Now call this meeting of school district school board independent school district 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the role? Thompson here. Aran here. Boyd here. Daniels here. Ellison here. Scar here. All right. Our first item tonight
and discussion on B1 area learning center update. Dr. Gillespie. Chair Arin, members of the board. Um, I'd like to introduce two guests that we have today. Jenny Scholston, who's the assistant principal of the alternative learning or area learning center, and Russ Reeds,
principal at our high school. Jenny's going to start for us as we update you on our area learning center. Thank you. Um, I apologize. I know I sound like a frog. um just we're on the struggle bus in terms of health at my house. So um but
I'm on antibiotics so I'm not contagious. So um well first of all thank you so much for having me. Um it's been an awesome first year of learning um for me at the area learning center this year. So I'm really excited to present you with you
today. Do I Okay. Awesome. Super. Um, so when I really think about a mission, um, for us at the ALC, it really defines the work that we do every day. It grounds us and it also serves as a challenge. Um,
and so when I really look at our mission, I the words that stand out are the words that I underlined there. Um, is it safe for our students? Are we collaborative with our students and our families and each other? Are we flexible
in our grouping? Are we flexible in our credit earning opportunities? Are we flexible in the way that we address their needs and um and each other? Do we show up for each other in ways um that
show that flexibility? And so really our mission is how we show up every day is in the relationships that we have with each other, with families. Um are we respectful and nurturing? And do we offer restorative opportunities whenever
we can? Uh are we having an individualized approach whenever we are able to do that? Uh is it supportive and is it unique? It's an area learning center. We have to do things differently. And so for me it's always
thinking about is there another way to approach this? Can we look at it from a different way? Um, I think I'm really good at stepping back and I think the whole team at the ALC is really good at stepping back and again looking at that whole student. One thing that I think is
kind of a hallmark that I've seen, I've been in alternative ed for almost 20 years. Um, and so one thing that I think is is a hallmark is that when a student comes to the ALC, they'll say, "I'm not going to stay here very long. I want to be out of here ASAP. I'm going to be
gone before you even know my name." And then within a short amount of time, they're saying, "I'm going to stay here. I no longer want to go back to my home school, whether that's the high school or if they're open enrolled, that they don't want to go back to their home
school anymore." And so that's something that I hear time and time again in the short time that I've been at the ALC that that's been a reality that I've seen also come to life. And so for me, I think that we are living and breathing this mission. Um, and so I that's one of
the ways that I can really see that we're living the vision and mission every day. So just to talk a little bit about the enrollment trends, um, you can see the last five years of data here. Last year was really an outlier in terms of
enrollment. That was of course prior to me being here. So um, but really if you look at this year, we started a little bit higher than the previous four years if you take out last year being that outlier. And then we're we're landing right now at about 182, which is pretty
similar to to years past. So I would say our enrollment is is pretty similar to what we've experienced in years past as we start lower um at the beginning of the year and kind of have anywhere from like a 30 to 40% increase throughout the school year. Um which is a common as we
get students from the high school or from other schools. All right. So there's a lot for us to celebrate. um at the at the area learning center. First of course the graduation rates just came out and we do have 77.5% graduation rate. Um as you can see
also this was an increase of 26 percentage points since 2021. It's a lot to be proud of here. Um and as we know students come to the area learning center most are behind in credits and so for us that's a really you know it might
be lower than you see at the main high school obviously but when we're rece we have some students that come to us um you know significantly behind in credit. So the fact that they're able to recover credits and graduate um is a huge accomplishment. So, while it might not
be as high as the high school, we're still really proud um to have that high graduation rate. Um we also have here information about the honor role. Our honor role looks a little bit different than um what you traditionally see. So,
ours is based on how much credit students earn. And so, they have an opportunity to earn 3.25 credits every quarter. And so if they earn 2.5 credits in the quarter, then they they were they are on the honor role for that quarter.
