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e e e e e good afternoon the time is now 4:00 the WIA Public Schools Board of Education work session for Monday March 24th 2025
will please come to order let's go around the table for introductions and we will start from my right Heidi ker Sheila prior danra Paris B Valentina s Sarah Johansson Chase Anderson and I am milen
soney thank you and welcome everyone What a Beautiful Day March is here um spring is here I guess you know and we're slowly marching towards Summer as a reminder the board does not waste any time uh not anytime sorry vote
on any item on the work session this afternoon we have two items on the agenda before we start with the ATT agenda items there are a couple of things I wanted to bring up um on Friday in the agenda we had some posted
something about human resources update from uh dve LS with regard to his to the staff that has been postponed it will come up very soon with the you know in front of the board but not today so I just wanted to mention that the other thing I wanted to bring up was the uh
cell phone policy 54.5 which we started discussing or we took up for the first reading in the last board meeting and there were some some concerns that some of the board members brought up and we said that we would probably bring it up for a
discussion at the work session today and I would like Chase to give us an update on what's going on so yeah with the first item that you mentioned Mr chair thank you for uh bringing that up uh we were going to have just a general Staffing process update to give the
board an update on where um the HR team and principles are at in regard to Staffing for the upcoming school year um it ended up that that didn't work out for us today so that's why that that is not on the agenda today and then with the cell phone policy um at the last regular school board meeting we
presented that there was quite a lot of discussion about it and I think uh several members of the board have expressed their interest in focusing on consistency across the levels so for example all nine elementary schools having a similar comparable uh set of
protocols and operations for implementing the cell phone policy and also uh to extend to that uh uh with the three middle schools uh doing that as well so um we had conversation about bringing it up again and having more discussion about it maybe even having
some Middle School principles uh engage and share with us but we've decided that we'll be able to uh move forward it'll be our plan to bring that policy back uh at the April 14th meeting and uh at that time I'll provide updates on uh what the
planned operational components are uh expect are for next fall so as the board knows we've also heard from a number of parents Community residents in regard to that same level of striving for uh similarity between the three middle
schools so we've heard that input and um I'll be working closely with the principles prior to April 14th and we'll bring you uh probably that policy that was uh in its U final form from it was the msba model policy and we'll make
some references to what we might expect for student handbooks and protocols for the fall so that's our plan with that thank you so first the report from Community Ed uh
director Jenny Ebert uh will tell us all there is to know about Community head Jenny as they're approaching I'll just say thank you uh to the team members for being here today Community head is truly a fascinating world and Jenny and her team do a wonderful job of uh providing
a lot of different uh types of opportunities and activities for literally every age level within the community and uh we look forward to hearing that update and the work that they're doing some of the data that they're tracking and uh it's all in
alignment with of course the uh Community Ed uh programming that we offer as well as how that fits into the larger strategic road map of the district so Jenny and team thank you for being here and we'll turn it over to you thank you superintendent Anderson
and members of the board we are so happy to have the opportunity to talk about Community Ed um I've had opportunities be in front of you before and I am always so so grateful to be able to share about the work that our team is doing in service to our community it's a unique opportunity that we have in community ed and um want to talk more
about it here today talk about what's new some goals fun things so um with that I'll start I am Jenny Ebert I'm the director of community aded and I'll have my team uh introduce themselves as they come up but since Michelle's next to me I'll have her introduce herself now too Michelle bador I'm the director of early learning
school great um so we'll start the presentation by talking a little bit about who is community ed um we have a number of school board members that are new within the last year or so and uh Community Ed is unique to Minnesota um we exist here in Yetta to help our E12
plus students families and Community to thrive and be successful in school in life but we're unique in that um there's just a handful of states that provide funding directly for Community Ed and we use that funding to be able to um be flexible and adaptable to what our community needs and really focusing a
lot about the out of school time activities as well as within our Early Learning Program we are mandated through State Statute to have a licensed director uh which is myself and superintendent Anderson also holds a lure so we're lucky for that and as well as to have a uh a community at advisory
Council this Council is made up of community members of parents caregivers of wonderful community members like Interfaith Outreach YMCA city of wise city of wetta Staff as well as a current board member uh that group helps to provide
insight and support um help guide the work that we do uh as we continue to really be careful listeners to what our community wants and needs we have about 300 full and part-time staff this is an amazing group of people they're all about service um we are a service group
like we we we um work directly with students and with families and we do that in all of our school buildings this embedded us really allows us to be able to connect directly with our families and make programming super accessible for them as well additionally we see the wise over see the wise at early learning
school which Michelle will talk about in a later slide and um what makes our work important and um helps us to be uh the best that we can be is really that focus on building strong relationships and making connections within our community so you hear a little bit about that as
we go into our goals um this is a brief overview of the work that we do in community ed we're really focusing on how do we support our community to learn to connect to gather and volunteer this wheel highlights the wide variety of ways that we do that
work um I think I've joked in this setting before that I could easily talk for two hours about Community Ed and I could because there's so many wonderful things happening in each facet of the wheel you're going to get the 30 or 40 minute version of it here today so hold on briefly I'll talk a little bit about
funding I believe I get to um come before you guys in a couple of weeks to present my midyear budget so you'll hear more in depth about it but just as a reminder Community Ed is separate from the general fund we're fund four the community service fund uh we are supported primarily through fee
generation about 80% of our Revenue comes from program fees and 20% from local ly and Aid um that that funding model really sets us up to be more like a small business or a nonprofit which gives us a lot of flexibility in being adaptive to what we see our community
needs and be flexible um again as a as a our work focuses on how we do that funding well um we think about how we best be of service to our community we really think a lot about affordability and then sustainability in our programming
because we have our own fund and we're separate from the general fund we really need to be able to SU and our work in that way so you've seen the graphic on the right before I think our teaching and learning department has showed this several times um that really highlights how the work kind of comes together from a goal setting standpoint so similar to
our school set up uh site growth plans as well as our early learning school our department also sets up goals that are in alignment with our strategic directions Equity commitment and District operational plan our two goals for this year um focus on one deepening
uh Community engagement belonging and connectedness for student staff and Community this ties closely to our strategic directions one and two which are to or one and five excuse me to ensure high quality daily experience for each and every student and to learn and improve from Community engagement and
strategic Partnerships our second goal to retain and develop District Talent across all levels aligns closely with strategic Direction number three which is to recruit higher support and develop and retain the highest quality uh this these goals are made um in partnership with what we hear from our
team and what they're seeing as well as what comes out of the District Operations plan to help guide where we go next this is just a highlevel highlight of some of the impacts of the work that we're doing related to our goals um our goals are created in the fall we work
with our team our leaders we have about 20 managers and directors and coordinators that help us to then work individually with our programs to develop specific goals as subsets of these um we've been working really hard on a number of pieces and just wanted to highlight a couple of key things here
for you tonight from the early learning school standpoint we were thrilled to be able to um receive some new funding through voluntary prek this funding provides free preschool for 20 students school day um which is approximately 8
to two and it includes transportation if they live within the Oakwood boundary area this is our only preschool program right now that we have transportation available to so it eliminates some really important barriers for some of our kiddos and families this really helps us to expand that connectedness
under goal number one under Partnerships we work closely with Interfaith Outreach uh to have scholarship opportunities through great opportunities there have 325 scholarships year-to date um summer is a really busy time so that number will go up and it provides uh options
for students who maybe wouldn't otherwise be able to participate in after school and summer camp programming we're also very grateful to Interfaith Outreach for their work around the school supply program where 465 students receive school supplies this year and we help to coordinate that
