all right you should be live okay and good evening it's 5:32 at the secondary school media center and we will call the meeting to order and start with pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay roll call gross is here porter yes
stanstead is not sawyer yes maya is not josh here and Claire yes okay do we have anybody here to speak doesn't look so like it um we'll move on
to modifying and adopting the agenda there's a couple things uh changed um 3.1 will be removed and we're adding 3.2 Business Professionals of America Miss Gosser
and removing 5.1.1 and removing 6.2 are there any other modifications if not we'll look for a motion to approve the agenda so move second all those in favor say I
motion passes uh we will now move on to committee reports and presentations and go with Miss Gasser thank you for having me so Miss Gasser I see I do not have access to get so I think you forwarded
to Jake kevin is there a way that we can quickly get this pulled up for her her PowerPoint or should I just click out and you can go from there is that the easiest do you think Kevin she has a PowerPoint if I log out and she logs in or what would you recommend
actually if you just click request access okay well I'll start start by saying um first year teacher i've met all of you but I know it was announced that we did get the CTE
approval for the business department very quickly so I'm really happy with that that was submitted in November and approved by January a large part of CTE is student leadership so that's why I'm here today is to try to um get Business
Professionals of America know that this presentation is really long i just wanted to give you an idea of what BPA really is but there are a lot more slides than I want to review so if we could just go through it be a download i'll open
them okay business Professionals of America is an organization that would give us the kind of an automatic student leadership program at WCA another way to fulfill that would be DECA if you've heard of that organization I've done research and met with a lot of people and heard that
BPA is good for smaller students good for recognizing students or smaller schools um thank you maybe here I think to the computer just point at me and I'll switch it for you
oh you went back it went back no is that what you There you go you got Okay so making the students college and career ready is the main point um about BPA we want to develop and empower student leaders just a quick review of
the membership it's 50,000 students it's about 1500 chapters across the United States and countries i'm cooking too fast now i was say Miss Caster I don't want you to rush yourself so you take the time you need so you can Well like I said this this is not the important part i just want to give you an idea of what
the organization is so it's mostly high school students it's about half male half female and it's 41% overall um Caucasian and then there's mix of diversity within that for our footprints we are strong in or the chapter is
strong in Minnesota there are a lot around here that have a BPA program that I'm very familiar with and then shown across the globe there there are so many programs available and these are the main seven reasons I made some just random
highlights the competitions are what gives students the confidence to go into the business field or other fields based on their um their interests the industry certifications are great leadership development what I'm most interested in is just making sure that our students
are graduating with skills that are that can work right in the workplace right away and also myself making sure that I'm on top of what's out in the industries and out in the business world scholarship opportunities and service is a huge part of it so there's also a
segment of it that's work workplace skills assessment so BPA would kind of be our way of making sure that we're ahead of the game and on top of the the technology that's out there now competitive assessment areas I just want to show that there's so many of them we
basically ask students what they're interested in and find them a field to focus on they can change if they'd like um it would be we would meet during like advisory time and take practice tests and work on skills and development and
study and then um the first step is it's a lot like FFA or other student leadership programs where regionals occur in January in Alexandria state competition is in March in Minneapolis and then national get to
that secondary level competitions this is just all the different areas that they can choose to learn about and compete in and this is the next slide of those so there's so many that we could broaden our students skills and focus in
an area so industry certifications I really want to get the business program to a place where students are actually earning certifications that they can put on their resume as hard skills um this would be through like Microsoft Office products and things like that having
access to programs that the business world uses instead of only Google but also focusing in getting them certified in Google products as well as long as they're leaving leaving with a certification adds value to transcripts like I said add to your resume and boost
self-esteem leadership development which is kind of the key factor of having this at the school and fulfilling that CTE need um they can serve as officers statewide or locally workshops and the conferences that it holds here's a quote if you want to skim
it um just so you know my involvement in BPA my husband is a business teacher in Evansville i've been a chaperone at the state competition and the national level so I've worked directly with the students and taken the buses to the competition and chaperon while we were there so and um I escort them to their
events and pep talk them before they go in they judges and competes in their area and then welcome back kind of thing torch awards are for um they earn points in community service so if you don't even want to compete in an area
you can just do community service and build up your hours and earn a torch award that way so there's some pictures of kids earning their torch awards culture and community one of the things they do at states and nationals especially nationals they create their
and they trade them so then that becomes a piece of value for them and they come home with all these pins and they're so proud of them this is just what I witnessed at the national conference i went to um Chicago last year so this year it's in
Florida next year will be Tennessee and then Colorado just for the next I don't imagine we'll get to nationals yet but it's a goal that's our theme this year and then um just to go through what my goals would be to get started to get student
interest before the end of the year but not really start program before next year um I would hope to get three to 10 students involved at first um accepting more if people are interested when I took a little tally of of interest I got like 20 kids but at the
time I was working only with seniors so they're all going to be gone by next year so I start over in my careers class with the ninth graders and get them going and beyond i know that the kids are going to be the ones that are already very involved so it's my job to kind of seek out the ones that aren't
involved in things and find their interest and try to get them invol involved in BPA um it's a program that goes right along with Launch Bowl they can be in both of those and they accent each other so it's not a competitive program where I'm taking students from another group or anything else and the good thing is I'm not asking for any
money at all just to relay that again I don't want any money eric and I have been talking about ways that we would get started with the plant sale with the business doing marketing for meat sales with the store getting started and other opportunities for the students to earn
their own um funds to to bring them to regions and other events the startup costs are super low it's about 20 stu $20 to $20 per student to register and then to get the whole group of practice tests it's $80 so I'm confident we'd be
able to fund raise that amount and my goal would be to have this program running as its own business so that I wouldn't be asking for funds if I do ask for funds in the next year or two it would be maybe like transportation to regionals or something like that other schools their
um for them to get to state none of them paid for them to get to nationals so you know we would be doing all of our own fundraising and then my other request I don't know if this year or next year when but just to get this on appendix B
as a recognized program does anyone have questions or did I explain it or not i hear you say there's a small number of middle school students i'm only requesting for high school right now if there were were to be a middle school another advisor and you
would get that going if there was interest i just know that we're always looking for things for middle school students to get them engaged it's a great idea it's not it's a capacity issue right now okay wonderful okay thank you and I think Miss Goser just one of the things too
maybe to explain to the group is you didn't come through the regular right school training model so you've got business experience and so I think that's been in the business world and learning to teach that's Yeah but you're doing a great job and you're learning that sometimes we in public education move a lot slower than they do in the
business world right trying to get to this meeting since August or September I think right i walked in with this goal and I've been working with a lot of different people so and I don't always know the way to do things so that's what I'm learning you've done wonderful to ask for and how
to how to get it through and approved yeah the appendix B piece will work with Mr fosene on that and kind of have to go through that so when she says that's the extracurricular schedule for like a FFA advisor the band those things will work through that and you told me something about if I'm not able to do it this year
put it on there as a future something yeah maybe something we have to engage in the future as well it can't be on this contract yeah there was like an acronym that I didn't recognize too but we'll talk about that we like to give it a trial run i think we did that like for our marching band for a while i think former director did it for a few years
and then it got added later so it would be something like that i do appreciate the fact that my real concern was the nationals because I know schools go but it is reassuring to know that it's not a huge expense to the district because that's always gets me a little concerned of where that expense could be so no
