- [Chair] I now call this meeting of School Board Independent School District 624 to order. Will the Clerk please call the roll? - Streiff Oji. - Here. - Thompson. - Here. - Arcand. - Here. - Beloyed. - Here. - [Daniels] Daniels, here. Ellison. - Here. - Skaar. - Here. - [Chair] All right. We're gonna get right into it. Our first item on the agenda is B1, Vadnais Heights Elementary Update. Ms. Gillespie, Dr. Gillespie, you got it? Oh, okay, you got an interview on yours? - [Ms. Gillespie] I do, yep. I can introduce.
Sara Svir is here, Principal of Vadnais Heights, so welcome, Sara. Looking forward to talk to you. - Hi, everybody. - Hello, Sarah. - Hello. - Good afternoon. - Thank you for having me. The proud picture of our school. Thank you. So I'm starting with our mission statement. Vadnais Elementary, the cornerstone of our community. Together, we value each person as we provide a high-quality education. We help our community
as we prepare students academically and socially. We enrich lives as we inspire students, and safe spaces are created that celebrate diversity and foster lifelong learning. So tonight, I'm looking forward to sharing with you an overview of our school, what it looks like today, reflections and goals for this current year, highlights and happenings, and certainly if you have questions, I'm happy to do my best to answer them. So we have approximately 400 students,
we stay right at that number, kindergarten through fifth grade, we also have a pre-K program, there's a wait list every year, they ask me every year if they can have another space at Vadnais. Unfortunately, we are quite full. We set up the building in three K-5 neighborhoods, which is great to allow and support vertical teaming, kindergarten through fifth grade, so we lovingly call them the Grizzlies, the Polars, and the Kodiaks. Our free and reduced percentage is currently at 43.5,
which we've been a Title I school for as long as I've been there. Our Students of Color has slowly but continued to increase, so we're at 50.9% Students of Color. Our multilingual services are down just a smidge, and that's because my teachers are doing such an incredible job, but we're at 15.5%, our special ed program is up a bit this year, at 21.4%, and that includes the addition of a new cluster program at Vadnais,
which is in place for DCD and ASD students, and 100% amazing. After 18 years of being at Vadnais, it's my home away from home. These are the people, the kids, the families, the community that is part of who I am. So our goals for this year, we have academic goals, and a student experience goal. And I will go through this in greater detail, but there's specific goal for K1, and then two through five, we have a goal that's specific to our ML population,
and in student experience, last year, a survey was created. We're moving to the district one, but we're continuing it for the second year, and one of the questions that's consistent for all students is if they like school. And so we're focusing on that, because when you're asking a five-year-old versus an 11-year-old, that's something they can all agree upon. (Board Members laughing) So looking at our K and one students, one of their area of focus for them is
all of these are based on FastBridge, and Fast test we give three times a year, fall, winter, and spring. Now our goal is 80%, and that is 80%, if you look back here, low risk of students on that assessment. We do a lot of things to ensure that our kids continue to make progress, and this week, we are excited that we have conferences to share individual data with all of our families. So Tuesday and Thursday night of this week,
and we get close to 100% attendance. So it's wonderful that we get to share this information with our families. And our school data tells a huge picture, and I always encourage families to come in any time of year, don't wait for conferences, and find out how your child is doing. We can pull the reports, share the data anytime, so they can see the progress and what's happening with their kid. It also gives the opportunity
to talk about what those challenges are, so they can look at the information. I'm excited to share that our partnership with the University of Minnesota has gone on now for a, I believe it's 12 or 13 years, and what that means is we welcome in Master-level students, so they already have their undergraduate in education, this year I have five, and they're full-time student teachers at our school. And so the second half of the year, they're there full-time,
not going on campus for any coursework, and we can really impact how we meet the needs of kids, because they take on additional sections at our school, small groups of instruction, so we can scaffold, differentiate, and do even more with five additional teachers. It's huge, it is significant. So although this data ... I wish we were at our goal of 80% at this point in time, but we're working on it, and we will continue to work on it. In two through five, one of the goal areas is CBM reading,
and what we're talking about here is fluency and proficiency for students. Now, you will notice that first grade is on here, in the winter of their first grade year, our first graders take this assessment for the first time. We begin to establish a baseline. So it's extra data on there, and if I'm erring in any area, it's sharing all of our data, you can see it all, and you can see exactly where our students are performing. And we have a ways to go,
but again, we're pulling that data apart, and a couple of ways that we do that, we are fortunate as a title school, and with access funding, along with compensatory funds, I have three full-time intervention teachers. So with our WIN schedule, 30 minutes of literacy, 30 minutes of math, we ... Another goal is three hours a week, as shared by Dr. K. last summer, it was a challenge
for all of our teams to collaborate three hours a week, and we're pushing, I'm pushing really hard that my grade level teachers are doing this. So they meet as a designated time during one of their common preps, in addition, every six weeks, we have data meetings to pull the content apart, look and see our highest needs students and students across all levels of performance to see who's performing where. It also gives us the opportunity
to look at individual teachers, and if there's a unit of instruction or an area of instruction that someone is doing well, to share that information. What did you do different? How did you make the gains with those kids? What are you doing in your classroom, so we can mirror that in other spaces, 'cause if someone's doing something great, why reinvent the wheel, let's share what we know, and continue that throughout our building. So using data, ensuring we're maximizing our time
is a huge way that we go about what we do. A second area for grades two through five is the aReading, and again, our goal is 80% low risk. As a BAR school, BAR stands for building assets and reducing risks, it's a model of MTSS, multi-tiered systems of support. And what that looks like at Vadnais, we have weekly meetings. We have small block that are grade-level, and we have big block that are vertical teams,
kindergarten through fifth grade, and it also brings in our specialists, our intervention teachers, our special educators, everybody is a part of a big block or our neighborhood teams. So that goes back to the Kodiaks, Grizzlies, and Polars, because these guys are building a bond with each other. So during BEAR Time each day, which is the extra recess that staff are with kids, they're together. So it's not just that they meet during that one meeting,
they really are a community, and then they get the kids together for social things, as well as academic things. And it's part of our student experience goal, and it impacts our data and academic goals. In math, a lot of great things happening in math, especially the pilot that's going on right now, and I have my first grade team and my third grade team piloting math at Vadnais, they certainly have their opinions,
and they're working with the team across the district to look at what will best meet the needs of all students at that, or in White Bear Lake. So they're working really hard to figure out what's next, it's exciting, if you look at the data here, you can see that our fourth grade has hit the goal, so we're really excited to mirror that again, and share what they're doing differently at fourth grade with other grades as an example of ensuring 80% low risk across the board.
I've talked ... Oh, the piece at the top in red, ML students grades three through five, increasing proficiency on aReading. Now, I know that goal, 44% is, it's not where we want to be, but we began the year at 29%. So our year-end goal, which was reasonable, was 44%, and we hit it this winter. So we're looking to continue that, and, of course, work to what is much higher,
but we are excited that the kids are making those kind of gains. In our achievement goal action steps, I've spoken to a lot of these already, but one that I haven't shared on is the professional development that we've had at Vadnais, and something that has aligned well with the teacher evaluation tool, as well as increasing student engagement, capitalizing on students, is the Talk Read Talk Write.
Martina Wagner has been to Vadnais twice this year, and it began by focusing on our ML students, and ML strategies, multilingual. Truly, it's great instructional strategies for all students. The Talk Read Talk Write is pretty simple, it's not changing curriculum, it's a strategy that when you begin teaching something, before you even teach anything, you ask them what they think it is,
and five-year-olds can do that on up to fifth grade. So all kids are making a connection to a picture, a math problem, a vocabulary word, whatever the concept is of the day, then it's the direct instruction piece, where kids are learning, whether it's through many different ways that teachers teach, then they talk again, and sometimes kids are excited to learn that what they thought at first, or experience from their past is right on target,
or their eyes are open. But every single student in the class is talking, and they're sharing and using their language to impact their learning. And then writing. Now, granted, five-year-olds might not be writing paragraphs and books and pages, but it could be drawing a picture, expressing what they know and have learned. So it looks different in every classroom, but since we've began this, I've seen it in math, in literacy, in science, in social, and our social-emotional coursework.
And it's just exciting to see kids engaging and increasing their engagement. It's a lot of fun. 5D+ matches really well with it, and it allows me to have conversation with all of my staff. Just on Friday, we had PD in the building, so we practiced it again together. And we did some fun examples, we did some real examples, but everybody, even those who might have been a bit resistant could see and make connections
to how this can impact learners in their room, because no one at PD on Friday was allowed not to engage, and that's the same thing that needs to happen in every class, every single day. Our student experience goal, I mentioned this at the beginning, we're looking for kids to like school, and we've surveyed them in the fall and the winter, we'll do it again in the spring, things that we have every day, our morning meeting right away when the bell rings at 7:45, it's common that we ...
It's not common, it happens every day, I lead the school in "The Pledge of Allegiance", and that is how the day begins, and then we often get going. So 7:45 to 8:05, they're doing Utimes, and Second Step, which are social, emotional lessons in the classroom. It's to build community, address situations that happen in school with friends, it covers all kinds of topics, but it gets kids talking. BEAR Time, as I mentioned, it's our all school recess,
Talk Read Talk Write, 5D+, and Family Events, and I'll share a bit more on that momentarily. Highlights and happenings. So many things happening at Vadnais. We began the year, if you look bottom center, with an all school assembly, talking about BEARS, brave, empathetic, aware, responsible, and safe. These are the values and characteristics that we connect everything that we do to in our school. And so we get kids talking about
whether or not they're being a BEAR. We had our Big BEAR Bash, top left, it's a PTO-sponsored event, so it allows kids if they choose to wear costumes, come to school with their whole family, as a Title I school, we get funds for family engagement, so we serve a free dinner, pizza, fruit, pop, a treat of some sort, I think it was ice cream this year, so it's ... And we had about 800 people there. We do it out on the playground, and it's impressive. It's really fun.
