get penalized which right but is there a all right we will call the December 16th school board meeting for tra and public schools to order please stand for the fedge Allegiance Pledge alance 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 recognition of visitors open Forum I no request um number four approve
agenda second um motion by Dwayne second by Rebecca all in favor I I oppose same sign motion carries number five Cobra Pride yeah last Friday we had our second
profile of a graduate and um recognized integrity and dependability with Harper gens in kindergarten Asher hgraph first grade Wayan Ericson second grade Annabella Thorson third grade Leah gross
fourth grade anak Mendoza uh fifth grade Wyatt flum sixth grade Scarlett Crocker BG seventh grade m matius Jara 8th grade uh Jessica hookie ninth grade Broden Dicky 10th grade Mason
bills 11th grade and Madison Bishop in 12th grade and all of them were able to be there so it was a it was a good good event so one of the neat things that we've started that really is a neat event so
just want to congratulate all of those individuals who was um selected for staff um let me think Tessa and Andrea from for for the from the high school and then hea R Heather
Randall was the uh Elementary okay Ashley Bera from the Middle School nice good all right um number six approved consent Agenda One More second motion by Jim
second by Dale all in favor I opposed motion carries new business 7.1 truth and Taxation information discuss Levy certification and budget yeah welcome
Amy hello I I'm good I don't mind it um so yeah you got all kind of been through the drill before so not a lot of new stuff this year which is okay um but obviously this is our truth and Taxation
public meeting um Minnesota law requires that cities counties and School District follow certain steps for adopting a tax levy for the following year so one part of that is a mailed notice that all property tax owners get um and then and then another part of that is um and
sorry I should go back um on that mail notice I described their proposed tax levies and then um what per increase the levy would meet in their tax dollars the other part of that is the meeting which we're having tonight um um so some
requirements um next one next one yeah please requirements of uh Tre taxations public meeting um one more one more there you go so we're going to disc discuss
proposed tax levy um for payable 2025 U we're going to look at the current year budget and then we'll give um the public a reasonable time to comment and ask questions um so some important points to remember um Revenue formulas are set by the state legislature except for the voter
approved pieces um the local Levy and state ades are set also set by legislature and increase in local taxes doesn't necessarily mean an increase with school district um so our first piece we're going to look at our budget for the current 2024 25 Scher starting with
Revenue news um so we're currently looking at the general fund our totales are 12.8 n or we're down about 2% from last year's actual uh Food Service fund uh down down
about 6% so not a lot about 40,000 from last year uh community service we're looking at 4 and a half% decrease from last year in revenues and then Debt Service is staying pretty stable just increase of 3% um overall we're looking at a 2%
decrease in revenue from last year's total um and I'm looking at breakdown as far as general fund revenues go um you can see 79% of our Revenue comes from state aid which is
not not surprising um the local ly is about 15% and then 2% Federal and 3% other local so that's uh fees and donations for the most part miscellaneous items um and then point to the expenditure
side so uh general fund we're looking at 12.9 million expenditures which is down about three and a half% from last year um on some planned things with service um is up a little bit and that's basically um because of the increase in
students eating because of free meals so which is a good thing it's 3 meals um but that causes cost causes cost to go up so we're up about 9% in expenditures uh community service we're looking at expenditures decreasing about
50,000 at 70% in debt service again paying stable pretty much so total excuse me so expenditures of 15.3 million or down about 3% from last year and then this just kind of shows you a breakdown of kind of power general
fund dollars are spent you can look at obviously you know the big ticket items are the ones you would expect you would want to see um Regular education regular instruction at 44% special education at almost 17% and then um people support at 9% and
that would be our uh counseling services Social Services uh transportation and then our facilities at 8% and then um so again here's a breakdown of kind of what are what we're paying for um also kind of what you would
expect salaries are at 61% benefits at 19 um purchase Services it 13 and a big chunk of that is um like Zed services so again kind of people that are coming here helping our students and then smaller portions for
supplies Capital things like that so the next piece um we're going to look at our current uh proposed Levy and so this will be it'll be approved in 2024 it'll be taxes payable by property owners in 2025 um but the school actually won't