through Community head a couple other things to highlight our volunteer Club that's our high school volunteer Club it's the largest Club at at the high school with 975 students right now um their goals this year were really around having a high quality student experience f focus on
connectedness and belonging and uh so that's been part of the goals work of our manager We additionally wanted to provide additional support for that program as it keeps growing having one and a half staff was just not quite enough so in connection with Goal number two added a 05 to that work so we could
really continue expanding that um not only support for students but for Community organizations another goal to highlight was with our literacy volunteer program uh the goal was to have 75% retained we were slightly above that we have 153 community members that come
into our schools and participate in our elementary schools to provide literacy support for over 300 students and we know that having somebody who comes back year after year means that we have high quality tutoring support that we have for our kiddos so that's a really important goal for us uh we try to meet
that retention goal by providing additional support and training for our volunteers and really making sure that they know and understand the impact that they're making um we Al added some additional staff support in that area too so we could again continue to really focus on having those high quality volunteer
experiences uh one of the areas I'm I'm really excited about is with with nyz kids um Staffing and developing and retaining staff is really key to that this is an area where we have a growing need every year of the seven years that I've been here it's a growing need and
we are now Contracting with radar Talent Solutions to do staff recruitment uh We've hired over 20 staff through them since November and have taken 175 students off the weight list I know I feel the same way
Heidi it's really really amazing um to be able to provide that support for our Working Families in our district so um I'll talk a little bit more about wise Ides and the work that we're doing later on the presentation and then the last highlight I wanted to share was around professional learning because we are service focused um investing in our
staff is key to being successful in this so we listed there as some of the bigger trainings that we've done it's not the full list of everything that we've done uh but it gives you a feel of some of the work that we're doing to really invest in making sure that our staff are um the best as they can be and we can have really high quality programming uh
additionally we have a variety of individual professional learning opportunities that our staff have taken advantage of as well this is uh similar slides that you probably saw about a year ago when I was doing our our midyear review I'm not going to go through all of this in detail but wanted to just have it for
the board for reference for this uh presentation here tonight this wheel highlights the wide variety of work that we do and as we go into the presentation Michelle and our team are going to talk more about some specific elements of this but just want to highlight some of the really good work that's happening at
the top of the wheel in our classes for adults and youth there's I don't know my math is close a thousand opportunities that are happening for folks within our community we have AB happening on the second floor of our early learning school which is a unique opportunity for our community and really just um again
working on lots of different ways to engage uh Staffing so that we can expand our child care programming on this slide I'll highlight uh just at the top there is our facility rental program again this is year to date we have 105 user groups and individuals at are renting space
Schoolboard policy uh asks that Community ad make our schools available to our community for use when not being used by uh during the school day or by school programming um this is a really wonderful piece of our job to invite people into our community to experience
our amazing buildings uh and to give our our youth additional opportunities to take advantage of our spaces things like our gyms our green spaces our Dome our Arena those are the most popular rental pieces that we have as well as our auditoriums uh this has been a growing
area for us as well and because of that we're able to reinvest some of that rental income back into our rental facilities with new carpeting and new technology and improvements in our auditoriums and new tennis court and things like that so um while this is an opportunity for our community to enjoy
the space it also is an opportunity to uh invest in our school properties as well the early learning school side of this there's so much good stuff happening there um hundreds and hundreds of students that are participating in our ECFE preschool connected three uh
Early Childhood special ed an Outreach programs um the numbers are there for your reference and that's why I won't go through in detail but just so very proud of the work that we do to really have this be the place where school starts for our youngest Learners and to be a place where families can come and feel connected and
supported and with that I'll hand it off to Michelle to Y to talk about a little bit more about the work that we're doing at the early learning school well thank you for having me Schoolboard and superintendent Anderson um I think I've done my song and dance here before so this is a little bit of
an abbreviated version but within the community aded structure The Early Learning School operates um classrooms primarily for part day preschool at early learning school with ECFE and parent education and then we have 11
additional classrooms across the district in our elementary sites we have three at Kimberly Lane and one in each of the other elementaries um these programs are operated by Community Ed but we work seamlessly in close um contact with special services and our
teaching and learning Department um Early Learning is funded differently than K12 except for VPK so I'll get to that in a minute but um this is a cost to families and so families pay tuition for their kiddos to come to classes at the early learning school or one of our
elementary sites um we do offer a variety of preschool scholarships one is School Readiness and the other the new one is VPK so voluntary preschool is run just through the general fund through the 01 fund like a kindergarten or first
grader so we generate ADM for each student enrolled and we operate out of Oakwood Elementary early learning school sort of connected there and the students uh who live in Oakwood attendance area and meet the scholarship Opportunity
requirements can get busing they are bused on the regular Elementary bus with their siblings and we go and get them right off the bus so it's a hand toand delivery on both ends and so parents need to be there to get their kiddos off the bus we don't just let them off on
the curb so that that has been a game Cher for the 20 students that are enrolled that have meet the scholarships if they are enrolled in that program but they do not live in Oakwood attendance then they would need to drive them but they can still access the scholarship so
that is new for us this year and we just um applied for continued funding for next year and asked for some additions we'll see what we get there we're waiting for the legislature to finish their work before they know how much money they have to give so we'll see
what happens there and then our ECFE is on of sliding fee scales so each and every parent when they register can make that determination of where their income fits and how much they can afford to pay and that program is um offset by funding
from the state um our early learning team we have a fabulous team of preschool teachers Early Childhood specialed teachers Early Childhood family Ed teachers assistants PA of professionals we have a social worker we have an Outreach specialist we
have early learning managers and we have um I think I talked about this last year our Outreach co- teer that's going out into the community child carees and she has been wildly successful and we can't she can't she's so busy she just has asked every day for a new site so our
Our Community Partners are really excited about that program and we've found really good success with that um we are operating a building instructional leadership team just like all the other buildings are that is made up of all of the people listed in the
top except for assistance in Paris so it's really a a teacher Le group and they are working on our site growth plan and our goals are around social emotional and literacy this year and we're using our teaching strategies gold
as our key point of that a collection and that will happen here at the end of the school year we'll look at those final numbers and see if we made our goal our goal this year changed a little bit we went with 100% of students will be at age level in years past we've done
things like 80% or 90% And we really had a robust discussion about we really want all kids functioning at age level when they leave our program at the end of the year so we we felt very strongly that we were going to shoot for 100% of kids to be at age level so that was our goals
for that and I think that was the last of my slides my colleagues take over great so next I'm going to talk a little bit about um wieta kids programming on behalf of uh Hillary dish who is our out
of school time coordinator she couldn't be here tonight so she's filled me in on all the important things to share um our wisett a kids childcare is the largest school AG childcare program in our community we are serving um thousands of kids within it within our summer and our school year programs and um as our
community continues to grow so does that demand for child care and as I mentioned earlier having that support with radar Talent Solutions to be able to expand our staffing has been an incredible uh resource to be able to continue to meet that need um demand does continue to outpace what we're able to do but we are
growing so a couple of numbers to note um for our summer program for example starting here in a couple of months we have 400 more students in our summer program this year than we did two years ago so that's pretty incredible growth that's happening over a really short period of time um from a school year
perspective we just wrapped up registration for the 2526 school year again um adding more students to our program we have about 200 more in the program next year than we did at the start of this year and um we still have more students on the weit list so we will continue to work with radar Talent
Solutions we hope to continue have a really successful partnership with them and grow our program to continue to meet our growing communities needs um but with that comes a really important focus on maintaining a high quality program when you grow at that rate we you know we're talking about kids and students and so we need to be really mindful that