In the middle, at the top, you can see I'm serving lunch. It was something kids wanted me to do, and I've done it every year for quite a while. But if it'll get them to read, to engage, whatever the challenge is going on, I will do some crazy, silly things. I haven't been on a roof, like some of my colleagues, but I'll serve lunch. (Board Members laughing) We partnered with the City of Vadnais for safe sidewalks to school, so that was our big ribbon-cutting ceremony, and it's exciting to finally have that sidewalk
on the South side of our building, it's on Kohler Avenue, because it wasn't safe for kids to get to school biking or walking down that street, and now they may. Music programs, art programs can be seen in the middle pictures, it was our 18th Veterans Day program at Vadnais this year, we have about 40 veterans attend, and these are parents, grandparents, relatives, close family friends,
the kids get to introduce and stand by their special person, and we celebrate with song and a message to teach kids all about why Veterans Day is important. And it's really cool when they're waving the flag, and just excited about this program. It's a lot of fun. We partnered with, bottom left picture, the Vadnais Heights Lions, we've done a Food and Toy Drive at the holidays, and here you can see kids hauling the boxes out
to the big truck, and then just some other fun stuff. My Phi Ed teacher over on the left in the middle, he does the Impossible Putt and the impossible everything, and it's to celebrate positive behavior, and the kids choose who gets a chance at the Impossible Putt, that's what they're doing right now. And if they get in there, then it's just a big woo-woo all over the school. So kids get really excited. Emily Bradt, bottom right, she's our media specialist,
she brought "The Taste of Books" to Vadnais, and she had kids, she dressed up as a chef, she set it up as a nice restaurant, but it was all about tasting different genres in books. They weren't quite sure if they actually didn't eat anything, but it was still pretty cool. One other thing I just wanna mention, we're very intentional about our field trips at Vadnais, we wanna make sure every single student has an experience in all of the areas listed,
and that we're not running away with too many field trips, and so this is how we set it up. Each grade level has one primary field trip during the school year, and this is what we're focused on. So I asked them in the spring of each year, them being the staff, to plan, figure it out, get it on the calendar, and this is what it looks like at Vadnais when we're talking field trips. So what's coming up? Right now, we have March Madness, it has nothing to do with basketball,
we have a big ... Every day, we have teachers reading books live, right? After the Pledge of Allegiance, and then students are voting on their favorite book. And we have a bracket in the hallway, that was the word I was trying to say, so the kids are determining which book at Vadnais is the favorite. Spring Fling comes up next week, so it's a primary music and art show, it is our second year of partnering with Lakeshore Players and Theater,
and "Shrek the Musical", is coming, it's fourth and fifth grade students participating, Run Club, we've done it for more than 10 years, it's ran by teachers, and they stay after school, they're running with kids, and then we celebrate it, and we have hundreds of kids staying to run. It just blows my mind. It's so cool, and they're just excited, they're running on grounds, and having a great time. And then we wrap that up with an all-school Color Run. Family Fun Fest,
previously we called it Spring Extravaganza, but we shifted the name, and it's a community event with field games, community service projects, free food once again for everybody, a huge area of pride for me, 76% of the teachers at my school were nominated for the White Bear Lake Teacher of the Year, (Board Members laughing) which just warms my heart. (Board Members laughing) And we're getting a new playground this summer. So it's in the works, we've been ... I have a team of folks working with the company,
and district staff, and we're getting pretty close, but it'll be installed this summer. So Vadnais Heights Elementary in Conclusion is a proud neighborhood school with strong community connections, a commitment to students and learning, and a belief in the power of partnering with parents to support every child's success. What questions might you have? - [Chair] Thank you. Do you have any questions? - I have one. - Okay, great. - Yeah. - [Daniels] When do you do ... Well, it was a great presentation, by the way. - Thank you. - Very, very nice.
Lots to be proud of. When do you do the spring FastBridge? Do you do one more in the spring? - Yeah. - Yes. - [Daniels] And that's May or April, or when do you do that? - I believe it's in May. - In May. - Yeah. - Okay. - We have MCAs starting in the middle of April -- - April, yeah. - And they'll run to the first of May, and then Fast is after that. - [Daniels] Okay. Thank you. - Mm-hmm. - [Chair] Other questions? Ms. Beloyed. - [Beloyed] It was a really good presentation. - Thank you. - There's a lot of good things going on. Have you found that letters has made much of a difference
with the teachers and the students? - Absolutely. It's embedded in everything they do in literacy, and often, I believe they're ... It's part of what they do. And so they sometimes think they're not using all the strategies, and then they start sharing what they're doing, and they're doing letters. They're using the knowledge that they have learned and applying it. So now what my instructional Coach, Christine Balgord and I, we're just trying really hard to name it,
so they're aware of the strategies that are in place that they're using that they learn through letters. So it's exciting, and it's making a difference in kids. - When were all of the teachers within Vadnais Heights trained in letters? - I believe it was four years ago, most of them, and then as teachers come on, the cohort starts every other year, because it's a two-year-process to be trained. - Okay. - So ... - So the ML students, so as second language,
multilingual -- - Yes, multilingual. - Multi-language students, and special education students, they also take the MCAs, correct? - Most of them do, unless there's a reason that there's a modification, some will take a paper test, some will take something called the MTAS, if they need that level of modification, but yes, they all take the test. - And so those numbers go into at the end of everybody's year? - We'll get preliminary results right away,
but the official results we won't know until next fall. We always wait for those just to see what it says. But we do have preliminary results that are generally pretty close to what we find out when the official results come. - Do you look at the special education students' cohort in terms of the growth like we do with the FastBridge? I know we're looking at the multi-language learners. Do you also break that down, as well?
- So each student has their data in our system, so we can look at EduClimber, and open up any child, and look at their data, and it shows everything that they've done. Fast, MCAs, if they're a second, third, fourth grader that's taken the CogAT, that is in there, SAEBRS is in there, all of the data is in there, and that is something that will be shared at conferences this week. Teachers are using that data when we meet every six weeks to look and see the progress. MCA is difficult, because we just get it once a year,
but it's still a piece of the picture that we can look at to see what their level of performance is at. - Okay. - Yeah. - Thank you. - You bet. - [Chair] Thank you. Any other questions? Ms. Streiff Oji. - So thank you. It's fun to hear that all the different things that you're doing, the academic rigor, some of the programs, it's exciting to see SIOP -- - Yes. - Being used. I had a question on your community experience field trips. Can you give some examples about what that would look like? - Sure. So it's getting kids out in the community to places
that they haven't been before. It could be Como Park, it could be the Bell Museum, it could be ... It's talking to the kids and finding out what they have not done. Science Museum, we just, we have a lot of students that haven't had opportunities consistent with all students in our school, and during morning meeting, it's a great time to get to know kids, and when one is sharing that their family did X, Y, and Z, and kids say, "I don't know what that is."
Teachers are keeping record of that, and then trying to come up with what, you know, if they're choosing one, there are so many different things they could do. But that is a reason why we ... Our PTO is great, that we do the Institute of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and all of our students, we have volunteers come in, they teach half a dozen or thereabouts pieces of art to the kids in the class, and then we take field trips down to the Institute of Art. Unfortunately, this year, we weren't able to go,
because of ICE and everything happening, and we wanted to ensure the safety of all of our kids, but we're trying to find experiences that kids wouldn't necessarily get. So it varies. And so I didn't wanna say, "Oh, it's always Como", because it's changing all the time. - Right. And then you mentioned, like, your fourth grade math FastBridge, the results are very exciting, and you're trying to mirror that. Do your teachers work across grade levels to -- - That's our big lock
meetings -- - Understand what they're doing? - Uh-huh. - Through BAR. And so every other week, we have K-5 meetings, and so then they're looking at the data across grade levels. So fourth grade has something exciting to share, Kindergarten through fifth grade is hearing it, and then they can take it back to their teams, because there's three different teams meetings simultaneously, and I'm trying to run and hit them all. But it's exciting. It's really cool, so that they don't stay in these silos
of grade level teams, or department teams, it's an opportunity for everyone to share and find out what they're doing. - Thank you. - You bet. - [Chair] Mr. Skaar. - Thank you for the report, it was succinct and complete. - Thanks. - So well done. Thank you. So, and I just wanted to wish you luck on the academic goals. Thanks again. - Thank you. I appreciate it. - Yeah. - Go ahead. - Just a couple questions. I know in the past, when we've gotten these results, and also the presentation was amazing,
and all the work and the having three full-time interventionists, and the Dr. Arcand and I went to a University of Minnesota event just in February or sometime -- - Yeah, February. - And they talked about that program, and it is truly an amazing program and an opportunity for the students to earn the experience they need, and then hopefully to bring them into our schools in an area that we need more educators, and well-trained educators,
so I think it's an awesome opportunity. When we look at, you know, where we need to be, I don't ever wanna say we're not gonna get there, I believe in not only our educators, but our students, and the teamwork, and their ability to get there. When we look at this though, oftentimes, one of the questions we usually ask is to see the breakdown of the subgroups. Maybe it's not so much beneficial in the presentation, but in like the information that we're presented with, just so we can see if there is an area or a certain subgroup
that is struggling more than others, is there a reason why, just, you know, I'm sure you guys all dig into that work. I think a lot of us would also appreciate just being able to see that, because it is part of our goals and our strategic plan. And then you brought up ICE, and so the winter scores, some of them, you know, the changes weren't as significant as we have seen in other years when we've been presented the information from fall to winter. How did that impact our students, did we have a lot of students who weren't in school,
who were choosing to stay home, I'm sure we had staff members who were impacted by all the things that were happening during that time period, and I would have to imagine it would impact the test scores, 'cause I asked this in a lot of other presentation by another school, the timeline was very close to when the big surge was happening, and many people were, I mean, I know how it impacted myself, and just being able to like do my job, it was a big impact on my life. So I'd imagine that it had an impact
on our students, and did we see that? - So we didn't ... So to answer part of your question, we didn't have a significant number of students out. Our numbers were actually single digits. Families who opted to keep their children home in alternative modes of education. And so we accommodated those. Kids in school though, we did have many conversations knowing that there was stress, there was anxiety, there was fear, a lot of feelings that certainly affected
and impacted students on a daily basis in all that they did, and interactions with peers, on up to assessments. And there's no way to measure that for certain, but it's real. It was real. And so I'm just so grateful that we're getting back to normal, if that's the right way to say it, and kids are reassured, and confident, and can do their best work. So I do believe that given time and best practice,
we'll just keep working on it, and see great gains across the board. - Yeah, thank you. And I mean, you are a Title I school, and you have a very diverse student body pop, and there are always external factors that come with our students every day to school. So just thank you so much, 'cause you guys are doing great work, and it's great to hear -- - Thank you. - All the things you're doing. - [Ms. Svir] It's a great place. You're all welcome to come visit anytime. (Board Members laughing) - Any other questions? Well, I wanna thank you, and I wanna say that one of the coolest things you have going on at your school is when we get to see it,
one of the groups, one of the families, and you can see a fifth grader interacting with a kindergartner, and working together. And it's amazing, 'cause you could see a fifth grader, we thought, "That kid's kind of rough and tumble", and see how he's sweet, and caring, to other kindergartner, you watch them work together, and build that bond in that family. So that's really great, so thank you, and thank you -- - You're welcome. - For presenting. - Thank you everyone. Thank you. - Thank you, Sara. - Okay, we're gonna go on to discussion item B2,
"Building Our Future and Facilities Update", Mr. Wald, Ms. Johnson. (Board Members quietly chattering off microphone) - Good evening, Chair Arcand, members of the board. Tonight, we're providing a comprehensive summary of the "2019 Building Our Future Bond Referendum" summary of our projects. This is one of many presentations we've made to the board over the years, as we've gone through the pre-referendum work, getting the referendum approved,
and then going through the design phase for each project, as we went through this process with the board, and of course, bringing the competitive bids for each project to the board for approval, and so tonight really feels like a celebration of many years of hard work by lots of people in this community, and so thank you for the support that the board has given to all of us during the projects, and to our principals, and teachers, and the staff throughout our district. As we move through this presentation tonight,
you'll see this is really a realization of the "Building Our Future" vision, and so many members of our community contributed to that vision, early in this process, and throughout the process. Our agenda tonight includes an overview of the pre-referendum process, and project scope, a review of the design process that really brought the projects to life, a high-level summary of all of the projects, and then how we manage the budgets and maximize the community's investment in our facilities.
