##VIDEO ID:HQ1rFDpzYc8## call this meeting of the school board Independent School District 624 to order I'll ask the clerk to call the role scar here ski here Thompson here AR herey here Daniels here all right our first item tonight is B1 Mr wall the financial fiscal year 20232 24 annual audit report thank you uh annually the district contracts with our public auditing firm of Malloy montagu Kowski and rosovich and Company mmkr to complete the annual audit for the school district finances for the previous year throughout the spring well throughout mostly the summer and fall Auditors from mmkr work with the accounting staff uh wiper Lake finance department um and the our director Finance Andy Johnson leads that team working with the Auditors to prepare for the annual audit uh tonight we have uh Jim mikon who is a managing partner at mmkr and uh he's been with us for a lot of years in White Bear Lake and uh welcome you Jim to another school board meeting all right thank you Jim will will present the annual audit report all right well thanks for the introduction superintendent members of the board my name is Jim mikon um I'm going to going to jump right into uh some clarifying items of that presentation U some of you are aware of this but as of January 1st which is a 20 days ago my firm U of mmk did actually merge with a different firm uh we a firm called lb Carlson as of that dat um all of my uh Auditors and partners are moved to that particular uh firm so uh uh we don't anticipate any changes in the way we operate the way we do things but it is important to understand I'm I'm representing mmkr cuz did Issue this report under mmkr even though I'm really lb Carlson at this particular moment um I think here we go my good to go there it is uh so I do have a PowerPoint presentation so I'm going to quickly uh go through the the uh PowerPoint presentation I'll probably reference some of the other documentation that I have here uh so it is a a requirement uh as mentioned that the district have an annual financial statement prepared that particular annual Financial St stat requirement uh the district takes to a um uh another level and prepares what's called an annual comprehensive financial report and Acer which is submitted for recognition by certificate of review programs uh that particular document if you haven't looked at it is uh about 152 pages long there's a lot of data in that particular uh report that uh really uh is prepared by the district and and is does it recognized for certificate of excellence exence in financial reporting uh as part of the particular audit we do Implement uh any sort of new standards that are required to be implemented this particular year we did Implement a standard on group Capital assets which I'll touch on a little bit during a later presentation um and then uh uh um um so so purposes of of this audit we are also required to as part of our particular requirements audit the internal controls over the District's financial reporting um that would include uh many various aspects but mostly things like payroll and cash receipts cash dispersements those types of things um okay uh so my audit results are also summarized in a document that's uh uh called the management report and I believe the document was provided to you uh that particular management report does go through the audit results for purposes of um uh uh really purposes of reviewing a much less lengthy document and getting an idea on how the audit results went and I'm going to go through that particular document um you know not in full but in touch on the highlights as it relates to the audit so in that document I did provided a a summary of the audit results and as I mentioned U the the annual comprehensive financial report we did Issue what's called an unmodified opinion that was a clean opinion on that particular financial statement it's opinion you were looking for uh going in uh we did Implement that group audit standard as mentioned it did impact the district's Financial results in slightly uh added some Capital assets uh specifically those that were uh purchased in a group setting um uh which is what the standard required us to to implement uh I did mention the internal controls uh over financial reporting we did have one audit adjustment this year that is reported as a finding specifically related to the recording of of uh I will call it Construction in process um uh as as you all are aware there was there is a significant volume of of transactions happening in this particular environment given the amount of construction happening and the accounting specifically related to uh uh Capital asset recordkeeping and the the continuing U accounting for construction process uh was was reevaluated if you will um this year we did find some adjustments that got recorded um as part of the audit particular process I think it's important to understand that the the finding specifically relates to what I would call financial reporting finding the day-to-day aspects of payment of bills and the and the reviewing of invoices and the payment and overviewing of contracts was not the finding that we have here that was all found to be adequate and appropriate in this case it mostly if not all of it related to the accounting and the the W wrapping up of the audit in terms of how that relates to Capital assets and the recording of those um and that's a significant differentiation when I look at that particular finding uh the other results of that this particular page I did mention or previously mentioned we do audit your compliance with Minnesota laws and regulations as part of this audit is required by the opposite state auditor they provide us with a list of all the laws they want us to audit the list changes depending on their needs and and what they find at their audits that are causing findings at school districts uh we did not have any finding to report in that particular space um as part of the audit we also audit your schedule of expenditures of federal Awards what's called a sea um the district does receive a significant amount of federal Awards and as a result the federal government requires us to complete What's called the single audit the total of federal Awards this year was about 7 .6 million uh uh you can see uh we also audit your your internal controls over those particular F those particular grants uh we also audit the compliance with those particular grants which are described as major programs we don't audit every program in this in that Federal space they are there's a rotating process going on um and so depending on the major program we test the compliance of each individual major programs really on a rotating basis based on federal rules um in that particular summary of those three particular areas we we didn't have any findings to report uh continuing on uh it is important element um of a particular finding uh of an audit to follow up any prior your findings um I'll describe it this way uh uh um we are here to audit and because of that we find things you know it's a learning experience it's part of the process to learn and find things and improve on them we don't uh actually have uh everything that we found in this process some of the some of the things that we learned as part of this uh process were just communicated to staff they weren't significant enough to actually put in a report but there's a lot of things we find and ask about that are just hey maybe the best practice here is to do it this way uh but the for those findings particularly the one uh on uh construction process there is a finding written there's a corrective action plan and as a board you should be focused on that particular element of the of the finding what are we going to do about this how are we going to correct it so that the auditor doesn't have this finding again next year um so that particular finding and corrective action plan you'll see in some of the data that you've you've received we've talked about it as far as in our exit meeting about how we're going to go about approving that particular accounting so that it doesn't have happened there was some turnover in in District staff in that space during our audit year which is probably primarily the reason for some of that for that finding but that being said uh how are we going to correct it and and there is a corrective action plan so so when I look at last year there were two findings and both of those findings were eliminated the the the result that we would hope for as a board yep we wrote those find we had those findings we made a corrective action here we are presenting the next year and they've been corrected believe they're listed up there they related to Collateral on the district's uh uh bank accounts as well as advertisement for bids in one particular contract last year so I'm going to continue um in my presentation hopefully I don't go too fast which I just did there we go uh so um my management report does then go into what I would call the second part of the audit results specifically related to uh uh the district's Financial results um collectively and the report goes over almost every fund if not every fund but it really starts with some comparable data from from the state uh this particular graphical presentation which is on six page six of my report shows Statewide operating fund balances as a percentage of expenditures using MD's formula not the district's formula the MBE formula very important distinction uh you can see on that particular graph uh fund balances Statewide have been about 20% for almost a decade um that's a that's a number that has been very consistent uh um prior to the pandemic you can see that that number was very very uh solid uh until we got to the pandemic actually fund balances went up Statewide uh mostly related to changes in operations uh spending patterns were much different uh uh more funding became available for federal grants those types of things once we got post pandemic you can see in the yellow graph started to go down as Federal money became less available student uh uh student populations declined a bit and just uh the change in operations made that occur um we anticipate as I at least I do anticipate by the number of audits that I do that yellow Line's going to continue to go down when we get here next year you'll see that uh the fund balances there you can see are in red uh uh most of the uh early years relate to very very planful spending of some additional resources that came from the opep trust fund back in probably what year was it 201 14 14 yes one year off of that graph uh and since 2014 there's been a consistent spend down that is very planful um to the point where we got uh to 2019 2020 for 2024 the year that I audited you can see that there was an increase in fund balance as a percentage of expenditures uh on the Statewide level after a couple of declining years the past two years and I'll get to these more specific general fund data in a later graph uh this particular graph's on page seven of my report shows uh revenues per student uh it does show information uh for the district um uh on the right and then it shows state metro area averages as well um what that's stating there is in 2024 the district spent $ 22,26 per student excuse me they have revenue of $ 22,26 per student in that particular year um some of the things that stand out in that particular Revenue category uh there is um there was some significant increases in state funding um you can see at the state line um for both the basic formula allowance which increased this past year but also in special education formulas and special education programming shows up um you can see the impact the uh Bond issues have had on debt service fund uh showing up in that the bottom line there you can see uh The Debt Service fund revenues being increased over uh last year based on new Bond issues um uh revenues in the Food Service fund actually increased pretty significantly and most of that if not all of it relates to the additional State funding that came to you for free meals um the free meal program you can really see it showing up in that particular area lastly the federal line has been going down um most of the pandemic related funding that came out of that particular time frame has declined as you've used them and they just don't replenish um many districts are struggling with that as as federal funds have gone away some of their uh Financial uh icial impact is hitting them pretty hard um so you can see some of the trend lines there on the expenditure side you can see uh this is expenditures per student again so in total in the governmental funds of the district you're spending about 2,633 per student which is reflected in this particular graph um some of the areas that stood out you can see that regular instruction is a pretty big or large category there $6,795 in regular instruction um there was some increases in that particular category for curriculum purchases onetime curriculum purchases uh are are in that particular category special education is also increasing um due to just very continued increase cost both for salaries benefits really purchase services are also in there when you're when you're utilizing other Staffing methodologies and then lastly The Debt Service fund the bottom there um stands out in terms of the additional Debt Service uh funding excuse me expenditures that are happening for the bond referendum and the like continuing on um the general fund financial position is on page nine which is this particular page gets into um the individual by individual fund analysis uh this graph shows the general fund financial position utilizing uh cash as excuse me cash and fund bance as indication of equity position where you're standing from an equity position and then expenditures really just trying to reflect how the changing size of the operation if you're getting bigger or smaller which you're seeing a slight increase over the time frame noted but pretty pretty slight overall uh at the end of the year uh the district's uh fund balance did did uh increase about 2.6 million um that particular fund balance increase um was roughly 931000 above was projected for the year so very close to expectations um the operations know this your district is running a general fund that um is what $142 million operation in total I it's pretty sizable organization when you think about it just for that one fund uh and you came in your end of the year you came in within 90 930,000 of of what those budgeted expectations um there was a a balance there revenues were uh higher than projections as well as expenditures were higher than projection but the net was about 900,000 for the year um this particular graph which is on the next page is probably the most important part of this presentation showing some benchmarking in terms of decision making on the part of the board um the end of the year the the the district's fund balances as a percentage of expenditures using the district's calculations ended the year at 7.5% it was an increase uh of five from 5.9% the year before why is that important well the district does have a fund balance policy in place the board has