receive those funds until until school year 2026 it's kind of a process um so some other some points to remember um the levy is either set by state formula formula it's voter approved or voter approved up to 72 $724
per people um some local factors that can affect tax change um inflationary pressure on the real estate market um tax abatements property improvements not prevent tax changes in assess value or um possible changes in property
classification po going all faction so the levy that is being proposed tonight this is kind of a breakdown by fun um 63% to the general fund 4% to commun and
33% to J what that looks like in actual dollars um general fund 2 2, 23, 73169 so it's an increase of about 11% uh community service
137,000 3116 and that's 11.06% and then Debt Service uh 1,61 3919 um that's up 2.64% so we're looking at a an increase from 2024 of$
26557 77 or total of 8.81 8.18% um breaking it down by the categories kind of gives you an idea of what each area is seeing and changes um so just the referendum piece increase
of 65,000 um Equity of 17 uh operting Capital 30,000 your Tech is up 14,000 um ltfm is up almost 38,000 save
schools are just up a little bit at 2400 and least lby you'll see is up 58,000 so that is um the adjustment for the mostly for the Zed lease and then there's also um kind of a retro adjustment because they're kind of behind a year so that includes an
adjustment from last year to help pay for the that so that kind of gives you an idea of where all these adjustments are coming from so our next slide um next couple slides um we're provid by
ERS and this is kind of an interesting piece so it kind of shows you um so for a residential homeowner with with an estimated market value of 250,000 how how how we are receiving those funds
versus districts around us um so it's kind of based on market value of our District's property versus the districts around us so it kind of gives you a good an interesting perspective how how we
lay what the communities next one yeah go ahead and the next one kind of gives the same thing but it's Bas it's it's um one EG one acre of egg property with a value of 11,000 so it's interesting how they kind of
play out very similarly it was kind of we actually just saw these last week and I didn't expect that it was a little surprising to me honestly so and you know the biggest the biggest thing is when you start to look at the
those those schools that are a lot higher they they they have spent a lot of money on buildings and and you know we really haven't right the the biggest the biggest reason for our taxes being the way they are is because of the levy that we passed um correct and yeah I should
point out too like so cast and man and Byron don't have those are building based we they don't have operating referendums like we do so those they're higher because of all building all building y expensive buildings yes
yeah so we're in good shape in that regard right um so this slide too kind of shows you based on that same kind of um market value what how what the change is going to be from 24 to 25 so like that same
own homeowner that they're based on 250,000 their taxes will go up a dollar 24 to 25 so increases are very minimal that's just the school that's
just the school y yeah just yeah question this and this is something we talked about this here's the caveat to that when the valuation of your property goes up you do pay more in taxes and the other
thing that then happens and we've talked about this because realistically what's happening is the people that live in the community are paying more and then we get less state aid so even by them valuating your
property and increasing your taxes the state actually gives us less so just something to think about it's it's that whole formula they have to balance themselves out so and that's that's you know again we
don't have that Authority the the cities and counties can raise your taxes without asking when we need money we have to go ask for it we do and and it's strictly based on her yes so
yeah we are kind of stuck in that regard so so yes so this is our proposal um for taxes for 2025 um nights for approval um uh looking at the general fund 2,213
73169 and that does include the referendum the voter approved referendum uh community service of 13731 16 Debt Service 1,61 391 96 um so a total proposed Levy for 2025
of 3,521 15481 so having sped through that pretty quickly any public comment or question go 7.2 yeah so approval of final 2024 payable 2025 level C leev
Levy certification second motion by Jim second by Brian all in favor I opposed motion carries 7.3 authorized students to attend wolfridge ELC trip in January of
2026 drank out of my cup last night [Laughter] again all right uh this is my annual plan to give you an update on where we're at um this year we are uh excited to leave in 31 days for another fridge
Adventure uh we have more than 80% of the N of the nth grade class attending this year which is excellent um up from last year um they're I they're excited about it um and and looking forward to a fun weekend along with that we have nine senior
leaders Rina here coming along with us as well um so we're just doing final payments and final info when we get back from break it'll be real quick and then we take off um and while we're there um I would love to have approval to sign
up for 2026 uh the associated dates uh would be January 15th through 18th in 2026 this year we did make a a slight change we have previously done a Friday through Monday and we're going Thursday to