When we started this process, one of the first decisions we needed to make was bringing the right people on board. And I wanna just acknowledge two companies that we worked with, the first company we chose was the company that would manage the construction of all of these projects, and that was Kraus-Anderson. We've worked with a lot of representatives from Kraus-Anderson, dozens and dozens of outstanding people by that company, who, project by project, we were just amazed at the quality,
and the commitment, and the knowledge, that every Kraus-Anderson employee had of our district, our projects, and could, and really what our needs were as the builders, as the owners of the projects. And then second was Wold Architects and Engineers, we met Sal Bagley early on in that process, and we're convinced that they were the best architects to work with for school design in Minnesota, and really, the Midwest, and so we brought Kraus, or we brought Wold Architects and Engineers on,
and Sal has served as a Lead Architect in this project, and she can speak to, really from the very beginning through the referendum process. So I also wanna just acknowledge Kevin Fernandez. Kevin was our former Grounds Coordinator, and we hired him as Project Manager early in this project, and he's worked a lot of long days into the night, had a few near misses along the way, some not really misses,
so thanks, Kevin, for outstanding work, and he is our Director of Building Operations now, and Andy Johnson has been an outstanding Director of Finance during this whole process. So we have a great team, people have done really good work along the way, and we're really proud to share with you tonight just a summary of all of that work. So Sal is gonna walk us through -- - Yeah. - First vote, the first phase here. - [Sal] Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you all. So we're gonna just go back to kind of the referendum scope and process, and how the community is involved
in determining what even to kind of put forth to the voters. So we went back to the charge statement that actually the board at the time approved for the Facility Planning Committee is what they were called, and anyone who was applying to be on the Facility Planning Committee was asked to, you know, commit to this charge statement, to develop a comprehensive long-range plan with one or more scenarios that would serve all of these goals. So I won't read all of them to you, but you know, be financially attainable and sustainable, reflect the values and priorities of the communities of your district,
accommodate enrollment in other programs, anticipate need, you know, cover anticipated needs for next 10 years, and recognize issues that are beyond that, be consistent with what was at the time, a very recently published strategic vision, and recommend optimal use of facilities. And the outcome, of course, was to have a comprehensive long-range plan. Applications for that group were due in late September of 2018, amazing that we're coming around the bend on that being eight years ago, and you ended up having 90 people serve on that committee,
with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, and at the first meeting, we actually did a fun exercise asking people kind of their relationship, or why they wanted to be on the committee, and we added up that about almost 1,300 years of experience were in that room that day, so ... (Board Members laughing) And then I'll talk through the graphic on the left over the next couple of slides. So this is the dates that the Facility Planning Committee met, it was really from fall of 2018 through spring of 2019. They met as a large group, so the 90 person group 10 times, and then we had three different study committees,
the topics we were being asked to study were so variety-oriented that we kind of broke into a Learning Spaces, a Community Spaces, and a Physical Conditions Committee, and they each actually had four meetings on their own. So the Learning Spaces Committee, they looked at technology and education, programming goals, equity modernization and branding, grade configuration, and alignment with strategic vision, and the four times they met as a subcommittee are listed on the right. The Community Spaces Committee looked at athletics
and performance spaces, community partnerships and activities in the community, and their four meetings are listed on the right, and then last but not least, physical conditions, they looked at site design, building condition, capacity enrollment, and grade configuration, and efficient operations. So as an entire group, they reviewed a lot of information. They looked at just, you know, the age of the building, and how large they are, spent some time learning about the strategic plan, heard about enrollment projections and capacity, educational alignment, we had a couple
special presenters from district administration, activities, athletics, and fine arts, safety and security, and then facility analysis, or that's the condition of your buildings, and their maintenance needs. Few other things, trends in education, we spent a little time specifically talking about early learning, current and future plans, site safety and transportation, we were asked to provide some comparisons to peer districts at different times for context, so that was given to them, you know, one of the weightier topics we talked about was the alignment of the high school,
learned about the history of the split campus decision, school finance, obviously it was hard for them to think about what to do without understanding the funding mechanisms, and then district referendum history. So kind of over the course of those 10 meetings, these are the topics they discussed. Towards the end of the process, at Meeting Eight, people were starting to get pretty antsy about coming up with a plan, right? Lots of learning and ready to start talking about what to do about it, and so they, as a large committee, developed a lot of ideas for what to do at that eighth meeting, and there was enough ideas that we actually asked
if anyone was willing to kind of give some extra time, so we created a subcommittee, an option subcommittee that didn't make any decisions, but they agreed to meet, and kind of round each option out, and help give us enough information, so that Bold and Kraus Anderson could do cost estimates. And then we did a lot of review with the administration at that time. And those options looked like these diagrams on the left. There were all sorts of, you know, each one had a name, you can see, you know, the middle option here when one that was pursued was one high school on a new site, right? People had all sorts of ideas about how to solve problems,
(Board Members laughing) and so those options, you know, had to address the challenges we had identified as a group, as well as be fiscally responsible, and so we helped people understand kind of all the implications of ideas, run cost estimates, things of that nature. And then, of course, we came to the moment where we had to talk about what was feasible financially, and responsible, and Ellers was kind enough to come present to that group to learn about funding sources that were available to the district, and what tax impact, how that's calculated, and how it's looked at, and just an understanding that you know, different scenarios
had very different impact to the community. We did spend some time at, I think it was meeting number nine talking about how it was likely to incorporate both a bond referendum and some long-term facility maintenance funding to accomplish it. So the eventual recommendation to the board at the time, this comes right from the April 2019 presentation from that committee, the recommendation was to pursue a bond referendum of 326 million, and a phase one of LTFM of 50 million for North Campus, and at that time, some things were not known. Land and development costs planning,
if you can believe it back then, we didn't know where the new elementary school was gonna go yet, right? Is a good example of things we didn't know yet. We went and met with all the building principals, and program directors shortly after that recommendation to do any final fine-tuning, I'll call it. You did more community surveying as a district at that time just to, you know, test the projects, test the plan, test the tax impact, and then detailed planning of LTFM, which has honestly been an ongoing activity throughout the entire bond. So recommendation summary, you know, can you of course expand and remodel North Campus
to be a comprehensive 9-12 experience, with an allocation to expand the site, and to relocate the bus and maintenance facility which used to be there. South Campus, now Mariner to be a grade six-eight middle school, central middle school to expand into the current district office to be a grade six-eight middle school with more space, renovate the building we're sitting into, or sitting in today, onto District Center for District Office, Early Childhood, Transition, and Senior Center, and then some other projects across the district, of course, the new elementary school, North Star,
expanding Oneka and Otter for additional classrooms, creating a K-5 grade configuration across all elementary buildings at the time you had Hugo and Oneka as a paired attendance area, create two early childhood centers at Hugo in the North and Sunrise Park in the South, and then some things happened kind of district-wide remodeling media centers, new furniture for classrooms, and address identified program needs. So here's just a map of the district, this was used quite a bit during the district's referendum campaign to the public about what was being asked for, and what would be updated every site,
but again, kind of the main themes, additions and renovations to accommodate growth, safety and security improvements, deferred maintenance projects, and then updates to create flexible learning environments. So when it comes to, obviously, we're successful that fine day in November of 2019, and I'll just talk very quickly about design process before I let Tim and Andy go through more details, but really how things laid out is that, you know, you started going through your strategic plan in 2015, Tim mentioned we were hired in summer of 2018,
and that's when we started doing all of the assessments and the year-long range facilities' planning happened. Then the committee brought a recommendation to you all, and you called for that election, I believe it was in July of that year after doing some survey, and then there was some additional input gathered that summer, some student agency visioning, and then design, which I'm gonna get into here happened really 2019 through 2022. We'll see each project schedule here, and then Kay's had a lot of trailers across the district from 2021 to 2026,
and we are just about to be done with the project here, which is really the last project from the bond. I mentioned how there was some work done in the summer prior to even the bond passing, so a group of administrators and teachers that we called "The Future of Learning Group" got together, and talked about what was important for all projects to take into account. And I won't read all of these statements to you, but these statements really guided the implementation of the bond referendum, and these were shared with every single one of the groups kind of thereafter, right?
Of we needed to make sure to keep these things in mind as we were making decisions. The structure of planning and design throughout the projects of course, you all received updates ongoing, and did things like award bids, we've had a Facility Steering Committee that has met at times weekly, we're currently in a biweekly cadence, you know, where we talk about design and budget and looking forward, and of course, talking about making recommendations to you all, and that's been going since 2018. I mentioned that Future of Learning Group
that met in late summer of 2019, and then every building project kind of by address had what was called a "Core Planning Group." So I'll just talk about that quickly. So a Core Planning Group was really a stakeholder group that helped guide the implementation, the voters, of course, approved what to do, and how much money we had to do it, but it was really important that people at any given site had input into how it was implemented. So that was, of course, building administration, district administration, but we also had staff, parents,
sometimes community members, and in the case of a couple projects, we even had some students sit in on those. And so they did a lot of discussion, and defining problems, and writing criteria of how to solve problems, and then we would bring them back ideas, they would finesse and critique them, and then we'd have another meeting two weeks later. After the direction of each project was really set, then we started meeting with kind of any impacted space user in a project, or a process that we call user groups, so, you know, if we're talking about adding classrooms
on somewhere, we meet with classroom teachers, and talk about storage, and electrical requirements, and technology and safety, and where's cubbies or lockers gonna go, and should the door swing in or out, and all of those small but important details. So that process was really followed for every project, regardless if it was a smaller project, or the largest project in your bond, which was, of course, the high school. So that's a quick overview, and I think then I'll let Tim and Andy go through kind of a detail about each project. - Yeah, a key point of that entire design process too
is that that spring of 2020, we went into COVID mode, and so we did so many of those meetings via Zoom. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Zoom meetings. It was a lot. (Board Members laughing) But we completed 16 different projects, many of those projects had different phases, so it feels like a lot more than 16. The first one, one of our first projects was the new transportation facility,
this is up on Fenway in Hugo, here you can see the outside of the building, the maintenance garage, and then the router's office there. The review and comment estimate for that building was eight million 600,000 plus, came in a little bit less than that at just under eight million, we benefited from really highly competitive bids early on in this process, and so that worked out really well for us. But because this is our first summary slide, I just wanna identify a few things on the slide first,
the project scope, generally, as it was originally designed as in the upper left-hand corner, although some that evolved along the way, on the project budget bond, there will be two numbers always, and it refers to the review and comment estimate, and then the actual. First, I'll just tell you what that means, the review and comment estimate, because that's a little jargony. But as part of the regulatory process for a bond referendum is school districts must
do their research for the bond, and they need to identify the scope of all the projects, and then provide their financial status, as well as an estimate for the projects. And so we submit a document called the "Review and Comment", and you get a sense of how much research and reporting went into that to go to the Department of Education. They go through all of it, ask questions along the way, we refine it, and then ultimately,
you need the Commissioner's signature before you can bring it to the voters for a referendum. And so it went through a very rigorous process before, after the board approved it, and before it went to the voters, okay? So when we say the review and comment estimate, so initially on the transportation building, we thought it would be in that $8,645,000 range, came in just under that. This is Birch Lake Elementary, you can see we had a single classroom in flex space edition,
but flex space connects it to existing classrooms, so it really created kind of a studio of sorts at Birch Lake. We also did a Media Center renovation across the district, we renovated media centers, and we went with the concept of the Media Center should be the hub of learning in a school. It shouldn't be a place where you are silent, and get chirped at for being too loud, it should be a place where learning happens, and learning isn't a silent process. And so we created open, inviting media centers
that we call "Learning Commons", and you'll see that throughout all of our projects, Birch Lake Elementary's perhaps might be the Media Center that was the most transformed in the district. It turned a very tired room into a very inspiring space. We also added conference room, and an extended day office, in the last two bullets, furniture, and safety and security upgrades, you'll see on all of our slides, that was a district-wide scope. We had some maintenance to complete at Birch Lake, $144,621 of LTFM that we coordinated
along with the bond projects, included some abatement, and some classroom modifications, replaced some doors, worn out carpet, lots of new paint. In this one, I'll point out one more thing too, since we're early here, is under project budget, you see storm shelter, approximately $120,000 premium. That was a nice little surprise for us right after referendum was passed that a building code changed, and we've talked about this in the past, but Sal, would you mind -- - Yeah. - Running an update on exactly what that was? - Sure, so in spring of 2020,
Minnesota adopted a part of the International Building Code it's the ICC 500, which requires a storm shelter facility in essentially any expanded or new school facility. And it's hardened construction that can survive up to an F4 tornado is kind of a simple way to talk about it. So it's more substantial walls and roof structure, we have to think about how to get power to people, have to have bathrooms, have to have ventilation, and like Tim said, we set budgets in the review and comment in summer of 2019.