this looks as far as the advisor all um hotel and transportation is covered by the Perkins grants okay and yeah it is expensive and you do a lot but you guys are business people so you'll be able to sort that out we are business people and we will sort that out
and I like the engagement of our other students i think that's one of the things that we just heard through our uh Mr wood is on but I think one of our surveys of our staff was the fact that we do a great job of acknowledging athletics and stuff like that maybe there's some other areas where we can find for students to have
that connection i think this is going to be a great way to do that a great pairing with agriculture eric has helped me so much just in finding out how to get this program out there and then having the programs work together having one student the meat and the other student marketing and selling it later
or groups of students and you guys have kind of talked about the store out here right as well in our where our current vending machine is kind of transitioning into that more of a store to sell merchandise you know so people come to game events and stuff like that that we've got every looking to grow that so thank you
it sounds like something that our our local businesses would really support you know they support everything that we do but something that helping our kids be ready for the next stage and be potential employees yeah right i think
they would be high school behind it considerably thank you great thank you Miss Ger do you not feel obligated to stay with the road shall I stay no i guess I spoke for the I want to speak for the board but no I think when Okay if you're ready
to go I will take off and anyone feel free anytime to reach out to me through my school unit address or know how to get a hold of me thanks again for your time thank you well we'll move on to our administrative
reports miss Hendris are you there i am you hear me we're good yep we can hear you all right um well appreciate the option to join virtually tonight so thanks for that um and I continue just to be so impressed by our staff i had
connected with a few of them today on e-learning days and heard about what was going on with music and um in some of the classrooms there's always a few technical issues but they just persevere and um it's just good to hear how how we still operate on an e-learning day so
kudos to all of our staff um going in with my report we had our preschool and kindergarten registration evenings they were held on March 24th and 25th we had a phenomenal turnout at both buildings it was really great um to see all the
students and the parents um the kids got to go with the teachers and some paras that volunteered to into the classrooms for kind of a sneak peek activity and then the parents stayed with Megan and me and we did a short presentation and then gave them the opportunity
opportunity to complete some paperwork so they could get questions answered and get a head start on that um and just thanks to the teachers paras and secretaries who came and made the evening successful and it was fun to see those particularly the um the incoming
little nights because some of them are only two now going to be three next year and we um had a little sign set up and they got to hold a you know class of and they are the graduating class of 2040 so that was really really cute to see and and fun to wow like that's just seems
like a ways off but 2040 is that graduating class um we did not have our professional development day today with the e-learning so our letters will be moved to our final letter training will be moved to May 7th and I had noted just
thanks to Jodie for her flexibility and she was flexible again to um change so we could have our in-person training with letters and we will finish May 7th and then she's already sending out information about our year two so teachers will have a couple training
dates this summer to attend for letters and then that will also roll into next school year and um at our recent professional development day we did um we had letters training as well and then we did some culture and climate so staff have
completed a survey and a reflection and then Mr brownlow did a presentation which was really great that we had all of our staff together and heard that common message our report card our quarter 3 ended March 27th so report cards go home this Friday so parents can
look for those coming home with students we have our leadership team um I'm I moved our meeting to next week but we have been working on our elementary report card so the new ELA standards um the 2020 standards are are up for full
implementation next school year so we right now on our leadership team are working on making sure our report cards and our assessments align with the new ELA standards so some important work that we're doing and um once we have
that a little bit more flushed out next week we'll bring it to all of our staff at some um staff meetings and get feedback from everyone but we wanted to make sure that our report card aligned with the the new standards work that is to be fully
implemented and then you can see we have some fun happenings coming up in April both um North and South have school dances that the PTO's are sponsoring and putting on that's happening on Friday we have MCAs coming up for reading the week
of the 15th and math the week of the 23rd at both schools we continue to celebrate our positive behaviors um through all school celebrations and we celebrate our students of the month and then we have an author visit by Kevin
Love Green he does a lot of um outdoors and sports related books and he is coming to WCA so that's a fun opportunity he'll be here on April 23rd and grades 2 through 6 get to see
him any questions any questions no thank you thank you thank you moving on to Mr wood all right hello everyone i uh also appreciate the option to meet virtually
thank you um going into my board report um just want to give a shout out to Miss McGaffy um she's been holding several um ACT prep sessions since the ACT is coming up and there's been really good participation in that also working
really hard on coordinating registration for our upcoming school year and you know this is her first time experiencing the high school side of counseling and it's a little bit different than the elementary and um you know really doing an awesome job knocking it out of the
park and handling things as they come so really appreciate her and she's been doing a great job um Senora and the National Honor Society had March Madness last week this is always a fun time for our students um we had our annual hunger
games there was a baby picture guessing game um themed dress up days um we also then last Thursday had iron man volleyball staff basketball karaoke that was um capstone by a student singing the
entire rendition of Bohemian Rap City and it was it was pretty awesome um also dodgeball and um NHS also worked earlier in the month to organize the blood drive so um thank you to Senora and NHS members that make the make these things
happen often behind the scenes there's a lot of work that goes into that overall our student body is you know is having a really really good year um we're involved in a ton of different activities um you know athletically
artistically community outreach wise um very very proud of our students um I attached to my board report i won't sit here and read it to you on the screen but it's an email I received from the bus driver who drove our girls to the state tournament and just um
complimenting their behavior and and the behavior of our coaches and you know I think we all agree that winning is nice but also would agree that how you win is more important and so it's pretty awesome to see our students out there
representing well both on the court and off the court um looking ahead into April now since we're in April and fourth quarter already this Friday will be our first high- five Friday which um is an idea that came about where we're trying to
get local businesses on campus in the morning to greet students and build connections between the school and our local community um Mr sabalic and Barrett A will be our first guests this Friday we we're also looking forward to we have our Washington DC trip coming up
in two weeks um taking about 60 students to DC we'll have a presentation in the May um committee meeting where students will come and share about that trip our ACT and MCA testing is coming up we have
prom at the end of the month and then finalizing our scheduling for next year so this time of year is always really busy and really exciting but also very fun as well any questions for me
thank you Mr wood thank you guys up next uh Mr fosling well there's a couple things going on this past winter couple pretty cool achievements so we all got to experience our school's very first state title and congrats to our girls basketball team that was pretty pretty
impressive um a congrats that may or may not be out there is to coach Holland and Coach Bryce for being named Class A head coach and assistant coach of the year so that's that just came out not too long ago so pretty cool um just you know
personally and professionally I think for a couple of us here that was a pretty pretty cool experience so uh on top of that our our wrestling team makes the state tournament and our boys basketball team makes the state final i I don't know if too many schools get the opportunity to say they have that for
the winter activities so so pretty special winner and along with that you know thank you to our our student athletes our coaches our bus drivers Chad and his crew our referees i mean that that doesn't happen with all this without the involvement of of everybody else so thank you for everyone who
played a hand in getting things going this winter coaching participating cleaning up driving a bus helping out keeping score because we we need everybody so thank you a few other things that are going on spring sports season was upon us and hopefully it comes back again um you
know we've got a lot of teams going on or a lot of things going on with limited space so thank you to Diane at Hoffman and Miss Hendricks and Miss Dosadelo we're trying to make things happen with with gym space and that's very limited and it's kind of messy so we we do our
best um it'd be great if we could just be outside every day but that doesn't happen so again hopefully it comes back um we've already experienced some postponements um I anticipate there will be a couple next week as well uh hopefully we get back on track soon