Um so you can see these are the number of students that were on the honor role each quarter. And then um 50% of students throughout the school year this year have been on the honor role. So that's pretty exciting celebration for us to see. And many students, this is
the first time they've ever been on the honor role. And the way that we celebrate that is we have a doughnut breakfast for the students. um and they get a certificate. This year the students hated on the certificate that I designed. Um and so in the future the
students are going to be designing the certificate, but I thought it was a really nice one. They did not like it. Um that's all right. They are high schoolers and they're always honest. So um there you go. They did not like it whatsoever, but I thought it was pretty awesome. Uh, and then the other one I
just wanted to highlight is um we had the Rotary Strive scholarship um banquet a couple weeks ago and I don't know if you're familiar with the Rotary Strive um scholarships, but it's a really amazing um scholarship for students that
really it highlights and gives an opportunity for students to get a scholarship that are not like a traditional scholarship winner um because they're in the bottom third in terms of their GPA. The really thing the thing that I thought was really wonderful when I sat in on the interviews. Um these students have
stories really of triumph over adversity. They have persevered through some really difficult things and it was really wonderful to hear and see them be honored for um their ac excuse me their um accomplishments for really turning
around their lives. And uh we had two full ride scholarships awarded and then two $3,000 scholarships awarded this year. Um and we actually only had four students apply this year and all four students were awarded uh scholarship. So that was a really really fun awards
banquet this year that all students were which isn't typical that everybody gets um a scholarship, but it was really fun to be there and and see all the students receive something. So and I was a Rotary exchange student. Tim always hears me talk about this, but for me it's fun to
see um the Rotary do so many wonderful things in in our schools and really wonderful to have them engaged in that way with the ALC and um they often come to visit us throughout the year just to say hi which is really great. So fun to
have one plug on the Rotary Stripe scholarship. It's uh uh Rotary's offered this scholarship for decades and it's now an international scholarship program for Rotary and it started right here in Wiper Lake and Rotary Strife scholarships happen all over the country
and different areas of the world. It was started locally here in Wiper Lake at Wiper Lake High School. Yeah, it's great. Well, fun fact. Fun fact. Um so credit um so this is a little bit of just like the academic um accomplishment. So at the ALC because we
have an increase in enrollment throughout the year, it's really hard to look at like what's a really good data point for us to look at in terms of how the students are performing. So we look at credit earned versus credit attempted. So that's what you see here.
Um because we have this huge increase, if you think about a 30% increase throughout the school year of our enrollment, like how can we really look at um what's happening in terms of credit earning? So, we started kind of in the low 50s and we're up getting um
into about 61% right now in terms of what the credit earned versus what was attempted by students. This is quite typical for alternative populations. Again, like I said, this is I'm been in altad for about 20 years. Um I would like it to be
much higher. So, this year is going to be our kind of baseline data. They haven't looked at this data point in the past at the ALC. So this is going to be kind of our our baseline year for looking at future forward how we can really work in in our kind of collaboration to increase that for the
future. Um so it's not atypical but it's also a good baseline for us to know future forward how we can work to improve that. It also shows us some ways to when our attendance data might not always be representative. It also shows us another vantage point about engagement um in terms of credit
earning. So it just helps us to know what we want to work on in terms of that and obviously there's a direct connection there with credit earning and working towards graduation um and striving towards that. So that's kind of our main data point that we're really
working on. All right. So next year we'll be working to transition to trimesters just like the high school. We found that we did a lot of um data collection this year and I surveyed the staff and talked a lot
with Allison and Jen and Russ to discuss if we were going to also transition to trimesters with the high school. I think because we're a feeder school from the high school, most of our students do come from there. It's important that we align our programming in terms of aligning our calendars. So, we will be
also moving to trimesters, which a large lift for the for the ALC. Um, but one really significant difference is that we will be having what I've coined the mini master. I'm very excited about this term, way more excited than everyone
else. Um, but hey, this is how we become like history makers as we make new words. So, what the mini master is, it is a smaller trimester. And so um what it will be is a six-w week grading period and it provides opportunities for
students to earn credit at an increased frequency. This is really really important for students in alternative education settings. If we have these longer trimesters, it actually gives them more opportunity to lose their credit that they're earning. And so by