You passed in November of 2019, the code changed in spring of 2020, and so it was just something we kind of had to work with and roll with. So we identified that on kind of any project that had to comply with that part of the code, and just an estimate of what, kind of what that additional cost premium was, right? Something that wasn't understood at the time of submission, 'cause the change hadn't been made yet, but just I think it's a good thing to note as we go through. - Yeah, across all of our projects, it came to about eight and a half million dollars in additional cost with the storm shelters.
Okay, here we have Lakeaires Elementary School, this is another great example of opening up of really traditional, a couple traditional classrooms there that we created into a really welcoming, inspiring learning commons space. In the upper right, you can see the addition to that space that created that Learning Commons, created a larger space, bringing a lot of natural light, and really makes it a fun place to be. And then bottom right, that is also within the Learning Commons, I think, isn't it? - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. This review and common estimate of the building
was 2.8 million, came in just under that, we had a very small amount of LTFM that we did with some ADA restroom fixture replacement, some access, roof access that needed to be improved and safer. We were able to add a kitchen freezer to the project, and some storage and maintenance space realignment with some additional shelving and so forth. Okay. Lincoln had some significant needs, primarily a gym and a Media Center, for many generations,
I think people complained that Lincoln needed a gym, and so that finally came true, and it's really a beautiful space, and has made such an impact in that school. We also added in the upper right-hand corner's the entrance to their Learning Commons, and the bottom right-hand corner is the maker space. This review and common SOS 7.9 came in just under that, more significant storm shelter on this project at 660,000, and then LTFM was quite a lot more on this project,
and there were some big pieces to bite off, the plumbing project, replacing all the galvanized piping in that building was a really big project, it just ate up a lot of that. We also replaced the fire alarm system, and then ADA compliance throughout the property at Lincoln. Hugo Elementary is a very small project, 'cause we vacated that, we've been using it as our transition education center this year, and they'll move out into this building in the fall, and we're gonna start using that building for early childhood family education programming
on the North end of the district. We did a little bit of security improvements to that building just to bring it up to the district standard. We touched a number of areas at Matoska, you see the Media Center here, and all the natural light we brought into that space, that's the maker space in the upper right-hand corner, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, and then media -- No, it's a new classroom -- - Classroom. - [Tim] On the bottom right-hand corner. And that space is a storm shelter. There's two classrooms like that at Matoska.
Other scope in the building, including adding a freezer, renovating space for a multilingual classroom, extending day, or extended day office, and then a specialist room, as well, we did some renovation to make all that happen. The total build was 3.3 million, just under our estimate. The LTFM coordination included restroom, some restroom renovation, and abatement, paint and carpet, case work, whiteboards,
we had some crumbling casework in that building we were able to address. North Star Elementary, I think that picture of Learning Commons is such an amazing photo, and I remember Tyler Ertl, who was the Lead Architect on that project sitting behind me, had to take his wooled hat off when he entered that building, because all of the sheet rock on those circles drove the contractors crazy, and he didn't want them to know he designed it. (Board Members laughing) So ... - They did a good job, though. (Board Members laughing) - It was a safety thing.
(Board Members laughing) So that's a fun story, but you see the outside of the building in the upper right-hand corner, and then the inside of a studio at North Star. This was a major success, early on, bids were coming in, just, this was way more competitive than we had anticipated. We thought it would cost us about 43 million to build that, we had to add, the entire gym is a storm shelter, and add restrooms within the storm shelter,
so that was a significant add, and we still came at more than five million under our estimate on that project, and that allowed us to reallocate those funds to other projects, so it was a really good start in 2020. Yeah, a little bit of LTFM, you wonder why we would have LTFM at a brand new building, but it was with some concrete that was damaged that needed to be repaired, and then we had to add an Evacuation Chair I think after the first year of being in there, that we were, that fits within the health and safety
component of LTFM. Okay. Oneka Elementary, that area to the right of the big picture is the addition, and it just perfectly matches the rest of the building. It's a kind of unique building anyways, and then to match it as well as we did is a big success. You can see the Media Center, renovated Media Center in the upper ... Well, both of those photos are Media Center, renovated Media Center space. Our timing was fortunate in the early months of the pandemic, so the competitive,
the bids were competitive, and allowed us early on to secure really favorable terms on our bonds, excuse me, and then to get competitive bids along with that, gave us some breathing room that we had capacity to do a little more within our budget, and so by 2021 and 2022, that started to shift a little, started to shift significantly. The global supply chain tightened, you remember that, labor markets were shifting,
in 2021, construction inflation was at 8%, and in 2022, it was at almost 13%, so over a two-year period, there was a increase of almost 25% on our cost of construction, construction materials, labor. But thanks to the initial bond premiums, and getting those favorable terms, interest that was accruing on the bonds that were issued, and our savings on early projects, we were able to continue to move forward
with all of our projects without reducing scope, and continuing to really our vision of what we told our voters we would do with the referendum dollars. So in Oneka we experienced all that impact, and so you can see the review and comment estimate of almost 5.7 million, we added the storm shelter, it was a big one, and then the actuals came in at just under eight million dollars, and just a little bit of LTFM associated with that project, I think all of that was sidewalk replacement. Yeah.
At Otter Lake, we have a classroom addition on the left, very similar to Oneka, and significant renovation of the Media Center and bottom right? - Some just classrooms in the addition. - And -- - Picture in one of the rooms. - Okay, yeah, thank you. The actual cost of this project was $10 million, and similar to Oneka storm shelter, 1.2 million there, same inflationary impact that we had at the Oneka Project.
Our coordinated LTFM work was really effective here, we were able to get some maintenance projects done alongside the bond projects, we addressed some building envelope issues, plumbing projects, kitchen maintenance, ADA ramps, ADA upgrades to restrooms, parking lot asphalt, sidewalk replacement, I tried to explain what pressure reduction and venting valves are, AJ, but ... (Board Members laughing) Probably wouldn't be very good at that. (Board Members laughing) Vadnais Elementary was a smaller project,
we did the Media Center project, you can see that all of these are in the Media Center at Vadnais. We were right on our estimate with this one, we renovated an extended day area, as well as a music classroom, added a freezer, improved the loading dock area, and then did some bathroom fixture replacements and kitchen maintenance, this is an LTFM freezer, cooler, dry storage area, mechanical, and electrical, and plumbing, and came in pretty good on that project.
Willow Lane, this is also the Learning Commons, and you get the bottom right corner photo just shows the natural light that we're able to bring into that space, and welcoming entrance. Also early in the process here, so those, you know, before the economic conditions turned a little, and we were able to get this project done below our anticipated amount. LTFM projects alongside our bond project included restroom fixtures, roof patching,
kitchen equipment maintenance, extended day and music space, storage upgrades, playground pavement repair, and equipment repair, and some loading dock maintenance. Okay, so converting the South Campus to Mariner Middle School was a really big project. You can see the photo here is the entrance on the McKnight side, we moved the offices to the McKnight side to create a secure entrance, it was always an awkward entrance to that building, and so this really took care of that.
There were also improvements to the Media Center, some flex spaces in that building. We were able to add some scope to this building, including the Gym Project, which was part of the plan, but we were able to make that larger, as well as add some restrooms along with that gym, so that we could provide restroom access for activities, outside activities at Mariner, and so that was a long time coming for South Campus and Mariner.
The Main Office addition, renovation and addition, we were able to do a little more with that, adding some scope there to make that office a little larger, so we could provide, we could integrate it better and the secure entrance, associated parking and site access, so trying to create a really good space for parents to be able to drop kids off, pick people up, special ed transportation, we did a lot of changes to the parking lot in that area on the McKnight side.
There were kitchen improvements, including a new freezer, improvements to the music areas, and then we had, our LTFM was focused on structure and accessibility, there were some structural reinforcements, piping, ceilings and lights, accessibility and toilet upgrades, lots of carpet and paint at Mariner. Central Middle School, the transformation at Central might be one of the most notable projects that we took on during this entire time,
and maybe a great example of how we were able to utilize both our bond and LTFM to bring a really complicated building to a better place. To give you some perspective, the original scope at Central Middle School really was just renovating the old District, the first two floors of the old District Office. And we were able to do quite a lot more at Central, and we're really proud of how that project turned out. You see the new gym here that was all added scope, was not in the original plan,
that's a two-station gym for physical education, FIAT also got the boardroom converted to a fitness center, you see in the upper right-hand corner, and then bottom is the just the hallway outside the Learning Commons, and we're able to bring that Learning Commons in line with the others in the district. Because Central Middle School was a later project, the staff at Central, and the students and families had to be a lot more patient than our other buildings,
and as we were getting our HVAC cleaned up in so many of our buildings, Central Middle School suffered through some really hot springs, of course, that first spring, I think we had a temperature of 91 degrees the first week of May, and it was miserable for most of May at Central Middle School, we used some LTFM to provide some temporary cooling in that space for a few summers until we were able to do the work in there. But by the time we reached this phase of the project,
the bond interest earnings were becoming more clear to us, and so that became clear that we'd have some more bond funds to work with, and those interest earnings, of course, could be used for the bond projects at no additional cost to the taxpayers, and so from that 326 million, we were able to have a lot more to work with. And that was, again, that perfect storm of the economy, and how we hit things just right. Outside of a few projects, where inflation dinged us a little, getting the benefit of the interest
that went with the bonds was just outstanding. So that helped us a lot, we hit things right, so we made a deliberate choice at Central that we're gonna do it once, and we're gonna do it right, and so we invested a lot of scope, added scope, and LTFM to the project, so the original estimate was 3.7 million, we haven't closed out this project yet, but we think we're gonna be at about 12.5 million when all said and done, there was a significant storm shelter of $780,000.
Regarding the LTFM centrals and old building parts of that building go back to 1918, there were additions in 1924, 1928, 1935, 1953, and so as you can imagine, you start opening walls, and all of those areas of the building were patch together over many decades with varying styles and qualities of materials, and so once you had the walls open, you had the ceilings open, and we had to take this building offline for two summers in a row, which was a hardship for summer school and summer programming.