though uh you know if you look at our past springs we're we're probably ahead right now compared to where we've been in the past so hopefully this is shortlived and we're we're back outside playing games and golfing here soon um couple other things coming up
here in April um the State High School League section placement should be upon us soon um there is a state high school board of directors meeting tomorrow um they should ratify section placement so at least we'll have an idea where things are again every indication for us is
that we are class A in all of our activities if that were to change tomorrow when that goes public that would be a surprise to me but we'll know what section that we're in in what section or what other schools are in our sections as well so from that then once that process is complete then the
district football process begins those of you who are familiar with that that's a little lengthy process as well because now they have to take basically reshuffle the whole deck and put teams in districts and then our our the district committees and separate them
out into subdists and create schedules our past district football uh district that we've been in has 58 teams so we get to divide that up and then create schedules for 58 schools so that that's kind of a fun process so uh we hope that's done in May hopefully it's
completed before them but we'll see so a couple other upcoming events robotics was set to leave today um due to some changes in their registration and the weather they've opened the window up for for them to attend tomorrow so they're going to leave tomorrow morning at some
point or around noon maybe uh hopefully get there when conditions are a little safer for them to travel uh they'll be there through Saturday uh speech subsection speeches is uh Friday at Browerville we have small group small group band and choir contest coming up
here in April uh we have I have a couple meetings with region six and the west central conference and we have the state FFA convention the end of April so on top of sports we have many other things going on in April and it's kind of a spread here to get get through April and
May with lots of things going on so that's my report and any questions anybody has i don't know if you got enough thanks for all the stuff you did with the state tournament and the boys and going back and forth and kids at wrestling and I
mean we made it work you got a lot going on and every single time somebody asked you a question if I was near you you're like "Yeah I got that covered." So well fortunately enough we we and I don't mean this statement to be arrogant we we've been down there enough now the last few years we've kind of have a
routine kind of where we stay and kind of how things all come together um If people would have asked me that a couple years ago I don't think I would have been as confident in some of the answers that I've had but we've had had plenty of time to try to get it right and I I think this experience I mean I don't we
had a whole lot of hiccups and things just kind of ran smooth and yeah but thank you for that okay moving on um community education mrs dots are you with us yes can you
hear me yep perfect all right so first off I'll kind of piggyback off of what Caitlyn had mentioned about our kindergarten and preschool registration night um we changed things up this year and it turned out really really great having everybody back um kind of taking
the model that they used precoid and bringing that back um I've had lots of positive parent feedback um so we look to continue that into the future as well um I did update my numbers um since I sent in the report so these are
confirmed registrations um going into next year there still could be some movement here because there are names on my census list that I haven't heard back from but I am trying to reach out to each and every one of them just to get get a better idea of how many kiddos we're looking at um so
starting with North uh Little Knights I have 32 confirmed registrations next year um kindergarten connection so our four-year-old program we're at 26 and then looking at South Little Nights I have 12 confirmed
registrations and kindergarten connection I have 13 so just a reminder we made that switch with South um so we only have one section of each Little Nights and Kindergarten Connection which will be a change um going into next year
and then as for kindergarten um again this is just confirmed enrolles it could go up from here um at North we're sitting at 31 and at South we're sitting at 19 um and then transitioning into more
community ed stuff uh summer planning is underway it's a crazy time of year behind the scenes um we're looking for coaches for summer ball both adults and teenagers i really really really hope to have an adults with every team it just makes things go a lot smoother and it
provides a great mentorship opportunity for our younger coaches to give them a good experience as well um if anybody is interested they can contact either myself or April Richards um we're kind of spearheading the whole summer ball uh
program this year um another minor change but I think it's going to be a good one um we're going to hold summer ball registration early we're actually going to open it next Monday fires are going to go home tomorrow um couple reasons for that we spend a lot of money
on transportation uh so I I really want to get these numbers ahead of time so I know exactly how many kids are going to be riding uh because if we can get a van instead of a bus that's going to save us a boatload of money um and who knows maybe we'll have tons of kids and we'll
need a bus and that's fine too but I I really want to get those numbers ahead of time for that reason and so we know exactly how many coaches we'll need to um and we'll get to order t-shirts early and all that and hopefully that first week of June won't be quite as crazy as
it has been in years past so again that'll open on April 7th and the flyers with all the other summer rack opportunities will still come out in early May as normal um swimming lessons i know I touched on this before but just reiterating that uh
they will be back at our hometown lakes at Elf Lake and Fair Haven Beach this summer um so I know that'll be a positive change as well and then I think the last thing is I just want to thank all of the businesses the cities the organizations that provide donations to
our summer programming um without the donations things like the ball program that I touched on just a little bit ago really would not be possible um it's it takes a lot to pay the refs the coaches and like I said transportation all the above um so we're really really lucky to
have the generous donors that we do to make this a reality for our kiddos and I think that's it does anyone have any questions no no questions thank you Mr dots thank you all right technology Mr mcnamera
be quick tonight um so one of the bright spots is um some of the new pieces that Google is starting to roll out one of the pieces I wanted to highlight that I think will be a pretty remarkable tool for some of our
middle to upper elementary students is a program called Google read aloud um it allows teachers through Google Classroom to assign leveled books to different students individualize that instruction the kids receive the books but the the
amazing part and I've been doing it with my own children is they read the book aloud google is analyzing their reading as they're reading aloud so they're giving us almost the same data that we received from our fast testing in
addition if a student p on a word it will say the word aloud and request that they repeat the word and it highlights as they go um students get to receive stars and different things like that so they kind of get a little bit of
gamification out of it but the practice and the feedback that you get from an instructional standpoint is absolutely unbelievable so I'm really hoping that started uh it's still in beta so it's
still being altered and changed we have early access to it i'm hoping that this is something that will continue in the direction it's going right now because I could see that being an incredible tool for our teachers um one it's fantastic
for reading and comprehension it'll some of the books will even have some comprehension questions as they're going along um but two it's something kids can do independently and in that elementary classroom or even on some of these
distance learning days the the ability to continue with high quality practice and have the ability to uh um fix some of the errors and mistakes along with that without having to have that one-
on-one is huge so that's a really nice piece um I've been kind of diving deep into some of their security pieces as well uh we've had some uh snafu a lot of people are having snafoos with some of their emails um spoofing and whatnot um
Google has started to roll out a whole bunch of new security protocols so we've been kind of going through that sometimes I'll turn it on sometimes it makes things not work as well and we'll turn it back off and we'll just kind of keep trying but Google's been fantastic to help us with providing the tools that
I believe we'll need to keep our all of our accounts and all of our data extremely secure um other than that I've gotten great news about some of the uh devices that we're looking for our refresh so each year we purchase new
devices for the incoming fifth graders they have those devices for four years then we purchase new devices again at 9th graders and they have those devices for four years so each year we're purchasing two classes of devices um the devices that I've been quoted on are
actually fairly reasonable um the challenge that I'm having is when I get a quote there I had one company send me a quote that the quote was good for one day um but most of them it's been like
10 to 15 days so which is fairly reasonable so as long as nothing drastically changes I think we're going to be just fine um I have a few samples being sent to me for demo and to make sure that everything meets our needs because ultimately what the process I
always go through every year when we're looking at devices is to ensure the device meets the needs of the curriculum and the instructor because ultimately it's just a tool just like a pencil or a pen or a notebook or anything like that i want to make sure that what we are giving our students are what they need
to enhance the curriculum and the instruction that the teachers are providing um other than that just have to always say thank you to Stacy and the amazing work that she puts in she is a phenomenal asset for our district and I
would be absolutely sunk without her any questions any questions next uh Mr norbert all right um I'm not going to go over my report i think a lot of that will get gone over a little bit more if we've got
