- I now call this meeting of the School Board of Independent School District 624 to order. I'll ask the clerk to call the role. - Daniels, here. Ellison? - Here. - Skaar. - Here. - Streiff Oji. - Here. - Thompson. - Here. - Arcand. - Here. Okay, we ask everybody to stand as we do the Pledge of Allegiance. - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands. One nation, under God. Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - We have before us an agenda.
Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. That was me. - Ellison. A second? - Second. - Second by Thompson. Any discussion? This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Board] Aye. - Opposed, same sign? We now have an agenda. We also have before us a consent agenda. This contains a variety of business items that come to us monthly, including donations. We always want us to say we are truly grateful of the support that the community and everyone shows every month to our staff and students. So, we wanna say thank you.
Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? - So moved. - Chair? - Yes, sir. - I'd like to request that the following items be removed from the consent agenda to be put on the regular agenda. - Okay. What items are they? - 5A. 5B. And 5G. - Okay. So, what we have is you're asking to pull 5A, 5B and 5G. - Correct. - All right. So, then before us we have a consent agenda. Can we maybe approve the consent agenda excluding 5A, 5B and 5G?
Can I get a motion to approve that agenda? - So, Mr. Chair, point of order. Ms. Daniels approved, so, do we need to take that back? Her motion to approve the previous consent agenda? - Yeah, I went quick and I didn't get his, I didn't hear right away. - Okay, no worries. - Who made the, okay, are you okay if we remove it? - Okay. - Okay. So, now since she's the one that made the motion, we can pull it back. We're gonna go forward then. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda excluding 5A, 5B and 5G?
- So moved. - Okay. By Ms. Daniels. Is there a second? Is there a second? I am gonna go ahead and second it so that we can move forward. So moved. Now, we're open for discussion. Actually, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. We don't discuss the consent agenda. This goes forward. So, we have before us a consent agenda that excludes 5A, 5B, and 5G. This will be a voice vote. If you can call the, I mean, this will be a roll call vote. Can you call the roll please? - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye.
- Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - All right. That's carried. Now, according to the rules, we will go then now to the next piece. We have before us the items we pulled. And so to discuss those because we need a movement, I'd like to ask, can we get a motion to accept 5A, 5B and 5G? As they are presented. Then, we will go to discussion if we need to. - So moved. - Okay, so we have Ellison. Do we have a second?
- Second. - Second by Daniel. So, we have the motion to approve as presented. Now, what I'd like to do is open it for discussion. Mr. Skaar. - So the first, excuse me, the first item is on item seven, which is under the meeting minutes. And it's E, the very last thing at the bottom there. And during the board meeting on January 12th, the board blocked my attempt to move the consent agenda item to the regular agenda for discussion.
That was the invoice register. The board was out of order on this matter, according to policy 203.6, had no right under existing policies to prevent any board member from requesting a consent agenda to be moved to the regular agenda. Now, I see that you're proposing to revise policy 203.6 to prevent any board member from moving an item from the consent agenda to the regular agenda with a second majority of vote. This policy in effect suppresses Robert's Rules,
which looked for fairness for all to be heard. I think it's on, and we can discuss it when we get to that policy, but it's unprecedented, undemocratic, and it's just a bold attempt to silence those who have a different point of view. And actually, I talked to the School Board Association of Minnesota. They don't know of any district that has adopted a policy like that. You know, we like to teach everyone that they should be seen, heard and valued. But it seems like we only want to see, hear and value
those that share the same viewpoint. And I think it's a pattern of behavior to prevent transparency and control speech. If you recall the audit findings presented at the work session, we had approved a double payment of an invoice of $535,000. This is precisely why I asked to review the invoice register as a separate discussion matter because I believe we need stronger oversight over our financials and management. I'm here to help the district to be successful
and it starts with my duty as a public servant. So, I am proposing that we revise the minutes. We make a note in today's meeting minutes that the board was out of order on January 12th with regard to the consent agenda. - I'm okay with making an adjustment that I was out of order because I was the one in charge. It wasn't the board, it was me who ruled on it. So, I would say that I was out of order. But we'll need a motion to amend that.
Because before us we have 5A, 5B, and 5G. - Could I? - Yes. Go ahead. - Ask, how do we know that, I guess, what did they tell you was the reason why we were out of order for doing that? - Well, first of all, thank you Chair and thanks for listening to me, fellow board members. What I did is I went out and I reached out to Robert's Rules experts. - So, not MSBA like you just said. - No, I actually talked to both
and I triangulated the information I got from Robert Rules with MSBA and the gist of it was, is typically, if a board member wants to move, any board member wants to move anything from the consent agenda, they can move it without a second or a vote. However, if you have a procedure, if you have a procedure that embeds in that in your policy, we have a policy that does that.
So, in the policy that we have, we have no provision to block a board member from moving it from consent agenda to the regular agenda. That's the reason, because our policy does not prevent it. - So, because I just attended the MSBA conference, and I did a Robert's Rules of Order training with the MSBA and they're professional that guides Robert's Rules of Order for school district, which is very different from any other kind of Robert's Rules, like corporations,
and all kinds of other entities that don't follow, Robert's Rules is very convoluted. And it depends on what board we're sitting at of how the Robert's Rules of Order is enacted into our rules as members. And I would just bring a point that in the last meeting that I was at, not the last regular board meeting, I did make a statement that we're not allowed to have cross-conversation. Because I hadn't learned yet at that point that we're considered a medium-sized board.