And so we decided that the right move and the most efficient move was, let's go after it right now, get a lot of these projects done while we have it opened up, because we're gonna have to come back and do them anyways, and they're gonna cost a lot more in the future. So we had construction, you know, we had contractors staging there already, and the building, the walls were open, let's do it. So we invested 23 million in LTFM, that included things like accessibility updates, the chilled water plant, HVAC for classrooms,
cafeteria and gym HVAC, pneumatic controls, domestic water shutoff valves, electrical, distribution equipment, structural reinforcements, fire alarm system was replaced, and then finishes through much of the building. Okay, we go from that to a much smaller project, the ALC, we created called Learning Commons, really a flexible space for the Area Learning Center that they use in as really just a space
to provide flexible instruction, and opportunities, and programming in that building. And we were able to make some changes in the front office to create a more secure entrance, so you can see the big picture is that Learning Commons flex space, upper right is the entrance to that, and some additional scope we were able to add a kitchen area for a transition programming at the Area Learning Center, as well as kitchen and laundry and a conference room in that space.
So that 1.4 million was the actual price on that when the original estimate was 900,000 but we're able to add that scope I just talked about. We also improved the Health Office, created a new Health Office, and Counseling Office in that space, so great improvements at the Area Learning Center, we also required HVAC replacement, we spent a lot on LTFM, plumbing, roof patching, boiler pump, main distribution panel, ceiling and lighting work, all those things you can't see,
but create, you know, a really robust structure for an old building. And one of our most complicated, and most fun, and at sometimes maybe most frustrating projects, high school, it was really an exciting project to work on, our challenge here was to bring a 280,000 square foot round building into a place, where we could have nine, 12 students instead of one unified high school. And when our friends at Wold said,
"We're thinking North Campus is the place to do this", we, I think, all thought, "Are you nuts? Um, how are you gonna do that?" And they started to peel the onion back, and share with us how they could make it happen. And what a beautiful job they did designing this property, and this high school, we're really, really proud of it. A large photo is the West entrance that's from the Bald Eagle side, you can see the new addition on the left of that entrance, the Union in the upper right is a large space
that connects everything together, and then serves as the cafeteria, as well as a multi-use space. In the Performing Arts Center, in the bottom right, 845 seat fine arts theater. This was a challenging site to develop, it was small to fit a high school and a middle school on that site was really small, we had a vision that we might be able to acquire some properties, but it would probably take a lot of years to be able to do that, and that's typically the case
when you're trying to expand the footprint of a school in a neighborhood like North Campus was to be able to acquire those properties can take decades for that to happen. Apparently not here, it happened very quickly, and we were able to expand our footprint really early in the design phase, and allowed us to expand some scope in that, and stay on budget at the high school, and really create a site that serves the community so well, and our community is so proud of.
We added expanded parking included, or expanded scope, included parking, expanded athletic facilities, fields, new stadium, large stadium on that site, we had offsite improvements that needed to happen as part of the conditional use permit with the city, so we had to make improvements to 8th Street, Highway 61 on both 7th and 8th Street, we had to improve Division Avenue, and Bald Eagle Avenue, and widen both of those, add turn lanes,
some sidewalks along the way, so there was significant offsite improvements, and two of those projects required crossing railroad tracks, which apparently requires an act of God. (Board Members laughing) So the review and comment estimate was 185,436,000, and we came in just under that by here. We also, as Sal had shared earlier, had presented 50 million dollars in LTFM that we were gonna put toward the high school project,
knowing that there was gonna be a lot of LTFM work to do, North Campus needed a lot of work, as well as so many of our other buildings, and we were able to do that for a little less than we thought, 44,600,000. The first five projects I list here account for more than half of that, and that's ADA accessibility upgrades across the campus, meeting fire code updates, and replacing the fire alarm system, replacement of steam boilers to hot water, chilled water plant, classroom HVAC,
and that big building in the 280,000 square foot of existing building was significant, so that was a big portion of it is just those, and then you get into HVAC, work in gymnasiums, locker rooms, the original theater, all of those spaces, and there is complicated work. Plumbing, galvanized piping was replaced, water heater, water shutoff valves, electrical-included medium voltage distribution, and open vault equipment,
generator, transfer switches, breaker panels, lighting replacement, emergency egress lighting, PA replacement in the original building, carpet paint doors so all of this combined, you know, totaled up at 44,600,000 at the high school. These are renderings of Sunrise Park, not actual photos, as this building is still in progress, but the renderings show the early childhood on the left, and the lower right,
and of course, the room we're in on the upper right. Sunrise Park Project is still in progress, and wrapping up this summer, so we'll be in full occupation in the fall. There were three phases of construction, the area in green, the district offices, also the senior program labeled adult education, and the boardroom were completed in early 2025, the gym, which is the gymnastics gym, and the locker room, training areas
across from the boardroom, completed in the summer of 2025, and then still in progress are the early childhood areas in orange, transition education area in blue, and the cafeteria, all of those will be opening in the fall. We'll be wrapping those up this summer. We're below the review and comment estimate on this project, but this project, we committed a lot of LTFM to this project. Sunrise was built in 1959 with additions in '61 and '94, and we've not done a lot or any really significant work
in this building anytime recently, so there were, we knew there was a lot of work to do, we also knew there were gonna be a lot of surprises, and we weren't wrong on either of those. The coordinated LTFM work, along with our renovations, included conversion from steam to hot water, cooling system replacement, replace the pneumatic controls, HVAC serving the gym, cafeteria, classrooms, data room unit, a lot of plumbing replacing the galvanized piping, and the domestic shutoff valves, electrical work
with replacing aging electrical distribution equipment, and lighting, replaced the fire alarm, we did some some structural supports in this building too, I believe, so this building, you know, is a little bit of a pig, and it's a gem moving forward, so we're proud of it. Our district received some recognition for the projects, especially, I'll note the North Star Elementary, and the high school were both recognized
by finance and commerce publication as top projects the year that they were completed, 2023 for the elementary, and 2025 for the high school. Our staff from both schools presented at the EDSpaces Conference, EDSpaces is really the premier educational design conference in the nation, and it was really terrific to have Dan Schmidt from North Star and the team sharing about how they created an inclusive environment at North Star,
and how the studio design has impacted student learning, and at the high school, Russ Reitz, and Matt Young, and the team had a very similar presentation about how the studio design at the high school has changed everything at the high school. So we're seeing lower discipline reports, better attendance, and most importantly, increased student engagement at the high school, so really good design can facilitate that work.
so thanks to the high school, and to Dan Schmidt and his team for the work they did presenting at their schools. Okay, so at this point, I think Andy's gonna walk us through ... This is really the numbers that we just presented, but in a summarized form. - Yep. So as is the case often when I present numbers, it doesn't come across super well on the slide, so included in the packet is this summary report. As Tim said, this is the same data that's included in the slide, so I won't go through each and every line item again,
but I'll just briefly touch on a few things. So first at the top, just looking at the revenue, so first, we're showing the review and comment estimate, so again, that's the amount that we estimated in 2019, knowing that things change as the economy changes, then we're showing the actual or current projections, so for those projects that are completed, their actual, if they're not quite yet wrapped up, then their current projections, and then the comparison between the two. So on the referendum side, on the revenue side,
the referendum amount is the same, 326 million, Tim referenced a couple of times the bond premium, and so that is the difference in the amount that a bank will pay to acquire our debt, that is just more cash available for bond projects. And so for us, that meant about a $17 million additional revenue, it's a completely driven by the market, and so that's just additional funds available for projects. As we all know, the economy was pretty good on investment revenue, and so that brought in ...
Currently, our projection is about 13.1 million for bond investment earnings, and so that's about 10.9 million of additional revenue for the project. So in total, about 28 million additional funds available for the project. And then on the expense side, you can see all of those differences that are in the slides carried down for each individual project. The one thing, we don't have the LTFM on here, and that was by design, the coordinated LTFM that we talked about
throughout the presentation are those projects that made sense to complete at the same time that we were doing all of this referendum work. So as though, you know, as the walls were open, it made sense, it was economical to, you know, do all of these projects at that time, this presentation was supposed to be, you know, a report on the referendum, and so we have certainly lots of other additional LTFM projects that we performed during this time, so this projection is just focused on just the referendum,
and that's what this budget summary is showing. So yeah, that's kind of what this budget summary is showing. - Okay, so ... (upbeat music) - Oh, sorry. - No, thank you. - Yeah. - I forgot about that. - Yes. - Yeah. - So here, so we have a little video as a thank you to the community for their support for the 2019 Bond Referendum. (upbeat music) Oh ... (upbeat music) - Okay, I think that's it. - Yes. (Board Members laughing and applauding)
- [Tim] Yeah, well, that's the end of our presentation. We have the whole crew here, so we're ready for questions. - So quickly about -- - Oh yes, go ahead. - Just wanna make a comment here. I have some prepared comments, and we're gonna go up here in a future article too, but we thought we'd take a moment given that this is our, you know, probably our final big update, and so just thank you our partners from Wold and Kraus-Anderson, it's been a pleasure. I know we still have some work to do, and we'll keep working together, but we appreciate the partnership over the years.
Great job at the presentation, you guys, it was very informative, appreciate it. These updates have been an important part of keeping our community informed of the progress during this transformative time. So as our list of finished projects is coming to fruition with early childhood and transition education spaces being finalized at Sunrise in preparation for housing the programs in the fall, I'd like to pause and reflect for a moment. So this transformation has been a massive undertaking, beginning with the vision of former school board members and some of our current members. Over the course of this journey, from developing the plan
to supporting the informational campaign, and guiding the initial implementation, leaders including Janet Newberg, George Kimball, Kim Chapman, Alan Fahey, Chris Heineker, Lori Swanson, Kathy Story, Marge Newmaster, Scott Wilson, Don Mullen, and even Ralph Parsons, whose term was a little bit before this, but he's remained involved in many ways, and then our current members, Scott, Deb, Kathleen, Angela, and Jessica, and Chris, you've all played an essential role too early on and throughout. I remember sitting in my office shortly after joining
the district about a dozen years ago. Two of our coaching and teaching legends, Don Glover and Jim Galvan stopped by, without an appointment, they just stopped in, which is great, that's how we like to roll, and they wanted to talk about facilities, work that was clearly needed in the district. They were familiar with my work in my previous district, and were energized by what might be possible here, and after our conversation, I know Jim Galvan was ready to start knocking on doors that very day. So there was a lot of pent up excitement
for what might be coming. So the shared vision and the tireless effort of those nearly 100 community members and staff members who served on our Facilities Planning Committee has truly been inspiring to everyone who participated in those early meetings, reviewed blueprints, and shared their hopes for our schools, thank you, you helped lay the foundation for everything that we see today. Centerpiece of this entire vision is, of course, our unified White Bear Lake Area High School, and for the first time in decades, our students in grades nine-12 are learning together under one roof, and we have a couple here that have benefited
from this change. Now what would be the timing, you never attended South, correct? Yeah, that's right. That's your, yeah, you were that first group. All right, so, and it's about more than a 375,000 square foot edition, or the new student union commons area, inspired by our community sailing heritage, or saw some other photos of our performing arts spaces, our athletics facilities, it's about the student experience. By bringing our students together, we've eliminated transitions that once fractured the school,
the high school journey, allowing for deeper relationships, expanded opportunities, and a stronger sense of Bear pride that begins on day one of freshman year. Beyond the high school, this work has revitalized 15 campuses across the district, we have done so strategically, utilizing multiple revenue sources, and maximizing every dollar of the 2019 bond to ensure that the benefits reach every corner of our district from our earliest learners to our senior citizens. We know that this work requires a deep level of public trust, that is why we are especially heartened by the results of our 2024 community survey.