having these kind of shorter pit stops, if you will, for them to earn credit, um they will actually earn more credit. And that's a that's a proven strategy for um students that are at risk for not graduating on time. Uh actually in Minneapolis when I was there back in the
day, we actually did three-week grading periods. I do not recommend that. We're not doing three-week grading periods. Um so six weeks is a nice kind of middle ground uh for students and for teachers to be able to like get in, get some momentum, have that pit stop, and so
there'll be two miniasters in every trimester. Okay. And teachers will be working this summer. They'll have some curriculum writing hours to continue to work on getting their curriculum ready for this trimester shift. And we've been working on that um second semester also um with
some guidance with Jen um to really get everyone ready. We've been working every other Tuesday morning as a team to get everyone ready to align their curriculum and their scope and sequence. All right. So another really
important hallmark of alternative programming is is really having an experential learning experiential learning. Uh so we do a lot of opportunities for students to kind of expand the learning outside of the classroom. So you can see here some
examples of field trips that we've gone on. Science museums, the state capital, the MIA. We just went to Cedar Creek in the rain and students of course were very ill-dressed and were wearing shorts. Um, so we actually, you know,
had makeshift ponchos that we made out of our garbage bag. So, thank you to facilities for giving us very long garbage bags that could be ponchos. Um, we've gone to memorial blood centers three times this year. Um, also trying to do lots of ways that we can um do
community service as well, feed my starving children. We actually took a group of students to Festival Foods and helped them learn about how like with our changing economy, how to like budget. And it's interesting because you think like kids go grocery shopping all the time, but they don't. They don't
know how to like do a budget, go grocery shopping, and then actually like cook the food. We have a kitchen, you know, also at the ALC. So, um, we have done some lots of college visits also, and then we've had more guest speakers than I can count. They're always finding ways
to bring community into the ALC. Um, so that's really exciting to see just so many ways that the teachers are innovative to bring the students either outside into the community or bring the community inside to the ALC. Um, so it's really something that I think is a hallmark of alternative programming, but
specifically the ALC is a strength that I would say they do really, really well. Um, so two first for the ALC this year, we had two family nights, um, which they have haven't done before. or we had a bingo night. You do not outgrow bingo. Bingo is good for all people. And
so we had an awesome bingo night in the fall and it we brought tons of families in and they were really happy um just to be invited. They're like, "We haven't done something like this at the high school level." Um and it was just a really great kickoff in the fall. Normally um fam, you know, there's
always like the open house idea, which is a really great thing, too. Um, but we just really wanted to do something that would be interactive and fun and um, the ALC is a lot smaller and so really like having families like walk around just didn't feel like it would be that
engaging and so we thought we would do something else and um, Cup and Cone donated ice cream sandwiches. We got lots of prizes donated um, and then we had some delicious food from um, a local Mexican restaurant. It was delicious and
it just was a great kickoff to the year and so we'll definitely be hoping to replicate that. And then a few weeks ago we had an Izzy which is an in um internal intentional intentional social interaction. Thank you. Um and we
it was it started at 5:30 and at like 5:24 I was like, "Oh my gosh, nobody's coming." Uh and then all of a sudden it just like our whole school erupted and there was all these people there and um it was amazing. There was a great turnout and I just looked around and saw
so many families and so the staff interacting and chatting with the families. Uh and actually the the number one thing that that families wrote um and talked about was their gratitude for the school being a good fit for their child. I think when you know we have
this awesome flagship high school which is amazing and it's just not a good fit for some kids and I think just to have another option for some students uh is a really it's a strength of our district and I'm really proud that we have that offering and then additionally they said
they just want more family nights which I was like that's great feedback. I was really a little bit surprised to hear that. I have my own children and to be honest sometimes the last thing I want is another activity to attend in their
school and I I'm an educator and I like activities but I'm just like I don't want more activities. So I just was really um pleased to hear that they were happy to have be extended that opportunity to come and be welcomed into the school and they just want to come more often. Uh so another way that we
engage really intentionally with families is our advisor system which students work with the same adviser throughout their entire time at the ALC. That's their main point of contact. If a family wants to know like how is my child doing they always hear it from the
adviser and they give them upto-date information on how they're doing and they also give them all the information about their progress towards graduation. So, normally at the high school that would come mostly from their actual guidance counselor, but at the ALC that