So, that rule doesn't apply to us. So, I apologize for that part, that I made some misstatements about that as I'm learning also. Because I've never needed to know as much about Robert's Rules of Orders. But I don't, I guess, understand how we broke the policy by not letting it be discussed further. - Would you, I can speak to it, or go ahead. - No, go ahead. - Well, I was gonna say, because in our policy we don't provide for that specifically,
where a board member or the board can block a board member from bringing it into the consent agenda. You can't, you're, the board is prevented from blocking a board member from bringing something from the consent agenda to the regular agenda. Now, the way that you have revised the policy that's later, it's the first reading of the policy, that would prevent any board member from taking something from the consent agenda
and putting it on the regular agenda. That does prevent it. - I'm not sure if that's totally true, but we'll focus on this. - Yes. - You're making a motion to say that the Chair was out of order. Is that the motion you wanna make for 5A? - Well, I would just, you know, I don't wanna make a big deal out of this, but I thought it was, I just didn't think it was right. So, yes, I would appreciate that. - And so your motion is to amend this
to say that the Chair was out of order. - I'd rather say the board was out of order. - Because I was the one that made the decision. It would be me. - So, point of order then, Mr. Skaar, I think for the record, you need to speak your motion, or are you speaking the motion and you're saying so moved? - So moved. So, this is an amendment. We have then, is there any further discussion? We have to vote on the amendment first. - We need a second first. - Okay. So, is there a second to change, to add that? - Can you repeat what you wanted us to add please? - On January 14th, the Chair was out of order
when the board objected to the consideration of moving a consent agenda item to the regular agenda. - Okay. Do we have a second of that? - Who did the first motion? - Mr. Skaar. - Mr. Skaar did it. Okay, I'm just trying to find all my notes here. - I mean, I guess I'll give it a second. - Okay, we have a second. So now we're in front. Any further discussion? All right, we're gonna amend it then to accept as presented, except 5A, we'll add that the Chair was out of order.
And the minutes. Now, what about 5B? - 5B on the monthly, and if you go to 5B, page 15, it has a invoice for Ideal Energies Solar Leasing. We identify that as electricity. I think I brought it up a couple times. Is it really electricity or is it lease payments? - It's electricity. - It is? - Yep. - Okay, thank you. - Okay, how about 5G? - No, I had one other one. - Okay, sorry. One of the things that we had talked about, I think not at the last board meeting, but I think it was at the December board meeting,
was we have all of these Amazon purchases and what kind of controls do we have over those purchases? And if you can fit that into what steps or where we are with the corrective action plan on the disbursement from the audit finding, that would be helpful if you could weave those two in. - What did you want changed on this? - I was just asking a question. - Okay, because I'm going back, I was looking for the motion that we wanted changed. - Change what?
- Well you were questioning 5B? - No, it's fine the way it is. I had a question on it and the answer is fine. The other one had to do with controls over Amazon purchases and how that fits in with the overall oversight. And if I can just get an idea of when we're gonna have an update on the internal controls material weakness that was found at the audit. That would be the question. - Yes. Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, what are we asking? Are we...
- We're trying to approve these from the, so, I'm asking if there's change made for those. If there's not a change made, then we're out of, yes. - Right, I'm hearing that somehow someone assumed that our finance folks were directed to do something around Amazon purchases. - No, they won't. - They were not? Thank you. - Yeah. - Yes. - And I believe the finding there was already a plan about a corrective action on that, which was not related to the Amazon purchases. It was related to another purchase not related to Amazon.
- I understand that. But it's your overall controls over disbursements. And I think that that's one of the issues that we have with having, what is it, 14 findings? - No, point of order. We're talking about the consent agenda right now. - Yes. - I was just responding. - Point of order, then. - So, we're here, the agenda before us is to accept as presented except for 5A. We will add the Chair was out of order for 5B. And 5G, are there any changes that you are proposing?
- 5G just had a question. I'm not proposing a change. I mean, on page 74, 5G, let me see if I can find it here. It's the quarterly report page 74. So, when you look for year ended 2025/2026, we have year-to-date numbers and the revenue over/under expenses is over a million dollars. So, we have really kind of a net loss that we're showing.
Can you explain that? - Yep. So, schools operate on a modified accrual basis and so we don't prepare full accrual financials on a monthly or quarterly basis. And so this would be reflecting basically a cash basis and it really just solidifies the importance of having a fund balance so that it can help as we have, it can help with cash flow. So, our revenue comes to us, it's metered from the State of Minnesota. The largest part of our funding is our state aid.
And that comes to us based on the formula that the state has. And so this is not uncommon at this time of year for this to be a negative at this time. You can see two years ago, we were in a similar situation. - So, it's really a timing. - Correct. - Okay. Thank you. That's all I had. - Okay, so, any other discussion? Okay, hearing none before us, we've heard the motion to approve as presented except for 5A. We'll mark that the Chair was out of order when he pulled.
This will be a voice vote. - It's roll call. - You want roll call? - Yeah, because there's financials. - Okay, so this will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels, aye. - Okay, the motion carries. Okay. Let's see where I'm at. Sorry. It's now time for our public forum portion of the meeting. Public forum allows up to three minutes per speaker. With one minute remaining, you'll see the orange card, and then with 30 seconds you'll see the yellow card.
At the end of three minutes, we'll let you know that your time is up. School district policy and date of privacy laws preclude personal and student matters or data from being discussed publicly. Speakers may not make allegations, charges, or complaints against any student or employee. Speakers will be called up to the microphone. Only those who have been recognized will be allowed to speak. Members of the audience may not engage in conduct that disrupts any part of this process. We are now gonna move on to item C1,
Superintendent's report. Dr. Kazmierczak. - All right, thank you. Chair Arcand, members of the board. I'm excited to meet with families and community members later this month for Coffee with Dr. K. We're switching up our usual location for this particular day and we'll meet at the White Bear Lake Area High School from 12:00 to 1:00 on Wednesday, February 25th. Attendees should park in the front lot on the division side of the building and enter through the main entrance to complete our guest check-in process. Please be sure to have your ID available when you join us. Find more information and pre-register if you wish
in a news post on our website. White Bear Lake Area High School is currently accepting nominations for the Alumni Wall of Fame Class of 2026. This honor awards graduates who have demonstrated excellence in their careers or community service. Ideal candidates are lifelong learners and positive role models who inspire others to reach their full potential. Find complete nomination information on the high school Wall of Fame webpage. The nomination window closes May 15th, 2026. And special Black History Month community events
are happening at two of our buildings in the coming weeks. On February 18th, the White Bear Lake Black Student Union will present Black History Month Showcase: African Americans & The Arts at the high school's Performing Arts Center. Admission is free and doors open at 6:15. The show starts at 6:30. And on February 26th, the Mariner Middle School students will present Mariner Black History Showcase from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at the Mariner Middle School Theater. Admission is free for this event as well. And just a few notes on our music department.