Sunday this year instead um and that will give the kids a a day to recoup when they get home um to come in with more energy for school on Tuesday um so we're looking at probably
sticking with that same plan for next year you did that for the [Laughter] adults don't tell any budy it also is a is a bonus for us yes great so any
questions I'll make a motion to approve can um motion by was that you doing yeah okay second by Jim to approve 7.3 all in favor I opposed you thanks K thank you 7.4
approve sixth grade overnight stay to Eagle Bluff March 26 through 28th 2025 yeah hi everyone hello as you know last year um we gave ego Bluff a try for the first time and we weren't really sure
what that experience would be like but if you recall when the teaching staff came in afterwards it really was a fantastic experience so you know we we gave that Eagle Bluff a thought because we were without a staff member that really wanted to take the lead and
organize that trip and it's it's a big undertaking so as Jim knows um so went to Eagle Bluff and what the teachers really found what they continue to talk about is just the great staff that they had um that they were able to spend time
with the students um form relationships build those connection ctions with the kids instead of spending all of their time setting up activities and getting the supplies and all of that kind of stuff um it was fantastic from start to finish so we really would like to uh continue to go so we'd like to go again
for this school year anybody have any questions how many years did you go there Jim a lot 30 wasn't it close close to it yeah yeah
motion to approve 7.4 a second motion by Dale second by Rebecca to approve 7.4 all in favor I oppose motion carries discuss approve final certified staff seniority list for 2024 2025 and
I'm going to ask if we could just table this till next month we had some people that kind of uh need to make some adjustments on the list that were kind of last minute so I told them I would wait a month so you're
going to table the next one too no next one's good so 7.6 say discuss approved final classified staff senority list for 2024 2025 okay A Move second motion by Lloyd second by Rebecca to approve
7.6 all all in favor I oppos motion carries now we're get into the fun stuff 7.7 student council report this is why we all come well thank you and first I would like to apologize for not being here
last me okay you guys are busy yes we are and that's good we left off in kind of like October the end of October which is or like hway festivities we this year we took the opportunity to
be part of the uh Halloween party that the Lions usually do um and we did help them this year which was a definitely success we that was something new that we've never done so it's was kind of good to add something new to our schedule and not doing the same things over and over
again because that kind of gets born uh we had a lot of people coming for being the first year that we organized it so it was really fun want to see that uh for other um Halloween festivities we had tree King which is
when uh Halloween night we go around in the community and ask for donations for the crew track and it was a very cold and windy night oh it was and but we still got 98 pounds of th which is 100 pounds more
than last year so I think that kind of shows the community that we're part of you know um yeah uh we had our s conference meeting which is a student council meeting which we can meet with other student councils
from the around the area uh we were matching shirts and there's a picture there uh we got this year that's something knew that we did this year too have shirts to promote studing Council and we got a lot of compliments on them actually uh we learned a lot in the S conference new
ideas to bring to the ccil and it also little out like team bonding because I think that's important MH we're a group so it's it's fun to get good things together outside of the school this year also we started a teacher of the quarter award that we are
presented by that is presented by student council from students votes so we uh sent a Google form to all the we put in our schoy page and uh the students could could vote for any teacher of the high school that they deserve uh to be the teacher of the
quarter this year was this semester was Mr O'Brien he's a math teacher so so we're excited to keep doing that uh next next quarter obviously mrri is not going to be in the list so and everyone can get a chance to shine I
guess um uh we also did something in Thanksgiving like or November because November is usually like a boring time for us there's nothing much we can do so we decided to do a thankful poster which you would have a picture up but we said we did a poster and during lunch and people could write things posting us
they thank thankful for and we made a little tree where we put it it was I think it was up to of the library or was right doors yes yeah doors which is something new that we did and people want to do it next year so I'm glad they like the idea and now we're going to our
holiday activities uh we started Bingo last year last sorry last week which is going great actually we never had to go out our own way to buy more presents more prices and I had to go buy more prices cuz everyone is doing bingos we never had to like reprint Bingo Pages