comes from their adviser. And so, that person really works closely with each family. And I think that's a really strong um connection and system that we have at the ALC where families grow really connected to the adviser as do the students. So, um I think it's a really strong um way that we connect
well with families. All right. Thanks, Tony. So, we are embarking on a ALC program review. Um, we're partnering with district 916 to help us as we really think about and build upon the successes we've had this year at our high school. And then what
Jenny's mentioned, the success that she's seen, but also opportunities that we have around what pathways are we offering our students to graduation. Some students, the ALC is the absolute appropriate landing spot for them for the remainder of their high school career and other students might want to get back to the high school. And so
really partnering with Jenny and Russ around those pathways that we offer. 916 as you know have a lot of wonderful options as well. And so we're exploring three things and we will be back. So I'm really giving you a preview of what we're doing but we will have some things that we'll either want you action from
you on and or just to provide updates. But um our district logistics program review and technical assistance. And so really it's looking at how do they help us think about what is the best designation for us to have as a district. Right now we're we're designated as an ALC which means that we
um you have to be designated as an ALC to offer targeted services to our elementary students. That's you think um after school activities in summer school. Additionally um you also need to have some sort of middle school program when you're in ALC and then your high school component has to be open for 9
through 12 and accept students from other districts. We're examining whether we would would shift to an ALP, which is an area learning program. And what that allows you to do is really focus what we're offering at the high school. So maybe we decide um 10 through 12 is what we'd want to offer. And Russ really
looking at, okay, what what supports do we have so that students can stay um at the high school and really these are ideas that we're we're tossing around. We would still need to have an ALC designation because we want to offer targeted services to our families. And there are districts, member districts at 916 that then partner with 916 and
utilize their ALC um designation that would also allow us um to really look at our middle school programming and say, is this really what we need to do for our middle school students or is there something different? And so that's one aspect. The other two are, as Jenny mentioned, how can we really make sure that what we're doing at the ALC and
build on the success that we've had is the most innovative programming that we can do. And ALC's are constantly reinventing themselves. So everything we say now or you know when we make decisions that is when Jenny talks about being part of ALC's for 20 years it people that have been there a long time
are really used to creating different schedules and different programs and so we would do what we believe is best knowing that we continue to improve and then finally the one that I think will be what we first lead with is how do we make sure that we're really um reporting everything we need to in the best way
for in terms of earning as much revenue as we can based on student attendance. I mentioned last um week when I presented at the schoolboard meeting really making sure we're recording attendance accurately. It feels to me that maybe there's some things we could do better around that and not that anything they're doing in the day-to-day. It's
really our accounting of what we're doing. Um, and so then having 916 because they run so many ALC's, they're able to really help us and look at it and say these are the ways that we should be putting things in synergy and all of those things that happen behind the scenes, but they matter a lot so that we can make sure that we're
receiving the the fiscal support that we need to from um, you know, the state funding and then looking at that across our system. So, it's three buckets. Uh, we have already started working with 916. Jenny and I will continue partnering with them and really getting things off the ground. What I'm most excited about is Jenny as a new
administrator getting to really work with the staff and say what are our beliefs? What are we aligned? This is an opportunity to really build on our success to say this is what we believe we need to be and then partnering with the high school and Russ's team around these are all the opportunities we have for kids to earn credit. We we we have opportunities at our high school as
well. So then what ways can we help our students be successful? Okay. All right. So really we're we're ready for any questions you might have. Do we have any questions? Miss Daniels, um can you explain I I I
sort of am familiar with some of it, but how a student would are they self-referred, parent referred, staff referred. How did they get there? Yeah, it can come in multitude of ways. I think the first way is usually a staff referral or a parent referral. Um, but
we have a an a referral process that usually is generated through their guidance counselor at the high school. Um, but sometimes it's word of mouth where they have a friend there. So then if a parent requests it, um, that's another way. The student often will tell their parent that they want to go there too. Um, and then it can come that way.