we're offering really um a safe program a healthy program and a place where kids can learn and Thrive so part of that means investing in our staff the goals around uh the work that we do in wi a kids this year is really on how do we support our staff and develop our staff one goal was to create a professional
Learning Community with our our leadership team of about 14 managers and um coordinator and that we did uh we're grateful for the partnership with teaching and learning to help us to kind of um reframe what that PLC model looks like to have it work for our youth
programs and they're really focusing on how do they um be better leaders as mentors and coaches for their staff especially with all the new people coming on board and then additionally focusing on leadership de development of all of our staff at all levels with NY Zetta kids from a professional
development standpoint really wanting our staff to see themselves having opportunities to grow within their jobs to be Leaders with the students that they're working with and um thinking carefully about the professional learning that we're offering in that Hillary and her team are working on creating a uh professional uh
professional learning road map that they'll be looking to implement for the next year so that's part of their goal work for this year again and that's our Focus because um while we're recruiting wonderful staff as part of this program we also want to retain those staff and maintain
a really high quality staff in that and investing in our team is one way to do that so on that I'm gonna hand it off to Zach hi everyone I'm Zach Nelson Community engag Communications and Community engagement manager um I'm
fortunate enough to work in a hybrid position in the communication and Community ad departments um so I get to do a lot of cool things and going to talk about the listening and connecting work that we do in community ad is that's at the center of of everything
that we do uh one way we do um listening and connecting is through the partners for healthy kids which is a collaborative of local organizations that work to improve the social emotional um educational outcome to Children's and families in the community and some of you have had the opportunity
to come to some of those meetings um and there are about 30 different organizations that are part of the collaborative um that meet and connect monthly to present um and share the work they're doing in the community and share needs and resources to help each other
in this work and some of those organizations um as part of the collaborative are Interfaith Outreach iocp uh Relate Counseling city city of Plymouth city of Yetta um YMCA Ridgedale and and many more so it's it's a really great group that connects uh once a
month to to do some of this work um as part of the phk collaborative there are District staff who fill out a random Moment In Time surveys um where they're asked to just simply what are they doing in that moment and as part of that um
how they respond revenue is generated um at the federal level this was something that was started in the 90s and then the money is then ultimately redistributed back back to the state county and then local collaborative level in a formula that nobody really knows anything about um
but this um allows the district then to go through the collaborative go through a process in which um local organizations and District staff can apply for Grants and really do some really cool work as part of that process and over the past few years in
2223 um $530,000 in Grants were awarded in 324 almost $700,000 in Grants were awarded and then we're on track for almost $600,000 this year so it's a really great opportunity for um organizations
and staff to um provide that the services that are needed in our community uh another way we do listening and connecting work is through our district L on committee which again many of you have had the opportunity to attend some of those meetings um this
committee is a way for School parent teacher uh leadership at their at these school buildings to come together uh with District administration to um promote an atmosphere of understanding and cooperation among those groups um
and act as a communication link uh for the effective sharing of information and it's invaluable for us at the district level to connect with these parents and Guardians and and building leaders and for us to listen Provide support that they can then take into their school
communities and and facilitate some of the work that we do and provides again another opportunity for us to listen um one thing we've been working on to connect with families is
um working on deepening our community engagement and connected this within um doing proactive work around marketing and Communications with families in our community U before they start the typical kindergarten journey and Michelle talked about some of that work
but uh one way we're doing this is through our connect at 3 um program and this is kind of our revamps uh came out of Early Childhood screening and trying to connect with families around the age of three uh to make sure they have the
resources that they need and feel a connection to the school district before they begin kindergarten here someday uh this is done by capturing contact information VI a state Census Data then then we use to provide uh
resources and communication to families and offer them opportunities such as classes in our Early Learning Program and um Early Childhood family education um Early Childhood screening and full and part day preschool
classes uh another way we're working to improve our listening and connecting and is through the work we're doing to support the Welcome Center revisioning and Judy is going to do most of the like we're talking about that but um we're
trying to be more proactive with kindergarten marketing and customer service uh working to reach families uh through various modes of communication including email social media printed materials um that will hopefully give them a sense
of belonging before they set foot in our schools um and we're doing um we're partnering with principes and office staff at our elementary schools to provide support in marketing and communicating incoming kindergart events of the schools uh culminating in our bus
ride and information night that will happen in August thanks Zach a lot of that work is so key to our goal number one of around connectedness and belonging um to be able to hear what's going on and to listen to what the changing needs are and then to be able to respond to them and all those other areas of our work
has just been really vital I appreciate Zach and his dual role which isn't always easy having two bosses maybe um but he does it well and it helps us to do our jobs better um before I hand it over to Judy I'll just note so on the wheel new to
the wheel this year is the Welcome Center we were really happy to be able to add that to the work of community ad in the past year um as part of Cost Containment um there was some need for Community to think about how we could support the general fund um using fund for and so uh we were able to do that
through taking over the oversight of the Welcome Center and hiring Judy in her position and being able to fund that piece of it um excited to be thinking about how do we support our community in this new way as well as Dr andison noted earlier in the year that one of his goals was around reenvisioning the
Welcome Center so we take that very seriously as the work that we're doing and I'm really happy to welcome Judy uh to talk about what we've done over the last I nine months or so in this area well good afternoon all my name is Judy
and I oversee our Welcome Center um so a lot of this work like Jenny mention actually started before I started here in August um and it started with listening listening to our principles and um various people that touch the work that we do in the Welcome Center of
welcoming our families into the district um and two themes kind of came from some of that initial listening including collaboration and customer service so for collabor ation I we strongly believe that the work that we do is done better when we partner with people across our
district um with for example our School principles and our admin pros at our different School sites thinking about how do we support the work that they do um especially as we welcome families and do that initial um enrollment registration for them and doing that warm welcome over to their school site
which is where they'll build that long lasting relationship with our district um so thinking about introducing ourselves we're new staff at the Welcome Center so we've done a lot of work to introduce ourselves to our school buildings our admin Pros um and think about how do we collaborate with them when it comes to things like
kindergarten enrollment so that we're all on the same page in terms of how do we get those kiddos enrolled in their families um excited about some of the upcoming events that we'll do over the summer in spring with um Finance Communications equity and inclusion technology there's been so much work
that we've been able to process and get done over the last couple of months with them um some examples include just learning like I mentioned we're a new team so it's been super helpful to have people with historical knowledge people with um different backgrounds and that touch the work that we do from different
angles to help educate us on the supports that our families need and the processes that we oversee um also we just have those attendance area um adjustments um go through so a lot of the work in terms of how do we communicate that to our families letting them know where their
students are going to be next year whether they were impacted or Not by the attendance area adjustments um but also the back back end work of process processing all of that in Skyward making sure that our data is correct so that when folks need to um extract that data
for the work that they do across the district that it's ready to go um also we implemented a new software tool called a fresh service in the fall it's the same tool our technology department uses um to oversee their processes when they get inquiries about support um
across the district it's been super helpful for us because we're often communicating not just with families but with um professionals across our district that have questions for us or um that we're collaborating with in one way or another so being able to just have better oversight of that work being
able to see kind of the ups and flows of our work um and being able to use that as a strategic tool to keep us all on the same page um and it's also been super helpful for things like in the Welcome Center we get a lot of frequently asked questions so being able to have that consistent