because people were keeping like asking for it and well I'm glad you're doing it I mean that's what we do it for for the students so I'm happy they're liking it and this week we started rest of days uh today is red versus green tomorrow is going to be um ugly sweater Wednesday is
going to be Kandy cane day so red and white Thursday um holiday character and Friday is going to be PJ day and what's uh forward for us is going to be snow week in February and I think we're thinking of doing military boxes to send to our previous um members
of student council and also the community that are serving for our country right now thank you excellent thank you very much and it really was neat to see all of the people that were writing notes and putting them out of on that that thankful tree that was a neat idea thank
you yeah and the teacher of word too is because I think teachers sometimes are un appreciate I think they appreciate only in the week in May I think just throughout the whole year we should appreciate our wonderful teachers yes nice
job thank you thank you you guys got to follow that 7.8 Z report um we still have an we have a meeting Thursday we didn't have one in November um
but we are going to be reviewing our audit yes and I'll send the um I didn't send out the update yet today I I'll send that out tomorrow and that has the agenda and it also has the um enrollment numbers so I'll send that out in the
update tomorrow I did peek at the enrollment the interesting thing on that is we would be the lowest if you take out the birth to three we're the lowest but with the birth to three were the second
highest we have I believe it was 20 yeah birth to three yeah and that is the largest program right now at Z is the birth to three program which is kind of concerning um and then there is going to
be oh someone's in the director's report I so um they've been non-member usage of the building or or Services they've gotten I believe it was $43,000 and that will be distributed
um to the districts on their second half of the we we pay U um is a 650 a pupil unit each district and we'll get that will be
rebated against that is my understanding I don't know maybe you know more no that's I don't know if I explained that nothing um did we talk about this that they're not
going to do anything with solar at the last meeting all right that's all I have okay do you have anything else SL no well I don't believe you not January
yeah 7.9 ad report yeah um Cy couldn't be here but um just a couple things they they've kind of been looking into volleyball still for board we've got two interested they're talking about maybe doing an area team um we'll know more
about that in the future I I I don't know there's not a lot of interest in this area so it it seems like it's taken off more up in the cities um and then he does have a picture there they had a Minnesota State High School league student advisory leadership team
conference um down at the Mayo Civic Center on the 14th and uh those were the students there that went to that so that was a a need experience for those kids leadership opportunity any questions on the 0
report 7.10 principal reports hello everyone um and I can talk to the first one because Shane's at a a basketball game tonight but they uh doing a lot of different fun activities down in the elementary one of those
they're doing movie clip Monday um where they actually and you can see that the the last movie clip was from The Grinch who stole Christmas they're continuing to do their hero Awards and then they're also doing theme song Thursdays where they uh they play a song on the on the
intercom and of course Mr Vanek uses his skills with theone yeah he called it something else he got more technical name than I I don't know but uh it's it's neat to see the kids get fired up for that that uh
those events and uh enthusiasm that's what you want to see in in in kids it's enthusiastic to be in school so it's just a a neat thing to see and I think that we're seeing that in a lot of different so I'm going to turn it over to
Trisha well I wanted just to highlight a couple of great experiences that are seventh and eighth graders had so 8th grade had their um annual courage retreat at the Faith Lutheran Church and as usual the youth Frontier staff did an amazing job and it was a great day for
the students and staff that were able to be a part of that so it's always a highlight of the year um and Mrs Meer plans to do some follow-up lessons um throughout the school year just to keep that Spirit of the day fresh in the students mind so um that was a great
event and then our seventh grade got to go to the guthy theater they had been learning in language arts class um and uh Read A Christmas Carol they got to work in groups to put um pieces of the play together themselves go to the pack
stage and present to each other and then as a conclusion to the unit they got to take a field trip to the Guthrie Theater to see a professional performance of the play and from what I heard it was a great experience um the staff said the students were incredibly well behaved
and even during the intermission got the whole theater um to do the wave I didn't hear yeah very appropriately they said it was great um so yeah a lot of awesome experiences on the guing trip so