adopted such a policy uh the policy strives to maintain a minimum unassigned fund balance of 8% um and that's important that's a very important Benchmark that here I see some shaking of heads uh um that's that's a place that you should focus your attention as a board member both from just a standpoint of understanding what that that policy is all about but also at at the end of the year utilizing that percentage and say well either we need to to adopt a change in our budget going forward or just understanding where we are uh from a baseline perspective uh so at the end of the year the UN fund balance like I said is at 7.5% just slightly below that particular policy that you have in place um some might ask me well now what what are we going to do once we know that fund balance policy well that's up to the superintendent and the business office to to make some uh uh understanding how that impacts the overall budget going forward that's not my job I'm here to reflect on the audit results um most the administration will bring that forth to you in future meetings if they haven't if they haven't already maybe even at the last meeting was addressed uh continuing on um we do have some reflected information here as well on general fund revenues and expenditures the next one's expenditures uh the general fund revenues as mentioned uh U we're we're over budget by about 3.8 million um there are three categories that stand out to me um other revenues were were conservatively budgeted uh there were some other re from Billings to other districts that that impacted that particular uh revenues um tax collections were better than expected typically you see that because there's usually a built-in contingency in collections you never know how collections are going to be on a tax perspective and then overall um uh State sources were over budget based on just uh approve funding from in those two particular categories including Transportation on the expenditure side uh um we we did have expenditures over budget this year by about 3.3 million uh three categories that again Stand Out supplies and materials specifically related to one a one-time curriculum purchase that I already referenced um that was uh the district taking advantage of the pricing for a particular uh uh curriculum materials that weren't original budget but felt like it was important to buy that just to take advantage of the the pricing in that particular area uh salaries were over budget by about 800,000 uh most of that um um which was actually very close to budget given the size of that particular category um and then lastly purchase services for things like student tuition billing and transportation were more than budgeted um this past year but all in all like I said the um the overall budget was very close to expectations when you get to within a million net uh you're me you're you're you're doing a good job of of of doing those budget expectations in holding the audit true to some of those expectations uh I will continue on then I will follow up with questions that people have when I get done um this particular uh page is 14 shows the other governmental funds of the district U Food Service fund as shown here did increase uh to a fund balance of about 3 million uh most District's Food Service funds Financial results were better than expected giving the new funding that's coming from the state um uh you're no different in that particular case you're seeing Food Service fund um increasing fund balance this past year you're at about 46% fund balance as a percentage of expenditures which is a good place to be when it comes to the Food Service fund can see the community service fund uh um would I would suggest is not where it needs to be uh nobody wants to see a deficit fund balance in the community service fund it was better than expected by about 150,000 so it could have been worse um um there was some increased participation for school age care as well as youth enrichment programs that helped that fund um we did talk at the at the exit conference if you will or some of the things that are ongoing and happening to improve that particular fund um uh and turn that around so that we have some fund balance going forward um but at the end of the year it sits at about a deficit of about 322,000 see how I go here yep now I'm just pressing buttons to press buttons all right um continuing on my fun my presentation um the district does have a very healthy uh Fund in an internal service fund which is really a self-insurance fund the district is self-insured for health benefits um and an internal service fund is utilized to fund that particular program um in 2024 you can see that the the fund did increase by about 800,000 um as you can see in revenues it's about $15 million of revenues uh in that particular fund for health benefits at the end of the year uh that particular fund is at about 33% of operations I believe the experts in this particular area would be H for something closer to 50% and I know that you're working to improve that particular area as you can see uh in the Improvement for this particular in past year other funds the district has uh you have a capital project building construction fund this past year there was about 71 million of spending in that particular one fund um or utilization um why I bring that number to the Forefront is is mainly related to my observations of the work that's happening in the business office um you don't take a general operation you don't take a district district office and um move from a spending of zero really generally now it's probably exaggerating but from Z to 771 million and not expect there to be impact there's a lot of work that goes into processing all of that particular work and to to process that it takes personnel and resources and sometimes you just don't you don't have it and other times you do but it does have an impact uh on the district and is something should be recognized uh because it it's going to go probably going to go away eventually right um continuing on you have The Debt Service fund as mentioned I mentioned the there is a self-benefits dental plan which is sitting in good financial position and the district also has what's called an opem trust fund that particular trust fund was issued some time ago um um where Bonds were issued to finance the OPB trust obligations of the district at the end of the year the district has about 31 million sitting in trust for future obligations in the opab area I think that's the end of my presentation so in summer I was able to issue a unmodified opinion as mentioned on that financial report we implemented the capital asset accounting standard this particular year we issued a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting which will take some time to receive from the organization we did have the one finding which uh ultimately will hopefully be corrected in the future you you're seeing improving general fund financial position uh the I did mention the importance of the district's fund balance policy as a guideline for decision- making on the part of administration and the board uh I did analyze all the other funds as I went through talked a little bit about the significance of the construction activity uh and then lastly I just want to reflect on the M on the uh the audit process the audit process for US starts in June and really ends probably in De December uh it's a long process uh especially at a district of this size it takes a lot of effort by Auditors as well as Administration and um my words there are very point to point uh this district is very dedicated to this process um rarely do I not get uh the information that I need and if by not getting the information I need I'm well aware why I haven't received it yet because it's somebody's working on it so it's a very healthy process healthy from two fronts um healthy for me as an auditor but healthy for the district as well there are people that are dedicated to this process and making sure it's goes right and uh is effective as well so with that I'll open it up to questions that you have for me on the audit results uh I'm looking for I know uh m b you had a question um excuse me I would just say is one of the in all the times you've been doing this red flag for anybody when they're looking through financials to say that something is off what would be one of the talking about now or forever forever I mean anytime we're looking at budgets this large what are the red flags to it for something is off yeah generally um um we get we as a firm immediately get concerned with turnover turnover and Personnel is a huge challenge um and I'll just probably take talk about the last maybe three years to four years post pandemic probably um very tight available resources outside of uh in the finance World both in the audit world but also in in the business manager World um whenever there's a whenever there's a a somebody leaves a district or leaves a whole it's very hard to replace that person um and your district has been I will say you know at times uh impacted by that U there's opening it as a controller position at one time if I remember that was a couple years ago roughly and you can see it you can almost see it you can feel it almost in the district when you talk to the Personnel here they're just it things slow down things aren't moving as quickly as they should um and so whenever you see open positions uh at a district you should be aware of it and help or you know help to understand what's happening um uh this year there was like I mentioned basically uh uh the construction account is that the right yeah um there was an opening in that particular area and somebody else had to take over well transition means things slow down there's a change in understanding um and it it leads to things that that uh are cost insur are they red flags probably not in this case but they can be were there any um this audit was completed on time correct yes it was yeah was submitted is that a red flag to look for if a go beyond their Dubai dates um a red flag no um but it is something to be concerned about you in terms of trying to get them back on track and and get them done timely for sure um but I would def find it as a red flag sometimes there's just things that happen that cause it and it has nothing to do with you know some something concerning okay other questions Mr scar uh thank you so are schools subject to partner rotation in particular on an audit right they're not they're not so how long have you been partner on this on for white be school I've been the partner for some time I probably came in um in a severe financial crisis whatever that was we talked about it remember that Ted blazing era for sure I I'd have to get so there's no partner rotation for school districts for AUD company there are not if if requested we we certainly uh adapt for that Prov they have part um maybe before I wanted to Circle back a maybe on the um the nature of the findings from this year as well as last year but I've got some nits on the report can I go through that that's okay won't take that long um how many questions pardon me you just got a few questions well if you go if we can keep it brief yes well if you go to page 26 out of 260 this is the annual comprehensive report it says the district has adopted fourway Equity decision Mak protocol only three questions there the paragraph under that says in comparison with other school districts in the state district rank high educational programs and a Scholastic abilities of graduates which I think is great but are we grounded in any kind of a statistic with that I don't mind if it's bold but I just thought maybe there should be something grounded in that uh I'm wondering if those are questions about the audit or those are questions that's that's my what I'm thinking is well do we want you this is to the public so we want it to be accurate and we want it to be grounded in you know accuracy right yeah I just want to make sure that we're questioning about what the audit not something above and beyond well this is embedded in the report that annual comprehensive report so I wanted also on page I think it's on the same page 26 it talks about eff drop in enrollment caus by the covid-19 pandemic District enrollment has stabilized but then if you go back down to page 27 um it says the bond funding will be used to address projected enrollment growth throughout the district so I think that language there if you can clean that up a little bit so it kind of is say you know what you're saying it's declined and stabilized and then at the other end you're saying hey the bond funding was used to you know for an increase so that leave a question in my mind if I'm the if I'm the reviewer of that um I get a clarification on what that means so for the um so I think when we're talking about the projected enrollment growth we're thinking more about long-term projected enrollment growth and that's certainly was the um we certainly did project enrollment growth when we went for the bond so I think that's kind of why that's in there in that way right well I would suggest you either remove it or explain why the bond we projected this now we're at this so we either have to explain it or I these are just friend suggestions I would say on page 28 26 it says as demonstrated by the statement and schedules including the financial section BL the district continues to meet its responsibility of sound financial management and I would just say you know that's great self-proclaim that but I think you could say me responsibility for financial management and we believe our procedures are sound something like that if you go to page 50 of 2 we can skip that one4 um I think this you have the address as the old address for the school district you should probably update that no that was the address at the time of the audit so that's oh but it says if you have questions you're supposed to file that so that's just a little bit confusing I wanted to ask you about that debt it's on page 178 260 it has to do with the debt limit um based upon the mark Market valide that how does that you know you you guys calculate that or is that something that District calculates the district would calculate that and then you look at that Ian we look at it validate that the calculation was done correctly sure there the Deb limits in statute if I yeah the district doesn't really come up with the that limit it's in statute one had to do with obb where we had assets I think of 37 million we had obligations of like 78 million so we're upside down on the funding but that's probably typical I'm thinking is that true you're talking about the OPB trust fund yeah we have assets of 37 million but our obligations are like 78 or 80 million I think it's on page 229 you go to that it's your note number eight to the financi so the opep trust fund um right uh based on right now uh the total opep liability is 13 million where the assets are 31 million so you're not upside down you're actually to the good up there's another one right was that in note that was in Note 8 yes Mr Sky while you're looking for that can I open it up to other board members with questions