messaging regardless of who's reaching out to us of how do we respond and help um the partnership with our equity and inclusion um group and team has been super helpful um our three family Liaisons have been super great in just giving us some really Keen insight into
how we better support our families um they have this unique role where they get to be in the community and hearing from families whether that is at our schools or maybe even in the communities that they live in so the feedback that they have given us has really helped in terms of how we re-envision our Welcome
Center to Best meet the needs um of our families we've talked about things like different family personas so we know we have families that already have a kid two in our school district to families that are new to the country or maybe moving from out of state um and they also help us with just our Outreach
efforts because they are cross trained in some of the um enrollment processes they will often call us and say hey I'm working with this family we know we need to get them enrolled we have this this and this isn't there anything I'm missing and because they're with that family they're able to close the loop with that um and be able to get us what we need so
that we can get that family to the next step and then we also have weekly joint staff meetings that include our family liaison our welcome center team as well as um Jen from our finance team to be able to just keep us on the same page as we go through each season of the work
that we do I think the one really unique and special thing about our work just to kind of emphasize that collaborative effort or aspect is while there is the yellow welcome center team there's so many dotted lines and people that help us execute so on the left hand side
you'll see solv team and our family liaison um you'll see on the right hand side um Zach and Amy and our Communications team as well as our finance team um the other part of that is customer service which is really big to
the work that we did so some of the things that we've already been able to implement and change that we think have been super helpful include just thinking about now that we're in the district Service Center that's a new building for all the folks that are there how do we make that a welcoming space for our families as they come in um families
come in on a walk-in basis some of them make appointments with us so that we know that they're already coming and we want that to be a space that regardless of if it's um a parent coming in or a parent with their student coming in that they feel welcomed nonetheless so some of the things that we did was in that
lobby area um you might remember there used to be some high back chairs there which the chairs were beautiful but we couldn't see anyone if they were sitting in them so just being able to switch that out for some low profile seating to make it just more approachable and welcoming um and then in the Maple Grove
room which is where we take families it's that bottom picture on the right for actual enrollment help um putting in some picture books in there putting in some coloring stuff and then also having a space that is better utilized for when we need to sit down with families to actually do the paperwork side of things
we also have in that first picture you can kind of surely she is um the one closest to the TV our welcome center team staffs the front desk um so that's super helpful when we do have families that walk in already being able to have a welcoming smiling face there to help
them um right away without delay and then we've been doing a lot of work in reviewing our processes and practices for the welcome center thinking about how do we make our processes efficient um and meet the needs um of our families and some of the things that have come
from that include simplifying our forms um so um Jonathan who's on our team helped us um really change our paper enrollment form which is just a paper version of our online enrollment um and make it something that's way easier for families to read through we want to make
sure that whatever is coming out of the Welcome Center whether it's we're with the family going through it with them or we're not with the family maybe they um received a handout when they went to a school that they can still easily navigate that and not feel lost in the mix and we also take that same approach for online enrollment form um and Zach
mentioned creating materials to support our families um it was super helpful to have those materials during our kindergarten information night to be able to have those tangibles to give away to families that are um that hopefully will be starting with us this coming
fall um why we doing why we're doing this and some of the things that we've learned thus far um our families are our customers we really um want our families to enthusiastically choose wise at at public schools because they do have a lot of choice so all of the improvements and changes and things that we continue
to do is in service to getting our family super excited to be enrolled in our school district um and to help them with that warm handoff from the Welcome Center to their school building and that's where that collaboration comes into play um we're constantly in communication with um our collaborators
across the district to think about how do we do our work better how do we help them in the work that they do um the families don't see all of that but hopefully the results of it is a smooth process for them as they on board into our school district um and this is work that we'll continue to do in terms of
ongoing process Improvement um as we continue to gather feedback across the district so with that I'll just close by saying um I hope that this provided you some additional depth and understanding of the work that we're doing in community ed and how our work is connected to our goals and the broader
strategic directions of the district um we're really here to make our community stronger and to support and listen and to be of service um we were excited about that opportunity every day we're grateful for the many partners including you all across the table from us as our our school board for helping us to do
this work um in community aded we know that we can't do it alone we are completely reliant on all of our partners to be of service and to do this work the best that we can so thank you for that and I will open it up to questions all right thank you Jenny Judy Zach and
Michelle uh you guys do a phenomenal job under your leadership journey I think I've been on the board this is my fourth year and I have seen you only grow every year so thank you thank you for what you do
um any questions uh colleagues comments I'll just say a huge thank you it's uh Community Ed is the place that that um welcomes and touches and creates our sense of belonging from from children who are just born to to our retired community members and even in
the presentation tonight in all that you did to talk about our spaces and our enrollment processes and all of that you really showed us the how um of how Community Ed um encompasses our 80 plus 80,000 plus residents now I don't I don't quite know what it is so that's a
lot of people to connect with and you're the perfect team to do it so thank you thank you thank you so much for being here um it's always wonderful to hear from you I enjoy the presentations a lot because they're such wonderful information for us all to have and keep in mind the
great work you all do and um it really just you know it means a lot to us and Judy I'm particularly drawn to your quote um you know to make families enthusiastically choose why is that a public school so thank you for making that decision for them so easy um and so possible thank
you um you highlighted so many wonderful things and you know the Outreach Outreach you guys are doing is wonderful and I I hear so many things in the community of just you know what a great resource this is you know community and in general so thank you for all the work
there and for coming tonight um to share it um I had a question well I have two questions one's first a comment because um I know like I have children who do mountain biking and I know that's like a community ed High School Middle School
partnership it's you know a different sport in that way and I guess I just wanted to shout out that it's something you didn't highlight but I really appreciate have these kind of maybe non-traditional Sports as part of the high school experience um and I didn't
know if there were other sports other than mountain biking that were part of that yes others bad mitton there's the wabbits which is disc golf no I'm not going to get it Ultimate Frisbee sorry I need I need my full team here so we do look for opportunities for sports that
aren't part of the um National High School league or the Minnesota high school league sports that students still want to participate they want to be active they want to be something similar so that's where Community egg can step in and help to fill that Gap and they can actually letter through us to through the um policy that you all
approved I think last month so um and then I had a question about um I it's it's about the literacy Volunteers um it's really wonderful that you were able to retain that many volunteers was there an impact from the read act um you know
as it applies to literacy instruction or was it something else that you know you were worried that we weren't going to be able to retain them um it didn't really come out a place of worry it was just we know that we do our best work when we retain as many as possible so we'll probably continue to have that goal for
a couple of years and just try and up it even more because the more that we can have people coming back the better we do have a number of people who are skilled um former teachers retired principes things like that that are part of that program and so those people especially are really important to us um that we
want to just do all that we can to make sure that they keep coming back I it I'm sure it doesn't hurt that the react is out there and being talked about and literacy is an important topic for a lot of people right now as it is for us thank you thank you for coming it's really a
like I always feel really calm and at ease when I'm hearing you guys talk about everything you do in community because like Sarah said it touches so many people um so you know just the sheer number of people that you are servicing is incredible and I just love
hearing the growth that you have every single year so thank you for being here um I do have a question um because on the first kind of one of the first cuts of the governor's bill this year I heard you talking about um funding and legislature and what we're asking from
them and I noticed that there was a line item that was in relation to Community Ed and I'm curious to hear from you if you know is there going to be any impact to ISA public schools because like you said a lot of our programming is fee