I recently enjoyed the Suburban East Conference performances by our choir, band and orchestra students. Congratulations on your outstanding performances. And looking ahead, White Bear Lake Area High School's Wind Ensemble and Mariner's Choir will perform a concert at 7:00 PM on Friday, February 13th, so, this week, at the high school's Performing Arts Center in celebration of being selected to perform at this year's Minnesota Music Educators Association conference. And that, however, was unfortunately canceled. So, we're still gonna allow them an opportunity to perform.
So, please join us as we celebrate our student musicians. Then finally, the 44th Annual Jazz Night Club will be held on Saturday, February 21st in the high school Student Union. Dinner tickets must be purchased by tomorrow, February 10th, via the Hudl app, which can be found linked on the activity's website. Tickets for the dance only are also available on Hudl or may be purchased at the door the night of the event. This is always a terrific night to enjoy live music while supporting our talented students. - Thank you. - Thank you. - [Arcand] I just wanna check,
is there anything our student liaison wanted to share? Anything exciting happening? I'm sorry to put you on the spot, I just wanna make sure you can be heard. - Not really. - Okay. (audience laughing) Well, thank you for coming tonight. We always look forward to hearing from you. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and move on to discussion items. We're gonna go to D1, overview of the revised fiscal year 25-26 budget and projected fiscal year 26-27. Mr. Wald and Ms. Johnson. Welcome and thank you. - Good evening Chair Arcand, members of the board,
Dr. Kazmierczak, our student representative, Mr. Reese. Good to see you tonight. Each year, when we bring the budgets to the board, we share this budget cycle and it shows the kind of cyclical nature of presenting a budget. And you can see there's many times throughout the year where we present. We have budget touch points we present to the school board. The revised budget we are presenting tonight was first brought to the board a year ago as the projected 25-26 budget.
At that time, the board approved the revised 24-25 budget and the projected 25-26 budget. In May, we brought that projected budget, adjusted a little bit as we had more information. We brought that to the May work session for discussion and then to the June board meeting for approval. Since that time, we completed our 24-25 financials, developed a revised 25-26 budget, as well as a projected 26-27 budget.
Those two budgets are before you tonight. We built projected and preliminary budgets for the school year based on trends and projections based on the information we have at the time, the nature of this industry to the best of our ability. We educate every student who comes before us, whether we plan for them to come before us or not. That is our moral obligation, but also our legal mandate. So, we start this year with a budget based on assumptions and projections and revise that budget mid-year
as we have more information. Okay, next one. You've seen this slide before. It tracks the state general education formula, the primary funding source for public schools, and illustrates one of the greatest challenges we have in public education. If you look at the bottom left of that chart in 2002-2003 school year, you can see the general education formula allowance from the state at $4,966 per student.
If you follow the blue line, you can see what that general education per-pupil formula would be if it had only kept pace with the rate of inflation. It would be at $8,901, which would ensure approximately the same buying power today that we had in 2003. The orange line represents actual funding on the student formula from 2003 to current, and that provides for a per-pupil funding level of $7,481. That's a delta of $1,420 per student, or 19% if the state formula would have been adjusted
for inflation. For the White Bear Lake schools, that gap represents over $13 million. Inflation's hit our organization like it has every other organization and our families. We're paying more for labor, utilities, insurance, supplies. So, we definitely feel that impact as a public school, as do public schools across the state. Ultimately, this gap has forced public schools to rely on local operating levy to fill the funding gap. - Andi? - Okay. Each year, throughout the fall and winter,
we conduct a comprehensive review of our financial landscape. By incorporating known changes in realtime data, we arrive at the revised budget that you see before you included in the packet. So, on this slide I've highlighted the primary adjustments and I'll move to the next to walk through some of the main adjustments to the budget this year. On the revenue side, we've tightened up the budgets in those areas where we've outperformed over the last couple of years. So, that includes items like student activity fees, facility rentals, gate receipts, and miscellaneous grants.
We've also received two grants from the state that are reflected in the budget, the Afterschool Community Learning grant. So that provides enrichment opportunities to four of our elementary schools. And then the Grow Your Own grant, which provides funds to allow us to enhance our education pathway at the high school to encourage students to enter the education profession. Our state special education aid is based on our prior year expenses. So this year's revenue has been updated to reflect our actual allocation. And then on the federal revenue, you see a slight increase to reflect some of the positions
that were added this year using federal funds. On the expenditure side, the most significant increase is tied to substantial rise in special education enrollment. When students enroll in White Bear Lake Area Schools, we wrap around them and provide the services that they need and we're happy to do so. This year, meeting those needs meant adding three cluster programs, which not only require teachers and paraprofessionals, but also related service providers as well. These programs are costly, which is reflected in the budget, but much more cost effective than if students are placed
in an intermediate district or other outside program. Those programs can cost sometimes 50% or 100% more than if we provide those services in-house. So, in the case of special education this year, you'll seen an increase of about $2.7 million and a good portion of that comes back to us as special education aid in the following school year. And you see that reflected as well in the projected budget. This really speaks to the importance of having a healthy fund balance so we can weather that one-time expense that's then made up as revenue in the following school year. Now, we're also seeing an uptick
in transportation expenditures. This trend emerged during our 24-25 audit and it's carried forward into this school year. To address this, we are currently partnering with our transportation department and an outside consultant to perform a deep dive into our audit of routing. Our goal is to maximize efficiency and find opportunities for cost savings without impacting service. So, what does this all mean? Currently, our budget projects a fund balance of about $9.7 million. We're about 6.6% of total expenses.
So as you know, our board policy requires maintaining an 8% fund balance. And so we're taking proactive steps to bridge this gap. We're currently developing a plan to implement approximately $1 million of budget adjustments for the upcoming school year. So, this targeted approach is designed to restore our fund balance to the 8% minimum, to the minimum by the 27-28 school year, which will ensure financial stability for the school district. Also reflected in the revised budget are our nutrition services fund balance,
our community services fund, and then our debt service fund. So in the case of nutritional services and community services, they were able to look at their operations and each of those are projected to outperform what their initial preliminary projections were. So, you can see that the nutrition services fund is projected to be at about 29% fund balance for this year. And then community service is just about out of their deficit that was reflected from COVID at -0.2%. So, we think they'll probably outperform that this year. And then the debt service fund, if you remember,
that's where we pay all of our debt payments, which is kind of like our mortgage for a school district. There's no changes in that fund, so, and that's driven by our debt schedule. MDE, the Department of Education, does all of that calculation for us. So, that puts us at 19.6% there. Any questions? - I just have one I'm gonna ask before I open it up. In the community service fund, they took a hit a few years ago during COVID. We knew that, and they've been working their way back. - [Johnson] Yeah, yeah.