yeah all right well that's a that's a tough transition from field trips and experiences to the testing piece one one thing I wanted to add before we uh we get into the details of this one surprise for me this year is um competitive I think is probably the
appropriate word with Bingo um so uh student council they've been doing a great job with a number of things but that's probably um you know obviously we're focused on academics and making sure our teachers have what they need for the students probably the last week
the number one question I heard is was the number from last hour what's the number so um our students are invested in and obviously we want them to have an enjoyable time at school so thank you uh just some dates wanted to make sure the board had on their mind uh the spring dates for tests obviously the ACT day is
a big one um if you remember a year ago I just wanted to remind Bard because uh the sign up process for the ACT has started for our prep course as well um so just a reminder as a junior you can take the act or the ASVAB um there is uh
this previous year we started to charge a fee for the ACT and we're not trying to um raise funds this way or anything like like that but doing something to offset the cost but then if students do sign up and take the prep course and pay
the fee for that which has been in place for a long time uh then we wave and attend the course then we wave the fee so um you know obviously we want to increase attendance in the prep course if you're going to take the ACT and we went through this change and the figures
from last school year to the previous years were about the same um so we're seeing about the same percentage of students take the ACT but this was a change year ago so I just wanted to remind board in case you receive any questions or or
things like that on the test this spring we can go to the next one sir thank you uh concurrent enrollment this time of the school year I usually uh will try andate the updates there I think concurrent enrollment is one piece
we have been very intentional about with our academic programming here at Triton um Everybody familiar with concurrent programming okay remember it's a I'll just go through a short recap it's a college course where we partner with an
institution that's taught here by our instructors okay so our instructors have to go through additional training in school to make sure that they qualify to teach our concurrent course so this year we have 400 and students signed up for
concurrent classes obviously 402 we don't have 402 students at tra high school but we have students that are taking multiple concurrent courses so that's what we get to the the 402 uh obviously you can see the credits we offer there we were communicating that
we offered 55 um I was going back through it and I'm like I think it's 57 surprise it was a pleasant surprise but that is our total for credits that we currently offer here at Triton uh this year our students are on Pace to earn over a th000
credits for college right here at Trenton High School um I think I've said this a lot but um the concurrent programming it really is comes down to our staff our counselor to make sure that we're continuing to look for ways
to prepare our students for when they leave Triton schools so extremely pleased with this um it's nice to have conversations with our families when they have a junior or a senior if students are choosing to go to college come back and say wow that helped a lot
okay so obviously there's more than one pathway for students but students that are looking to go the college route I think we have an we have an awesome program here for them at Triton and it only continues to improve so I want to make sure and share those updates do you
have any idea like what others schools in our conference offer for concurrent a couple of years ago we talked about doing some sharing so to speak so who offers this who could teach this course Etc um
schools are different because a lot of times you know you have you have the concurrent another version of that is AP but for an AP class you have to pass a test at the end of it to receive the credit for you have to pass the AP test
so in terms of a total I don't um I know that we do a great job um and and I think we're up there uh with with the schools in the area but I can't say you know Hayfield at at Kenyon at km this is the total I just don't
know that off the top of my head I think it would be safe to say that we the next closest school is half of what we offer and and and and like l Mr lman said really it comes down to our our staff are willing to go get the because
they have to take an additional 18 they have to have a master's degree but then they have to take an additional 18 credits in their subject matter in order to be able to teach those courses and and that's something that they're doing um and it's it's been
a great program here the the one thing I will note that I'm grateful for is um the board has supported I'm an increase in salary uh based on our contract uh for for staff that do teach those concurrent courses so that's been
received very well and very much appreciated that's it I have one thing I'm gonna invite Miss Swanson up here to talk a little bit about an event we held today at the school so is that okay that's sure I didn't totally surprise no