based plus um State funding and so if the state funding drops theoretically I would think fees are going to go up so I'm interested to hear your perspective yeah so that's a bill that we're watching really closely um there the
beauty of that funding that we get uh through or specifically for Community aded is that it gives us the flexibility to do the programs like the uh volunteer literacy program that isn't fee generating right it provides some additional revenue for us to do the volunteer Club to support the Welcome
Center and uh so if that funding were to go away we' you know we'd have to figure out how we want to do that differently there is um language within that that would allow the aid to switch to Levy money so you can as a school district then decide do we want to make that funded through the levy instead so if
that were to go through that's what Minnesota school districts would need to decide um if a school district decided not to do that then yes we'd have to look at how do we change our fee structure to to support that work in other ways so that's something we'll be watching carefully and working with our finance team
on you want to go first okay all right thank you thank you for all the details I have three questions um so first and it's kind of you know going to Sheila's question so when we add new programs how do you add those new
programs so for example if there is a program that Community is interested in making it up cyber security right so how do they bring that to you or what is the process and can it be a free free
program or it has to be fee based so let's say there is a nonprofit who's focusing on cyber security they want to come in conduct sessions and they're willing to do it on their own will we will we include them as a part of community you know program guide or how
does that work yeah uh ideas come to us in a lot of different ways it can be just from a conversation at a coffee shop with somebody to Ema someone emailing our generic Community ad email or to reaching out to our team um you know at the easiest from this perspective if people are listening in
I'd say email community schools.org with your idea and and then we get you to the right person to vet that through because we have a lot of flexibility in what we do um we sit down and have a conversation we learn about what the need is we try and listen to hear um
what the demand is for it as well and then whether it needs to be a paid or a free opportunity we do have a number of organizations that want to provide the resource for free because they believe in what they're they're the information that they're wanting to share with our community so then we we work with them to figure that out okay so pretty
straightforward then okay great um and I know I this I asked this question last time you were here from challenges standpoint or what would you ask community members to help with and your answer was hey awareness around you
know the prek program or Early Childhood Program is that improving or is that still the ask from Community it it is improving and some of the great work that Zach has been doing along with Judy and um recruiting incoming kindergarteners uh we're we're certainly
seeing some improve improvements there but because there's always new people moving into our district and um we don't know if they have a birth to 5-year-old in that pocket uh getting that awareness out as new people come to help share that information that we're here to support them whether it's through ECFE or preschool or through our screening
program connect at three um that really is an important part for us is having people referred to us we're trying to reach out and find them as well but the more that we can have our community know that we exist and refer people to us that helps in that kind of stre so
that's good to know it's improving um and my last question is um do you know approximately how what what is the percentage of participation which is non-school goinging or pretty much everything
overlaps with schoolgoing families is there anyone or is there a percentage where kids are not going grandkids are not going to school but communities engage in some of these programs yeah that's a really good question a lot of from a youth standpoint a lot of our um
programs are right after school so naturally it's the students at that it's just really you leave your classroom with your teacher and then you're able to go to art or soccer or whatever it might be um but we do have a variety of things in the summer um and I have not pulled that number so and I'm I'm sure that we asked the question but now I'm
very curious I love data so yeah and it was just curious because again this is Community Aid and obviously WIA add so much in general for kids who are attending schools but I was just interested in learning more about you
know what about the community where their kids or grandkids are no longer in school so um we can connect offline yeah I mean Community aded is available for everybody so whether you go to school here not you certainly can participate um on the adult side of things there's
there's a lot more flexibility on that side so thank you okay thank you again Jenny I have a comment and a couple of other questions U you you brought up the Minnesota State High School league I know that Cricket used to be a part of the community at
program I don't know if still is or not they used to play at the Dome at Central Middle School in the winter and so Minnesota State High School league u a senator from Albert will has introduced a bill he has authored a bill where which is co-authored by our
Representatives Jenny cleor and Christin Banner uh from our district and so they have introduced a bill where the high school league will probably be asked to introduce Cricket as a program so if that happens will it benefit
Community Ed or not I I don't know but again just want to bring that up um you talked about the Welcome Center coming under if you look at the arc chart now it is under your lead leadership right completely or at least
partially what about the funding then what you you have a different source of funding under 04 I believe Welcome Center used to be under 01 you know maybe Scott can Enlighten us on that so how do you transfer those funds to the 01 how what kind of hurdles do you have
to overcome and does the state allow that yeah so the uh the welome center is funded through a couple of different funds so Judy for example is supervised by me and funded through fund for so her work is really focused on um supervising that whole process of of bringing our
families in and supporting a smooth U onboarding and enrollment uh we do have two clerical team that are still funded through fund one um of course we work closely with Scott and his team too that supervise a whole another component of the work with regards to enrollment and
whatnot um but we do have flexibility within the community aded funding to be able to support work of the district in a variety of different ways Judy would be an example of that we have an auditorium manager that used to be funded through fund one that was cut during Cost Containment that we now um
fund through Community ad it's the work that supports both Community Ed and the district is where we kind of look for there as that like perfect Synergy to be able to be a supportive partner in that okay and then the second question is about um the funding itself for 04 a
community at 80% come from fees 20% from state and local um contributions is there any federal fund that that that Community Ed would be affected by you know because of what's going on you know in the federal Administration thinking
of you know dismantling the Department of Education will that affect uh Community Aid at all um potentially the partners for Healthy Kids funding that Zach talked about is generated through the federal government so that's um you know half million plus of grant funding
that we are able to distribute within our community as within within our district I have a staff person who's funded through that so that's an area that we are we're watching really closely um but for the most part the rest of our funding is State funding so you'll have to basically look at that just like Heidi mentioned about the line
item in the governor's proposal so okay and that's all the questions I have anybody else have any question just a couple I just want to share a couple things to thank you to the four of you for being here in Jenny for your leadership and giving us a a broad overview uh Jenny mentioned my own
connection to community ad and had an opportunity a few years back to immerse a little more deeply into it and learned a lot about it and uh not that the four of you would need to hear this but just for the general viewers it's probably important to know that Minnesota's been a community head leader since it started
uh I don't know I think WIS 1968 in Michigan yeah thank you yeah Michigan Wisconsin and Minnesota were sort of the the three early leaders and um I think it's safe to say that uh Minnesota would be second to none in the nation for community and frankly I think our own
Community aded program in wetta would be second to none in the state so much of that is due to Jenny's leadership and the team that she's assembled and and the great work that they're doing so we greatly appreciate that the thing that I've uh always appreciated what community is they can do things that we
can't necessarily in K12 there's flexibility and opportunities to develop different types of business models and deliver programs and services that maybe we can't do in the regular stream of funding for K12 programming they serve prek and adult Learners so literally
birth to you know senior citizen within the community whatever the definition of that might be but uh zero to 100 so to speak uh for ages and and Beyond um so I think that that's really makes it a unique uh
complimentary set of programming that really just sort of melts around the standard what we typically think about as a school district is that K12 component um all the things that Community Ed can do just really kind of melts around and supports everything else that uh is
occurring not only within the school district but the entire community so I think that that's really a a unique part of it the uh tentacles and connecting points to all of the Youth Sports and activities programs in the community really gets at just about all of our
youth in one former fashion and it's a very busy involved connected engaged community and a lot of that is uh reflective over the the community ed program so thanks again for sharing the highlights and for being here with us this afternoon I greatly appreciate all
that you do thank you appreciate you all yeah thank you all of you all right all right so next on the agenda we have the finance and operations report and executive director Scott L with his
team will present the revised budget for WIA cafes could be Michelle allowing us to be here today to uh present the revision for the um FY 2425 was at a caf's budget um as the board probably recalls from the general