- You could see how they're rebuilding? - Correct. Yeah. - Other questions? Mr. Skaar? Well, you probably already know which what I'm gonna ask regarding that general education formula allowance slide, if you could get to that. So, one of the things that you explained, but it's not on this slide, I think would be helpful, because I think when I look at this, and I know I'm probably beating a dead horse on this thing, there's no, it's kind of stale. There's no call to action.
There's no description of the underlying issue here, what you're getting at. So, I thought the things that you said that aren't on the slide could be captured, which I think would provide more meaningful input for stakeholders to understand. So, something like this, state funding has, and I just wrote this, state funding, based on what you were saying, state funding has not kept pace with inflation or with mandates imposed on the district.
To compensate for the lack of funding, the school district has had to make difficult decisions and choices in the past in its budget, including raising taxes to make up for the lack of funding provided by the state. I don't know, I just think that that's more clear and it could maybe foster some call to action so that we can get some traction on this. So, I would ask you to consider that. - [Arcand] Okay. Appreciate that input. - I have another question. - Go ahead.
- But if somebody else does, they can go ahead. - [Arcand] Go ahead Mr. Skaar. You've got the floor. - Really? Now I've gotta go find the slide. Hey so you know, one of the things, so when I look at, I think it's page 82, where it shows that we're gonna have a deficit or a deficiency of, what is it, $4.6 million roughly? - [Johnson] Correct. - So, and, so we're gonna have to take, we're gonna have to compensate for that through other funds to make up for that, right?
So, we're gonna be, in essence, we're gonna have deficit spending in the school district. Is that true? - For this school year. Correct, yep. - It is? You don't agree with that? - Well, in as much as we have a fund balance for these situations, right? And it's because the funding is based on the expenses when it comes to special ed and transportation, and that funding lags. So, this is not an uncommon situation for a school district
to have that situation where the revenue comes late. And so you're working a year behind. And so we keep a fund balance for that purpose. - Just one last thing, and I don't know if we've, maybe this is something that the board needs to think about, too, because, you know, I'm still concerned with the projection that we had an enrollment in that shortfall. So, we've built an infrastructure in this district around close to 11,000 students. We're at, what, about 8,200?
Something like that? - 8,300. Yep. - 8,300? Okay, well good. What's the long term impact financially for that 20% difference? I mean, that's gonna cost us. That's real money because funding is based on per student at the state level, or per pupil, correct? What's that impact gonna look like? And are we in for, you know, I just worry that we're gonna be in for a surprise down the road when we have an infrastructure designed
around 11,000 students, but we only have 8,300. What is that gonna do? - You don't have to answer that. But I think, as a board, we need to understand what that impact is gonna be in that shortfall in enrollment. How serious it is, should we start doing some planning around it, those types of things. Do we need to come up with a marketing program to bring kids in? You know, a brand strategy for White Bear Lake schools? Which I think would be helpful, too.
Just kind of get the board to just brainstorm, hey, what can we do to bring kids in and what can we do to lessen the potential financial impact for this, if there is one? And I suspect that there would be. Thank you. - [Arcand] All right. Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, you have projections on enrollment. Do you adjust based on actuals? - Yep. Every year. - Thank you. - Couple times. Yeah. - Thank you.
- [Arcand] Other questions? Yes, Ms. Thompson. - Well, I can't find it, but I was hoping to find the first time I saw Mr. Wald's, the slide where you show us, you know, if inflation had kept up with where we were. Because now in this one, it says the difference of 19%. I'm trying to find it. Sorry, I had it too small so my eyes couldn't see it. But, I feel like when I started on the board in 2020, we were maybe at 11%. Now we're at 19%. So, if we wanna talk about action
and what we need to do, then our community needs to advocate at the legislative level for public schools to be fully funded. - [Wald] I support that. - I just have a comment. - Go ahead. - When we talk about the infrastructure and that we were preparing for, say, 10,000 students, we have 8,300, we prepared the physical part of the buildings. I mean, we built out the high school and built a new elementary and did some other things.
But we haven't hired people and hired teachers and people like that. When you talk about infrastructure, when Dan was talking about, we're really talking about the buildings that we use the bond for. And when we're talking about infrastructure, if we have more students, then our budget would change because we'd hire people that are part of that infrastructure, too. So, you know, having more space that we're not using right now, but potentially may is probably a positive thing because we know there's gonna be housing starts up in Hugo,
like many, right? I mean, I've heard there's gonna be hundreds of housing starts. Hopefully that'll bring some students to our district. - Yeah, you're right in that as enrollment increases, there's associated expenses that go with it. It's more kids, more classrooms, more teachers. - Right. - Yeah, for sure. - And again, we can't do anything to move us seniors out of our houses to make room for those young families that we talked about last time. And I think we do brand our district and we do a lot of things to promote our district
to include new students. - Well, some of us have reached that senior status, and I'm not fully behind on moving out of my house, but I do have a few grandchildren on the way that would be filling our schools. So, I'm doing my part that way. - That's perfect. - Yeah. - Other questions? I just wanna ask this because I don't know if you can answer it. We built these buildings. Do we have rooms that are sitting empty not being used? Do we have rooms that are only half-filled?
We're using all the facilities? - [Wald] Yeah, we're using all the facilities. - So it's not like we've got a wing over there at the high school just sitting empty. - Correct. - Okay. - But we do have more capacity. - [Arcand] Yeah. And the one thing we do know is that enrollment has ebbed and flowed year to year. So, one year can be up, the next year can be down. I think we talked about, was it sixth grade up? And then they moved on and now it's down. So it just depends on the year, too? - Correct. - Okay.
Yes. Mr. Skaar. - I would just caution the board as well as the staff not to get too comfortable with rationalizing this. Because I think it's a bigger issue with this miss, because you've got two types of costs, well, really three, but you have fixed costs, variable costs, and semi-variable costs. So, we have a large fixed cost now that we are not leveraging with 11,000 students. We have a fixed cost that we're leveraging across a smaller population.
