in the schools is part of a college system somewhere in Minnesota. Might be Minnesota State, it might be BETHL, it might be the U of M.

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So, our teachers who teach that course are certified by the college to teach a college level course. students take the course and they gra or they they pass the class, they get college credit. An

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AP course is uh the AP national curriculum. Teachers don't have to be certified by college to teach it, but they have to be um certified by the AP Institute to be able to teach the class. And the way that kids earn credit in that is they

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have to score a three, four or five on the AP exam that occurs every early May. So um it's a high stakes test whereas the college and the schools basically you pass the class, you get the college credit. So those are two different

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approaches um to earn college credit um that the high school offers. >> May thank you. Um thank you. Uh, do we have other areas where we provide both the AP class and a college in the

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schools for the same course? We we do um I I think I'm trying to think uh if we have some English classes perhaps or maybe government um history um we might have something and they might not be identical. Um it may be European, it may

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be American, but um yeah, there is some overlap. And the high school um has had quite a bit of success with AP over time, but I think we're seeing a a growth in college in the school's enrollment because families are a

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there's a test there's a a fee to take the test for the AP test and then it's high stakes and so that really stresses some students out. Um and so there's been kind of more of a shift to um the college and the schools approach, but

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there is some requirements. Teachers have to have master's degree and they have again they have to have approval by the the university to teach the course. >> And I'm hesitant to say that the content in Spanish language and culture is the same as the content in Spanish five and

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six. I suspect one is more around um the language of Spanish and one is more around the culture and the differences in Spanish culture. Without looking at the syllabi of the courses, I can't speak to that right now, but I could certainly give you an answer in another

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way. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? Yes. >> Yeah. First, just some comments. So, uh Mr. Rice, thank you for uh leaning in and and stepping into this new role. So, congratulations. You know, I know you do some amazing work in the classroom and I

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think now from assistance level, I mean, how cool is that to be able to have you uh bringing those skill sets and passion um to the full program as a whole. So, um so thank you for that. Um and so, um yeah, I mean, a lot of great work's happening. I think again, it's just a great thing that we're doing as a

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district of just giving family choices and opportunities to find whatever their passion is. um with the high school schedule coming forward uh having you know the um continued and and more intentional uh investment into um you know the Spanish immersion program I think that's really great and you've

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been a part of it from you know the ground level when it was just kind of a bootstrap let's just do what we can do to keep it going but uh so now you have this kind of a public format what would be your sales pitch to families to say hey check out uh you know the

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>> um I think amidos is really special because we are a family Um, Lake Elmo is a really special building and we are really grateful to have found a family within the whole school. We're not just amigos. We really are one school. Um,

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but it's a wonderful place where kids learn. Um, do we make mistakes along the way? Yes. But it's it's a great place for kids to learn and grow. So, >> yeah. Well, thanks for the work you're doing >> and become bilingual. And I would be um I meant to mention on the front end, but I would be remiss to mention um I did

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receive a question earlier today about the dual language um committee that MDE has put together. Hannah serves on that committee. Wow. So we have a direct liaison between uh the work that MDE is doing around giving guidance around dual

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language instruction programs within our own system now. So that's a a fun extra we got. Well, Hannah, welcome to the new position. I mean, you're going to knock it out of the ballpark and we're so grateful that you're um that you're

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working alongside our wonderful staff to make this happen and be such a great experience for families and for our learners. So, >> yeah. Well, thank you very much for this update and if we have further questions, the board feel free to email Mike and and Caitlyn.

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>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Now we have um Caitlyn, you're gonna stick around some more. We're just gonna >> We're just gonna stay right here. >> Exactly. Um so last meeting we had a um update on a report on curriculum

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adoption for AU. Um this is an investment um that we are making um of what was itund just under >> $72,59350. >> Perfect. So Oh, yeah. No. So, I was just going to go

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ahead and um and make the motion to approve. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Great. Director Theundi with a second. And then I just thought um I could turn it over to you. I know we already had the report and so probably um you've gotten some questions from board members and um but if there's any additional

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questions remaining before we vote. No, I think the the question that I've received um more than once, which is always a good indicator of I didn't cover it well enough if it's asked more than once, is um what is the guidance around the science of reading for