and then could Circle back any other questions I just said one just for my clarification on on one slide talked about the unrestricted operation operating unbalance and that's 9.6 and what's the difference between that and the sign which is 7.5 which is the one we always you our policy um so one was slide eight one yes SL 10 I just wanted great question yeah so the the slide that we're utilizing um was that was 9.6 is the state is the state of Minnesota's calculation so they the state of Minnesota Department of Education uses the calculation of fund balance as a percentage of expenditures uh for their own internal use um most notably they use it for Stater operating debt calculations so when districts fall below zero and get to 2 and a half% I think is the number now you're considered in Stat or operating debt so you're far from that um but their that's their calculation utilizing the Department of Education calculation the calculations that are on page 10 are district calculations um and the using your own fund balance policy so we're we're taking certain fund balance categories and comparing them to certain expenditures to come up with a district calculation so they differ uh you might ask yourself does every District do it that way they do um they all every district has their own fund balance policy and their own calculations that fit their district and and so there are two different calculations on pretty much every District that I work with thank you great question other questions okay Mr scar have you found your yeah no issues I just read it wrong sorry about that no problem um getting back to the uh material weakness you know since that there's a lot of capital transactions what was the nature of that was it a classification issue uh so what we're doing with the construction process is um uh when you when you're accounting for Capital Assets in in this particular uh financial report first of all capital uh expenditures when paid are expensed in the fund so they get expensed in the fund they get recorded as an expenditure um in the financial report we convert that particular expenditure into a capital asset accounting into Capital asset using uh really well trying to get simple here but um they have a separate set of financials called entity-wide financial statements that that account for Capital assets right so in the capital asset recordkeeping we are uh we are the district is calculating Construction in process so uh you do that because anytime there's a contract that goes or a contract or a or a project that goes multiple years you don't want to capitalize that particular contract until it's complete correct um so any contract that's multiple years they calculate or a spreadsheet to to um summarize all the construction and process right that particular spreadsheet when we analyzed the beginning balance which would have been uh um kind of a Ru forward from last year and we started comparing them to the accounting records we noticed ones that weren't consistent uh that didn't seem they were off based on this year's spreadsheet so last year's spreadsheet didn't necessarily mimic with this year's spreadsheet so we did some analysis to determine well where are we off um what what contracts got off why is last year's different than this year's um and we came up with a noted some adjustments so we made those adjustments um so the internal control weakness related to reporting natur scoring the numbers and reviewing the numbers and things like that or the invoices had nothing to do with payments out to contractors at all it had to do with internal accounting of did you get did did the Auditors look at change order process we did not I mean we didn't that's that's so on the on the prior year finding with the um where you didn't post bit did anybody complain about it or was it just a finding that you found no complaints so there's no harm really right all right that's it thank you thank you thank you very much for always Le some of us are always excited to have you come here for this information I know this side of the table is I appreciate you taking your time to with us thank you yeah and I also just want to underscore what Mr Ron said about the heavy lift in the finance office with the construction um just managing the construction fund um and the pressure on our accounts to just stay on top of all that it's it's really been a heavy lift and really kudos to Andy Johnson who supervises all that very closely does a great job with it so thanks for um as well as uh Sarah Andre who is our controller and new to uh public accounting so she came from the corporate world and then moving into public education public accounting is a really heavy L doing great work a big learning Fir and then Stephanie Wendell also College thank you all thank you all right thank you for coming thank you uh we're going to go on now to discussion item B2 Dr kasm all right uh like to welcome Peter letherman come come on up Peter Peter conducted a community survey for us uh back in in December and uh he's here to share the results with us so Peter take it away super good to see you it's a pleasure to be here with you this evening in my 31st year I've heard hundreds of those Auditors reports and I still don't understand education funding God bless you uh I'm waiting for it to pop up perfect all right to review with everybody what we undertook with the district we spoke with 400 randomly selected residents across the community um and then within that sample there's a percent appearance we had uh 30% % parents so you have approximately 120 parents in that 400 sample so I called an additional 280 parents I pull out that 120 put that together so now we have a sample to look at parents that's also 400 uh 400 samples projectable to within plus or minus 5% in 95 out of 100 cases once again the margin of error is determined by the size of the sample not the percent of the population so a 400 in Whitebeard Lake School District a 400 00 in Ramsey County or 400 in the state of Minnesota is plus or minus 5% interviews were conducted last year before the holidays between the 3rd and 19th average interview time was 12 minutes people were thrilled we were past the election and nobody was voter iding them so they were more than happy to talk uh refusal rate was only 6% and to put up some demographics we always start uh cell phone only 59% uh 8% they still exist out there uh landline only households and then the remaining third have both landlines and cell phones continuing with the demographics and the demographics are of course two purposes first off we want to validate the sample uh on key demographics whether households with children households with seniors homeowners versus renters those sorts of factors but then we can look at statistically significant differences between groups uh the typical resident has lived in the school district for about 12 years you have 41% that are 10 years or less well you have 36% that have been in the district for over 20 years you have a large group of settlers of newbies we call them part of it is obviously the growth on the north side of the school district 15% indicate that they have a preschooler or an infant 30% have a child attending the wiper Lake Area School District and 68% are empty nesters once again empty nester does not imply an age it's lack of presence of a child child so it could have a 24-year-old in here for the purpose of the survey it's there are an empty nester so of your core constituency is about a third of the population 45% have a relative attending the wiper Lake Area School District 177% are reters uh self assessed home value uh 29% at under 250k 27% at 250 to 350k and the 26% are over $350,000 homes continuing with the demographics uh the typical uh residents about 46 years old with 25% 18 to 34 year olds and 34% over the age of 55 um just short of a majority of folks are college graduates that includes postgraduates at 48% 22% are high school graduates are less and 30% have some college experience uh the key factor for districts over the past two years looking at funding requests is the financial situation of the household um the financially stressed in your district is the same that we have in the fourth quarter of 24 right at about 45% it has come down the high since the pandemic uh was in the first quarter of 23 where we had almost 60% across the state of Minnesota indicating they were financially stressed so it has backed down you're right at excuse me right at the norm um but to give you a historical indicator before the pandemic the norm was about 26% so we're still about 20 points higher and that can you say that again I'm sorry the norm before the pandemic was about 26% so we're still about 20 points higher than what we were historically before the pandemic um and part of it is you know the pandemic even in 2021 we didn't get the increase in financially stressed um the recession of 2008 2009 we got to about 65% financially stressed by the winter of 2020 we were only at about 40% financially stressed and it was really odd and when you own your own F survey company we do internal surveys um we want on and ask people and folks were telling us okay yes my income might have been impacted but my expenses have been impacted you weren't able to go on vacation you weren't able to go to restaurants all those sorts of things so it didn't impact people until things went back to normal where their income was no longer keeping up with their expenses once all of that discretionary spending was back in play for folks and then finally uh women outnumbered Men by four points and then you can see the geographic distribution city of Whitebeard Lake 35% Hugo 20 18% each in Badness and Whitebear Township and then 10% in the the remainder of the district so before I go on I always ask any questions on methodology demographics go ahead Mrs gar thank where did you get the your Universe to sample problem it's a database with every voter or every resident in the community and then I just pull a random sample off of that oh so it's not something from the you get it up okay correct yep um how are the who comes up with the question it's developed with the school district thank you you're welcome all right survey says um for the purpose of the presentation I put some data on from before the pandemic now keep in mind it's an apples to oranges comparison pre pandemic versus post pandemic uh but we can see some trends that we see everywhere the overall quality of Education of the public schools um you can see is at 86% this time it was 81% back in 22 it's actually it's not statistically significant but things are moving in the right direction what we have seen consistently across the state since 23 is a drop on the quality of Education the norm before the pandemic was what you were we're at in 2019 you can see 90% we're now down to an 80% Norm okay and the shift has not only gone from excellent to good but from good to only fair you don't have that in play here you actually have the excellent rating going up from 20 to 25% which is a move in the right direction that's where districts to took a historical um hit post pandemic the the excellent rating currently is 11% is the norm so you're 2 and 1 half times the norm on the excellent rating you don't have the shift from good to only fair that a lot of districts have so the challenge the discussion in the district is how do you get people you don't have to change people's minds that it's only fair and move them to good the key is going to be more of how do we make go from good to excellent again now couple open-ended questions they can ask us anything and we code them into categories first off what do folks like most teachers at the top of the list 25% if we combine some categories um though if we look at variety of programs in uh broad curriculum so we have 21% reacting to what is being taught in the classroom and then we combine good academics excellent academics at 22% the quality you basically have a statistical tie between those three who's teaching what they're teaching and the quality of the teaching now some districts vary some are very the focus is on curriculum some it's on the academic quality other it's Personnel your folks historically has always been kind of equally equally distributed between those three categories if we ask what they like most we always follow up with the most serious issue what leads the list 20% say lack of funding uh that's becoming the constant of Pi somewhere between 18 and 22% across the state now are saying it's lack of funding you have two other issues that hit double digits high taxes at 12% lack of discipline at 10% the lack of discipline is somewhere typically somewhere around 8 to 10% the high taxes you're on the Lower Side uh that has grown with property tax hostility since 23 where the norm is a top of the mine response is between 15 and 20% typically um so you're a little bit lower on that we're going to go into taxes a little more in depth in a few charts um what other things come into play large class sizes poor spending declining quality scattered are idiosyncratic responses that are 1% or less that don't fit into any category we just collapse them down the key at the bottom of the of this chart though is the nothing the 22% these folks think there are no problems in this District it's Utopia that is about four times the norm right now the norm right now is dropped to 6% before the pandemic it was 11 I just say before the pandemic all the time before the pandemic though it was 11 or 12% it's been cut in half um so you do have and these folks are positive throughout whether we're looking at financial management governance Administration the quality these are your boosters um so you do have a very large cell of boosters in the school district in comparison to Most Metro school districts we talked about the shift over in the quality of education but how about a historic comparison and for the this question we grounded in comparison to 3 years ago cuz it's not fair to tell them ask to think back to 5 years ago before the pandemic do they think things are improving getting better stay the same or getting worse well residents it's 38 to13 that things are getting better amongst parents it's 37 to9 so by a 3:1 and a 4:1 margin you do have folks telling us that there are actually though things are moving in the right direction they're getting better the norm right now is 2: one and there are some districts over the past 2 years where you have more people saying worse than better you do have a sense of momentum that things are improving coming out how does the district do when meeting the learning needs of all students most only some or very few um you're back to a majority saying you're meeting the learning needs of all students and that's a real stringent standard to be held to uh 53% uh Norm on that has dropped down to about 44% um over over the past three to four years so a very good rating now we followed up I didn't put it in the chart but we followed up with those that say most or some and ask is there a type of student whose learning needs are not being met and you have the same array that districts