So, you know, we can feel good, and we can, you know, people are good at rationalizing things, but I think we need to keep an eye on the future to make sure that we're tracking this and we're ready. - Yeah, I agree. - Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, I just wanna repeat again, you adjust the enrollment multiple times a year, correct? - [Johnson] Correct. - We have a lot of homes being built. We have a marketing campaign and program. I just wanna reiterate that we start with this and then we hear things and then we come back to the same.
Let's try and insinuate that folks aren't doing their job. I know how hard those in the district are working. I appreciate it. And then to come each week, it's hard to watch people try and insinuate that. So, I have apologized before in the past. I apologize now. Thank you for your work. - Thank you, Chris. - Scott? - Yes, sir. I wasn't insinuating anything like that. So, I'm not insinuating people aren't doing their job,
but you know, if you keep doing one thing and you keep getting the same result, I mean, you know, maybe we should look at doing things differently and just brainstorm. - I hear what you're saying and I have a question about, we're talking the board doing a marketing plan, I'm not sure how that falls, you kind of talked about that. I don't if that falls under governance. Do you have one more thing or are we good to call it? - Call it, please. - Okay. Thank you. We're gonna move on.
Okay, we're gonna move on to discussion item D2, first reading of school board policies 101 101.1 103 203.6. The policies listed will be on the March 2nd, 2026 following agenda for the second reading. If there's a question, please reference the page and policy number. We usually take these as an entire group and so we're gonna open it up for questions. Any questions about these policies? - [Skaar] Chair? Well, you already heard my view on this. Policy 203.6. - Do you have a page on here?
- [Skaar] Yeah, I can get the page. - 96. - What is it? - 96. - All right, thank you. 96. And the changes that are made really are draconian when you look at the purpose of Robert's Rules, which is to make sure that everybody gets heard. And I won't reiterate my point from my opening comments, but I've never seen this. I don't think there's any districts in the State of Minnesota, and I would wager in the Midwest, that have something this draconian. So, I would suggest that whoever, the policy committee,
the policy committee that presented this, go back to the drawing board and really think about, you know, maybe you're using a legal framework, not an ethical framework to make decisions like that. Maybe we should do an ethical framework to make decisions on policy changes like that. - But it looks to me like a motion could be made to remove it. Is that correct? - That's what I see. - Yes. - You can make a motion - I'd make a motion. - A motion to remove must be made and seconded.
And a majority vote to remove it. And so there is to say that you can't pull something off the consent agenda is not totally true, you can, I think I'm just gonna say from where I'm sitting. Also, the fact is that if you do have questions, you can always contact the Superintendent and ask your questions to get your information that way. So, you're not barred from finding the information. When you get information, you can always contact the Superintendent and ask those questions, and then they can get that information to you.
So there are other ways, too. But this, it doesn't prevent things from being pulled. It just puts in a procedure to work through. Any other discussion? Yes. - It's a much higher threshold that I've never seen. - Okay. Yes, Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, agenda items are placed on the agenda by working with you, is that correct? - Yes. - You create the agenda items. So, if we want agenda items, a board member would work with you? - Yeah, they could ask if I could put them in. We can look and see.
Or if they don't get them in, and then you can also make that motion to- - So, when we have board members that are trying to pull things off the consent agenda, it appears from my perspective that people are trying to create their own agenda items. And that's not our role. Our role is not, I mean, without working through you, right? So, we can put these agenda items on there, but pulling them off in the middle of the meeting for the sake of disrupting the meeting, it feels like, when I hear it's not ethical or these are draconian ways,
this is, we are trying to remain, keep order in our meetings and be efficient. Questions can be answered, things can be pulled off and on, agenda items can be added. But one board member, since I've been on this board, does not add agenda items each week. - Yep, and it's important, the question is, is the information, does the board member want information? Because there, again, I'm gonna go back, you can contact the Superintendent and they can get you the information.
Mr. Skaar. - Well, I've been, I lost track, but I was keeping track, I'm probably 0 for 20 on making any motions and not getting a second. I have requested numerous times through informal means to get things through emails to say I'd like to talk about this on the agenda. That, I've probably made a dozen requests like that. None of them ever honored, ever. So, none of my motions.
So, I have a public responsibility for the folks that voted for me to talk about these items. And I will. And I'll find a way to talk about them. Thank you. - Ms. Daniels. - I think you mentioned earlier, and this is what I do when I have questions and I have, whether it's financial or a policy or agenda, I do contact people in the district prior to the meeting to get my questions answered.
So, and in the past, when I've found something in the agenda that either wasn't correct or I had a question about, things were revised if they weren't correct. Whether it was through the Chair or the Superintendent. Most of the time it was more like I was just seeking information and clarification for myself. And what was on the agenda was fine. And I agree with Chris, taking things off and having your own agenda item, it just doesn't seem right.
It doesn't seem like it's a good use of our time. There are ways to get things on the agenda, and perhaps some of the things you've introduced haven't been agreed on by, you know, maybe they just weren't appropriate agenda items. I don't know how many times, who you've emailed or tried to do those things. I don't know. - Mr. Chair? - Yes. - So, and I said this at a previous meeting, this is my ninth year on the board. And I think I agree with Ms. Streiff Oji,
there's a lot of ways to get information, and sometimes it's talking to the Superintendent, sometimes it's reaching out to cabinet members. It's also building relationships with your fellow board members and reaching out to fellow board members. If I have questions about things that are happening in 916, I can reach out to Ms. Daniels because she's been on the 916 board. If I have questions, I can reach out to Dr. Arcand about things happening from the Chair's perspective. Our responsibility is not just to the people who voted for us, but to every single person in this district
and to every single student in this district. So, I do take exception to focusing on the people that voted for us. And I do believe that there are ways that we can work together. We have a board training coming up in a couple of weeks, which is really important. But I think that there is a level of trust that we need to build here and we need to do our own internal work. We have not always agreed.
And I have had some really difficult and painful conversations with board members in the past and I have been on the losing side of votes a number of times. But ultimately our job is to run an efficient and orderly meeting and to be beholden to every person in this district. So, I think that we can find a way as a board to work together and to support one another. As long as we're not gathering four people or more, we don't have a quorum. But we can learn from one another. - Thank you, Jessica.