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immersion curriculum? And it's actually a fairly complex question, right? Because there is a lot of types of immersion programs, you know, German, Mong, Mandarin, Spanish. And so what the State Department has said with this um

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advisory group that they're pulling of immersion experts, not necessarily specifically Spanish immersion experts, is that they're not going to weigh in like they did on the English side with here's curriculum you can adopt, here's curriculum you can't adopt. What they're

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saying is when you go in to looking and evaluating uh your curriculum, you need to look for these science of reading characteristics. what are the foundational aspects that are built into that that curriculum around phmic awareness specific to what the that

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language needs are and similarly for knowledge building components. So the the science stands, but the application of that science to the to the curriculum, you really need people living it and teaching it to weigh in on

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does this work for the program, which was why having um the committee of representatives from our amigos program was so important in this curriculum uh evaluation round.

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So those were those were the questions I had. So we've we've the ones we considered met those requirements. Our teachers felt really really good about the benchmark adilante adoption and they especially felt good at the upper grade levels around the how well benchmark

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adilante pairs with benchmark advance. So as they're doing both ELA instruction and Spanish language arts instruction, they're able to to have a curriculum that partners well with the English side. and I'm sure an integral part of the PD

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that you'll be planning this summer. >> Yes. >> Great. Any other questions? Yes. >> Thank you for this and I apologize for missing last uh meeting so I couldn't ask this question then. Um looking at the cost, how much of that is year one and how much is that is incremental? Like uh see some of that's professional

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development or staff support. How much of this is new cost and how much of that is year one? Most of that is going to be a year one out the gate cost is that 172,000 but it covers a six-year implementation. So it covers the materials for the six-year

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implementation. I believe it covers two maybe three years of PD and consultation from the curriculum company. And during that time we're also then developing people internally who can sustain that that training. Hannah being one of those

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individuals. >> Thank you. I just I just want to make a comment. Um I so appreciate all the work that is going into um evaluating our program, the AU program, and then also investing in literacy. Um I feel like this program

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has really um grown so much over the years. And so much of the work has been done by individual teachers and families to support um and find the resources for our kids. So, I very much appreciate that our district is stepping up and really evaluating, figuring out where we

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need to add additional support and then in hopefully if we pass this, which I'm sure we will, um, investing in literacy as well. So, thank you for all of your work that is going into this. We really appreciate I particularly appreciate all of that. Thank you. >> I agree.

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Okay, we have a motion and a second. Seeing no other questions, all those in favor of the um Amigos Unitos curriculum adoption, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Motion passes six to zero. Okay. Um now

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we're going to have an update on middle school athletics and activities. So we have Annette coming up. Are you up by yourself today? Okay. Well, Chair Sherman and Superintendent

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and Funk and members of the board, thank you for giving me this opportunity to update the board on middle school sports. >> See if I can figure out we are. Why are we here? I think you know why we are here.

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>> But you may be less familiar with the fact that middle school sports are currently operating at a loss of about $150,000 a year. and that's being covered by the general fund. And so by looking at uh how could we find some

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cost savings there, one of the ways was by shifting this cost away from the general fund to community education. So I wanted to stop for just a second and look at the community education mission. Our mission is to provide lifelong learning opportunities that

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promote the health and well-being of our community. And you can imagine that middle school sports fits well within this mission. We've heard from some of our community members that they're concerned about community education taking over this

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program. >> Probably fear of the unknown, right? They're not sure what community how maybe how community education runs their programs and they love this program. So they don't want to see it change and I understand that completely and I think it is an absolutely exceptional program

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as well. So we decided we needed to seek some community feedback. So we put together a survey. Carissa, thank you. And uh asked our community, what is it that you value about this program? And the good news is is they really value it. We knew that. We knew that it was a good program and they absolutely value

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this. Um but that uh we we needed to use this information that we decided we needed to use this information from the survey then to build our goals for how we were going to address the um middle school sports because as you can imagine

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community education doesn't have a fund sitting someplace of money that we can uh uh um contribute to supporting this program. So, we used it to build out our goals. Um, I think everyone understands why we

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would want the highest quality programs, reasonable cost. That one's pretty straightforward. What might be more difficult to wrap our minds around is how to build a budget that will maintain financial stability and long-term viability without compromising accessibility.