have right now and that is the struggling the underachiever and the average student is where the cons concern is at How concerned are they about learning loss during the pandemic you have 50% that are indicating they're either very or somewhat in of concern 48% not to or not at all um pretty much what we're finding right now is the split on the perception of learning loss of coming out of the pandemic um if we look at intensity um it's about 50% higher of not at all concerned versus very concerned [Applause] currently what's the most important indicator of a high quality education for this in the next few charts we're going to look at your overall Community versus the parents and there is um a lot of un uh Unity between the results of both often times there's a difference between parents and and the community as a whole uh but especially on this one what's the most important a broad curriculum serving all uh followed by college graduates going on for further education reasonable numbers in classrooms standardized test scores and then technology at the bottom as a priority now on standardized test scores this has come back um over the past 3 to four years um quite frankly it has to do with it's the only touch Point into a school district especially for a non-parent to judge a school district uh coming out of the years of George W bush and No Child Left Behind people got testing exhaustion um and so it was not seen as a good measure um it's back though in the mix as something that people are looking at when they look at the quality of Education in a school district but you can see they really is a symbiosis here at the top four of what your community and your parents value that's what they value how do they rate the district on those indicators well number one was the broad curriculum serving all 77% favorable amongst parents 85% favorable College grads going on for further education 79 and 87% favorable reasonable number in classrooms has the highest un favorability now reasonable number is in the eye of of the beholder okay um often times in some districts especially when we're looking at facilities for class siiz issues we give them specific numbers to react to um so if you hear 25 is that too high about the right amount this one is just what's reasonable what's reasonable to one person who grew up in smalltown Minnesota is very different than somebody who grew up in Maple growth for a reasonable class size and that's why there's such variation on this U but you can see parents are more satisfied than the community as a whole standardized test scores 78 and 74% uh the highest level is the least important the state-of-the-art technology um so overall it's very positive on all those indicators General open-ended question are they concerned about curriculum a lot of disc discussion about curriculum uh over the past 3 years um basically you're what we find in the S County Metro about 75% have no concerns 25% do have concerns um so the community 72% say know amongst parents 74% uh following up with those that said they have a concern you can see two liberal uh and gender identity tie and then we go to lgbtqia plus Dei and then various scattered categories um but on this one you're right at the norm that we see some specific perceptions that we've tested historically first off does the district spend taxpayers money effectively and efficiently un unchanged from 22 76% agree with the statement Norm on that right now is about 59% so you're about 17 18 points higher than the norm on spending taxpayers money effectively and efficiently do you ask for a tax increase only as a last resort um a little bit of a drop on this one you've had funding request over the past few years uh but still 69% agree with that the bottom question uh for districts looking at potential funding request um is really important and that is the schools are a good investment and i would support a property tax increase to protect that investment the key on this is the no because we're not telling them if it's it's an operating Levy or a bond referendum if it's $50 a month or $50 a year the no are just against everything and so that's the core opposition in the school district you can see that's at 25% uh over the past 18 months the norm has been about 30% cor no it's gone up over the course of the last few years which is why we've had so many unsuccessful funding requests from school districts um so you're on the low end of what we would see um once again this doesn't mean that people are would be thrilled for a property tax increase the lower the number the more willingness there is to have a discussion about it continuing with statements the schools are a good value for the investment absolutely unchanged 89% does the district do a good job of involving involving the community uh unchanged and this is unique because this took a hit with the pandemic it was hard to involve the Community for 2 years um in you know virtual or what have you um and you could see even in 22 it was very high at 78% you're at 79% right now have you spent past referendum funds responsibly 75% do they trust the district to do what's right for children back to where we were before the pandemic 22 things had settled down if you'd have done this survey in 20 or 21 it had been very different cuz people were arguing about Mass virtual versus inperson all of those things U but you've settled in at a better than 7:1 ratio on the trust issue which is the norm on this right now is about 4 to1 and then the satisfaction with the decision making here you can see the pandemic effect back in 22 still coming out the trust and the decisionmaking uh but you've gone back now to 75% satisfied with the decision making if we do some look at some job performance ratings the school board 69 to 25 normon school board right now is 58 to 40 on the administration 71 to 25 on the administration it's always a ratio that we're looking at um it's almost 3:1 the norm on District administration is 2:1 and then the closer you get to the kids the higher the ratings and we see that 75% on principles and teachers at 88% uh the 88% of teachers is very strong um teachers have taken a hit in ratings over the pandemic uh the norm being before 90% were down to about 80% so that 88% is very strong rating of teachers in your school district I mentioned property taxes is a topof the mind uh most serious issue and that it was on the lower side this question asks folks to think first about your total taxes and then your school taxes on total taxes 49% think they're High um you're one of the few districts that's actually below 50% saying my taxes are high this is this has gone up like I mentioned with the the new assessment in the spring of 23 everybody was thrilled nobody realized what that would do to their tax statement November of 23 and the norm went on property on my taxes are high to 60% it came down a little bit but now since November 15th of this year it's going back up again um so you are on the low end at 49% now on school taxes it actually drops to 44% so this tells us that if they have animus on property taxes it's not focused at the school district that's great news bad news is you're really the only show in town that has to go to the public for a funding request you know I have always joke you know back when I started doing this in the '90s we always asked who do you blame and then cities and counties got really mad and so we don't ask it that way anymore we ask it this way um so it will tell us where the concern is focused at it's not focused at you um so it's a tax sensitive environment um not a tax hostile environment is the district adequately funded this is really interesting right now because we are getting very different results between the seven count Metro and the rest of Minnesota for the most part of 23 and 24 it was 45% yes 45% no and 10% don't know what we're seeing now is a drop in the 7even county Metro and you have that you only have 41% saying you're adequately funded where the outstate norm is almost 60% saying yes we are adequately funded so I'm not quite sure what's going on we're going to do another internal survey that we'll share uh with school districts just to get a feel of what's happening around the state but there is this bifurcation right now on the perception of the adequacy of funding on the schools people are confused they've heard the governor talk about the wonderful things that were done they've heard the legislator do their Victory laps um and then they see District making districts making Cuts all over the place and they don't know what to think right now overall assessment of financial management then 64% favorable uh Norm on this right now is 52% so as we look at a whole with all the battery of questions we've asked around finances and spending uh the district does have strong credibility when it comes to financial management with the community if they heard the district was going to ask for a property tax increase are they for all against against all or are they persuadable um you actually have 3% more core support than core yes um so that's the highest that I have over the last 18 months where the norm over the last 18 months was minus three 3% more opposition than core support um but obviously with these numbers the vast majority are in the persuadable category and that's where decisions will have to be made on F funding request in the future on our Let's Make a Deal question what would be a reasonable tax increase to provide additional funding for the school district well 24% say nothing and we always want that number to be under 35% so you're well under that number once again this doesn't mean they support anything and everything it means they're willing to have a conversation uh 19% come in at $5 23% come in at $10 and then we have 23% at $15 a month the median if we take out the nothing they're not going to support anything the typical residents add about 12 bucks a month or 150 bucks a year for those that have heard me present for bond referendums out here or operating levies you know it that number is not set in stone it's based on you know it's not only this is the tolerance but then what is the funding going to be used for that can that can increase increased a dollar amount support but it can also decrease depending on what's included in the funding request switching over to just the parent sample and getting a gauge on what parents are thinking we went through a series of descriptions and ask do they agree or disagree with the statements about the White Bear Lake Area School District and on this one I'll make this simple there's vast agreement um the highest level of agreement you have with the statement is the district has excellent teachers at 95% the lowest excuse me the lowest amount of agreement is preparing students for life and students succeeding at high levels at 86% so very few parents are disagreeing with these statements the opportunity for districts is to make parents feel strongly agreement on it because there's a lot of soft agreement on this because it's a forart they can strongly agree agree disagree or strongly disagree so so once again the challenge and it's a challenge everywhere is to bring more enthusiasm and to make people feel more intensely about what's happening in the schools of those descriptions which is the most important description for the White Bear Lake Area School District it's preparing students for Life followed by using effective teaching practices students succeeding at high levels support student needs and partnering with families the red is what is the least important and you can see the pandemic has left a sour taste in everybody's mouth you're not unique on technology um that that is the least important uh uh option uh for the description about the white be Lake Area Schools especially for parents they don't want to hear about technology unless it's in the classroom what's the reason they sent their child to the school district so they could tell us anything we collapse them down into categories you only have two items that hit double digits so there's not really like one brand shall we say what that that's in the decision making close to home and the good teachers um if we combine kind of the location response like my kids go here because we live here you have close to home at 18% live in the district at 9 and family and friends ATT 10 um at 6 so about third are making a decision basically on convenience um that's a little bit lower most districts are in the 40 to 45% range um so you have more people making a decision on a value outside of just a demographic shall we say um so good teachers the programming and then we also have down the list the curriculum about 10% basing it on that the quality of the education whether it's high quality the achievement stats the reput reputation the strong academics about 15% in that category um so you know once again if you think back to what they like most this kind of reflects it overall too on what parents are valuing all three equally who's teaching what they're teaching and how well are they teaching it a rating on characteristics of the district uh once again they can say excellent good only fair or poor I've collapsed the excellent good into the green and the only fair poor into the red um you can see it's 76% or higher favorable across the board uh with a high on the quality teaching staff at 94% you actually have four other items that hit 90% extracurricular Sports opportunities the variety of course offerings Music Theater Arts and access te technology you then have a group in the high 80s academic achievement basic academic coursework character development responsiveness to student needs and access to the prek program then the State national test scores overall College Prep community service opportunities student behavior and personalized education what we're seeing um across the metro and across the state your bottom two are the bottom two pretty much everywhere um there is a desire on the personalized education piece it's seen as a way if you have concerns unclass siiz is to overcome those concerns so the kid isn't just a number um so the desire for more but that 22% unfavorable is about 10 points lower than we're seeing Elsewhere on the student Behavior you're about 15 points lower well it is the second lowest rated uh we're seeing somewhere between 35 and 40% there is has been a concern about discipline and behavior especially in the 7 County Metro some statements about the district um vast agreement from 87 to 97% they feel welcome accepted the teachers care they feel respected um they're get help when provided the district does a good job of informing meeting individual learning needs they challenge their student the school is safe they support learning at home and the one that's most difficult is the communicate about progress that's typically around 20% because there's just a certain group of parents my wife being one of them who will never be satisfied with the amount of information they get about the child living at our house start school before Labor Day this is a fun question always someday I'll never have to ask this again just