front presentation this is just the Revis so this is the time of year we kind of dig through the budgets even more thoroughly I know that Jack and Michelle go through them probably on a monthly basis but it allows us to really kind of dissect them see how our predictions were um back when we were
putting together the prelim before we knew how everything would shake out so um this allows us to kind of look at those um see how the year's going and then forecast how it'll go um sometimes also it can be a base for us to build next year's prelim budget so
um uh obviously um this will be a good and easy presentation for me and for you guys because I won't be talking a lot I'll start the talking and then I'll turn it over to the two experts here but um I just wanted to give a shout out to both Jack and Michelle um they work really well together it's a good
collaboration between the two different departments um and I was disappointed to hear Michelle say she does like working with Jack more than me I had passed that off to Jack um but I think that's a good thing so um uh without further do I will
let them introduce themselves their roles and then kick off the [Music] presentation all right good afternoon Michelle seal director of wetta cafes and Jack Sterns I am the accountant for wetta public
schools so this first slide is been in a few of our presentations um and it's just to show that the general or the food service fund is its own fund outside of the general fund similar to Community Education um so its main Revenue driver is the meal sales and
then it houses all of its own salaries benefits food supplies and equipment all right so our 2025 2026 school year even though we're here to present our revised budget for this school year we are actively already planning for next school year um I just
I think today is the day like our Commodities are due for next school year so it is um in already menu planning and what are we going to do and what are we going to Source um so just looking very briefly to next school year uh some things that are upcoming are
infrastructure updates our high school is getting their freezer expanded um and because we are expanding that that is also take um that's taking a cooler offline so they are getting an additional cooler too built into some locker room space in the kitchen High
School salad and sandwich line that is being relocated so we can utilize its current uh area for just more hot food and then the salad and sandwich line will be moved out to behind Expressway and something we will be adding is
paninis so hot sandwiches not just cold um so they will be doing um sandwiches and paninis through like an impinger oven um that students can grab and also put toppings on if they would like and then Oakwood Elementary will be getting a new rotating rack oven um so
that is just replacing what they currently have because I don't know the age of the current one in there but it has served us well uh menu recap of what we have done this year um we made a big focus on increasing our vegan choices um
we did run into a little bit of supply chain issues with some of the products we did select and that continues to be um an area that we're working on uh and looking to improve for next school year uh we decreased our added sugar at breakfast specifically at our elementary
um something to note um we did get a dip in our participation rates because we did decrease that added sugar so that is just something I did kind of expect um but we're continuing to look at okay like how can we still take our products that are lower in Sugar that our students do want to see so yes that did
go down a little bit um and we're working on bringing it back up while still keeping that added sugar down um we were incorporating more cultural Foods onto our menu we did student focus group um groups at East
and Central so we the last two years have tag teamed with Central on their culture week so we work with um student council they taste test some different menu items um some are repeat like sambusas you can't go wrong with those um this year we did
perogies um I'm trying to think if we did another newer one I can't remember off the top my head um but we taste test with the students um and then they mark it and help us present it to their student body and at East Middle School we just did a taste test with those
students and got feedback and what they're looking at for next year pot stickers that's the other one and then lastly we implemented Elementary student Choice days uh this has been an extreme hit with our elementary kiddos and one of those areas
was just as we're still it's been five years since Co so it was really our year to just really dig deep and make those student connections again get in front of our students uh which is where the Middle School taste testing and continuing to expand that but then our elementary student Choice days was those other was the other one so nine
elementaries works perfectly because we have nine months of school and so each Elementary gets an opportunity to pick the school lunch menu for the day so we've had everything from macro mac and cheese pizza and ramen bowls to you know your generic just pizza slice so it's
been really fun to see what they what they're choosing and even um they throw so many ideas up on the board and then they vote but just seeing some of those ideas they put up on the board also gives us ideas to what to consider for possible menu items too and then lastly we have our farm to school Grant this
year and then we did receive it for next year also um much smaller amount compared to two years ago so uh it's about 30,000 for this school year and next year and we'll continue to apply for that Grant as we go forward
so this slide is just showing kind of the overall summary of the budget um a lot of work went into the behind the scenes of this um and I believe Michelle and I spent a lot of time going line by line in the budget and most of the time it ended with me being very hungry because we talked a lot about food and
produce and all that fun stuff so um overall in the left hand column is the preliminary budget from 2425 on the right side is the 2425 revised budget with the um kind of the revisions we made in the middle um we'll go into more detail in the next few slides on how we
came to terms with these revenue and expenditure uh revisions but um overall total revenues we added around $328,000 to the budget this year um and then for expenditures we added 331,000 um really close to the same as
we added to revenues um and as you can see the bottom line there um is showing the revenue ere expenditures so we are very much in line with the preliminary budget um preliminarily we were showing around $882,000 and for the revision we're at
795 or 794 31 um so really close to the preliminary budget um truly most of our revisions were just because of enrollment and the additional meals served you know when we have to when we get more revenue for additional meals we have to increase the expenditures due to Staffing and food needs so um and like I
said we'll talk about more um more fun with the revenue expend on the next few slides so very quickly uh we always do our budget uh for the next school year based on what we currently know so we did see an increase in our federal reimbursement
rates for this school year so that is another um area that Revenue uptick a little bit for fy2 25 Revis budget utilized again the number of school dates um in reimbursement rates to determine the updated Revenue something
to keep in mind and we'll talk a little bit is we always I always budget for anticipating like two snow days within the school year um because that does add an additional expense to the overall budget and do um and we don't have that Revenue so the last last year did we
have no days I don't remember but um we did not so that is where you will see a little bit more I heard about it too from students just so that is why we're a little bit more on par right now too in our IIs budget is because we did have two snow days which we did budget for now if we
did not have that we would have more Revenue in that area too our average daily participation uh for this school year so far we're ranging from 80 to 85% at our elementary level Middle School 81 to 83 and then
High School is 76 which might seem a little low for high school but that is honestly it is a very very good range for high school students and what we see and they have more choices they do still have all a lot of all card at our high school so they might be choosing more of that route um and then also as the
school year goes on especially the second half of school year high it's very common for high school to dip just a little bit more they have PSO they have activities going on State basketball so they dip out and go to those events and that's where we see in our participation so and then we are
averaging about 9150 per day in allart in meal sales so that's second meals and allar purchas meals also anything you want to add to that one um I don't think so the only interesting thing as we were budgeting that I noticed was for the meal sales
and allart sales the average this year was 9,150 and last year it was 7,500 so a pretty pretty large increase for the alart and meal sales from last year uh next is the expenditures uh so when Michelle and I looked at expenditures for the preliminary budget
um the contract hadn't been finalized for wi that a cafes yet so we were being a little bit conservative with our budgeting for um salaries and exp uh salaries and benefits um but then when when you know the contract did get finalized so for the revised budget we were able to utilize current Staffing as
well as the approved contract to really kind of pinpoint where um those expenditures were going to end uh the year for 2425 um as for produce um we did spend more money on produce this year and we were budgeting the same just because of
the increased meal sales um we knew that we'd be spending more money on the produce especially with the elementary student Choice days and something to add for our produce too is when we got our larger Farm to school Grant two years two school years ago we switched our we
started using more revolve greens which you probably see in the grocery store uh our high school specifically went to majority of that product and we just kept going with that product but we didn't have the farm to school reimbursement rate um Grant to offset that cost so that is another area I it
came to my mind afterwards it's like oh we're continuing to use the revolved greens which aren't covered from the farm to school Grant anymore um but we want to continue to utilize those that those salad greens and then the final uh budget area that we revised for Food Service um or