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To answer this question, we looked at how the current program program is functioning. And the good news is is it's actually uh functioning quite well. The program is already employing a lot of cost-saving techniques and is an example example of

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a well functioning program. The bad news is is that that will make it that much more difficult for us to find some cost savings, right? Um but that consequently we will need to charge higher prices for this program. We know

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that. We've been talking about that for some time now, but we want to keep that cost down as much as we can. So, I want to explore that a little with you tonight. First and foremost, here is our current circumstances. We have our pro on the left side. You'll see uh those are the

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sports that we're currently offering. Assuming interest in those sports remain strong, we will be able to continue to run those programs. On the right side of the slide are is our current fees followed by our proposed fees for next year. You will

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see we are proposing that we would maintain a free and reduced price although they are not the free is not exactly free. We did look at other programs to determine what is a common price being charged at that free rate

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and $25 was the number that came up. And so we um built this model based on that idea. >> Question. >> Oh, yes. I'm sorry. >> Right here. >> Yes. >> Um so go back a slide.

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>> Go back. All right. >> So I have not asked you this question and I don't know if we have somebody in the room who may have it. >> How long have we been $95? >> Great question. So, uh, when I looked at

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things, uh, it appears that this is the first year that we have been charging $95. Prior to that, we had sort of a staggered, um, amount. It was $75 and $85 depending upon the grade of the student. >> Okay. Thank you.

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>> So, this is the first year at $95. >> Can I ask a question while on the slide, too? >> Absolutely. So, you kind of alluded to this, but looking at um all of these different programs, I'm guessing there's going to be an enrollment cap or limit for able being able to actually run all

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these programs. Is that something that you anticipate that >> a cap of how many kids can participate? >> I guess not so much a cap, but more of a minimum. A floor is what I'm looking for. Yes. >> Right. And they're actually, as I did my research, they already have a minimum. >> Okay. >> Okay. So that is a common practice that

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they're already using and we would not anticipate changing that. >> So it would be about the same amount to run the program. Do you anticipate adding any additional programs to this list in community yet? >> I wouldn't be opposed to it. The question has not come my way this thus far, but I wouldn't be opposed to it.

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>> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> All right. So, we want to manage our costs. The actual cost to run the program as we were looking at budgeting for next year

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is about $285 participant if we maintained the free and reduced structure which as I've already said we want to maintain and this is again keeping all the elements that currently exist in the programs. So, transportation stays all of the coaching

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model stay nothing changes >> all of those things would remain the same. Correct. and that we want to maintain that right that that accessibility requires transportation. We have excellent staff and um want the students to have the same experience

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they're they have now. Um but we will need to do a number of things in order to address it. As you can see uh the cost for next year is projected at $285 $285. We are grateful that the school district

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has identified a small pocket of funds from which they will be able to cover transportation and the coordinator cost. This will help us out um and uh quite a bit. But in addition to that, we have started talking with our cities and some

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of our community service group organizations in the community. Um in fact, I've had the opportunity to meet with the Bayport City Council in addition to the Afton Bayport Lakeland Lions Club. Um, and I am pleased to share with you that the Lions Club has

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agreed to provide some financial support for the next five years. >> Wow. >> Isn't that terrific? >> That's amazing. >> And we this is only the beginning. We're going to continue to do this for the foreseeable future, visiting with different service organizations in the cities if if we're so allowed the time

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and see what we can do to bring that cost down with additional funding. Can I just I want to um put a plug in here that these are exactly the reasons why this is a good move to to move it to community ed because we've got you who is you are so familiar with this and when I was reading the deck that was

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probably the most exciting thing because it's such a natural ask um it's doing so much for the community when we offer these things. So >> and we are fortunate in this community that there are a number of organizations that one of their primary purposes is to

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support youth. >> Yep. So I believe there's um opportunity that exists there. >> Thank you. >> Uh some people have asked um what is what what does this compare in other school districts, right? So you can see