like I never have to ask about chickens for City surveys um 50% support school starting before Labor Day 39% oppose these are parents it's a statistical tie basically with 12% are unsure if you look at intensity surprisingly this is waned this was more intense about 10 years ago where it was like Mom apple pie in school starting after Labor Day uh for parents um it's kind of that strong opposition has started to wne but it hasn't transferred over to support at this point in time and then finally communication where are folks getting their information this one looking at the community green uh parents over the community blue parents green amongst the community it's the website and the newsletter at 43% combined um and Then followed the word of mouth local newspaper social media email you can see parents are an entirely different world for communication 32% indicate email 31% the website almost 2third of parents are relying on th one of those two sources as their primary source of information now how do they prefer to receive information if we look at this print versus electronic do they want to hold something in their hands 31% say the mail newsletter and 11% say the local newspaper so you have over 40% that want something traditional to be handheld very specific demographic over the age of 55 parents completely made the transition um so between the email the website social media and an e newsletter you have over 75% of parents prefer uh preferring something electronic if we flush it out a little bit more and ask do they get a a lot of information some information not too much or not at all what's ARR on this chart is the a lot and the sum and so for the community it's the website District mailings but that goes to first place if we add in the secondary of some and but what goes into the second place if you add the SEC the secondary is the informal discussions with friends and neighbors the the grape vine is alive and Lush um you are unique because on this chart the most credible Source where are folks getting their information you had 11% indicating that it was Word of Mouth the norm on that right now has gone up to 20% over the past 18 months as newspapers like in Southwest Metro disappear or newspapers don't cover school districts like they used to um there's a very specific the graine has growing uh specifically amongst people like me old guys over the age of 50 uh we used to read the newspaper it's not there not going to go to the website not going to look at social media we're going to get together for breakfast and gossip about what's going on the word of mouth used traditionally was parents revolving around ECFE prek athletic associations it's expanded you don't have that as a primary you still have a viable newspaper um unlike other communities that has that has helped mitigate that um but you can see the impact of the Great Vine uh and and amongst parents also um and District employees for parents are a critical piece of the information uh Network that they have uh taking it all the way up to third place so I think across the board from what I've seen uh with districts making comparisons to two years ago three years ago the district's moving in the right direction the challenge for the district and it's a good position to be in because a lot of districts are in the position now where they're going to have to change people's minds that something they disagree with or they rate unfavorably they can agree with or rate favorably you're not in that position you have the challenge of how do you increase the enthusiasm the intensity of the agreement agement of the ratings so I'd be happy to answer any questions you have thank you do we have any questions excuse I a question one thing that may me it's in our financial compreh annual uh comprehens comprehensive financial report is the close nit community that we have here in the White Bear area in Hugo and I'm wondering how much of that influences the you know statistics but I don't know how you measure that but I got to believe that if you're a close-knit community you're going to have a lot more pride and a lot more um uh touch points with the Community Schools than you would where you have a higher transient population oh it's it's a it's a great question you're absolutely right I mean this this community this entire area is a small town in a Suburban Oasis right it it always has been I did a a survey for the city of Whitebear Lake last year on housing um and this incredible desire that people want to stay here whether it's when they move out or they want to have housing available for their kids um so that does bring that connection in so in that sense it is more more small town than a Suburban uh OAS Oasis shall we say um but we're seeing declines on it everywhere it really doesn't matter um whether you know there are a few other unique communities in the metro area that I would call the small town in the metro area versus just straight Suburban um and even those communities have seen declines declines in the results yeah yeah thank you any other questions M THS I just to say it's very interesting I just love hearing your reports because they're always just fascinating to me all the questions and the information is very helpful thank you I was going to pretty much say the same thing and just seeing the data come in um it's it just shows that things in the are going the way that we have hoped they would go and the movement that we've done and the work that is happening here has really seen in the community so I always appreciate this one and seeing the numbers this year and then hearing how you touch on the comparison between us and other areas is promis and hope I appreciate it you're welcome and I would love to have these results for other clients I'm going to go talk to that are actually looking at a bond referendum or operating Levy like tomorrow night not going to be as positive um and they're actually going so I mean it really does speak well of what's happened absolutely thank you very much you're welcome other questions yeah sorry I just have a comment and that is just to thank our district for these results and to see how we are kind of bouncing back is there work to do absolutely but these are are very promising and I appreciate the work that goes into it because I know it's not easy on District staff our principls our teachers I love seeing that as we get closer to those that touch the kids we get that higher rating so I just want to thank those that are working in this District to make this happen because it's it's not been easy no I mean they're in 21 and 22 uh in many districts it was actually the community was more positive than parents um so you don't have that and now your parents are you know and that's important that's the constituency and that also though helps build momentum if your key constituency is talking about it that helps intensify feelings I I you goe oh I was just we kind of reflecting on what Chris said um I just hope the teachers see how favly they've been rated I hope they get a chance I mean I know it's going to be on the webs in our minut Tiffany's probably already sent an email I just I just don't think they hear enough just how important they are the families in the community and that their work is appreciated and um the sacrifices and you know all the things that they do that are unseen by most people but but parents see it and so so great okay and I just want to say thank you and I know one of the things I'm one of those that we we won't leave my family's been here forever and it's just this is our home we've enjoyed the community we support school you know the school for all my family a lot of us have come through so we're really tied to this community this school and I think that helps the positivity because it's it's our it's our home and it's our school and we have pride Co Bears um so thank you it's not to transient shall we say that if I don't like it I'll just go elsewhere you want to stay here and fix it yeah absolutely right super pleasure right thanks thank you very much all right next on the agenda is B3 it's Lincoln Elementary update Dr kesby yeah I will um introduce Brian Morris principal of Lincoln Elementary and then Christine belor who is the instructional coach they're here to share more about their grade work thank you uh Dr lesby uh Dr C board members um my name is Brian Morris I'm the principal at Lincoln Elementary um Lincoln Elementary three short blocks through the snow that way um just uh and this is Christine balard she is our instructional coach um at Lincoln and at Badness Heights Elementary and uh a key component in our success um but just am I I'm in charge of clicking okay so just to give you a quick snapshot take a look at the crests um we are Lincoln Elementary one of the things that I'm going to talk about is our house system um I am a member of quantum House of respect Bel gour is in house compassio compassio house of empathy um and we'll talk about that a bit lately but it's one of the the components of our our school um it's one of the ways that we are working towards um meeting our strategic goals at Lincoln um as a lot of you know Lincoln is a vibrant neighborhood school um we're close to downtown close proximity to White Bear Lake bald eagle otter um and Birch um we're known for our commitment to student achiev AI M our welcoming atmosphere and active parent involvement um and a just a passion to partner with families um as we prepare children to reach their hopes and dreams um we have about well exactly right now 470 students um served by 56 staff members and that's all staff um we have 20 uh class home rooms uh at uh Lincoln um 17 and K5 so that's pretty much three classrooms at every grade level and then three classrooms in the explorations uh program those are multi-age uh classes of our uh district-wide gifted and talented program and we'll talk about that a little bit more later um The Specialist rotation that we offer are PE music art and Spanish um we also have a small but very strong special service cluster um providing emotional and behavior support for students and like I said the explorations uh program for highly gifted students um like I said about three class CLS at every grade level and you know that the staff members it is just incredible um not only our teachers but our skilled and supportive staff in nutrition uh playground cafeteria our PA professionals our custodians our uh our professionals and student Support Services it's a real team um a real student focused family focused team that I am incredibly proud of Christine was giving me a hard time about rocking old school with paper paper that's pretty professional up here slowing me down okay um I'm just quickly I mean you can read it um you've got the board notes um but our mission and our objectives and our strategic uh tactics those are uh mission objectives and tactics that we updated two years ago um I really want to point them out because the some of the programs or the work that we're doing is really um two components are really focused on um showing you how we are working towards our strategic tactics um the highlighted uh things we're going to highlight tonight one is tiered academic support so how do we uh support our kids how do we work towards that personalized learning experience um another is our house system um how that is our main tool in the tactic of creating a connected culture um within our school and then third we're going to take look at uh the explorations program that is a districtwide program that is housed at um at Lincoln um and also again our whoops I was behind a click there we go um notice that within our first tactic that we'll nurture the whole child through a personalized learning experience um that's where you see um our tiered academic support right um um that's where you see that how we address Equitable access to learning um differentiated learning in high academic standards um at the beginning of this school year and the beginning of every school year um all of our schools create academic goals um Equity goals family engagement goals um and social emotional goals for our student um just to give you a flavor of sort of how we're reaching towards our academic goal what we're going through uh right now um at Lincoln um our Lincoln academic goals for all students are that from Fall to Spring fastbridge screening so fastbridge is a standardized test system that we use for screening kids fall winter and spring um from Fall to spring so beginning of the year to the end of the year 90% of all Lincoln students will either increase a risk level band or remain in low risk or make sufficient progress towards their IEP goals and again it's measured by these tools that are uh a reading and early reading for the younger grades a math and early math for the older Mr Morris just for can you explain what a risk level band is yes he's on it I'm on it um so when we think about risk level it's the risk of not performing at not meeting grade level standards so if I am high risk of not meeting grade level standards that's where we don't want to be right high risk means there's a good chance that at the end of this school year I'm not going to meet uh grade level standards if we are at low risk um that means there's a small chance um I might not make grade level standard might not perform at grade level standards but it's a pretty low probability um so we want kids to be in that lowrisk category all right um and again if you think about so back to sort of what this academic goal means and I got to get it explained now because when we look at the next slide it's going to be even more confusing um we want our kids in lowrisk we call it the lowrisk band um or you can think of it as a bucket of we want our bucket of students to be in low risk or they also have a grouping called Advanced that's above that um and we want our kids to be moving up right if if if a student Begins the school year high risk so a student is very probable of not performing um at grade level by the end of the school year that there's a big difference between being uh at high risk and at low risk but we want that student moving up like student growth is a prek to 12 and Beyond um process and we want them always growing and we want accelerated growth grow um if a student is just growing sort of the same year to year they're going to stay in a a band right a risk band if they are have increased growth they're going to be moving up in those risk bands so we want 90% of our students to either move up in a risk band in other words become lower risk for performing um below grade level or if they're already at low risk or Advanced we want them to stay there right we don't want them droing down all right so thinking of that think of that idea of swooping up from uh left to right when you take a look at the next slide this graph all right green is low risk blue is um Advanced um this year and this is just a snapshot of our fourth grade um when we talk about our goals we we think about every grade level uh snapshot of our fourth grade uh students um we began the year with 76% of our fourth grade students um in