questions um later on with the capital outlay and stuff uh my big thing is is I just got to give kudos to my staff too um we would really love to have a day a week off that would help keep us on track it's been working nice um but
we're we're struggling um we are struggling there's no doubt about it being as short as we are we're trying to keep up the best we can uh Mr brown and I have got together and talked about a few things maybe there's some paras that we can wiggle in and get a couple hours out of a couple different paras here um
some other staff members um I've even entertained the thought and done some research that there are some states that the teachers clean their own rooms um the janitorial staff takes care of the commons areas takes care of the bathrooms takes care of the trashes in
the classrooms but as far as vacuuming wiping down your tables and stuff you know I I don't know if we even dare go that far but I mean there's we've got to come up with something or I'm going to start losing more staff is is my fear and then to push that into
summer we lose staff already that I do have that's part-time staff that does not work in the summer so we're going to be even shorter in the summer so anything out there anybody knows anything i mean that's that's our biggest push right now for for my
department is we just we need to have staff um I know the kids want to be outside and stuff um I did have the fields chalk this morning but you probably can't see them now but that's another thing that's also saving me once we get into baseball season and this stuff where I got to
start doing baseball fields and softball fields there will be no time for any cleaning taking place except trashes probably in the buildings so um had a little party here early this morning with uh some of the county people and some of the fire departments uh we had
fire alarms going off here so I was up here um 11:30 until almost 1 trying to find uh heads that are going bad in the building so I could change them out we could get things corrected i also have a fire issue I was working on that we've had alarms going off the last two days
at North that one um did not strobe or has not alarmed everybody but it's uh in the duct work in the gymnasium i was able to get it taken care of so the alarms can be silenced for a 12 to 24 hour
period so it's not going off every 15 minutes in the front office um talked to Summit and they will try and have somebody here tomorrow but probably the next day or so and I said as long as we can get it so we can get a 12 hour span or so that thing's not going off every
15 minutes in the office i said that gives us a little time um they do not what we have i took pictures and sent to them so I I have no idea what it's going to cost i don't think it's going to be a huge amount but I did tell them we've got another one on the other side of the
gym looks exactly like it as long as you guys are driving here to do it let's just do them both because my luck will be next week the other one will go out and we got to call them back again um uh what else do you want to know so uh we have uh
some Ottertale power issue sides with our generator um when school started that thing was kicking on uh I came to work one Monday morning and that thing was running back there at 5:30 in the morning went in and it had been running
for about 4 and a half hours um couple other times during the week I'd get a call at night from Brent and say "Hey that generator's been running for 45 minutes." So long story short we have a breaker you know about this just as much as I do we have a breaker that connects us to Ottertale so if power goes out
Ottertale can automatically kick our generator on and it will run to to take care of what needs to be done in the facility last fall I called Ottertale and said "I'm shutting this thing off." And that was at from the advice from Steve who is our
maintenance guy on that generator um said "Just try it." He says "Call him up tell them you're going to shut it off well we shut it off and the thing's been smooth lickety split last week I turned it on um Friday morning we turned it on
yeah there was no school Friday right correct yeah yeah friday morning I turned it on uh Monday night I got a call from one of my night custodians that said "Hey the generator's running." So um I have it marked um all
we got to do is flip the switch we have a custodian that lives in town if I'm not around or something I did show it to Jake and Nate because they're usually in the buildings a lot um and of course I'm only an elbow so you know 15 minutes I can be here to turn it on i don't think
we'll end up with any real damages in 15 minutes if I don't get that generator on um talking to Kurt from Ottertale they are having trouble all over the grid and it's coming from he says the windmills the the power is not from what
he tells me you probably hear this or know about this too darren the power is not consistent enough he's got houses that are calling all the time because the new LED lights aren't as forgiving as the fluorescents so they actually are like candles flickering in the house
and that's because of this and he says "We don't buy from them we don't do anything with them but it's in the system and it's just such an infrequent." And so they kind of think that's what's happening is they're getting enough infrequency that it's just enough to kick our generator on but
it's not enough to kick it off again to tell it so those are the those are the fun things I have for you get worse um Yeah you got any questions anything else for me anything you read or
anything we want to go over later when we do the capital outlay i guess doesn't look like any move on to business manager Todd is he with us he's not no he's out this week he's off this week yep so then
you're up sounds good okay um well our student enrollment if you click on that we're back to 700 you know we dropped down to 696 students but we're we gained a few in the elementary schools and so there's a little celebration with both our elementary secretaries but we're back to 700 students here again with
some growth there so I think that's kind of where we'll maintain for just a little bit but as you see some of our numbers coming in that'll make that more of a challenge as we go down the road legislative update uh the Senate and House both released their budget targets providing the structure for the overall
state budget for the next four years and that's where they kind of talk about the budget concern you know the next two years aren't as alarming as the following two years so sometimes when they put these new mandates together they talk a little bit about the tales and that's what they're talking about is the long-term impact so the free lunch
would be one of those pieces that could have some of those issues um and so they're kind of showing that the target for the education or excuse me the Senate proposes to reduce the state's budget by 2.5 billion over the next four years while the Senate proposes um excuse me the House proposes to reduce
it by 3.7 billion as well over the next four years so some some large reductions that are coming there the target for education finance committee is in the Senate is zero um for fiscal years 26 and 27 and a reduction of 687 million for fiscal years 28 and 29 the target
for the education finance committee in the house is set at 40 million for fiscal year so $40 million of additional funding for fiscal year 26 and 27 but zero in 28 and 29 so uh there is a draft of the omnibus bill coming from the
house education policy committee that does start shows a possible start to early start for school in the September 26 and 27 because that's when Labor Day ends so late so they won't allow you to start before August 30th uh but they do allow you allow you to start before
Labor Day um limiting data requests for school districts is another piece of that and then flexibility in the read mandates for the 25 26 school year allowing I think it's about four and a half to five hours of some mandate relief now remember this is just a proposed draft it's not final yet um but
I did watch something here too in regards to superintendents across the state that did testify just in regards to they really we need mandate relief there's just so many mandates out there that come with additional expenses i believe it was the superintendent from
Grand Rapids kind of hit the nail on the head he said unfortunately he said our admin costs have went from what used to be two to 3% now they're 4 to 8% however he said we haven't been able to hire additional staff to cover that he said "We now just have people that are taking a job and a half and trying to get it
done with one person." And I think we're seeing a little bit of that as well in some of our own spaces here trying to get those things taken care of that way so we'll continue to monitor that community task force uh that meeting that was scheduled for April 1st has
been postponed there were some good ideas that came in from some of the task force members i think wanting to look at a few additional pieces to make sure that there was enough if we're spending that type of dollar um making sure that there was going to be enough that we did it right the first time and don't come
with a project that doesn't have all the not going to call it bells and whistles but all the pieces that maybe need to be looked at i think the gymnasium was one concern you know if we don't have enough gym space as we look down the road but also realizing that we need to uh manage expense with that as well um as we move
forward that there's going to be probably a finite dollar amount that our taxpayers will support so we're working through those pieces there and hope to meet midappril to have some better information to share out with operational costs long-term sustainability and maybe making sure
that we included I shouldn't say maybe but making sure we included some of those pieces that were not identified when uh Witzv came back the first time so we'll be working through that and convening a meeting here midappril to hopefully come to consensus and then bring a recommendation for the school
board to continue now I think one of the conversations that been held a little bit is we definitely don't want to rush this process you know we do have to do a a um November election already to fill a a board vacancy but we don't want to rush this because I think there's concern about one communicating the
message out making sure it's the right project and making sure that everybody knows what we're truly looking at that way so we're getting close to that timeline I would say in the next month or two of of getting that out with the review and comment and having enough time to share that message with our uh