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in the middle column that tells you where community education is actually already providing this program and as I mentioned earlier um it is a good fit. So we see a number of districts that are doing it. we really only analyzed the east metro, but that I can tell you it

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goes well beyond that. And that um uh what uh you can see that $200 does put us near the top of this list, but what we can say is that um that doesn't capture all of the information that is

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included on this slide. So, understand that some of the programs represented here have reduced what they're offering. >> Correct. as a result of not being able to maintain them and and that that's not what we want to do and that's why we're seeking out this additional support. We

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want to continue to provide uh the variety of sports that that we're already offering. So, um >> and for example, I know some of these that are lower do do not offer transportation. >> Yes. Correct. And then you can see South Wash and Mountains View, if you look at that, it says in district only. So

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they're only um because they have multiple middle schools, they're uh having the students compete against each other, but they are not going outside of their school district. And then Chasago was interesting that they've outsourced all of their sports. Uh and that as a result of that, it is it has eliminated

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their free and reduced model that that the sport the uh organizations that have picked up those sports in the community are not providing that option. And so we didn't want to see that happen either. So what to expect? I shared uh all of

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this I share all of this with you tonight understanding that we are still building the bike. We got a little work to do here, but we're getting close. Of course, we need to start registration in mid July. So families should plan on registering in the same way they have in

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the past. We will still have a free and reduced pricing and look forward to working with the same great coaches and staff that make this program what it is. Questions? >> Dr. Funk, >> just a point of clarification and you

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had a great slide there showing all the different districts who've gone to community ed for this. Um, you know, I have heard that because community ed will be overseeing the program

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that it's not a district program anymore. People are making the the assumption, well, now it's a community program. Okay? Community education is part of the school district. It's just a different department within the district. So, this is still a district

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program. we're funding it through a community education channel instead of uh the general education budget. So I think that's important for people to understand. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Comments or Yes. >> No, I think this is a really good outcome. I know there was concerns

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especially from access and equity standpoint and um all those were alleviated. Obviously some of the fees are have to increase but I mean that's just the reality of where we're at and um I mean go to the gas pump. I it's more expensive than it was. So, um but

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yeah, no, I think there's some opportunities and love to find out ways that um community members can help maybe make those connections and um trying to reach out to all the different organizations and cities to make sure that we're trying to raise as much money as possible to make it even more uh

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accessible and equitable for for kids. So, but thank you for the work that you've done with this. So, uh we definitely have taken um a lot of thought and effort and been very purposeful, you know, like Dr. Funk has says. >> Yes, Dr. funk. >> I Yeah, I want to really emphasize and thank you for saying that. Um that $200

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is the ceiling. Okay. So, if if we get more community education or commu community groups saying, "Hey, we want to support this or cities, hey, we have recreation dollars we want to support this with," that fee will go down. But what we're talking about today is worst

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case scenario, families will will be, you know, full price will be $200. So, I think it's important that, you know, that you know, Annette's doing a great job of going out and meeting with the different community groups. Um, so, um, hopefully we can continue to whittle

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that number down. >> Now, we had, um, during our budget priority conversations, we had identified, and I don't have it in front of me, a dollar amount that this move was going to save the district >> 150,000. >> Okay. So, are we're achieving the >> 200,000. So we're we are going to be

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contributing about 50,000 from the district for the transportation piece and for the ad for for consistency u from the general fund. U but the the rest of it will be um coming through community education.

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>> Okay. So we didn't quite get everything saved that we wanted to but we're pulling >> Marie was able to identify uh another uh $50,000 that we could utilize somewhere else to pay for it. >> Okay. Right. Can I ask just a clarific clarification

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question? Um, at the very end you mentioned registration will be done the same way. Will it be through the schools then or will it be through the community ed booklet? >> Well, you no it will be through the schools. Okay. So, the experience is not changing. Okay. Using the exact same uh registration system.