wi out a cafes was the other expenditures and this is just where we have all of our repair and maintenance repair and maintenance expenses uh supplies uniforms um all of that fun stuff and again as we're you know we buying more food and serving more meals there's going to be more repairs needed
and more maintenance on the ovens and freezers and such so that's why we added some budget there because we were seeing some increased costs and then U finally was this the snow days that Michelle had mentioned for uh the expenditures so on this final slide is um just a trend of our fund balance uh
for y zaa cafes um over the years um as you can see in 2021 that's where it kind of took that dip because of Co and then we've been really right sizing and getting to a really healthy spot for the fund balance um as a as a nerdy account and I'm very excited because we finally
hit the point where we have three months of operating expenses in the fund balance so that's super exciting to me and hopefully everyone else uh and then additionally um now that the fund balance is so healthy there's a lot of planned projects in the future for um 25 26 especially at the high school in
terms of the salad and sandwich line that Michelle was mentioning as well as freezer space um so we're we're really excited for what's to come with um Wisa cafes now that we do have such a healthy fund balance perfect and I just want to add again thanking Jack and Michelle um
especially Michelle this tells a story too she's been here the whole time uh through the pandemic and just like Community ad that just presented saw her fund balance be decimated um and didn't have a lot of say or choice in it um and runs a fantastic program and it's really elevated and um just like we went
through the facility study um and demographic study this fall um I think it's sometimes easy to forget what goes on in the background Michelle has um dealt with obviously our increased enrollment happening in all of our buildings and she just has to make it happen because kids need to be fed so
she's done some really strategic things with adding lines redoing areas over the last few years um and going with satellite kitchens which um it's honestly very impressive how they move food around the district and as Dr Anderson has seever said several times
it's the biggest restaurant in Plymouth um and I said us so um they do a pretty phenomenal job with all of it um and then on top of that the free meals came into place and um obviously participation increased substantially but um freezer space and storage space
were not part of that bill so um they utilize closets in different ways and um maximize freezer spaces so I just really want to give kudos to Michelle um I mean she oversees a team of about a hundred people um it is not a small operation at
all so she does incredible work um and the board and the community should be uh very proud of her and her team so perfect thank you Michelle I did bring muffins because I I believe there were some that have tried them and some not and I want everyone to
feel included so I will give them to Amy that you can try um homemade banana chocolate chip muffins that we've just SP um continuing to make and really it helps us also utilize all those bananas um especially when a site calls and they're like all my bananas a brown and that's how they were delivered and now
we're just making those into the muffins but um you can find Amy but promised not to tackle her all right thank you you're done right okay sorry uh thank you Scott Jack and Michelle um can't wait to eat the those muffins
and like Amy you have them right I know yeah I know you control them now I know I know uh any any questions comments for the three of them yeah Dan thank you so much um for all the wonderful information I'm glad to hear their meal
participation rates are High kids are fed they're eating that's always just you know really great information to hear um and you know just to kind of tack on or add-on with the you know conversation or farmtable grants um it's you unfortunate to hear that those have gone down melind and I were at the um
Capital today at the amsd conference and they said you know those dollars will be you know declining so it's unfortunate here but I know you guys are making the you know very best of a um a different situation this year um my question I believe Jack you touched on this briefly um you know speaking to our monthly um
operating cost you said with the projected fund balance um that that's about two months worth of operating cost um would that be fair then to say that um you know one and a quar million is about what we're talking per month um so sorry I I three months of
operating so right around like $825,000 is where we're operating monthly for um why is out a cafe so um the 2.53 million gets us just just above that so that's really exciting all right perfect thank you so much
um I happen to be involved during negotiations that's why I might be asking some additional questions yeah because I learned from there I learned that yes you're doing I mean it looks like you're operating like a restaurant a big huge restaurant at the same time
um please clarify how does it work highight school in alart so you don't count uh alart doesn't count on uh how does it how do you count yeah correct so all part is all of the additional
purchases that a student can make um there we take every opportunity to try to make the items in alart count as a reimbursable meal so but all like our grabb and go salads and sandwiches are in alart and those are all reimbursable meaning um they qualify under the not
you know a free meal there are some items such that we offer at breakfast and then sell an olart like bagels and scones so a student can purchase that for just for the price but that is not part of like a reimbursable lunch meal so they
do have opportunity to buy extras that aren't part of of a lunch and then you have your snacks um you know protein bites and hard-boiled eggs and you know there are some baked snacked items too I know that you go above and beyond trying
to make that waiting lines are not that um big and obviously but at the same time high schoolers also don't have that much of a break MH can it be that um kids are choosing because our lines are quite busy and then in know you know
high schoolers would like to eat obviously quite a bit of them involved in activities yeah that's a good question and um something we did add in alart um in Expressway 2 we added two new grab and go reaching units and one
of those is hot so we did add grab and go hot items in allart 2 to help with line speed and those are all reimbursable meals too so Expressway is a good area that the students just flow right through that room so we did add um hot more hot
little hot option out there too and it rotates between a pizza um or chicken wings um some of their favorites uh so we did see the lines go down a little bit on the main lines because they were eating in the grab and go hot area in
expressway so but there it could be very well that a student is choosing to maybe eat a big over you know a full reimbursable launch M and uh one more question would you be able to uh explain that 3% in um uh
salaries and benefits uh rise is it additional to what we already did every summer uh no so when we first did our preliminary budget we had budget it similar to Prior year and prior year
Staffing knowing that once the contract was released we would be revising the budget to be you know similar to what the contract release was so I think it was 5% was the first year I can't remember the exact percent but I think it was right around five for the first year it was 54 five so does it mean that
we raised 8% I no how does it work so we did a cola increase on top of that so we used prior staff well we did projected Staffing and then we did a cola raise um when we did our preliminary budget so then the three is is kind of the difference between the two 2% we
budgeted as well as the the additional piece which was three so and then I think I think the exact number was like 3 point I rounded but I think the exact number of our salary and benefits was 3.6% difference from preliminary so that kind of bridges the
Gap and I would also add in there you had additional staff too that would have driven that up so it's really normal practice that we do uh especially when they put the budget together to we look at what is current we factor in an increase and that like Jack said obviously that 3% gets boosted up
because she did add staff as well so they're looking at overall aggregated cost they're not looking at individual by individual I was thinking the description you were saying that you were utilizing the same amount of staff
one of a sentence was saying yep um Sellers and benefits utilize current Staffing and the approved contract increase so yeah sir I probably could have worded that differently so current Staffing is just where we are currently which included all the additional
Staffing at preliminary we had did a projected Staffing um I think the current Staffing is higher than will be projected originally so there's that so it happened because you have to you had to hire more staff am right when y agre y so I do our staffing based on what
we're projecting for stent enrollment for the next year uh and then depending on you know how big how you know what the school is going to get some I I go more on the conservative side until I actually see the students coming through our lines and then I'll add more labor to adjust as needed so it's because of
increased St yep yes correct thank you and to note that was probably a chunk of it was at our high school this year um to help them with that with the the volume of meals so thank you for the details and thank you for
that would have been my first question but thanks for clarifying um what are you finding around food wastage is it manageable what where how are we doing
on that on the food waste uh I can tell you what I see that would probably be more the buildings and ground side um from our perspective you know when we serve our students anything that's left over on the line we we reuse that we're able to for food safety but as far as
like what's going what's on the students tray and going into the trash that um that's a whole another ball game I know it is a concern uh just because students you know they don't may not have enough time to eat um what they're given um or you know they high school they might be
some days might be a little bit longer serve time um so I would say it probably is a concern waste is always a concern um because of of that area we try to do what we can to reduce it you know things that can be reused are saved um that
will be taken but it is probably I would say it's always a concern sure just because you think of the time they get to eat and what you take at home um okay you know it's it it is hard you're trying to feed that many students in the short amount of time so that plus
everything else that goes around wiarda Cafe um and I apologize if I missed that email but similar to Community Aid are you guys also partnering with Communications team to talk about successes and any help we need from community and so on yeah we started our