They do have to have one of 17 ways. So they can't just come because they want to come, but 17 ways you have to qualify through one of those, which is pretty easy to do. things like behind in credits, mental health concerns, um an English learner, they're a parent, you
know, things like that. Yeah. Question with the mini master mini master. Y will they have an opportunity then to earn more credits in a shorter amount of time because they'll have more six weeks in a semester so or
in a trimester. So potentially they could earn twice as many credits. So it'll be the same amount of credits, but we will offer one um additional class per day than the high school has because the high school will have a five period
day and we'll have a six period day. Um and then we have other re like other ways that students can make up credit recovery also um through some different means like credit by assessment. Some of our field trip opportunities um do offer credit also. Um so we do have other ways
for them to augment their credit earning that way, but in terms of like um that they're able to do it faster. No. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One very short question, one more. Um do you have any open enroll students? Yes, we do. Yeah, we do. Thank
you. All right. Other questions? Yes, Miss Bully. Um, what other districts are currently using the ALC through 916? You, excuse me, using our school, our ALC or just the ALC in general? Our
member districts? The 916. I don't know all the member districts off the top of my head, but Kathleen, there's there's 13. Um, most Yeah. And I was going to say I think we may be the Well, there might be one more that has an LC. Otherwise, most of those
districts are using the 916 districts. I think Roseville might be the only other district that carries their own ALC designation. Yeah, I'm not sure about Msville. Oh, okay. Y So, most do though. Most use the 916.
I I knew it was I know five or six of them off the top of my head, but I know we've looked at the ALC a couple times over the past seven years that I know of. Um what's the what's the reasoning
now to take a look at maybe switching to the program versus the center approach? It really is aligning our programs to the different specifications for ALC. And so we've looked at it in a sense of really looking focusing at the high school, but
we have not done uh a comprehensive review since I've been in the district, which would be eight years at least. Um, and so it's aligning to the ALC has specifications and so if we chose to lean into the ALC, we would have to do some enhancements for our middle school programming. And middle school
programming might not be the way that we see best meeting the needs of our students. The other piece is really looking at how what's our ninth grade program um what's our partner district. So there's just some really clear designations around ALC's that we would have to enhance as a district whereas we
partnering with 916 you still have those opportunities but you don't have to carry those things yourself. And so it we really are in the beginning stages but it's weighing what's what do we think as a system is better for us. So did something change? No. I guess I'm confused.
So it is just program review. So nothing the program has been the same. The designations that they have at the MDE we we would need to do things to enhance middle school which is not abnormal. Throughout COVID things fell fell off the wayside a little bit and then having
a full-blown ALC program. You have to have a full-blown middle school program which we do not have right now. And so we would need to decide that that's something that we would want to do. And that has been the case for since I've been here. But that's always been required for the designation. It has always been required. Yes. So, how did
we get the designation? I have no idea. And I've been that we've had the designation for quite some years and I'm not sure what it looked like then. I've done some diving into looking at our audits and things, but it it's inconclusive on how what we used to do and how that part of it fell off and really wanting to focus forward in terms
of how can we dive into whether we need we want to have this middle school ALC and if we don't then this is another option for us to make sure that we meet because we need targeted services for our elementary students and middle school students for summer school. Okay. All right. Thank you. Great. Thanks.