Reading at low risk or Advanced so in the green or the blue where we want them to be at least all right so excuse me 76 are starting there by the end of the school year we want 90% either there or at least having moved up having went the wrong direction with my hands having moved up from red to yellow or from yellow to Green green all right so maintaining low risk or moving up uh in the risk bands um like I said we do uh screening three times per year we just completed our winter screening a week ago um and just again looking at fourth grade in Reading we began the year with 76% of our fourth graders in the lowrisk advanced at our winter check-in 82% um have moved up in their risk band or remained in low and advance um and like I said our goal is 90% by Spring I love this graph even though it's super confusing because it shows you where kids are going all right if you look if you start at the red okay uh we started the the year in fourth grade with three students down in the red um two of them remain in the red one of them swooped up from Red across the yellow and into the green that's super impressive that that student was able to accomplish that um if we look at our yellow right that's the sum risk that's sort of a medium range we had 10 students that started there of those 10 three moved up which was great of those 10 two moved down into the red which is not what we want to see um that's not the direction our kids should be going um if you look at our green we started out with 17 in the green 17 in the low risk three moved up into that blue in advance we did did have one move down from the low risk into the sum risk so down from the green into the yellow um but overall our kids are moving in the right direction um and like I said by Spring we're shooting for 90% being there so that's just a snapshot um just to give you numbers math is similar that but different we started out with 69% in the low risk and advanced um they are moving up um but uh right now at winter we've got 7 8% in math in fourth grade that have moved up or remained in those uh risk bands that we want them in all right so that's my sort of snapshot of how we progressively measure over the course of the school year how our kids are growing um the next part is what do we do about it right um Christine is is our big what do we do about it person if and I got to click the slide here we go I'm the action girl she's the action girl um having tiered instructions not unique to link in oh did you have a question I Wasing on the fast Bri assessment is it I can't remember the terminology is it the same set of questions across the board or does it go up and down based off of the answers that the students are giving it goes up and down based off the answers so it adjust really determining growth right it's determining sort of where you are so if you get the first problem wrong it's G to say well let's try maybe something a little bit easier and see how she does on that if you get the first problem right let's see and that's a simplified version of it but it'll you know let's challenge her more to see where she's really at so it really Narrows in on that yep thanks so having a tiered um plan isn't unique to link in but it's something we really are focusing on this year because we want to hit that goal of having all of our students show growth and so just just to kind of go over what the tiers mean a tier one is all of our students no matter who you are or what your needs are we um consider everyone tier one and everyone gets what we call our core instruction and then some students we call um tier two and there are some students that they need some additional small group instruction in order to um show some progress and then we have a few students who need tier three which are some additional more intensive instructions and so what we're doing this year at Lincoln is we just finished up all this fast Bridge testing with the data guy I just went over with you and um last week during our PD day all the grade levels did some data driven dialogue and they looked at their grade level data and they figured out which students uh were tier two some risk not reaching the year and grade level standards and which students were tier three um high risk for not reaching um the yearend grade level standards um and so then this week we are going to meet as grade level teams and we are going to look at now some diagnostic data that they have given their their students to figure out why they're not reading at the level we would expect them to read and we're going to analyze all this data about of these individual students and come up with a plan for instruction so that we can get these students to make this progress and hit the school that that we have as a collective group of Mion staff for them and so every we're going to progress Monitor and every six weeks we're going to come back as a group and just keep talking about these kids and not letting anyone forget about them because they are important and um we going to make sure we work together to get them to get the goal awesome thank you and and yeah and Christine is really um the person who organizes especially not so much the identifying who needs support but the what to do about it Parton right she is our specialist in in in coaching the staff and to supporting the kids um with sort of that differentiated personalized instruction um all right so and and again this is this these tiered systems this data review is done similarly at all of our schools I just thought a a little bit of a deep dive into what's going on right now um and B it's it's what's on our head right in our heads right now so it's easiest to present about the thing that's sort of most uh the biggest thing that that we're we're doing at the moment um the next part that I wanted to so that's an example of one of the ways that we're working towards our uh our tactic one our tactic to is to create a uh connected Community within our school um and we are doing a lot of work with that through what we call our house system um our house system is based on a system um a man named Roy Clark um had created this idea um at a school I forget where the school is but we have we have a teacher who had um traveled to to this school Roy Clark where they had really looked at a way to make everybody feel like they belong not just to a large school like 470 kids is is a lot of kids um not just to a classroom but um to belong to a larger group within the school and within that larger group a smaller group so we are organized into houses um and like I said there are five of them um and you know like I said that its core is to create a connected culture um our overall goal is to increase and strengthen student adult relationships um and student to- student relationships sort of across all grade levels if you think about a student in an elementary school like the number one adult for that student is the teacher and then you have you know I'm I'm I have connection with all the kids in the school but I'm like a second tier guy right I'm the principal I have a lower level than the teacher with all of them but some uh students have the reading specialist is another uh teacher that's big in their life every student in the school has the PE teacher the music teacher the art teacher the Spanish teacher as being a an adult in their life when we create the houses um now these children also have the other adults in their house so um I have you know I spend more time with kids in Quantum than I do with kids across the building and within each of these houses we have a house family so um I have a a house family that's well next slide then we'll go back to this one the giant house family selfie uh my face is bigger than everybody else's but they are more important than me I was just holding the camera but that's just a snapshot of my and Leah Armstrong she's a fifth grade teacher our uh house family within Quantum um that house family uh has done we do um a service family service project or um uh growth activi every quarter we also have whole school um house assembly every quarter but just this idea so this snapshot was last year um each of our families made a those pool knot blankets um for they for serenity for the senior center um we've also packed snack bags um for kids um at other schools um this year we also for serenity we created um s holiday gift candle um for adults at Serenity and one other uh adult care facility um but just that idea that these kids are building these relationships both vertically with students across grade level um they're having more adults that are like their adult trusted adult contact um we think is going to really bring that connected culture to Lincoln um that we hope to gain and then the third uh piece that I wanted to speak to was the explorations program um I don't have this in my notes the explorations program has been part of white bear schools for 10 years I think I think since 2015 um it's a program for highly gifted students from every school um and some open enrollment uh students um this year and and last year as well we've have three mixed grade classrooms um right now I think we have 74 kids across the three classrooms um the explorations program has an accelerated curriculum um so for instance in math everybody is at least one grade level up um we have instruction that is tailored to the gifted learner um a lot of our learning especially um around literacy and social studies um are around themed Explorations um we have things like exploration Academy where um students have opportunities to explore areas of their interest um we have it's a monthly maker space um this next slide just our Explorations program does a lot of their learning and especially history learning in White Bear so you will see them um going to Farmers Market on Fridays um when the weather's nice um you will see them you know here traveling to City Hall to learn about city government you will see them uh traveling to the the History Center or the um historic house in downtown White Bear um to learn more about you know not just um their passions but also sort of their place learning more about the community and their place in the community um and that's what I think is really one of the strengths of the explorations program and it feeds nicely off the fact that we are so close um to downtown um but like I said it's it is a districtwide sort of school within a school um we do uh provide uh bus service for for students from anywhere within the district um and it's a it's a it's a great program to serve a a portion of our student population um that really needs to be pushed in ways that sometimes um can be difficult in your general classroom that is it um questions that I thank you for listening questions that people have the uh Explorations program are they also part of the house system yes y so I know at least expor used to be so the parents either opt in opt out correct what do you know what the factors are what they're looking at when those letters are sent out to you mean when like how we decide who we invite um it's based on a um an assessment called the coat the cognitive cognitive assessment test I think that's what it stands for so we administer all second graders the coat so it's everyone gets screened um so this is It's a program that is not just you know teacher recommendation by any means right um so everyone is screened using the coat and then a second component um our uh house an achievement component is how students in second grade um have achieved on their a reading and a math so that that fast Bridge assessment and then the third is the lissy and I don't know what lissy stands for but it's um it's a teacher um assessment or a teacher survey um in how a self-directed a student might be um sort of outside of the box creative thinking things along those lines so take those three components put them into a formula right um and then we essentially um invite um about the top 5% of students that are in those categories are using those three um tools um usually we invite about 40 to 45 students to start in third grade um and in 20 to 25 decide that that's the right choice for their kids um and yeah it's it's a it's a very strong program that's been strong for years we've had you know it it has in the past sort of flopped back and forth between two classrooms and three we've been at three for two years now and I hope that's where we stay about you know kids in the S 70 to 80 kids um would be great one other thing with um I I love the information on growth because I think that tell us a much better story that people normally hear which is just the 56% you know at grade level and I think good growth um tells a much more intricate story what I would like to see is um what I think would be even more helpful would be to follow the cool courts through um because just seeing one snapshot of a year really doesn't tell you anything other than just that one year it would be really helpful to see that same group over a series of years what's what does the risk high risk go up does it keep continue to go down over for that there the that couple years from the same for I think that information could be really helpful as well yeah and that's I mean M I know you guys are looking at it right and my goal is just to give you sort of a snapshot of what the work looks like um but yeah and that is something we look at like and and and we you know students take um a fast Bridge assessment every year from kinder through fifth grade so that we can identify what their needs are in real time in any given year and how are they growing over that you know that entire sixe span of elementary school I mean it's a great thing because you can do interventions real time opposed to a lot of the standardized tests where it's you don't know until after the fact so there's nothing you can do until basically a year later right yeah Jen and I will bring more overall data to all of you and I can't remember the exact meeting but we're working on that with the screening and trying really hard to get better and better and making sure that we're looking so we'll make a note we can Mr TR G so one I love that your uh mission statement says it nurt that you nurture the Mind Body and hearts of your kids so thank you for that can you share just how you determine your interventions is that determined at the district level how is that training done like it go for so as a district actually we've been doing a lot of work on um kind of aligning our interventions and making and doing some learning on what type of interventions are appropriate especially um do you do you know that we have a new literacy yes good and so we've also done all this learning with letters and we know that our students need an aligned experience and they' been a part of a a really great team where we have taken a look at our new literacy and all of this learning we've done with letters and we are coming up with as a district um an intervention plan um for these tier 2 and tier three um so that our students um are going to get um learning that it's when they leave their classroom it's not going to be new learning because we