(audience applauding) - We can't. Sorry. (gavel knocking) - Please. All right. Yes, Ms. Thompson. - I would just like to add the point that we are in a role of governance, which board member Ellison clearly stated at our board meeting in January what our roles are. And I would just state that if something- (Ellison whispering) No, we can actually, I learned that. - Sorry. - Sorry. Because we're a medium-sized board. I'm learning and I'm still learning, also.
I would just like to say that, had a board member brought something out of a consent agenda that showed a reason for us to be discussing it as if there was a need for it because the district wasn't doing their job or was mismanaging funds or was doing any of the things that have been questioned so far by board member Skaar, I would be very supportive of having those conversations up here as a board. So far that has not happened. There has been no presented information
that has validated any of the things that we're continually pulling and discussing. And Amazon purchases, combining them all together in one, I don't want the Amazon purchases combined together as one Amazon purchase because that's not how they're made. So, they need to be broken down in the way that they're broken down. Does it add an extensive amount of pages to our board packet? Yes. To me that's transparency and that's what I like to see. I will say that I am very happy there is a little description next to those purchases now,
Mr. Skaar, so I am thankful for that. It gives me a little more information about what those purchases are entailing. But there has been no reason to continually do that other than to cause us to not run an efficient meeting. And our job is to run an efficient meeting so that the district can do their job to educate our students and to pay our staff and to make sure that our community has amazing buildings for their students to learn in, for our community members to participate
in other activities in. And I just haven't, I mean, I'm sorry, but to me this helps us ensure that you still have the ability to pull an item off of the consent agenda, but it needs to have support of other members who agree that what we're talking about is needed to be discussed in a school board meeting. - Okay, well, I would just, thank you, respond to that by saying there is a reason to pull off those items off the consent agenda. We've had 14 material weaknesses
and violations of state or federal laws. That's a high number. Even our auditor said that. We enrolled a 22-year-old and it was found out by a student. That's an oversight problem. We have a safety record that is 20% worse than a similarly situated- - [Daniels] Point of order. I just think we're way off topic here and grandstanding- - [Skaar] No, no, no, we're not off topic. You said I don't have the justification to it. I'm looking at the internal controls compliance environment.
- You're dragging in things that are not even pertinent to internal- - They're absolutely pertinent to oversight. Sorry. Absolutely pertinent. - Okay, are we through? All right, well, these will come back at our next meeting for approval. I would like to move on now to operational item E1, action on annual resolution directing the administration to make recommendations for reduction in programs, positions, and reasons. Mr. Mons, welcome. - Thank you very much.
Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. This is an annual resolution that allows us to go about the work that we need to do in the case that we need to make budgetary reductions that will impact positions in the district. Regardless of the district's financial position, this is something that we bring every year because even items or even concepts, just like student choice, for instance, in the classes they wish to take, can result in positions getting reduced.
So, this is something, like I said, that we bring every year. This is part of our standard procedure. And so with that I ask for approval. - [Arcand] Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - Streiff Oji. Second? - Second. - Second by Thompson. Any discussion? This will be a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Okay. Motion passes. - Thank you. - All right. Next we have operational item E2,
action on the bid for the Sunrise roof replacement project. Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair Arcand, members of the board. In your board materials tonight is the recommendation letter and bid summary for the Sunrise Park roof replacement project. This project was included in the LTFM plan approved by the board this past July. The project includes replacement of 66,400 square feet of total roof area. You can see in the images here the areas that'll be targeted for, or that will be replaced.
There's actually additional areas that need to be replaced, but that's the maximum amount of roofing that can be completed during the summer construction season. So, a few other areas will be in the future. The areas that are outlined in red are the 33 to 35-year-old roof. And so it's time for them to be replaced. The bid Roof Spec Inc. serves as the engineers for the project and they recommend we award the bid
to the low bidder, McPhillips Brothers Roofing Company in North St. Paul with the bid of $1,181,000. Includes a 20-year warranty and construction will begin as soon as weather permits and will be targeting completion by August 21st. The recommendation is that the board accept the overall bid for the Sunrise Park roof replacement project as presented to McPhillips Brothers Roofing Company in the amount of $1,181,000.
- [Arcand] Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - By Daniels. A second? - Second. - Second by Ellison. Discussion? Mr. Skaar. - Tim, were these ever included in the construction budget, the large construction budget? The referendum? - No, no, this is part of the LTF, part of the deferred maintenance plan that, you know, that we're continuing to chip away at. - Got it. Thanks. - Yeah. - [Arcand] Mr. Wald, how does the bid fall with what we expected to get, the budget? - The bid was exceptional from what we expected.
We expected it to be in the $2 million range. And bidding has become very competitive, at least in the short-term. So, we've benefited from a really low bid on this project. - [Arcand] Other questions? - In fact, we were $99,000 lower than the next lowest bid, and $454,600 lower than the highest bid on the project. - [Arcand] Okay. Do you have a question, Ms. Thompson? - Well, not a question, but just a comment on how old the sections are that they're replacing. I mean, 33 to 35 years of, that's,
hopefully we'll get the same amount before we have to replace them again, but. - Yeah, you can see the dark areas on there. It's looking pretty worn in. - Okay. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the contract? Any other questions? Yes? Do you want me to read or something? - No, I'm- - Okay. All right, so this is gonna be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. All right, next we have on operations E3,
action on the bid for Mariner Middle School roof replacement project. Once again, Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair Arcand. In your board materials today is the recommendation letter and bid summary for the Mariner Middle School roof replacement project. This project was also included in the LTFM plan approved by the board this past July. This is a little bit smaller project, includes 38,900 square feet of roofing, as well as replacement of the fascia along a portion of the east and north sides of the building. Again, Roof Spec Inc. is serving
as the engineer for the project. They've reviewed each of the four bids. It's their recommendation that we accept the low bid from Central Roofing in the amount of $1,447,370. Here, the next lowest bid was $107,350 higher, and the highest bid was $197,630 higher. - [Arcand] All right. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - By Thompson. Second? - Second. - Second by Ellison. Discussion? I assume we did well on this bid, also? - Yeah, not as well. This was a little more complicated project.