stakeholders in the district uh donations for building needs so we did we have put out some letters to different fire relief associations and other civic groups asking to help cover part of the cost of our fine arts pieces of the portable staging as well as the
stage curtain the fire marshall did notify Chad and I that uh August 15th is the date that that needs to happen so he he did respond back and said that is the date there is no exception i come back and stage curtains are down or they're replaced that's kind of the final final
piece there he's been very nice about it but I think made it pretty clear that uh nothing beyond he was hoping sooner than August 15th but I think Chad was able to say "Hey you know we're going to get it ordered we'll look in the summertime here to get that uh placed and things like that." So we do have that piece there but um we did receive a $2,500
donation from Runstone Telephone Association uh for requests that was just placed with them so it's very nice to see that they're willing to support those items the one piece that I should mention as we talk about that portable staging the staging that we're looking to replace is staging that's used here
for homecoming here for graduation north for both their um Christmas and spring concert and I think sometimes at South as well the pieces that they currently haul are very heavy i remember those pieces back while I was a band director here was the staging pieces for actually
the band is what they were really designed for and so they are heavy uh so they're well over they must be probably 20 plus years old and so this new design I think Chad's worked on it for a while i've encouraged him to keep working on
say can we get some type of a grant to cover that because it's about 25 to $30,000 for that so it's not cheap but it's also pretty taxing on our custodial staff to take care of that not only our custodial staff but also the trailer that we have that there can be some
damage to that so I think the buildings and grounds committee kind of said that's a priority let's make sure we get that taken care of and so we're hoping to get half of the funding to cover that $50,000 expense really is what it would be for the stage curtain and the portable staging already have a $2,500
start on that and the other piece too that I should mention is the fact that as a board last year you did designate under um uh operating capital funds uh $30,000 towards that stage curtain so we still
have that remember the fiscal year ends June 30th so we will get that stage curtain ordered i think we're waiting to hear from one company back so we have a couple quotes when you get to that expense you just want to make sure that we've done our due diligence one for again our taxpayers but the auditors also question that when they do an audit
so we'll want to make sure we have that taken care of but $30,000 is really already there so that's taken care of and I can show you that when we move later on to our operating capital budget pieces there so um early release for professional development was supposed to happen today was a full release so we
did e-learning uh due to the weather schoolboard committee meeting of course uh tonight and then we have health insurance committee meeting shared a little bit on that April 9th and so we have a committee that'll review the recommendation from our um current advisor on that and I think I'd
mentioned before that the rates that he has seen so far to this point are between five an increase of five to 60% so hopefully we're on the 5% i told him we'd really accept below 0% if it was a negative i said we definitely could sign the dotted line a lot faster he wasn't
so sure about that but he also knew that we had some pretty good numbers coming in that then we had seven quotes that came back which is very promising that way as well if it's one or two it's makes a little bit more difficult but having that larger number is going to be better there and then our school board business meeting will be on that
Wednesday April 16th um and as um Darren mentioned earlier we did postpone having the girls basketball team here for recognition and so I know that that meeting in May is going to be very busy as Mr wood talked about the Washington DC trip girls basketball recognition and
then I know the senior class has a request there as well that they'd like to uh request approval there so it could be a full May uh committee meeting there that first meeting in May all right thank you Mr m any
questions hearing none we'll move on to the consent agenda we have one item personnel item uh resignation of Hannah Winstra custodian and I guess we have the approval of uh the spring coaching
assignments 5.1.3 anybody have any questions on those i have one question for Mr fosling um in the coaching assignments for this one that we're going to approve here versus last year are there any changes
in numbers to coaches in in different um Yes yes let me get that in front of me here one second computer's sinking okay okay so there is a couple reductions from last year from uh
numbers wise it's from our budget discussions from last year we did reduce the assistant coach for softball we did reduce the assistant coach uh for baseball uh we also are one less track
coach as well for this year that was not part of the budget discussion but we have not had anybody to fill that position so so yes from last year's number to this year currently minus three coaches and you're still are you still looking for some coaches or uh not the uh
baseball softball position those positions were cut so we're not filling those positions um there some of those are being paid via the via their boosters um but our numbers do indicate for baseball softball that that would be
a hard position for us to justify having right now given I'm not asking if they're justifiable i'm just asking is there any positions that are open currently no but that's where I'm going with that is that with the track position we do have some people who are helping um whether they choose to
volunteer or choose to fill that position I've talked to those individuals and they're going to get back to me so so that that's where those positions are any other discussion or questions we'll look for a motion to
approve so moved second all those in favor signify by saying I i i opposed same sign motion carries all right new business uh looks like review the first reading of the following
policies with statutory and recommended changes from ADM SBA policy 509 enrollment of non-resident students policy 511 student fundraising policy 512 school sponsored student publications and activities and policy
513 student promotion retention and program design is there anything that you would have for us nope actually those were all um updated last August when MSBA kind of does their legislative updates so three of those policies 509
12 and 13 we really kind of took care of those nonsubstantive um updates there in policy 511 student fundraising that policy has been in place since 2003 so and no changes there so um we've kind of already reviewed those but just wanted to keep that on a regular schedule so we
don't fall behind on that okay thank you any questions on those uh we'll move to 6.3 approve uh revised 2024 2025 non-certified staff seniority list
realized I think after the list was signed off and everything that uh supervisor came in and said "Hey we need to there's a couple folks that aren't in the right spot." So you're going to see our two custodians that are actually maintenance custodians so we have a ma maintenance had to do a little bit of research and review on that as well to
see when that changed i think there was some transition back in like between 2015 and 19 we used to have custodian 2 custodian one then they got moved to some different job classifications so figured out that we're really at then we used to have evening custodians and that
kind of transition too so used to be I think four job classifications in our custodial um department we're now down to two so we have maintenance custodian and custodian um and those are based on those job point codes that were assigned I think a few years ago as you went
through job descriptions and so we have a maintenance custodian which is kind of the lead I guess you would probably describe those as at each one of our schools so we have um Mark is at South mark's been there for years travis went up to north to Phil Olson or Dr drexel
Mr drexel's spot up in July so that's why there was a little bit of confusion and then um then Brad is here at the secondary school so it's a matter of just making sure we have them placed in the right spot since they were in those spaces when we did the seniority list back here this um earlier this winter so
the recommendation is just to make the approve that list with those two modifications okay there's no discussion i'll for a motion to approve so Nathan Ryan okay all those in
favor signify by saying I i opposed same sign motion carries um onto our discussion items capital outlay mr b sure yep so I kind of gave out some notes there a little bit about capital outlay that very first paragraph really
comes out of the financing guide that is on MDE's website when it comes to operating capital just kind of saying what those funds the allowable funds are for that really where the revenue stream comes from with that $79 for equipment
uh revenue and the 109 is the uh for the district's buildings and things like that so uh we're roughly planning on $185,000 for fiscal 26 uh we do have some reserve and I think maybe I caused some confusion on that because I think there was concern that well we've got
185 we got to save all that for to get that reserve built up we already have some reserve in there uh I think possibly due to some transition and how things were coded and things like that so we already have uh some reserve dollars available and that's really coming from the recommendation of our
business manager Todd Netsky saying "Hey if we have an emergency some major piece of equipment goes down or we need to do a significant boiler repair he said we probably don't want to have that account empty." And so his recommendation is really keeping that at that $200,000 to have that ready to go now we have
long-range capital improvement dollars too that's a committed fund set by the board uh but I'm not sure that that's something that that's also been depleted here pretty uh pretty uh well over the last couple years too as we've kind of taken care of some of those pieces there
so that's kind of where we're sitting with that uh I did note too that our curriculum cycle um hasn't really been reviewed over the last several years and so I know finally ELA and that might have been the last one to be reviewed said "Hey we need to get our our ELA