know that they're going to learn best when oh I've been doing something very similar in my classroom with my teacher um and so we are we have a really great team working on that and that those are the things I'm using with the teachers that I work with so that they can get ahead start on those things I'm really excited for it okay I just want to say letters is for people that maybe don't know not just looking at letters letters about approach to spell right it's not spelled correct Community is it's not just you're not looking at letters I'm saying you're looking at those strategies you use to teach reading as defined by react and many other great research things that we anyway that wasn't a question that was a comment but um I was going to ask a question Christina um when when you're looking at all the data driven discussions and um drilling it down to individualized students which our parents really appreciate having individualized instruction for their children especially struggling children um how is that impacting when you finally feel that you need to make a referral of special education I'm guessing that you're referring the kids are the right kids that might need more instruction in that area that qualify for those kinds of special services so I mean you know so you're not you know you're working with kids a lot before they get to that point right so maybe maybe the kids are the right kids that end up then qualifying for special ucation I just thought you should comment on that being a former yes so actually so this year is when we've really had all these tools in place the curriculum resources and some of these other diagnostic tools and this fall we started really using them and we had some referrals and we're like let's wait let's let's see the progress that we make and two of these students they moved up and showed us that they they don't they're not having these concerns anymore because what we've done is showing that they're making the progress the right instruction and their basically Maybe not not having a they're not showing the need Lear disability or some other other category of special education right it was they just needed the right instruction they're not showing a disability in those two situations so what the work we did showed that intervention was appropriate and it wasn't necessary for a referral yeah okay um this actually might be a question for Alison I'm just wondering in terms of the teacher training for for letters um it obviously seems to be working in the cases that we've been presented with how have we made sure that it's been how we made sure the Fidelity of the program is across all schools and all teachers because I mean it goes up and down based on who who buys into it who's got their own way of doing things and yeah we're working really hard on that so letters is the professional development in the science of reading and so really it's a two-year process 95% of our K5 teachers have completed it so this would be their first year that they're not also doing letters training you know really is the sole Focus for our professional development is there an assessment I mean that two-year process that's that's kind of my issue with Fidelity of it is because you're going through two years worth of training how do we know at the end that two years training two years of training that they they know their stuff they yeah Ro I get the question the two years is really intense learning I mean it is like teachers almost have a process because they haven't learned this way of teaching literacy and in um teacher education programs of like almost mning like this is how I taught poor how do I grow in that so that's the focus meanwhile we also adopted a new curriculum and so between all of that we have an instructional leadership group our district instructional leadership group with Elementary which incl includes teacher leaders principles instructional coaches and they talk about how are we observing and really looking at that Fidelity and so they're working I'm not going to remember the statistics but they're really working on how are we making sure that this is happening not just hoping that this happens but diving into it and so they talk about we're doing um walkthroughs we I have walked through many classrooms with that and so you really partnering with teachers and Educators to say where is it difficult how are we aligning the curriculum and so we're kneed deep in that right now and and really that's our Focus how do you go to deep implementation so that we have we take out the variability a huge thing that's helping our Educators is looking at that data so when we look across the board we look at different schools we look at different grade levels but people to say what's going on for first grade second grade how do we come together because maybe we're seeing faster growth in one area and so all of that is and when you think of system change we have been very aggressive and people have leaned in and we have people I'm so proud of the work that we've done but you're in the middle so you're asking the questions that we too are asking and then how do you partner together around that so are the the teachers are they working together by grade level within the schools they like like obviously they normally do are they also looking across yes I feel like I'm stealing all the Thunder Jen is a huge part of all of this but question so I want to hear that this is like a huge team effort but yes we have Elementary um communities of practice that meet every single professional development day and each grade level across our whole District every single grade comes together and that's LED through professional development around curriculum implementation with a principal and an instructional coach and so when you think about it's really it's amazing to see what they do on those days and diving in and people are that was a need that people identified not only do we need time in our buildings but we need to do vertical so yes thank you thank you thanks J quick yes I just wonder how do you find the time for the houses to meet I mean when do you when do you carve out time on the busy school day for across grade levels that's that is a that's an excellent question um and it's a hard balance right so here is a uh here's a a tactic that is going to build a culture of uh learning and sort of collaboration within our school this community um but that's not something that's easily measured that's not something you're going to see on our mde report card and all that right and so here's something we feel is very important um that is going to affect academics affect our our students long-term growth hopefully well beyond our school um but we have to find time for it so that balance between yes this is super important but no we can't do it every day um so that's like I said we have one all school assembly assembly per quarter um that's about 30 minutes and 13 to 4 40-minute house family meeting per quarter um so yeah and it's really hard and that's you know when we have conversations there are some staff that would like more of it and sometimes we have to push back on that and um but really and it's also doing um doing things that we've been doing in the past but now in the context of houses so for instance we don't have a student council anymore we have heads of houses that are sort of our student um sort of student leaders um within the building um I know that we've got a we've we've uh February is um uh it's Black History Month and it's also um my blanket the name L I love to read month um and our our reading tallies all have to do with reading enough to earn a star that goes on the outside of your house family door right this is something that's happening outside of class but it's building that Community with inside the school um but that is a hard thing like you we we cannot go Whole Hog into something that might take away too much from our academic time so it's a balance all right oh one more sorry I just say I'm Dan scar I'm a new board member I just want to introduce myself and say thank you for the meaningful report I understood it actually so that was a good thing win the other thing is um I noticed that you use Latin for your Crest does that mean you want to become like a Latin imersion School probably won't get a lot of people there uh no and do would you know enough Latin to say that that really is or is that I don't know is that just like fake Latin I don't and I don't know the answer fight is just a real Latin fighting is a okay well then yes we are white Bear's new Latin immersion school but yeah no I I got a few Latin phrases and none of them are good well thank you thank you thank you for coming by all right next on our agenda is B4 Dr GES you want to introduce yeah I as John's coming up here John uh I will introduce John linger who's the principal at mosa International um school I just like to give our elementary principles thank you uh shout out they've been at work since 7 o' this morning so thank you being here so late absolutely thanks for having me thanks for sticking around I don't know if I'm last but um I I kind of want to just say everything that Mr Everything Mr Morris said like ditto because then just call it good I appreciate uh um appreciate you having me taking the time um I'm John linger uh principal mosa International um it's nice to meet you Mr star thank you for that introduction i' I've seen you around that it's nice to to hear so um there's a lot to share about M I'm really excited about it um I am not going to be able to get to everything about mosa but uh I'm sure I'm going to infra you and you're going to want to stay and we can talk afterwards um but we'll get this through so the people who have families can uh can get home um do I push the down arrow here okay A little delay Arrow right gotcha ah there we here Mata uh so um this is our mission statement I'm going not going to read through it but um our mission statement comes out of the strategic planning process which was done uh a few years ago and then redone as well um and then something that I really appreciated about that process is it wasn't a top-down approach it was about our families and communities articulating um what they wanted in their schools um our teachers saying this is what's important as we saw in our previous POS uh previous presentation our families are highly involved our families really um want to be involved they care about the schools they love their schools they love their teachers um and so as part of this process we work with our um you know the mosa Families Our PTO members uh members in the community not necessarily even part of the PTO and our teachers and we say what is it about the school that you attend um that you that you want and are hope for and hope for I should probably take a small step back um uh you know for some people who are not familiar with mosa we are in the south end of the school district near centry College we're um primarily Choice school so families in White Bear Lake get to choose to come to us uh we have a small attendance area as we used to say like um if you can throw baseball in a backyard we want to make sure that you are able to come to us um so but we're excited that we can draw those families right in our neighborhood but as well most of our our families choose to come here and join us at atosa uh International um and so our families um said that you know learning is important they said that uh being having a developmentally appropriate teaching and learning um you using research-based strategies um our family said it was important to recognize and valate and have a deeper understanding of each child's cultural and personal identities our families said that a commitment that we wanted a commitment to establish and nurture strong relationships within our learning communities um our family said they wanted to provide safe supportive environment through Equitable practices and our family said we wanted to encourage students and Staff Agency through meaningful um interactions so from there then we developed the our strategic objectives um and I think of of not here you'll notice they're bullet pointed they're not numbered they're not in an order of importance they're not as one is more important these are things that our teachers and families and City said all of these things are important um but we know that we want each child to feel welcome safe and appreciated for who they are um it was important that 100% of our students demonstrate individualized growth uh in their learning uh 100% of the students are prepared for future learning and then each student makes a positive impact within the school and broader Community um and a little bit as I was listening to uh Mr Morris and Lincoln it's really about growth it's really about getting each child to that next step finding out what are their needs what are their hopes and dreams um what are the needed mathematics what they need in reading and then helping us get them to that next level so many of things that um that they talked about are very similar with our our our Intervention Program with how we identify the students we identify what their needs are and then how we can meet those students where they're at and get them to the next as I sometimes say like I have two children of my own at home um one of them was an early Walker one was a late Walker one of them's not exceptionally gifted one of them is not developmentally delayed we know children grow um in in leaps and burn burst and spurts and our job is to find out where are you at what is that next step that you need to get to your your next learning so we set some goals around those strategic objectives we know that we are um you know we're in a constant state of improvement um you know I hear a lot and for better for worse and I apologize but you know pandemic was was was a a a point in time that was really difficult we had many students and F came many of them did exceptionally well um many of those families and students they struggled and so we were all over the place and we are in that process of building back and um and our data and I'll share some that data in a minute we're showing really good success in that in that um in that growth so we decided that we needed to spread our um our our academic goals in that fast Bridge reading as you heard Mr Morris talk about um into two parts because we knew we needed to get to our 80% but we need to make sure that our goal was challenging um but also reasonably attainable so in the first year we're going to get to 74% um we'll be at that low risk is U uh you know Mr Morris talked about the a fast Bridge reading um and then 80% um by the next year um we also uh want to collect and are collecting um and analyzing data that to the extent that students feel safe valued engaged and connected at school we know one of the best indicators to a child's success is being connected engaged in school um and one of those things is have we asked our children are you connected are you engaged let's talk to the people who are actually here talk to our clients and ask you know are you engaged in stol and