86% of our residents and 91% of our parents rated the quality of our school district favorably, these results are a testament to the partnership we share. The survey also confirmed a high level of confidence in our efforts to steward tax dollars responsibly. We take that fiscal responsibility seriously, and we believe these modernized sustainable facilities are clear evidence of that commitment. This project has been truly transformational, we haven't just renovated buildings, we have reimagined what learning looks like in White Bear. We've created spaces that foster student agency,
support career pathways, and ensure that every child who walks through our doors feels safe, welcomed, and inspired. To our families, our staff, and the entire White Bear Lake area community, thank you for your support, your patience during construction, and your unwavering belief in our students. Together, we have built a future that will serve this community for generations to come. So thank you. - Thank you. So I wanna thank you for the presentation, I know, I just wanna say that as a board, we operate under governance, and I know that we had two major
expectations for these projects. Number one, they needed to be done on a timely basis. That was a huge expectation, and I believe you've met that. Number two, we had a major expectation that you would hit the budget, that it wouldn't cost our taxpayers more than we said it would, and through everything you were able to do, we hit that mark. And so that's, I wanna thank you that those are the two expectations as a board that we had. Other questions or comments? Yes, Ms. Streiff Oji. - So I just have a comment.
I participated in this as an administrator in the district early on. I remember the night that the referendum passed and celebrating that, and we had no idea what was to come, because things changed, you know, with COVID, and the wheels just kept on turning. It kept on going. But going through the process, going through the design process with all of you as a learning community, I just remember parents being involved, staff being involved, the transformation of our schools from being older buildings, many older buildings,
it's very inspirational. It's inspirational for staff, it's inspirational for students, for student learning, and it really shows the value that the community and all of you put in our students, and how important they are, and this is massive, and unbelievably lovely modernization of our learning spaces. And it reflects changing ways of educating our kids in more collaborative ways, and so it's very cool to see all of it come together.
So thank you all. - [Chair] Ms. Beloyed. - So I don't necessarily have any questions, but as one of two members on the board that have been here the entire time we've been doing this building process, that was actually one of the reasons why I ran to begin with was to be a representative for the North End. All of this has been amazing, all of the times that we got to go through the buildings as they were being remodeled,
or they're about to be finished, I mean, we got to tour all the different facilities, and see, you know, what this was actually going to look like, whether we could figure it out when we were in the buildings or not is a whole other story, but the transformation of the high school, and I can say from on a personal level, my youngest is actually the group of kids that went through the most, like every single transition that you could go through from Hugo, to Oneka,
to the middle school, to South Campus to North camp, I mean, North Campus, South, then North, I mean, just having the high school back together, everyone who's been in the district for any amount of time, you always heard the nightmares, the nightmares of North Campus, you had the ninth and then you had the 10th graders together and they just fed off of each other, and they were too young to be together all alone, bring in the 11th and 12th graders, and all of a sudden they start acting well. So it is transformational,
because there's classes now that those ninth and 10th graders can take that they couldn't take before, because of the split campus, there's teachers that don't have to go back and forth between the campus anymore, it's, I just think it's really transformational, and the fact that we actually made a round building work (Board Members laughing) is, I did not think it could be done, and I have always detested that building, and I've never understood why it won awards to begin with, but doesn't matter anyway, so I just wanna say thank you for all of the work
that you guys have done on this, all of the reporting, all of the massive planning for the longterm facility maintenance funds that happen every year, knowing all these projects that are going to be coming up, and knowing that you don't know what projects are gonna be coming up, because you're opening the walls of buildings that are 50-, 70-years-old is just daunting to me. It was a huge project, and I am so happy that we are finally in the end stages,
and it's just, I think it's really worth celebrating. We set out to do this, we did it, and I think we did it well. So thank you so much. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Mr. Skaar -- - Go ahead. - No, that's okay. - Mr. Skaar. - All right. Thank you. Hey, thank you for the report. It was very well done, I really appreciated it, and having done these projects before in my past, I know how complex they can be, and how challenging, and the number of surprises you have when you open up a wall
and stuff is not the way it's supposed to be, right? So, and Tim, I wish you wouldn't have said the railroads, that just reminded me of painful memories. (Board Members laughing) So, but anyways, I wanted to ask you, what's the status of the punch list? - [Johnson] We're currently in the -- Well, maybe I should let you take it. - Yeah, for any particular project or as a whole? - Just as a whole. - Yeah. So punch list is still ongoing, excuse me, for Central Mariner in this building, obviously in multiple phases,
so it's all phased punch list at this point, so it's mostly a mixture of commissioning, and then obviously like if you see dings on a wall, or chipped wood paint, commissioning is usually the longest running thing, which we kind of lump together in the word of punch list, so commissioning typically takes over the course of anywhere from six months to a year, so when we commission buildings, if it's middle of winter, we obviously won't be commissioning any of the cooling systems, so a large part of what we've done for startup
and things like that actually haven't occurred yet in some of these spaces, so that'll be ongoing in through this summer. - So where are we with the retention? Have we paid, or have we still have a retention that we have to pay? - Yes, there is still being retention being held on some folks, and that might, mostly is for closeout documentations, like tab reports, commissioning reports, and it can be sometimes closeouts for as-builts, so I don't see any in here, but like we have prints, right?
If a valve has to be moved over 10 feet, we make sure that that gets redlined on a as-built drawing, so some of that stuff is still ongoing, as well. - So -- - And that retention gets helped by purposes. - All right, thanks. Thank you. So on the ... And the bonds are not tied to the retention, so the bonds were paying off the bonds, they're all 100% subscribed, we're paying the bonds now, correct? - Yes, according to the debt schedule. - Okay, good. One other thing. Kraus-Anderson had a press release back in February 2025.
I'm sure you got district approval, which included actual costs, which included the budget plus the LTFM money. Did the district also send out any release or anything on the cost? I know they sent updates with pictures, and videos, and things like that, but anything on the cost similar to what Kraus-Anderson did as far as you know? - No, we didn't do any promotional, you know, pieces
on cost of projects or anything like that. - Well, not really promotional -- - We presented them to the board, and you know, bids were approved by the board. - [Skaar] But the actuals that they reported, we didn't -- that was -- - I wasn't asking for a promotional -- - Yeah. - We just never reported those actuals until today. - No, yeah. I mean, typically, you get a project approved by the board, you complete the project. We don't typically come back and report that we're done with it, and we spent what we said we would. - Gotcha.
All right. Thank you. On contingencies, we all know contingencies are for unexpected matters, right? And then something like this, a complex, kind of answering my own question, but in something complex like this, your contingency's gonna be probably a little higher, because of the age of the buildings, complexity, things like that. Ours was 10%, which is, you know, fairly high, I would say, on a construction, and I'm not debating that. But can you tell me how you came up with the 10%?
- Typically, we would start at 5% on the construction contingencies. So that's kind of a general baseline of where you would go from, some projects fall below that, some projects when we're getting into like 1950s, the 5% is always gonna be a goal to target for those contingency pieces, as you start opening up buildings that are of that age, obviously, sometimes you have to make accommodations for that. - So it was 32,000,821 was the contingency when you add everything up.
I anticipate that we paid the entire contingency, that is accounted for, right? We have, we're spending the entire amount. - Yeah, any non-expended contingency would have been reallocated. So any of the projects we presented as actual, that would include the final total contingency expended. Yep. - So on the budget summary, which I think it's page 43 of the report, you have, and just help me understand this. We have future projects of 15,970,517.
So is that reflective of the net difference between the bond premium, and the bond investment earnings, plus the contingency, and then that amount is left, kind of left over? Am I reading that correct? - Not quite. So that would be the difference between the review and common estimate, and then actual projection. So actual current projection would actually be that 18,252,000. The 15 is the difference between the two, so that 18 million is what we have available now
for the future projects that we're currently identifying. So the contingency, actually, we identify internally project by project, so those are wrapped into each individual line item for the project, so, you know, the contingency for Sunrise Park, for example, is wrapped into the 15 million 177. - [Skaar] Can you say that again? Sorry. - Yeah, so the contingency that we estimate for Sunrise Park, for example that is included in the 15,000,177,
that's included in the current projection column under Sunrise Park. - [Skaar] So that's part of the future projects? - No. - No. No, the way that we record contingency is project by project. - [Skaar] So what are we gonna use the future project funding for and where is that? Where's that money today? - Right, today that's essentially like cash on hand. - Okay. - Yep. - [Skaar] But that's like a restricted fund for -- - Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's not like general fund at all. Yeah, it's separate. - Okay, I got it.
You know, you had talked about the favorable timing before, and it looks like it was very favorable, because we were able to complete some pretty large renovations with that favorable timing. Getting to the supply chain timing would, if we had supply, did we have supply chain issues, where we had to substitute materials, and we weren't able to get the materials as specs, so then we had to get something similar or better?
Did that happen a lot? - I wouldn't say a lot, no, but there, so typically, when we provide a specification, there's usually like a basis of design, and then there's approved equals, right? So you'll have kind of like, here's what we were planning on, but here's four others that might fall in line with that. So typically, if we find a basis of design, or out of those four approved that might be in that specification section, we might have to shift to some of those based on what we actually can get in a timely fashion. So it did occur,
but yeah, they were all within the bounds of the specification. - All right, thank you. On the change order process, I know that the auditor went through that with me, and they reviewed, they, you know, sampled the change order process to make sure it goes through, gets approved and so forth. How, do you know, I know this might be a tough question to ask off the top of your head, but how many change orders did we have that exceeded a million dollars? Were there a lot of them, a few of them, not a lot of them?
- Over a million dollars in a single change order? Very few. Some of that is because the projects were delivered as construction manager as advisor method, right? So we had different work scopes for different trades, and so there might have been a change that we talk about collectively of, let's say we added this from a scope, right? You know, there's some money to the electrician, some to the plumber, some to the HVAC, some to the carpet, some to the paint, right? And so change orders were by contract, right? So I would say it would be very few when you think about it that way. Now if we actually look at what are the cost of this whole change across all of those contracts,
we could go look at that, but it was very few. - Okay. On the coordinated LTFM, which is long-term facility maintenance, these are separate funds, not part of the bond. What kind of restriction, when you do coordinated LTFM, what are the restrictions, are there restrictions on how you can spend that when you do it in such a way? - Yeah. - Can you tell me what those restrictions are? - Yeah, it's driven by statute, so statute tells us what we can spend that money on,
there's kind of two different pots of money you can spend it on, deferred maintenance projects, and those are identified by the Department of Education, and statute of exactly what type of projects we can tackle, and then health and safety type projects, and again, statute and the Department of Education tells us exactly what types of projects we can tackle. And so we develop our list of projects, we submit that to the state for approval, and they tell us yes or no, they're approved, and sometimes they come back to us and they say, "Hey, we need more information," and we submit that to them,
but ultimately, we get those approved before we end up doing any of the work. - Okay, thank you. - But it's generally like for like. - Yeah. - Yeah. - We can't do an ... Yeah, that's a good point. We can't do like an upgrade. So if we're gonna replace carpet, we have to, you know, replace it with the same type of carpet. We can't like add a wall. You can't add a wall using our long-term facility maintenance funds. It's like for like type replacement. - Or expand a building. - Yeah. - Do building expansion. - Correct. - All right, thank you. On the land purchases of six million,
have we done all the land purchases? Is that complete, or there's still land purchases to do? - You know, if there were, there are a few more opportunities, if there were a few more opportunities, we might take advantage of them, so there's still you know, at least one property that we'd be interested in purchasing near the high school, if that were to become available, it's fine if it doesn't, but otherwise, I think we're pretty close. I think it makes sense if we're able to secure
whatever property we can adjacent to the high school, just to make that campus fit the community, fit the neighborhood better. - [Skaar] How much have we spent on land purchases so far? - About nine and a half million. - Oh, okay, so it's, we have six million -- - Yeah, six million was the estimate, the review and comment estimate. - Yeah. - Right. - [Skaar] And then the other three million, where did that, did that come from contingency? Did that come from the favorable timing and the bond premium?