curriculum up to date with new standards." And so we did make that purchase for this current year kindergarten through fifth grade so it left our sixth through 12th grade that did not have uh any curriculum purchase so last year just for kindergarten
through uh fifth grade that cost was a little over $80,000 and so the uh 6th through 12th grade groups have been working with Caitlyn as our district assessment or not district assessment coordinator our curriculum review person and they've got a couple quotes one of
the quotes from the company that they're not as um that wasn't the one they selected that's usually how it works right and they didn't they already had their one selected then we got the price that one's about $42,000 and the one that they like said about just over $80,000 but now there's
some add-ons and you can always what I've real realized with curricular companies is you don't their first prices they know you're probably going to negotiate just a little bit and they've got some add-ons and I what I really appreciate about our English department is they said when they heard the price they well there's some things that we can look at to see they said maybe we just have to go with the other
one i don't want to make a decision to say we're just going with the other one because it was a lot cheaper if if it meets our needs for curriculum we can do that but I do have some different pieces if you I should have made a copy there um because I don't think I got it included but it is on the the packet
there and Jake would you mind grabbing that packet back there and maybe giving that to Ryan and Claire because I did not get that attached i just kind of got that finished up this afternoon just some ideas here and proposals one I did update the curriculum review cycle so we
are going to be on a five-year curriculum review cycle which is pretty standard um as you look at that you're going to see that we I've got it current now from last year moving forward we eventually will need to get language arts probably all on one cycle and not
having it split over two but since we've already got it split I decided to keep it there um so looking language arts K5 last year language arts 612 so we would look to purchase um so we're reviewing now we'd make that purchase here this summer so we would implement it in
2526 and then um and then as well and I think it might be in your packet there too towards the back there Darren but and then social studies world language that's been one too that I've been told has not been uh really reviewed for a while one of the comments actually that we noticed in the old one said to use it
that look at the CK12 curriculum because there's free resources and I'm all about that but sometimes always looking just at free resources doesn't necessarily get us where we need to be mathematics is going to be a huge uh or significant purchase and again um we've seen some of
those holes in our curriculum as we've had to do some long-term sub pieces excuse me as well as um again I think our teachers have been very resourceful and have just been okay to push that off but I think really it's an area if we're going to focus on instruction we need to make sure that we have the right
curriculum there as as well music and art combining those and then having science health and fed and we may still need to review as we as we move forward because it was I think before a seven or eightyear cycle um but I think this gets us into better position of a five-year
cycle and then the other piece too this really helps align us with the state um adoption cycle when they start to review standards they'll say "Okay here's when you need to have that um ready to go with the new standards." This aligns with that their their pieces that
they're looking to move forward on so that's kind of where we're we're at and then CTE is one of those pieces remember they get Carl Perkins funding but if there's something that comes about we would just need to be prepared you know for that as well um and then the capital outlay kind of recommended i visited
with our um admin team today kind of getting some numbers so you could see where we would look for that as well as Chad in maintenance uh looking at our ELA curriculum I put in there
$50,000 please remember that last year we earmarked$10,000 already because that was going to be for the sixth grade they did not purchase so we saved that 10,000 put it there so really the number taking last year's 10 plus this 50 puts us at 60,000 a rough in the middle number now
that may be a little shy they may come back and say we can only knock off 12 so you're going to we're going to be at 70,000 but it does have some pieces there reading intervention that's our foundations materials that we need to that we get from the Midwest Special Education Cooperative i think down the
road there's some review to see if that aligns well with our current Wonders curriculum um the online school curriculum this isn't necessarily a set in stone piece but remember Mr wood had talked about hey if this helps us do we look at an online school curriculum
where maybe we retain five or six or 10 of our own students to hopefully offset some of that lost revenue we're losing by those students finding another online provider so we've been in conversations there buildings and grounds repairs talked to Chad a little bit today about that and this is kind of what came
through from our uh committee as well entry stairs at North at about $2,500 rough repairs at both north and south of about $10,000 and so um $5,000 each we again have rough leaks at in both elementary
music classrooms we continue to pay I think we did two years ago we paid them to come and repair it when they come out they say until we do a full roof repair can we ever guarantee we're probably going to chase the leak and so I think the concern at South and Chad you feel free to to jump in but my understanding
is that's a large roof on that gym with that steel roof that's coming down on that roof where the music room is and it wasn't really designed I don't think to take the water load that it's getting so there's something there um where I think the where the flashing Why am I speaking
Chad you can give better you can do better that way instead of me interpreting it's just talking to the guys that come and done the roofs over the last couple years they said "We're going to chase this forever unless you actually rip this out tear this apart to redo it." Because what they did is they just put the steel on top of the roof
that was there from the gym they just ran the steel overhanged it and ran it right down into the edge of the the flat rubber roofing there was no channeling no anything that took place the other thing is is all they did is pulled the rubber back and took it up is what he said looked like because he didn't want
to tear it apart to find out so they could have probably tucked that up underneath and at least put some channeling in there to help get the moisture out but what happens now is all that snows just slides right off of that roof and then it just sits there and then in the spring like this it starts freezing and thawing freezing and
thawing and it just pushes through the membrane the uh which way north the north building um there again that's at a juncture where three different parts of the building came together right in
the corner of that that music room so to get that all to seam up with different ages of building pieces they said is really tough until again you pull the whole roof back up there and redo that whole area to get it sealed and have it
done properly this is where we ran into issues I think with the insurance company as well right that they're they are we're unwilling to insure and I've got a not my personal story but a family member just told me that they're switching insurance companies and the only way that they'll
be able to get insurance as if they replace the roof that's 20ome years old and even for homeowners now they're starting to change that piece a little bit unfortunately just because all these events are causing them to spend more money and so they want to make sure they're they're in good shape so I think that's because I think we tried to even
find the vintage of those roofs and it's well over 25 years so they just said that they can peacemail it try to see what we can do so the unfortunate part is if we would replace those roofs right we don't have enough money in long range capital improvement or capital outlay to take care of that so I think we have to
continue to peacemeal it hopefully we can get that figured out remember next year is our last long range or our last LTFM bond payment that we did for the roof and the parking lot and the and the pumps or the heat pumps and stuff so we should be able to have that taken care
of again that gives us about $300,000 so taking care of maybe one roof at that time or the other roof we're still meeting with facilities to see um but I think that's the recommendation there is to allocate $10,000 here at the secondary school we seem to be fine they had to do one repair right i thought you
said I'll let you speak to it me instead of me interpreting well yeah we had I mean it was weird because it was it was actually leaking when it was 30 below um but there the penthouse above the kitchen up here actually had a a brass pipe that's up there for water for um
just cracked H and it was just leaking out enough and running down the pipe and of course it's in a PVC sleeve so it wasn't really noticeable and it was actually running down and dripping through into the kitchen um so we got that fixed got that taken care of but I
had two new leaks that showed up in actually my office area and those were actually the the membrane that was up against where they had put the four units for the refrigerators um and the freezers in the kitchen up on the roof just from the vibration and the movement
and and that stuff up there it had weakened the membrane so they did some uh corner tucking and stuff that they sealed up and everything's been fine now so as far as the rest of the roof up here yeah because you guys had that redone with that that money um knock on
wood we're we're sitting okay here we should still have warranty on that too so hopefully they'll cover that but no warranty we tried that uh was that the skylights we had a leak uh that was coming into uh the science
storage room and the warranty was up they wouldn't they wouldn't honor it warranties mhm and then wood chips for all three of our playgrounds again we just need to refresh those to make sure that we've got enough material there and