then we also know that that relationship is huge that relates relates directly to um that engagement which is um our relationship with our families and our historically marginalized families are so important to learning and we saw that again with our slides before like our families trust us we need to keep them engaged we need to keep our families engaged not all of our families are always engaged and it's a part of our job is to reach out and say hey we want to help your child learn we want you to feel welcome we want you to know what's going on at school let us help you help your children get get to school to get that academic achievement to make it um uh you know make yourself Propel forward so the primary focus um we have been in that letters training we are part of that small percentage that is in year two so our teachers are in that second year of that letters training um again it's a very intensive program um teachers say it's a lot of work but it's really rewarding it's uh it's a it's it's fun to see teachers learning they're they they are Educators um at their hearts they love to learn they love to know more um what's also exciting is when you hear things like um you know our our world is changing and what what we know about learning is changing we shouldn't be stuck at some point in time we need to as we constantly learn about new ways to teach new ways to engage kids and how our brains are working it's just it's just incredibly valuable so our teachers while they know it's a lot of work they are highly engaged in it and are appreciate it and then we are also in that um our second year of the CK amplify our new literacy curriculum um what's exciting about that is our last year was our first year it was a really good year with any first year there is a lot of learning that goes on now it's like okay as we are going through our units of uh going through our units we're going through our knowledge units um we're like okay I remember this I get this I can figure this out and our teachers um it's really it's hard to explain but that learning curve is a super super exciting how it's like there the the wheels are just moving in a wonderful ways so by the numbers I promised you some numbers um like you know how are we doing so when we talked about that fast the fast Bridge specifically the fast there's a number of different sections in within the fast Bridge Suite the CBM Benchmark when we looked at our numbers through the course of the year last year um every grade level increased moving from um out you know moving into that lower risk category everybody is growing every grade level is moving the right direction and not we moving in the correct direction on every grade level on average 11.2% increase at each level so we are not just maintaining but we are growing on average about 11.2% moving towards that goal so more kids are learning are getting into that low risk at a very high at a very high rate and so when I think about our goals that we were talking about before we really should be able to to achieve that um but we will see in our student survey um 9 99.4% feel that their teachers care about them 96.1% feel connected to their classmates um 89.6 feel comfortable talking to an adult about things that bother them again trying to build that relationship and connection relationships and connections are going to really help our students achieve in their Reading Writing and math we need them engaged in school um and then as well uh you know the family and parent engagement has been important um and each team held this year a family engagement inent um and that was um I had a lot of hopes for that and it exceeded that and one of the things that you know we think about with schools is that that as I talked a lot about those relationships but having relationships um with families is really important and we noticed in our previous p presentation there was some conversations about Behavior right concerns about behavior and one of the beliefs and one of the things that we know is that if we have a good relationship with our parents when we have a problem or Challenge and we call them up and you have a positive relationship that parent is going to be like on it let me help you out because I know that the school is there to help my child out my teacher wants my child to learn I'm going to help out so we're going to we're going to build this positive connected relationship so all of those things we're seeing as we build those relationships improving our student academic achievement they all go together so what's in our future we're not doing Latin immersion although that would be really cool um but we are doing our our Spanish dual immersion we are excited I know we had a board presentation earlier we are well on our way um to doing that there is a lot one of the things I've been in white bear for quite a while um and I was at a recent conversation with Mr W and was like you know one of the things I've always loved white about White Bear Lake um because I've been here a long time you know me as a personnality I'm a risk taker I will go anywhere do anything people like why are you still in White Bear Lake it's like it's because every time every turn wer lak has provided a challenge and opportunity to learn to grow to excel so just what I'm thinking well I'm going to just Coast out of here in five years they're like immersion I'm like awesome let's do it let's figure this out so um you can tell I'm kind of excited so um so we're bringing uh immersion to uh to to Mosa to Otter Lake and to Mosa um uh you know the enrollment started um Gang Busters I don't know how it just tried 75 students are already enrolled in uh at mosa International um both for our English and our Spanish they're about half and half um but if you think about that we are 75 which is about 75% of our facility and it's like we are just at the end of January is um we are doing really well um with bringing students in when we talk about bringing imersion it's really important we first talk about a great kindergarten experience and as I've toured families for English as I've toured families for Spanish the common denominator really is we want a great experience for a kindergarten it's like absolutely um and so our uh Spanish track and our English track um that's going to be our first and foremost um as we move forward um the other thing we talk about you know is like we are one school like White Bear Lake we're one school so it's not going to be us and them it's not the Spanish or the English it's mosa it is White Bear Lake um and it just so happens that we are getting our instruction curriculum based on the language that those families choose and want to have for their children say we are happy to serve the families that this is what you want we can provide this for you so where we're at um our design team uh thanks to Jen is working hard and aan is over there in the background we have to make sure to recognize the work that she's doing um working on the curriculum alignment scope and sequence trainings professional development um our Administration team is working on Staffing um and one of the um things that I really uh enjoy and has been fun about the Staffing part because if you've heard much about immersion schools Staffing is one of those things that really come up and what we're finding out is people want to come to White Bear Lake people want to work in White Bear Lake it's a testament to who we are as a community to our schools when educators are saying I want to go work there so lots to be proud of there all right so this is where I get to be a risk taker um a few uh in in our immersion uh presentation not uh long ago go before the holidays um my colleague at the high school shared an awesome morning announcements that they do videotape and their high school students put them together it's pretty polished we do video announcements at mosa I get to do them and I'm going to get a chance to share one but I have to put a couple little Asis there because this just not a you know High budget uh production I do 172 of them and they've got to get done and the kids always say I see your mouth moving cuz we do puppet shows I like yeah it's me r the puppets um but the the evolution is kind of fun because like I'm not sure how many of you remember from elementary school do anybody remember the principal's morning announcements it is that was just never the Highlight right my wife talks about remember hearing that she had a library book gone I like back in the day like well we don't do that like no one's listening to the principal so okay we're going to then get the principal on the screen we're going to come to the 21st century it is still the principal doing this um and so um as part of some of our curriculum we had puppets in our second step curriculum there are puppets and then we've added puppets to it and now principal John linger gets to share part of their curriculum message from our uh Second Step curriculum and we bring in puppets so I'm going to finish um bear with me with a three minute morning announcement the B quality for youra students and staff this is principal John linger with your morning announcements it is Monday we are ready for a great week and we are looking forward to getting a lot done as we usually do on Monday we think about our week ahead we can think about what we're going to be learning um all the uh great things that we can do to engage our learning um so I want everyone to be thinking about not only what you're going to be learning but like what are the best ways that you can do that so much of it is about listening following directions um engaging in your learning which means eyes watching ears listening all of those things that we know help us learn um speaking of good things here at mosa we have Bearpaw here good things happening I wanted to give a shout out here to Luca Luca was a leader um when he helped out the sub hey thanks for being a leader and thanks for being a helper we love those helper um we have a shout out here to Ramsey in kindergarten um waited for a friend to go out to to recess hey way to beat a great uh great compassionate friend like you know friends are awesome and we treat our friends well that is really wonderful and lastly we uh shout out here to uh Prince Jaden in first grade who had a super day helping classmates being an awesome leader and caring for others nicely done Jaden we are so proud of all of you um that concludes our announcements for today so we want to say thanks we'll see you all in the hall oh we've been talking so much about our feelings and emotions yeah this is really important to talk about I I have a funny question like I sometimes don't understand like what's the difference between being sad and being worried oh that's really a tough one like sad and worried are are a lot alike yeah they sure are but it's not that hard to understand like just think about like that pizza oh I don't want to think about the pizza I was just love the pizza flop yeah the pizza flop you were pretty sad oh I was so sad B Pizza flopped and it was the ground and I was wanted to eat it like I just was sad I lost my pizza yeah that's sad but when you're worried is when you're thinking about something that might happen in the future like I'm going to drop my pizza again oh no yeah that's when you're worried that you're going to drop your pizza again but that's okay you can make a plan a plan yeah you can make a plan so like next time you have pizza you can like carry your pizza with two hands oh plan I'll carry my pizza with two hands and then you can set it on the table and sit carefully so it won't fall off I'll sit at the table with two hands facing forward and then it won't fall down oh that's helpful now I don't have to be worried about my pizza flop yeah it's sometimes tricky but always make a plan if you're worried and if you need help you can ask your teacher or friends or parents or anyone who help you make a plan oh good idea make a plan bye bye [Applause] thank you for allowing me to be a risk taker thank you for letting me share about mosa I'm happy do we have any quick questions because I know that we have to stop at 8 or we have to make a vote if we go past dat so do your fifth graders enjoy that as much as the gander gers yeah we we have a variety as well and then we also in our beause um we um it happen to draw some of those things but we also draw for um academic things kids that are learning something say but what you're learning so we want to acknowledge like hey they learned their Matha other questions I just want to say Kudos on your 11% increase 11 plus% increase on your fast Bridge results and um what else I was going to point out just the way that you're honoring every student through your mission and your daily interactions and also um the importance of social emotional learning and helping kids learn how to cope with every situation so your participation matters and good to see you thanks for everything that you're doing can I say one more thing letters letters training I just want to make sure because I've pointed this out before but I want to make sure that this I say it again that the statute I think was that folks started getting trained this year and 95% of our teachers are done so that's a big huge deal um we are way ahead of of many districts across the metro and across the state so thank you and I know you had a lot to do with that so thank you want to say thank you for your years of enthusiasm years of enthusiasm and all the things that you taken on send days to teach has a class yes any final words thank you for coming thank you thank you I like CH thank for helping us out so when if chocolate bars are getting coming up for sales again let me know they are as of today actually your timing is good I'll we'll be giving you a call okay thank you thank you okay we have one more agenda item we have C1 Mr Wald yes thank you Cher and earlier this evening or maybe about a lifetime ago heard from Jim mikon the district's uh from The District's auditing firm mmkr he presented a uh FIS audit for fiscal year 2324 that's the the next step in the annual process of the audit is for the school board to accept the report and so the recommended action is to for the school board to accept the fiscal year audit report as presented so in front of us we have the recommended Au action to accept the fiscal year 2 2324 audit report somebody like to make a motion M Thompson do have a second second by stri Og all right any discussion probably have to abstain just because it wasn't on my watch even though I had a lot of questions okay uh any other questions is this a price this is a roll call roll call okay so this will be a roll call so I'm going to ask the clerk to call the rooll sirate state oh sorry I didn't hear that Dr I Thompson hi AR ioy I Daniel's I motion carries thank you thank you so we're finally to the point of the uh uh agenda so uh would somebody like to make a motion to adjourn chair Dr AR make ation Thompson did we have a second I'll second second all right this is a voice a Voice vote all in favor aderman say I I I'll oppe same sign okay we are adjourned