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>> Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. >> Because the booklet's actually it's really good. >> It is a good booklet. >> Thanks. and we thought about trying to put it in our in our catalog, but because we don't have all of the details yet, >> we weren't. And we're actually almost done with we've completed our uh design

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for the fall. There's just not the time the timeline didn't match up. So, >> thank you. >> Great, Chris. >> I was just going to say back to the the finding the money for the transportation. I I think that's huge. I mean, that that was something that had the potential to impact absolutely

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everybody, you know, that that that participates. So, uh $50,000 well spent, you know, wherever it cames from, you know, that that's that's great. That seeing that when looking at the at the deck before, I I was like, problem solved,

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>> right? >> Yeah. Awesome. and and and I don't think $200 is is, you know, you at the the full freight, you know, it's not out of line, you know, I mean, just based on sports just in general, it's, you know, seems fair. So, and

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hopefully we can bring that down. And I appreciate just knowing what the cost is to run a program like this and knowing because I think a lot of times people wonder well what do you spend your money on and what do you you know where are you putting the dollars that you're

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allocated from the state federal local and this is an example where we do subsidize that and so I don't think we've always done a good job really talking to people about the cost of what we do and then in something like this and it's a really important part of your

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school community experience. Um I just think you've done some outstanding work and I'm sure it's not just you. I'm sure I'm thinking of the athletics department and um Nate Cox I'm sure was involved in this. I mean just a bunch of different people probably involved in this. So thank you to everyone that came up with

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this really nice solution. So I do I just wanted to mention really quickly um if you look at these goals these are the goals for the community education program in general providing the highest quality programs at the most reasonable cost. That is

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always our goal. Creating a budget that ensures financial stability and long-term viability of all of our programs are always at the forefront and then maintaining as much accessibility as we can. So it is again it isn't a stretch for us to apply these same um uh

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goals and and understanding of these programs. So yeah, >> Dr. Parker, >> I just want to say I appreciated the responsiveness of the community. I was surprised uh by the community outreach on this. I think it was 60 or 65 to1 as

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far as emails that I received on this versus letting you know a number of teachers go which I was rather shocked by the the outreach. Um so just really appreciate the responsiveness and and creativity. >> Okay. Well, thank you for this update.

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We appreciate it. Um we're going to move on to our next item which is an action item this evening. Um it's kind of wrapping or I guess updating this year's. So you know we're always working on multiple budgets on any given time. This is 2526

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spring budget revision. Um and today our finance director is Dr. Funk. >> Okay, here we go. Um so this is the Go ahead to the next slide. So this is the second uh budget revision we've had during this school year. Last fall, of

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course, we had our budget revision as a result of the legislative session um and the changes that came out of that. This revision will include changes to both revenue and expenditures um by fund. And at the conclusion, I'll just be asking for the board to uh

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approve the spring budget revision as part of the district's audit requirement. Uh so the slide you see in front of you in blue um this is the spring revision and you can see that the the changes there are in blue um and this is for the

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revenue side of things and over the next few slides I will um be going through the through the different pieces of this. So go to the next slide. So changes to this um so the first one

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there is state aid. So that first number, $673,000, this is our special education reimbursement revenue that we received from from prior years. This is mostly transportation related. So we get that

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back for uh you know, we're always two years behind in what we receive in transportation. And just for the board's information, this is the percentage that will be going down for the next so we will see next year it'll be 95% of this number.

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uh or or of the the total this this showed 100% and then uh I think the following year it'll be 90 u so correct >> that is an impact for us um hourly unemployment um this is the amount received for

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summer unemployment for for our hourly employees so we receive that reimbursement from the state so that's additional revenue um grant revenue these are for um individual grants and and grants we receive in the partner partnership plan um that are included in

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that. And then you also see we received some federal grants there. And then um we also have um some local other revenue which are um smaller donations that we received to the district. And then at the bottom of the slide there you see

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food service fund. Um there's an adjustment there um which was mainly due to increases in sales and and in interest in the fund. Next slide is the community service fund. Um that one includes revenue

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changes due to tuition and fees that have gone up and increased to state aid for early childhood family education and also um non-public aid money we received for our non-public students. And then you see the the building and

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construction fund that was uh due to the recent school building and facility maintenance bond sale. On the expenditure side, um you can see we got the blue column there on the on the changes to the expenditures and um

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of significance there. Our food service fund has a healthy fund balance and they will be um utilizing that where community service is slightly looking to increase their fund balance.