so those start to break down we will check i know one of our administrators had just said "What about the ground tires?" So we'll check on that to see what the cost is there and if there's any other concerns that we'd have to look at but um the unfortunate part about the wood chips is the wood chips aren't necessarily that expensive but
you have to have a certified wood chip and there's a company now that's down in Princeton that's where you get them from so the the wood chips are like $500 to $1,000 the hauling is what costs all the money to haul them up here with the trucking outfit so that's where the expense is uh that way so we'll have to
just um again put new wood chips on there to make sure if there's any falls or anything like that and typically insurance companies will inspect that and say "Hey you need to make sure that you have enough there." And usually there's some white pieces white tape that goes around the some of the poles to show where the foot chip level needs
to be and then we also talked about the control panel for the hoops at the secondary school here one I think to meet code right because I think you're not really supposed to be inside the room dropping the the uh the hoops the batting cage the curtains and so that
was roughly going to be between 6600 to $7,000 for the just the panel piece to get them moved out not the bells and whistles fancy piece that was going to be a lot more money so that's a $25,000 planned expense there buildings and grounds equipment that would include
um Chad's sinking roughly $3,500 after we do a trade in on the lift because our lift is too heavy for the new gym floor there as well as a buffer and a wax um dispenser dispenser to really kind of take care of our larger spaces in our commons areas in in larger spaces to
really we thought that the savings there because it's a cost of about $600 but our employee time savings would get that paid for in in probably a year so the recommendation was that for that um activities would be about $16,000 so that would be again for making sure that
we have our uh uniforms jersey tops just for baseball and baseball and track are on the rotation to have updates there and then of course helmets is one of those things that's an ongoing expense that never goes away with either having to I'm going to say the wrong word
refurbishment it's not that recondition recondition helmets or purchase new helmets because there's a a very limited span 10 years and then you you have to get rid of them even the sad part is if you've never used the helmet still wrapped in plastic they have a date stamp and the good part of that is we
don't want anybody to get hurt and so we would just need to take care of that and helmets unfortunately are I think in the short period of time since the pandemic I think they used to be about 200 bucks a piece and now they're 400 or $500 a piece so yeah they are very expensive um
for that and we're not we're not ordering the top top of the line we've we've uh gone with the SH product that has worked out well for us but they're probably mid-range when it comes to dollar amount because I think at one point didn't one
of the helmet manufacturers actually went out of business right so it kind of limited the manufacturers well of course when that happens all a sudden the price can just automatically increase we could spend 13,400 on pretty easy curriculum contribution
we were uh kind of talking as an admin team just knowing where our curriculum is that we probably you know we don't want to find ourselves in a year where we have to update math and find out that that takes 150 to 160,000 then we don't have really anything else left so there
was thought that we just earmark that 35,000 that can be used you know possibly the following year or when our math comes up that we're ready to go for math on that um sound panels itself uh this was something that was mentioned by one of the administrators as well i think it was mentioned even during the
task force meeting so the recommendation from them was it is allowed in that small lunchroom if we know we can get them and there's going to be a use for them down the road we don't want to buy them and then three years down the road to say you know what $1,500 investment
is no longer needed so is there another space where we could use those so that was the recommend or the the request there and then and we've not put anything out to the teachers yet and I'll get to that point down here in just a little bit and then hard service at the north playground they really don't have access to basketball because those
courts are behind um where the propane tanks are their foursquare area is just the sidewalk and I think it's just the natural please jump in Caitlyn or Megan but the court the four square I think is just where the marks are for the sidewalk where they play there and so I
don't even know if $7,500 covers that but maybe a hard space and they're talking about kind of redoing how they do recess next year saying "Hey do we look at maybe using more of that green space and figuring out a space to do that?" So looking at maybe a one basket
where the kids can also shoot there might help where the kids don't always want to be in our mud pit over there in that one corner of the of the and we do have they said there's basketball and a hardcourt space down at south and so it would be kind of make that uh equitable between those two there which then
leaves us roughly about $20,000 left um for teacher requests and things like that like I mentioned you know would be looking at that $500 um is typically considered a capital outlay expense it's not purchasing just small
things but some of that equipment and things there so this is just discussion um for you to kind of review i wanted to give you some things i wanted to I apologize for not having it out sooner wanted to visit with our admin team to kind of look at things where they
thought things would maybe align um you know that way so nothing's hard set this is just kind of some guidance there and things like that i had one question on the curriculum side of things when could you mention you know there two curriculums of
significantly different dollar amounts but also when the staff is looking at curriculums do our administrators um communicate with other districts around close to us to see what type of
curriculums they're using is there any weight or is it worth is I mean is I'm going to have is there any benefit to that i I think there would be I'm going to have Caitlyn jump in because she kind of facilitated that process um so Caitlyn could you kind of explain the process that you followed with the team
and and how you guys came to that decision of those curriculum pieces yeah so we looked at um what we used um oh now I'm blinking on the name of the web the website which is
is it the what what works is it the what works the what works or the clearing house no there's oh ed reports um has different curriculums rated and so we were looking through what curriculums
had high ratings what curriculums um came in with just higher I guess higher ratings um than others and then they have different criteria that they um that that they're using to to rate these
curriculums from there we then looked we didn't look at other districts so that's that's a good idea Darren that we could um build that into our process but we looked at our data we looked at um what are pros and cons of current curriculums and past curriculums then we did a bunch
of research to um and had presenters come in from the curriculums that we were interested in and they met with us virtually and did um kind of their you know an hourong presentation on what they um what their curriculum has to
offer and then from there we'll meet and we were going to meet today but we didn't get a chance to with the um with the e-learning day so we'll meet hopefully um next week or on May 7th to um just go through what our final decision is and look at the quotes and stuff so we did reach out to other
curriculums in the area but we used different online resources and um different criteria that um is out there available on the internet to like help through that process and then looking at our own internal data and pros and cons
of what we and looking at our students what what do we need what obviously going back to the standards that was a huge thing too anchoring to what are the standards that we need to make sure the curriculums align with and both the curriculums that we um for the 612 that we are reviewing they sent us a
Minnesota standard alignment document so we were looking through that as well and when you say we just to clarify that was you sixth grade ELA teacher uh middle school junior high or yeah middle school junior high teacher and then high school
ELA teacher right So is the teachers that reviewed that knew where their needs were yep so the four teachers and then myself were on that committee okay i just asked I know nearly nothing about it but I was just wondering if it
you know what in our rural area you know different districts we kind of have some of the same challenges I assume just based on geographics yep that size wondering if there's you know is there any benefits to like these costs and you say
negotiating is there any benefit to us being on the same timeline as other districts is there is there a cost benefit to it is there a benefit just in um general education from the standpoint of like in my job you know collaborating
or talking to other colleagues of mine in the same area and if you if not that you have to choose the same thing as another district but you may find you're more alike than different in some aspects of maybe there's some benefit to
it i'm not sure well to date myself I know when I was back here as a music teacher there used to be the Palm to Terry Ed district and Karen Lundstrom used to be i know they were housed over in Ashby and so we would get together and I can't remember I know it was Ashby us it might have been Brandon Evansville Herman but there was about five schools
that got together we reviewed the standards curriculum and kind of we could still make our own independent decision but I think it did you could also say hey the four of us are interested in this and maybe there was some group item not sure what Karen did at that point but and then I think was able to help us get the curriculum but
we don't have that cost anymore so we don't have that person so and I and I think Caitlyn you had also reached out probably to your former district a little bit to get some guidance and things like that as well right it was kind of yes I so I know the the district I was