I I promise you I am but she was on the committee group that planned it so I thought it was more appropriate for her to speak to it okay uh we had a great day today uh it was a late start day so the late start days are a little different rather than having eight really short classes um we
have different activities planned throughout the course of the year and today it was beyond high school day um and it was a great day here we had um about 30 different um professionals from
around our area representing different um job areas um we also had about a dozen Triton grads that came back to meet with our students um and so basically the day was divided up into five different sessions um each student
was able to choose two uh career fields that they had most interest in a couple of weeks ago um and then we scheduled them with someone in that field um so we had uh a variety of folks we had an artist
here we had musician we had Carpenters we had Engineers we had um mechanics we had twoyear health science folks we had four plus year Health Science folks um about 20 different career Fields were
represented um so each student got their top two they they signed up for two plus an alternate just in case and everyone got their top two choices which was excellent um and then from there the other three sessions were uh they played
life-size life in the gym uh which you may have played the game of life before but you get to kind of learn about how much things might cost and uh how your salary might impact the decisions that you make um with how to spend that money
um and then we had a graduate panel so each whole each Advisory Group got to meet with three or four um graduates and ask some questions about what they're up to now as well as what they uh would change if they could go back to high school and
what advice they have for current high school students so those are always good things to hear and then finally we had um students have an opportunity to look at the future forward portal which is an online resource that they have to explore opportunities for the future so
um I think overall it was a great day um students seemed pretty engaged with the folks that came in and it was great to have 45 community members come in and spend some time with their kids so do you any questions
excellent thank you 7-Eleven superintendence report um we did confirm the January 29th study session date with aers so they will be able to come in uh and go over some things um Amy and I and Luke
met with them last week and uh lots of lots of good information um I think you know it's uh it's evident that schools as a whole are
struggling I think they're predicting 21 schools to be an sod after this year um it's I think that's that's the most I've ever heard of um so it is it is kind of a concern um
when you start to look at budget and finance and how are you going to make it work and a lot of the the unfunded mandates that are coming down the the pipe that that are going to make it difficult so um how do you you know how
do you counteract that and they had some suggestions some things that we can look at at the study session that I thought were were good ideas on you know how do you best balance that um msba conference in January I
don't know is anyone planning on going I was not but if someone is I go but I didn't want to just go by myself why am I trink well or I could save this for later they're they are
planning on having a big election msba wants to change your bylaws on how they do delegate assembly and there's going to be election at that gotcha um and then lastly Mr lman has
started the 2526 school calendar process so they we will be bringing that to the board next month for approval you want to speak to that at all Wendy would you like to um yeah sure I can talk about it
um Mr lutterman has formed a uh calendar committee uh comprised of folks from each of the different levels of our our school district and um we met once last week we've got a meeting again this week
on Wednesday um people really identified some good priorities for where they wanted to see changes in the schedule um I felt like everybody worked really well together and has some good good direction going forward so yeah a little
um can I speak to it well absolutely it's a little bit of a challenge because it comes down to the number of instructional days we have right and the try and and the time frame fit fit them in a calendar without extending the school year extremely long so it's it's
a little bit of a process but uh there will have to be some compromise with the team U but I think we're doing a great job we're off to a good start so we hope to have a draft done after the meeting on Wednesday any questions all right 712 is other um I
just wanted to start out other with a thank you to Dwayne this is your last school board meeting as a school board member thank you for your time appreciate you and we do have some uh pick to
celebrate after afterward but yes would like to thank Dey for all of the service it's uh it can be a thankless job but it's appreciated what you've done for districts by by serving on the board so thank you thank
you 20 minutes um is there any other other M okay um next school board meeting is going to be Monday January 13th and then that study session on January 29th um there's nothing else do I have a
motion for adjournment moved second motion by DNE second by Dale all in favor meeting adjourned not yet oh I the boys oh