It's noted on the slide that they have to bring this one down to the concrete. At Sunrise, there's a metal roof that they can, they don't have to take an entire roof off. At Mariner, they have to take the entire roof off. So, it's a much more labor intensive job. - [Arcand] Is this the first time they've redone that roof or that portion? It was built in '72. - It might be that portion of the building. - Okay. - '72? - Mr. Scott? - I don't think so. - Tim, is there asbestos risk on these at all?
Do we have any asbestos risk in the district or has it been pretty much encapsulated? - Yeah, we've pretty well handled all of the asbestos issues. But we always test before, as part of our process, always test for asbestos before we do renovation or removal projects to make sure that we're- - In all of our contracts, we take responsibility for the asbestos and then we have a removal company that can come out, remove it, encapsulate it, or whatever? - Yeah, that's correct. - Thank you. - Safely remove it, yeah. - Okay, good? Any other questions?
Okay, we have the motion to accept this bid. This will be a roll call vote. Will the court please call the roll? - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. Okay, we're now down to operation item E4, action on trail and parking lot easement with the city of Vadnais Heights. - Yeah. Thank you, Chair Arcand. So this project, or this item, is related to a proposal from the City of Vadnais Heights
for a property exchange agreement at Vadnais Heights Elementary School site. In the board packet tonight is the resolution that the board's asked to approve. The proposed agreement involves the school district granting the city a pathway or a trail easement from which they can access their sewer line. And you can see on the image, the blue part north or to the west of the school is the easement that they need from the school district. But you can see it's part of a bigger trail system
that they're able to utilize or they're looking to build in Vadnais Heights. It will create access to the utilities that they're looking for. And it also create some walkability in that neighborhood. It's not an area that is of particular use to us. You can see it butts up to the west side of the ball field, but there's ample space there for the ball field and related activities. In exchange, the city would like to grant the Outlot A Bonsell Addition to the school district
that's on the south side of Vadnais Elementary. It's kind of an awkward area that the city has owned. At one point, the school district was looking to modify that parking lot to create a safer bus pickup for special education busing and additional parking. You can see by that image that people park on the grass quite a lot there. So, that will, by acquiring that addition, it'll allow us to make some safety improvements and additional parking to that parking lot in the future.
So this is a win-win, I think, for the school district and for the city. And our recommendation is that the school board approve the resolution for an easement exchange between the city of Vadnais Heights and the White Bear Lake Area Schools as presented. - [Arcand] All right. We have that in front of us. Can we get a motion? - So moved. - By Ellison. Second? - Second. - Second by Thompson. Any further discussion? Yes. - Mr. Wald, there's no money changing hands? - No. - It's just an even swap? - Even swap. - Okay, thanks.
- Any further discussion? - Just have a quick question. did somebody have to do, if it's a like kind exchange, I'm assuming this is kind of a like kind exchange. So, is there any valuation done between the two properties, like a market valuation? - No, there's really not a market value issue because none of it is taxed. - Yeah. Okay. - Yeah. - Got it. Thank you. - It was a complicated legal maneuvering to make it happen. So, our attorneys have been working on this with the attorney for the city for several months
to get the process through. - So, hopefully they can't come back and sue us, right? You're telling us that- - We should have it pretty tight. - Okay. - Yeah. - All right. Any other questions? Okay, before us, we have a motion to approve the resolution for the easement exchange between the City of Vadnais Heights and the White Bear Lake Area Schools. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion passes. All right, now we're on to E5,
action out of official depositories for school district funds and authorized banks. Mr. Wald. - Yeah. Thank you, Chair Arcand. In January, you approved the list of authorized signers. We've had a position filled since then, so we need to approve an updated list. If you look near the bottom of your list, you'll see Seth Mader is added to the list and Seth was a controller for the school district up until a few years ago, and we were able to convince him to come back and work for the school district again.
So, we're thrilled to have him back starting tomorrow. And he will handle a lot of money transfers for us. So, we need him as an approved signer. - Okay, so the motion is to resolve the School Board of Independent School District 624 White Bear Lake. The following bank accounts are designated as official depositories. And we've added that person to this. Can I get a motion? - So moved. - By Thompson. A second? - Second. - Second by Daniels. Is there any other further discussion?
I'm just gonna say that we're happy to have him back. All right. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. We're on to E6, action on revised fiscal year 25-26 budget. Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair. Earlier this evening, we presented on the fiscal year 2025-26 revised budget,
and we recommend that the board approve the fiscal year 2025-26 revised budget as presented. - [Arcand] Okay, we have the recommendation. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - By Ellison. Second? - Second. - Second by Streiff Oji. Discussion? Any further discussion? Mr. Skaar. - Tim, can you kind of walk me through if there's, I'm trying to read this thing. I tried to read it beforehand and I can't get my screen to get bigger, but what's the gist of the deltas on this,
on your projected budget? I mean, are there any drivers or is it pretty much just minor items? - Yeah, the revenue is significantly impacted by expenses this year, so that will come into play next year. You know, we will recover, we'll make progress in the fund balance recovery next year, but we will also reduce our expenses by a million dollars. - [Skaar] Okay. Where's that reduction coming from? - Well, that will be determined. We're looking at operations first. We think within the transportation world
we're targeting some reductions. So, we'll look at transportation first and then move through other areas. - Okay. Thank you. - Yep. - [Arcand] Mr. Wald, is it correct that the last resort would be the classroom? - Yeah, you know, like Mr. Mons mentioned earlier, when we staff our elementary and secondary classrooms, we staff it, we're planning, we're moving forward with the same staffing level we have this year.
That may mean at elementary or secondary, you could have a few less teachers at one of those areas because of just based on enrollment. But we're using the same staffing formulas that we currently use. So, you might see some changes there. - [Arcand] Any other questions? Hearing none, this will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. Thank you.
Okay, we are now onto the board forums, the opportunity for board members to update the school board and the public on committee work, and engage in official capacity as a board member and create awareness of upcoming district partnership events. Are there any board members that'd like to share something? Ms. Ellison. - Just wanna confirm the music events coming up. The event this Friday, the students were really excited to be able to compete in this opportunity, and the fact that it was canceled,
I hope we can get a big crowd there at the PAC at the high school this Friday to support our musicians. And then the jazz night, I don't know if Dr. Kazmierczak mentioned this, but there's also dance lessons. So, you can go and listen to jazz and eat good food and take swing dance lessons. So it's really a wonderful opportunity. And I also just wanted to give a shout out to just this community in general. I'm so glad to be a part of it. Thank you for all that you're doing for each other. - [Arcand] Thank you. Anybody else?