Instagram and Facebook this year so go follow us uh but we we we do manage that but we partner with Communications um frequently depends on the year and how much I need to partner with them and what's going on but we we do partner with them always at the beginning of the year uh this year thankfully it's been
quiet knock on wood um but we will will partner with them when needed and communicate out important information a lot of that comes at the beginning in the school year okay okay so that's great yeah and I think I wanted to take this opportunity to share one story so
in one of the social functions I met um a small girl and she came to me obviously her parents coached her and she came to me and she said I want you to change pancakes I don't like what you serve this year my friends don't like it
and last year it was awesome I'm like okay and I was planning to to reach out to her but something changed and I think you guys reverted back to the original recipe and next time when I saw her she actually drew a picture with her friends
eating pancakes at you know in school and she was thanking me so I sent that picture to her saying like hey you deserve this more than any of us so thank you for that yeah that that is a fun story and that's a fine example of a product that
we got we had to take a substitution and you know not our favorite um but I love to hear that student feedback too because it just reassures us that what we're doing is working but yeah that is cute thank you yeah well just to follow up on that um I
think of all of the things that like my my own kids friends come to me about because they know I'm on the school board food is the number one they're just always you know either liking something or not liking it it's just such a a real focus of kids
you know on a daily basis which you know maybe teachers are not not excited to hear but lunch is like the favorite time of day for all kids um so I appreciate your you know the the job you have to do to like you can't please everybody but
you do a pretty good job um I think like for the most part my kids love the food I appreciate your focus on um finding more vegan options I know people you know for many reasons want want vegan options one of which is just Dairy
allergies or lactose intolerance and just having those options making it more accessible especially with the free lunches now to let more people participate is really you know I'm grateful for that Focus um and I know we have more you could do but like you said
there's supply chain issues and hopefully those you know we can find a system going forward um I had one question about the slides there was one there was the um average daily spend I think it was and it was up from last
year was like 9,000 and you said last year it was 7,000 and something yeah so the meal sales alart average so far this year is the 9,150 um and last year it was about 2,500 less so
7,000 um and you probably don't know exactly why I mean I'd imagine that part of it is increas enrollment um and but also maybe with longer lines because of free meals students are choosing not to wait in those lines and just getting allart and I I didn't know if you had a
better idea of why that that was so much higher uh I did I had had not touched our allar prices for the last few years um just when I started I felt they were a little bit on the high side and with covid and everything happening so I will I went through and I did raise prices to
be more in line um with the percentage that we want to see for allart or the upcharge that we do to cover the the labor and the staff that goes into making it uh so I would say that's probably a chunk of it as I did go through with a fine tooth comb and um raise those prices a little bit um
because I had not touched them in three to four years okay so I have uh first of all thank you for all that you do for the kids with their food and you know breakfast lunch it's I it's not easy I work in those
cafet areas during covid so I so I I I could see firsthand how difficult it is um so let me follow up continue with the Sheila's question so it's a dichotomy right you have average daily participation increasing which means that I'm assuming
then that there are more kids now going on the free meals in the free meals line is that correct more more kitchens in more kids more kids yes yeah so with that in mind how does the meals and alak cart Revenue
increase when more kids are going to the free free breakfast free lunch line help me understand that yeah so it's it's a variety of things uh you we do see a lot of students buying second Entre so you know they are receiving that meal first meal at no cost uh so parents you know
are May before with with when meals were at a cost they might say okay you have $5 to spend um they might still say say you have $5 to spend but now that's going to more items not just the meal sales so it is second Entre it is
students going through and purchasing the additional items and then like I said it too it was with the increase of what we do charge for some of those items okay so that does that mean that the kids bringing home lunch has gone down quite a bit they're eating now the
you know the free meals plus they're spending more money on the meals and Al card yeah okay cor yes okay um I should know this I apologize I don't there is a policy for the fund balance for the general fund you know the board has set
a requirement of 5 to 7% m is there a policy which says you have to have a certain fund balance for the wi cafes I don't know of a policy off the top of my head I know like once we hit three months um operating expenses the
Department of Education will actually start reaching out to us and say okay you need a spend down plan you need to they want to see us start spend they want us to be around that area but they don't want it to grow too big so the Department of Education will start reaching out to districts if they have a fund balance of three months operating
expenses or more and they will ask like what are you doing because they want to see those you know that Revenue go back into the facilities and the kitchens so they will ask like what are you doing to improve uh your areas replacing equipment expanding uh so they will
start following up on that once they see that fund balance reach that that point so they act like your board basically you know instead of us acting as the board to control or you know want the fund balance to a certain amount yeah okay and then the last question I have
is about vegan meals we have you have done a lot for that and I appreciate it but uh overall in general is the vegan meal more expensive less expensive or about the same as any other meal it it
depends and so and when people are following a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet some people want to do very Whole Foods they want to just do the fruits and the vegetables and like beans legumes um other people want to really mimic what other people are eating so
for example they want a vegan burger or a vegetarian burger which those are the items that tend to get more expensive so when you're recreating something that's you know might be center of the plate to look similar that is somewhere that you can see an increased price um but then
also on the flip side if you're eating Lagoon instead of hamburger ground hamburger that will most likely be uh more affordable cheaper so it's a balance and that's just how we that's how we plan all of the Venus vegan or vegetarian or you know all of all of the above all the choices um it's all a fine
balance of more expensive Entre and then more reasonable price Entre okay thank you I appreciate that um any questions comments no if not thank you so much yes yeah sorry to want to say something question
Dr Anderson no I was gonna say thanks for being here this afternoon and thanks for uh presenting to the board and giving them some updates it's really a pretty incredible Enterprise when you stop and think about all the meals that are served and um I'll reflect back to
some of my former days as a principal which I spent a number of years in that role and one of my favorite things to do was spend time in the lunchroom I know it seems kind of rning thinking of Desiring and looking forward to spending time in a middle school Andor a High School lunchroom but but um I just I
want to compliment not only the you know all the work that goes into the food prep and but just the Ambiance that gets established so oftentimes uh I'll go up to the high school and just have lunch in the cafeteria first of all it's a beautiful space and it's just fun to see the kids interacting and that we've
created I think a really nice environment there for them and you never really know what might happen when you're in there and I recall uh very fondly one day a girl came up and said do you want to join us at our table for lunch sure so I went over and sat at this table of I don't know eight or 10
or 12 students and just had the most delightful conversation and had a chance to ask them a lot of questions and they shared what they loved about their High School experience and their school experience and it could just tell it was a time that they looked forward to each day and engaging with their um their
peers and you it was just it was just really fun so I just wanted to share that story and to thank you for not only preparing food but you know working with principles and the staff to help prepare a quality environment for kids to spend that time in and and uh that didn't go
on notice there so anyway it's fun it's a good hangout thank you perfect and just finally wanted to thank them again and thank uh David for being here tonight it just kind of shows the collaboration and um mixing people's expertise and knowledge together to um
put together good presentations and make sure our numbers stay in line um and also just to reminder of the board tonight's just the presentations so um we won't be asking for approval of the revised until the April 14th meeting so a little bit of time so you've got some time to ask questions um and we did that
purposefully so and we'll try to do that with other things as well so um in the meantime feel free to reach out to Jack Michelle or myself thank you yeah thank you so much we we'll be ready by on April 15th so 14th rather yeah well you have a question
okay at this point you sold uh to me this menu I would like to go to high school and try this food sounds so good it would be nice to to go and try we can still get those muffins right
okay okay all right thank you thank you again yes this completes our work session for this evening there will be a special meeting this coming Wednesday March 26th at 4 p.m. the next School Board regular
meeting will be held on Monday April 14th the time is now 5:32 p.m. the wetta Public Schools Board of Education work session for Monday March 24th 2025 is adjourned