previously and they just went through a 612 curriculum review so I did reach out to them to ask um what curriculum they ended up going with for their middle school and their high school so I guess I did touch base with one other district i didn't I didn't reach out to more than that but that's a a good point that I
could build that into the process too just to say what are districts around our area using and why anybody else have any questions seeing none then we'll move on to 7.2 retirement incentives well and then
back to Do you want me to put a thing out to staff then because I know we're they're probably going to be eager to start looking at capital outlay should I do that or do we want to wait and have the board approve here's the dollar amount we're setting at our April 16th still gives them I mean we could still
have that ready to go by the May um business meeting and we really want to order as close to July anyway we would make sure that it's here um but that because it would want to fall into that fiscal 26 budget so if you're comfortable we could just have a number
to be approved by the board at that April 16th i'd have everything to roll out April 17th well April 16th a morning meeting so we have the board meeting at 7 a.m 9:00 a.m it goes out and give them couple weeks two three weeks to submit
their request and go from there is that comfortable for everybody it's fine with me i guess the only thing I'd say is that I prefer that it's to make sure that those dollars are spread evenly amongst the schools based on whatever you want to base it on students or in
the building or classrooms or what but just so that we make sure everybody Sure no oh I don't I maybe I'll bring that application then and maybe that's some of the criteria that I can have identified and if the board says "Hey well we think this needs to be added or this one doesn't work." We can
definitely get that added and so we've used that process before so I can just bring that on the 16th anybody else have any anything perfect now we'll move on retirement incentive so we have had um staff members as well
as the the teachers union come forward to say that we do have a member who's interested in a retirement you'll notice the the word not being early retirement so just a retirement incentive and so looking to probably move forward with that there would be some district savings even if we paid that incentive
out now I think we'd maybe model it similar to what we did last year for a staff member who was able to look at that 403b so we're not going to pay any tax on that so looking maybe at a 403b contribution for five years three years
or maybe it's certain dollar amount over three years and then that would just be put into that account is kind of what we're looking at i think Nathan just wanted I think the last time you just mentioned wanting to see what that cost savings was going to be that we we don't want to go into this incentive and find out that it cost us more money to move
forward there but as I looked at it because of the current circumstance for this teacher there would be roughly about a $10,000 savings each year when I did reach out to MSBA remember I told you I kind of looked at the one process at first and they said "Well be careful you've really passed the first um the
February 1 deadline for an early retirement incentive." But then when I kind of explained this I said "Well if the teacher comes to you and you're looking at it's not specific to one it's going to be a broad thing." Um but I think this would be still specific of enough because of some of the criteria
that would be there as you'll notice again retirement incentive not early retirement incentive that it would be something that we could definitely look at and and the person who I was talking to from MSBA said also you're in a position but I thought I mentioned this the first time is we're trying to find ways to save some dollars as well down
the road and so she said "I think that puts you in a position to say based on budget um pieces that we need to look at and other all these other pieces that fall together that would be something that could be taken care of and not be necessarily as risky especially if the
teachers union brings it forward to say here's what we'd like to propose and kind of do it that way." So if you're comfortable I will work with um our co-presidents to get something together it'll look very similar to what you've seen in past um pieces um what I think we had the extended leave of absence
last year so it'll be very similar to to that piece of course we get the part-time teacher piece so a lot of that verbiage will be the same it'll just be for this retirement incentive or Yeah retirement incentive not early just retirement incentive yeah the only the only I don't have any
issue with this that I know of without seeing it but the only thing I want to my opinion and we need to be careful of is that that we're not creating
specific retirement things for specific every time for us changing it i'd like to see it more something in stone that this is what we do when we get to these points sure yep because otherwise it looks like you're doing it for this person or that person or that person and
and um I just don't I don't think that's good for us i don't think that's a good look for us i don't think it's a good look for the person that's asking for the deal i don't think it's um it can be perceived poorly if we don't have something standard that we go by
well I think my direction in the next round would be that February 1st so maybe in end of December January would say "Hey here's because that's all set in statute." Just saying "Hey if you're looking at an early retirement here's the statute based in law here's the
timeline that's what I've been used to doing in in prior districts that way." And so maybe that's how we do it and then that makes it more of a similar process you know that way but yeah no they um MSBA was very clear that it can't be specific to one person it's got to be broad if there's anybody else that
comes forward and say "Hey I meet the criteria i want to be able to do this." That they need to be allowed yeah they said you can't do it specific to to one person we just don't want to create the I mean it's one thing to know that you can't do that it's another whole
thing we don't want to create the image that we are sure nope and that's just my personal opinion but I don't have any problem with this moving forward with it okay just Anybody else have anything
can I just quickly speak a little bit to the and we'll give more information the reason why we pulled off the Joins's Renaissance was just getting some more information i I think there's a little bit of information out there it is a huge request but I think we just need to come up with some more things i know Mr
wood has talked a little bit we're getting better information now from two principles that have had staff go um and so we hope to maybe get um more information from them either that they put something on a video thing i'm sure they're not going to eagerly jump on to say I'd love to be at another board meeting i already go to one of my own
school if I could do another school but getting some information there and and really digging in i might even ask some of our staff because we did propose it to them um through our leadership team pieces to say hey do you want to come in to say this is how we envision this
working too as we talk about climate culture you know one of the survey pieces that came back like I said earlier is really there's there's this we do a nice job of recognizing student athletes but what are we doing for some of the academic pieces and I don't think we do that intentionally but maybe need
to do a better job of having academic pep fests you know that are meaningful to all those students where we can recognize good attendance you know our attendance has taken a little bit of a a hit but attendance directly ties into academic achievement so we can say "Hey these are our perfect attendance
students these are the ones that are at 95% celebrate those pieces celebrate the great things going on in egg celebrate the great things that are going on in our music department all those different areas and making sure those students get recognized." But really what they have is a monthly playbook that lays out to
say "Hey here's what you're going to do in August to prep when staff come back here's what you're going to do in September we're going to have an allocart type thing where we're going to go around to all staff." So they call them staffy so that's your paras your cooks your custodians everybody that
they're going to be able to pick a snack off the cart and a beverage to say "Hey we appreciate the work you're doing trying to find those little pieces that hopefully um get a little bit for that you know raising morale and things like that." And then um kind of going through to where one time the bus drivers pull up all of a sudden in October they pull
up and we're waiting outside there with staff to give them a cup of coffee or something like that and a donut just to say thank you so they've got a great thing laid out there and I know the Grand Rapids School who we've reached out to they're hoping to take students and they actually want to be the one of the presenters but I think one of the
questions was can we look at doing something the travel I think the comment was I'm okay with this the conference is wonderful the travel that it's so far that we have to travel to the West Coast to get it done is my concern excuse me is there something regionally where we
can look at Minneapolis so we'll look into that too to have better information there to see if there's a way to to address that as well and then I hope what it does is it changes the culture here where that magnet piece that we talk about becomes a magnet not only for our students but all all of a sudden our
staff to say wow they're things are changing there and it's going really really well and we like to see that and then where we become the model school where schools in our region say hey can we come to your building and see what's going on here or we present at one of those national conferences as well with
our students and staff to say here's what we've got going on and um can do that national conferences I know there's a cost to them but I will tell you it seems to change the the culture of a building i've done that before in my
prior district and and it was really we fortunately had dollars um through the service co-op that helped subsidize part of that um you know that way there but you do see that change and and it's really exciting to move forward on that but we need to bring more information so you can see why we feel that that's
vitally important any questions looks like we're to the end look for a motion to adjurnn second all those in favor say