Yes, Ms. Thompson. - I had the great pleasure of being appointed to the 916 board, and I'm very grateful for that opportunity. My grandmother was a social worker there, so it's been something I have wanted to be a part of ever since I've been on the board. So, very grateful to be a part of that. And they have a bingo night coming up that's gonna be a fundraiser, and I've been to some bingo nights when I was a PTA member and people love bingo. So, if you're into bingo, it's $20 a card you get,
or $20 for five cards. It's gonna be on Thursday, February 26th. Doors open at 5:30, bingo starts at 6:00, and it's at the Quora Education Center. If you need that information, I have an email, you could reach out to me, and I can share that with you, or I'm sure someone else in the district could, too. (mumbling) - [Daniels] It's Rice and B2. County Road. - And then also just wanted to bring up, I'm also the liaison for our American Indian Parent Advisory Committee and just wanted to share that this year our students
actually got to take part in a buffalo harvest, and they had a field trip where they went to South Dakota and they had a successful hunt. They learned how to offer tobacco for the buffalo for the sacrifice. It makes for them to be able to share in all of the gifts that the buffalo gives to them. And then it also helps to just guide the hunters appropriately as they're hunting for the buffalo. And just wanted to share that. It's been a long time coming, so I was very happy to hear
that our students finally got to partake in that. - [Arcand] All right. Yes, go ahead. - I just wanna thank staff and administration and community members, similar to what Jessica said, for wrapping themselves around our neighbors and friends and people in our community at this time. So, I've seen a lot of wonderful things happening in this community and I really am grateful to each one of you. - All right. Mr. Skaar? - Yeah, I just wanted to give a brief overview on something that I attended at the MSBA Leadership week. On January 14th, I attended a workshop
called From Conflicts to Conversations. The presenter, Matt Lehrman, does these workshops all over the country. He specializes working with school boards and local governments to help them be more effective in their role. And some of the takeaways from the workshops were recognizing that disagreements isn't failure, it's evidence that people care. And that task leadership is to turn that energy into connection, learning and progress. Boards are problem solvers. Boards find ways to create community engagement.
So, then I thought about this, and I don't know if you've heard of the Lighthouse Project, has anybody heard of that? But I thought that was pretty interesting. And what they did with the Lighthouse Project is they tried to connect board engagement on student success with actual classroom success. And so they asked two questions, are boards in high-achieving districts different from those in low-achieving districts? If so, how can all school boards become more like districts with high achievements? In other words, these two are tied together,
so, they're directly correlated. And this study was done in two phases. The second phase was looking for linkages between student success governance policies and board relationships with the superintendent. So, I'll just give you a description. I didn't write this, so don't shoot, you know, don't take it out on me. But they talked about an engaged culture around student success states, board and superintendent team-assumed leadership responsibilities with a focus on systematic improvement. The board members in the pilot school districts
were not passive rubber stamps of the superintendent's recommendations, but they were also not acting as if they were professional educators either. At the same time, superintendents did not view their boards as a necessary evil that must be tolerated or merely managed in order to keep them from causing harm. Board and superintendents relied upon positive, trusting relationships to enable them to play strong, interdependent leadership roles to examine and challenge each other's views,
to study data, confront existing realities, and to ask probing questions and to scrutinize each other's performance in ways that strengthened and mobilize the team. So I was thinking, you know, does our board have those relationships? And if not, why not? And then if we can, we ought to figure out a way to find it, and plot a path towards that. And I think boards can be much more effective
without constraints, you know, on governance policies that reduce free speech and other things. And I won't belabor that. So, I would ask the fellow board members, what kind of board do you want to be? We want to be problem solvers. I think we all would agree on that. And boards can't solve problems without dialogue. And you know, democracy runs on dialogue. So, I think we should find ways that we can talk to each other more and we can talk to the public more. Thank you. - Okay.
- [Thompson] Sorry, I know, I just thought of one more. - [Arcand] No. - It's an important event. - Okay, go ahead. - Okay, I'm sorry. I just, I'm not on the committee and I forgot the date, but I wanted to mention the White Bear Lake Area Educators Breakfast is coming up Friday morning at the high school. It's a great event. They raise money. They do wonderful things for our school and just wanted to mention that. - Thank you. Okay. - Sorry. - No, I just have a few things. So, I'm gonna go through them.
First off, last week was National School Counselor Week, I believe it was last week. And I just wanna give a shout out to all our school counselors as they help our students navigate the educational system from kindergarten all the way up through 12th grade and on. Our counselors do a fantastic job supporting our students and helping them with so many needs. We could not run our buildings without our school counselors. So, that was last week. I also wanna mention that February is also CTE Month. So, I gonna give a shout out
to all our valuable CTE teachers. That would be our business teachers, our family consumer science teachers, and our trades and industry, our tech ed teachers, they all provide skills that our students can use in the marketplace when they go out. So, when you see your CTE teachers, give them a high five in tell them thank you. Also want to talk about this Thursday, the Ramsey County League of Local Government is having their legislator discussion from 5:00 to 7:00. It's actually gonna be a meet and greet.
It'll be in Maplewood Public Library this Thursday. If you're interested, I can let you know how you can register, but it's a good chance to sit down with some local legislatures. And they come tell you what their plans are for the year and you can start making that connection. I have that, and the only other thing I'm gonna say is, for this Friday, for the music at 7:00, I told my wife I'd take her out on a date and I told her I'd take her to a show, and so we're going there. I think she'll really enjoy it. So, please, you know, you've got Valentine's Day coming.
Take your significant other, take them to dinner, and take them to the music. So, that would be great. - Did you tell her you paid? - I told her I paid the admission. It's free, right? - It's free. - Thank you. Any other things? All right, we've come to the portion of the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - [Ellison] Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Ellison. Do we get a second? - Second. - Second by Thompson. This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Board] Aye. Opposed, same sign. We are now adjourned. I'd like to thank everybody for coming tonight. We appreciate you coming to our meetings.