- Yes, all that. From the favorable timing, bond premium interest that provided additional funds reallocating, you know, funds from other projects. - Good bid day for the high school, really good bid day for the high school. - Yeah, the high school. - It's rolled into that 184 million that's in the current projection. - Okay. So in the, you know, the middle schools just ... I did, you know, when I looked at the numbers, I wasn't totally surprised, like for Central, given its age and so forth, that there'd be so much.
Were those ... And we used a lot of LTFM for that. So I'm assuming that the LTFM that was used was already approved in a previous LTFM plan. - Correct. - Correct. - That's part of why we had in the slide that when we came to the school board in 2019, we had phase one LTFM, it was always our intention, like that was the first bond issuance that we were gonna be tackling with some of our facility maintenance needs, it was always the intention that we would kind of on an every other year basis
be having a bond issuance to tackle some of those LTFM projects, and so that's why we come to the board every July with our LTFM, and then again, throughout the school year, as we do have those bond issuances, just like we did last month, and then we'll be coming again in May. - Okay. - For that final issuance, our next issuance. - Thank you. I don't know if you want me to ... I just have a couple more, if you wanna stop. - Go ahead. - Okay. With regard to the high school, you mentioned like the athletic fields and so forth were part of the RNC budget.
Did we replace the roof on the high school, as well? - [Johnson] Sections of it, yep. Some sections had been done relatively recently, but there were, I think at least three sections we did. I could ... They're referred to by letters, like section M, section Q, section R, I could go look up which ones, but there was some re-roofing done. - So my understanding is that we've had some roof leaks at the high school. Is that true? No? We have -- - That is correct. We're doing another section, large section this summer, as well, an area that we could not do,
because of the amount of equipment and mobility up on there, so we're doing that this summer. - Is that gonna be replaced or just repaired? - Replaced. Complete buildup, new roof. So we're by the loading dock in the area just North of the field house in this original circle. - Any areas where we have like expensive stuff, like the Auditorium, or any leaks in those areas? - No. No, we had some early identifiers in the field house,
where we had water migrating through vent or duct work that was new and that's been taken care of, but no, none of the ... Their classroom spaces is really what it is right now. Some corridor just outside that same area. - You know, speaking of classrooms, I think we had ... I wanna say, oh, $16.3 million allocated to new classrooms in the elementary schools. Did we spend all that money, do you know off the top of your -- - That'd be the first -- So that was Media Center and classroom furniture, and that was across elementary, middle,
and part of the high school. And I would say, I think we spent ... Sorry, I don't have the slide up here, 13,625,825 was allocated, 13,826,914 was spent. So just over $200,000 more, but that was all classrooms, all media centers across all existing square footage. So the new elementary was not funded out of that, and the expanded part of the high school was not funded out of that, but ... And the furniture industry,
maybe while we're talking about it was one that was hit pretty hard from a cost perspective in the 2021-2022 timeline. - Right. - Cost of foam, shipping, we had some furniture get stuck on other parts of the world for part, you know, so that was a challenging one to maintain, yeah. - Thank you. Have we done a kind of a post-construction security assessment? I know we did, Tim, you said that we did a security assessment while we're,
well, kind of in the planning stage, but now that everything's complete, maybe some things have changed. Have we done an after-the-fact security assessment, as well? - You know, no, not in terms of a third party assessment, we're assessing our security all the time. - Right. - And we haven't closed out our projects. I wouldn't consider us done yet, you know, so we're not to that point yet, but no, not in terms of a third party assessment. - Okay. I would just ask maybe the board this question, which is, you know, this is a huge investment,
and we are, you know, and it was a great report, and we're gonna post this, right? On the website, so the public can see it. I would just request that maybe at the next board meeting, which is a public session board meeting, that we have like a public forum where maybe the public, if they've had a chance to review this, that they could, you know, ask questions, and get answers, as well. So I'm just making that suggestion to the board to consider that for the public forum at the next meeting.
So thank you. - Thank you. - I don't know if anybody else have kind of -- - Thank you. Ms. Daniels? - Thank you. - Thank you. Everybody did a really great job. As kind of the resident historian, (Board Members laughing) 'cause I'm probably oldest ... (Board Members laughing) So I just, I have to, I wanna thank Kevin so much for project management. I don't, what a big, big job that is, and your predecessor, Dan Rosier started the process,
and you wrapped it up, and it's got to be with all the changes, and all the meetings, and I know you worked late nights, I could, I mean, Tim reported that, but I can imagine with your job, it was around the clock for many years, so thank you so much. So I just wanna tell very -- I'm not going to be as long-winded as some others, but ... So I've been in the community for 40, 45 years, no offense, Dan. Your question's very good. - I know, I was just saying -- - No, that's all right. That's all right. So we bought our first house here when I was 25, I'm 70 now. So 45 years.
A lot of changes in the district. When we moved into our house in '81, we lived right across from Central, right across from Hippodrome, our first little house, and their first son was born in 1983, and that's when the two high schools split. Well, he's 42-years-old now. So I just have to say, we've seen a lot happening in the district, and my three kids were in, our three kids were in the district in the '90s. In the '90s, you know that we were kind of the poster child for struggling with class size, and passing referendums,
and bonds, and anything. So I'm just very moved, I mean, I feel like I'm gonna cry, but the work that the community has put in, and all of us who have stuck around and been here through the ups and downs of the district, and passing that referendum, and then seeing this team, and all the community members that have participated, both staff, and community members, and students, and people have been on the committees, and people who have come and gone out of the community,
but those of us who have been here a long time so appreciate everything, and with such gratitude for a community who supports the schools, and we have built that trust over the years, and I hope to keep that trust, and I wanna thank the community for trusting the district to provide what beautiful, beautiful projects, and to believe in our district, and believe in our students. So I just, I mean, I have things written down,
but I didn't stick to -- - You can just stop and make everybody cry. (Board Members laughing) - So yeah, that's just, I just wanna say thank you, everybody. - Thank you. - Thank you. - [Chair] Thank you. Ms. Ellison? - Yeah, I had to write stuff down too, otherwise I would've forget. So Deb and I started in January of 2018, and as I was looking through all these meetings, it's like, yeah, it was a lot, because what you didn't put in this presentation is all the times that Sal, and AJ, and others from Wald and Kraus-Anderson
came and presented to the board. - A couple times. - It was constant. I feel like we saw, I mean, AJ, did you come with data for us tonight? - I only came with one. - Let's hear it, let's hear it. (Board Members laughing) - It was 83 and 100, and counting, and that was it, and that's the students, the families, the people that this impacted, and 8,300 reasons why I'm proud. - Aw. - Now we're gonna cry. (Board Members laughing) (Board Members chattering) - So I think when I first started on the board,
Wayne had to teach me that B for bond equals buildings, because I was new to the board, and I didn't understand that when you pass a bond referendum that equals B for buildings. And so the learning that has been done in this community, and on this board about this process has been tremendous. And I just wanted to bring up a couple of things, you know, based on the work that you all have done, I remember when we were talking about the high school locations, and I couldn't believe North Campus either.
I was like, "That's bananas", because South Campus looks like it had more space, and then there was one moment where we're like, "Maybe we should tear down the original high school," and there was like rioting in the streets, right? Like don't ... So like those conversations were all happening. I remember we were having conversations about the watershed, like we had to account for that, especially in Hugo, when we were building North Star, and we were building the transportation center. When we started this work to get the bond referendum passed,
the trust that had to be built in this community was astounding. I mean, how many community meetings did you go to? - [Participant] Yeah, we estimated 125 or so, yeah, leading up to that vote, you know. - And then, you know, Dr. K. and Mr. Wald going and talking to homeowners, I mean, the amount of trust that someone needs to sell their home to the district for the greater good is something that we had to build.
You know, and there was so much community involvement from the very beginning. I mean, it was not just a person here or there. It was, from the beginning, all of those meetings, and I will say that I did the little math in my head that there's 21 board meetings a year, 11 of those are business meetings, where people can come and comment. There's over 80 opportunities, and we heard from people. They came and they talked to us. They participated in the committees, they commented
when they had the opportunity, and they talked to us. We got so much public input, and I would also like to commend fellow board members, past and present, I mean, Chris was a principal at Willow, Angela's two kids are in the district, Scott, as we all know, graduated from Mariner High School. (Board Members laughing) Kathleen was Director of Student Support Services, Deb's two kids are in the district, Wayne's kids are in the district,
and my four, my oldest is the first class to not go to South Campus at all, my next one is the first class to go all the way through the new building, the next one is the first class to graduate from Mariner Middle School, and my final one is the first class to go all the way through Mariner Middle School. And that is an investment in my family, in all of our families, and this is not something that this board
and this district has ever taken lightly. And so I want to express my appreciation for this very thorough presentation. I mean, how many board packets did you have to go through to put this all together? 'Cause I remember seeing all of these things before. So just from, you know, in my last year on the board, I'm really grateful that I've gotten to see this all the way through, AJ, and Sal, and of course, Andy and Tim, Kevin,
like thank you for all of your work, and, you know, Dr. K. and your whole staff. Like I'm so proud, I work with districts all over the country, like that's my job is I work with teachers around the country. This is not normal. (Board Members laughing) This is not usual, and so I'm really proud that my kids are graduating from this district. So thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you. - [Chair] Thank you. Ms. Thompson. - I don't know why I have to go last after all, I've had an emotional past couple of days, so I'm not gonna cry though, right?
A, first of all, when you all sat down, I'm sorry, but AJ, right away, you come with smiles, and you just make us feel happy up here, and all the input you've given, and all the data, and all the fun facts have really been enjoyable. And so I'm gonna miss you all when like we're done with this and you're all not here presenting all the amazing things you've done, because as everybody else has already highlighted, like the work is beyond commendable. And the presentation, and what you did, I am not, math was not my friend,
it's still not my friend. The stuff you all do to ensure that we are using our tax dollars in the most responsible way possible, I truly appreciate, and it was, while math isn't my friend, I like to think that fiscal responsibility is something that I like, 'cause I'm a taxpayer, and I like my money to be in my bank account more than anywhere else, right? It helps me pay my bills and live. But just the way you would use the money, and took advantage of the areas,
where we saved on one project to use in another project, and we knew that we were gonna get into these buildings that haven't been touched in a very long time, and there were gonna be spiderwebs to find and discover in there. The bones, what, you know, I remember the talking about under this building -- - Snakes. - Snakes and worms. (Board Members laughing and chattering) - So truly just remarkable work, and I'm so grateful for that. I think that one, I liked learning is not quiet, it isn't quiet. And being able to know that our students are in learning commons,
where they can talk, and enjoy a book, and communicate with their friends, and other people, I just love going into those spaces, and seeing our students, and our staff, and oftentimes, our families in there, really is enjoyable. I am gonna age myself here a little bit, 40-plus years ago, I was a Lincoln Elementary student, and I remember, the gym was the gym, it was the cafeteria, it was the theater, it was the state, it was all of it, I performed a little skit on the stage
when I was in school there, and so yes, a gym, just gym space was long overdue for that space. I also believe Dr. K's office was a science class that I was in in middle school, when I was in the middle school, I remember the pit in Central, so I haven't been in to see the project after it's been done, but that is something that I'm hoping to be able to do, because I am sure it's gonna be amazing to walk through that space again.