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Uh next the 2526 expenditure changes. Um the grant activity both individual and from the partnership plan is included in the budget revision as we received the money now we have spent it. Um the uh

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program and site site adjustments um that includes different levy funded programs. Um you can see what that is. Um you can see the compensatory aid uh adjustment. Um and then the uh the federal grants uh again the expenditures

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related to that and then uh s salary and benefit adjustments both from unemployment hour unemployment and uh voluntary prek. So that expenditure is 1.8 million. And the next slide

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um food service fund you can see that uh um we have an expenditure to include increases to food costs, milk costs and supplies and with a slight decrease in salary and benefits that's rel related to staffing. you know, if we have a we

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don't hire people and we are are short uh u we just cover it internally. And so we have had a a struggle over time as the board is aware u and competing for hourly employees um particularly in the areas of food service and and custodial

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um services as well. And then as far as the community service fund um you can see the increases of salary and benefits, fees for service and supplies. So if you add those together according to Marie and her numbers of the budget

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revision balances um based upon those those first few pages that I shared with you. So that is what I know regarding that piece of it. Um questions from the board and just to be clear again this is a requirement from our audit for our

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audit process we independently audit. So it's just another in the series of updates and revisions that we approve. >> Correct. Um, we will see this again to approve for a final >> I believe you're going to approve your final budget in June and then you will

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approve your uh projected 2627 budget in June >> June as well. So kind of we'll be talking about wrapping up the 25 26 and then looking ahead to next >> and I know that you know Marie had initially had talked wanted to give you a projected budget update and she wasn't

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going to be here tonight so I had her put it in the the board update that you received on Friday which projects out for us and and the good news with that projection is we're actually seeing our fund balance go up uh 0 2 or 3% um which

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is great news in I mean, it's we're moving in the right direction with our fund balance. It's not great news, but it's it's >> we're not eating away at it, >> right? >> Um, so this um before we get going here, um I'm going to make a motion to approve

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this um as presented is this update to the budget. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Right. Director Hawker with the second. Uh questions for Dr. Funk on the uh budget revision. Seeing none, I am going to go ahead and call for the vote. All those in favor of

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approving the revision, raise your hand and say I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Great. The revision passes six to zero. And we will move on to our next item. Um, and is this Oh, this is you. Okay.

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We're going to do the uh resolution. >> This is this is normally in June, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. >> Yes. Well, we've been behind Zen past years, so this is good. the uh resolution for membership in the state high school league. This is an annual requirement and so um I recommend we

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continue our membership with Minnesota State. >> I think this is a a pretty good call here. Um is there a motion to approve the Minnesota State High School League membership? >> So moved. >> Great. Director Theelander, is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Okay. Director Hawker with the second.

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This is a resolution, so we'll do a roll call vote. >> Director, yes. Director Hawker, >> yes. >> Director Lowour, >> yes. >> Director Parker, >> yes. >> Director Theelander, >> yes. >> Chair Sherman, >> yes. >> Resolution passes unanimously.

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>> Great. Or actually passes 6 because we have one um gone, right? >> Our high school league member is not here. >> He missed the vote. Okay. Um now we are going to have another resolution here and Chris is going to come up. Um we've done this once before and these are this

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is good news. We have a teacher coming back for um an unrequested leave of absence as a part of our budget um priority process. >> Yes. So before you is a resolution to rescend the uh ULA status of um our last um elementary licensed teacher who was

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put out on ULA. So we are very happy to um get her back. >> Yeah. Awesome >> that you all will approve the resolution. >> Great. Um is there a motion to approve the resolution? >> Great. Director Lowour in a second. >> I'll second.

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>> Okay. Sarah with the second. Uh, this is also a roll call vote. >> Director Griezmann, >> yes. >> Director Hucker, >> yes. >> Director Lowour, >> yes. >> Director Parker, >> yes. >> Director Theelander, >> yes. >> Chair Sherman, >> yes.

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>> Resolution passes six. Great. Thank you very much. Good news. All right. With that, um, we are adjourned. That's it. Thank you guys.