And just another thing that I thought was fun, so my oldest went through both, you know, North and South Campus, she was the last graduating class before we started making some big changes, but she did come with when we opened North Star Elementary. And when you walk in, you have those bathrooms right there. And the immediate thing she said was, "That's not fair." (Board Members laughing) Because of the privacy. Oftentimes, kids don't use the bathrooms, because they don't feel that it's a private space for them
to do what they need to do in there, so she was very sad that she was never gonna have the opportunity to really use those spaces as a student, my other daughter is very grateful for those spaces, and she is also one of the first students who will be going all the way through the new high school, and I think as a parent who had a student who went to the split campus, I really see the benefit to having our students all together, because that transition from 10th grade to 11th grade,
I mean, all the transitions are tough transitions, but I think kids really go through a lot then, and for them to build the community in that building, and they're just starting to feel like they know the school, and they're the 10th grade, and they got it all down, and then, whoop, off to the new high school they went, and they started all over. And for my own child, it had an impact on what she did for the rest of her high school, well, and COVID, and all the other fun stuff that came along there, but I just really ... I almost cried a couple times myself tonight,
just listening to it, and being so proud of everything that happened in the community support, really thank you to the community, because none of this is possible without the community, and I just, I was on the PTA, I had run and lost, but I was involved in the PTAs, and I was at many of the times, many houses, many meetings, and there was either Dr. K., or Mr. Wald at those meetings. I believe you had to put your running off for a while there,
I remember just watching the changes, and over the time of all the meetings, and, you know, you really gave a lot of your time to our community to make this possible. You were a new superintendent in a very large school district, you're a father, you're also a professor, or a teacher at the University of Minnesota, you teach school finance. When I did run, and I was looking into things about the district, one of the reasons that I felt comfortable running and being on this board was the fiscal responsibility
that this district has always shown to its community, and the awards that we have won, and while yes, there are always bumps in the road, this is public education, and as I have learned, it's beyond my comprehension of how your team keeps all the numbers. I just truly am amazed. And so really thank you so much. And I'm glad you had some fact for us tonight, 'cause I was gonna ask that question. I was waiting. When is the fun fact coming? (Board Members laughing) But really, thank you so much. It's impressive. - Okay,
can you be quick, because what I was just -- - Yeah, I just wanna correct the record for Jessica. I was a custodian at Mariner, Vadnais and Central. - Okay. - Just an FYI. - Thank you, yes. - And just one quick one, are you guys in charge of the warranty? Who's keeping ... Whose the warranties are for all the stuff that went into warranty service? Are you? And then you turn it over? - We, yep. After the one year period for a warranty, yes. Anything that kind of runs through KA, and that gets pushed out to the subcontractors that are responsible and or manufacturers
for those warranties that they hold outside of the one-year labor and workmanship material warranties, that's supplied by the manufacturers, that's when the district staff like Kevin and folks would be taking those, and there's a ... I mean, we've got binders that I could probably figure out how many binders could fill this room full of ... - Thank you. I just wanted to know who was in charge. He went long, so don't blame that -- (Board Members laughing) - And I was just gonna say that we have a lot, I have more business to conduct, I don't want people to go home, and go,
"Oh, I should have asked that. I should have done that." Please feel free, board members, if you have questions, please reach out to Tim or Andy and they'll be happy to answer them, because things may come up as you're processing when we leave, if that's okay, I'd like to move on. Okay, I'd like to move on to ... Sorry. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you. (Board Members applauding) - Which one? - The next item we have is C1, operational item, "Action on the Bid for Sunrise Park, and White Bear Lake Area High School Parking." Mr. Wald. - Yeah.
All right, thank you, Chair Arcand, and here we are with another project. (Board Members laughing) - I've already missed it. - Tonight, we're seeking approval from the school board for two parking lot projects to be completed this summer. We've presented the information to the city of White Bear Lake Planning Commission, and the City Council and have received conditional use permits for both projects. The first is the Sunrise Park Center parking lot, and here you have, it's parking to the North side of the building, and it creates additional space
for the senior program, and improved ADA parking for our seniors, right now it's a little bit funky for our seniors, especially in the winter to be able to access that entrance very safely, so this will have significant improvement there. But also parking on the North side of the building, that'll support our transition education staff, our early childhood staff, and then the individuals who come to our training center when we have professional development, right now, that puts some pressure on the neighborhood,
so this will be ample parking to handle all of that. The second part of the project ... Whoops. There we go. All right. Okay. There's additional parking at the high school, both of these were planned parking lot additions, we acquired property after the design phase at the high school in some cases, and so we recognized that we'd be able to add parking, but we were deep enough in the design phase, it would just have to wait. And so it allowed us some time
to get to know our parking use, and how our presence in the neighborhood impacted the neighbors around the high school, and so when we built out the current parking, we added the rainwater support, water retention support, so that when we add parking lots, when we finish the parking, that that would already been completed. So that part is in place already, and the engineers at Larson have designed this parking lot,
you know, with that in mind that they were taking advantage of the rainwater planning that they had already completed. So at Bald Eagle, on the Bald Eagle side, there's 32 additional stalls, this will serve two purposes. Our staff will park there during the school day, it'll serve as parking for Louricas Fields, right now, that's been a bit of a problem is there's plenty of parking, but not on the North end. So this creates good parking at Louricas,
sidewalk access to get out of that parking lot toward Louricas very easily. It'll also be used for community parking for large events, keeping some of those cars, keeping cars off the street. On the Division Avenue side, there's two, there's one small parking lot, I have it listed that is corrected, there's student parking that's 28 stalls, and again, that area's already been designed for the parking lot, but we'd already bid out the project. So we complete that now,
and then South on Division Avenue, really Bloom and 8th Street, I guess is the 83 additional stalls, that'll primarily be used for event parking at Central Middle School, and event parking at the high school. We had a competitive bidding project here, seven different contractors submitted bids, and we worked with Wold Architects and Engineers, and it is the recommendation that we award the bid to the lowest bidder, which is Northwest Asphalt Incorporated.
They had a bid of 1,524,000, that was 88,000 below the next lowest bid, and 546,000 below the highest bid. Projects will be completed this summer. So the recommendation is for the board to accept the overall bid for the Sunrise Park and White Bear Lake Area High School parking lot additions as presented to Northwest Asphalt Incorporated in the amount of 1,524,000. - [Chair] You've heard the recommendation. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - Thompson,
you got a second? - Second. - [Chair] Second by Beloyed. Any discussion? - [Ellison] I have a question. - [Chair] Yes, Ms. Ellison. - Okay, so Mr. Wold, walk me through this. - Okay. - So I'm looking at the Bald Eagle parking. That doesn't include ... There's that house is still gonna be there, right? - [Tim] Yeah, the house is on the South side of that. - Okay, the house is there, and so then I'm trying to picture it in my head. There's, like, wooded area. - Yeah, all those tall, beautiful trees. - All those trees. Okay, so that's where that's gonna go. - Yep. - Right? - And that lot was designed, it's actually a little smaller than we originally thought,
because we wanted to save as many of those trees as we can, so those tall pines on the East side of that lot are gonna remain. - Okay. Okay. And then the Division Avenue bloom area, that one I'm looking at, like, on this map, which one's the Hippodrome? Is it pictured on this map? - Hippodrome is, yeah, the bottom of the -- - Is it like just off the map? - [Tim] You can just see the top half of the Hippodrome. - Okay. Okay, 'cause I'm just trying to picture in my head, it's so crowded over there by Central ...
I was just trying to picture where those stalls are gonna be. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Like the big open space to the right of the 83 stalls? - Yep. - Still houses. - There's houses. - Those are houses. - Three. Three houses still remain there. - Okay. - Yeah. - Okay, so it's just gonna go in-between. Okay, I'm just trying to picture it in my head, 'cause that was the thing I struggled with when we were doing all the bond reference stuff, I'm like, "I don't see how this is gonna play out." But okay. That helps, thank you. - There's a lot of detail -- - Yeah. - On those pictures. - Other questions?
- I don't have a question, I just, I mentioned the trees, and Tim mentioned the trees, and I just wanna say, and there's so many great tree plantings that they have done since they completed the projects, and it makes me feel better that we have to take some down, but we've replaced so many, many, dozens and dozens of trees. - Yeah. - Which, you know, is great for everything, everybody. - And I think Kevin knows every one of those trees, and he's watching them ... (Board Members laughing) - Yeah, there's a couple that need TLC, I watch them too, 'cause I walk there, and I see,
I go that one, yeah. - Yeah. (Board Members laughing) - [Chair] Yes, Mr. Skaar. - Did the the Finance Committee review this and approve it? - No. The parking lot projects? - Right. - No. - So how did this thing get approved, is it below the threshold, or ... So the Finance Committee of the school board doesn't review these things,
and then recommends them to the board, is that right? You don't -- - No, administration brings them to the board. - Okay. - Yeah. This has been accounted for in the finances of the projects that we looked at earlier tonight. - Okay, gotcha. Then the letter, it says ... I don't know what page that is. Hang on for a second. - It's on ... - The letter is page 49. It says, and it's on Kevin's letterhead.
It says, "Dear Jim." Who's Jim? - [Tim] Yeah, I don't know. Kevin, do you know who Jim is? - No. No. - [Tim] No, I thought it might have just been a typo, 'cause I received it from -- - Yes. - Oh, so should it -- Sir, it wasn't from -- - Probably for you. I was scratching my head thinking, "Who's Jim?" - [Tim] Yeah, I think it might have just been a typo. - All right. - Supposed to be a T, I bet. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, it was, right. It just confused me. I didn't see him in our cast of staff. Thank you. - Yeah. Any other questions? Okay, well, this will be a roll call vote.
I'll ask the Clerk to call the roll. - I gotta switch over to my other screen. - Sorry. - That's okay. Streiff Oji? - Aye. - Thompson? - Aye. - Arcand? - Aye. - Beloyed? - Aye. - Daniels, aye, Ellison? - Aye. - Skaar? - Aye. - Okay, seven-oh. It's carried, thank you. - Thank you. - Now we're gonna move on to D, labor negotiations. This portion of the meeting may be closed to consider strategy for labor negotiations, including negotiation strategies or developments, or discussions, and review of labor negotiation proposals
conducted pursuant to Minnesota statute 179A.01 to 179A.25. Can I get a motion to go to closed session? - So moved. - Okay. Streiff Oji? Can I get a second? - Second. - Second by Ellison. This will be a voice vote, all in favor say aye. - [Board Members] Aye. - Opposed? Dan, I didn't hear your vote on that. Did you vote to go to closing -- - Yes, sorry. - Sorry. I didn't hear it, and I'm trying to hear everybody. Okay, seven-oh, so we will go to a closed session. (hammer slamming)