Other questions, Mr. Scar? Thank you. Well, thanks for being here um in the presentation. Um what's the what's our capacity at the ALC for students? How many can we take? 300, 200. What's kind
of a sweet spot? What's our capacity? That's a good question. Um well, all students are not built the same. So one student can can feel like 10 and you know so I think in terms of
um an actual number I would say closer to 200 to 225 in terms of the regular school year. Now in summer school um we do run a larger program in the summer um and that we also have additional staff
in the summer. So we have about 300 students that come in the summer. So is that so is is the building pretty full then? Yes. Okay. Yeah. In terms of physical like space capacity, right? 300
maxes us maxes us out in terms of like the physical space capacity. So you mentioned that we have um students from open enrollment from other districts. Like do you know do you have any idea how many
I just looked it up. It's 25%. 25%. Yep. For last year. Thank you. Um, is the is the funding any different if you're an ALC versus an ALP or is it the funding the same? The funding is the same. Um,
students can generate up to 1.2 ADM. And so students who are enrolled in ALPS or ALC's can generate 20% more, which is how you do with that credit recovery or summer school. So you get additional funding that way. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. I hope you feel better. Well,
thank you. Thank you. This is actually improved. So, okay, Miss Ellison, how do the students at the ALC How do how do you ensure that students at the ALC have the opportunities to participate in events at the high school? I mean, sports and music and
theater. How does that work? So, the nice thing is that like Russ and I meet often. Um I also attend uh the admin meetings at the high school. So I think the collaboration between our buildings is really strong and I think that's a strength that we've really worked on
this year. Students Russ I will say um I just want to give you a shout out. Yeah. So, um, again, since I've worked in alternative alternative ed for a long time, um, the relationship between the
high school and the ALC that I'm experiencing here is is very different. And I would say it's mostly because Russ has um a really singular and I when I say singular I mean it in a positive way
um attitude towards our students because we both have um the belief that all our kids all are all our kids and um and I really feel that from him and I really appreciate that. And so that is our
approach that all our kids are all our kids. And so our kids are welcome at the high school for sporting events, for the pepfest, for all those things. And when it was time for the pepfest that, you know, joined the high schools, the first one in the fall, and I was like, Russ,
my kids want to be there. Russ was like, yep, we don't have space for our current kids, but bring them on. You know, and he he that has not been an attitude that I've always experienced. Um, I've been in other districts where, you know, we
had to like bring them in and basically had to, you know, escort them in and escort them out and they were not very welcomed and it felt really terrible. And that's just not Russ's approach. And so, um, I think like us meeting and really having
this belief that our white bear kids at the ALC are white bear kids. And I think if you have that fundamental belief, which he does and we do, then it there is a a need for us to worry about it because it kind of works itself out. So
students participate in sports, students participate in the things that they want to at the high school. Um, and so anyone who wants to is is welcome and and has we've extended all of that. And I also get to be at the events too, just like
the rest of the other APs. And so, you know, homecoming, we bonded and, you know, I'm there just like everyone else and the kids see me there also. So, prom I was there with my breathalyzer just like the other APs, you know. So,
yeah. Thank you. And and I also just wanted to note um I appreciate the presentation and just a note to Dr. Kazmichek and Dr. Gillespie, I've really enjoyed having all of the buildings come and present to us this year. This is the first time we've done it like this since
I've been on the board. And it's really given us a close look at what happens at the school from your lens of being there every single day. And I think that gives us a lot of good context and helps us make decisions. So I' I'd love it if we
continued this. Yeah, that's the plan. We're we're back on track. We if you recall, we started this precoid and then several things got derailed. That was But we're back. This will be a regular Yeah, it's tremendously helpful and just really good for us to know what's going
on in all the buildings. Yeah, the principles have really enjoyed it as well. They very much enjoy time to celebrate what they're doing and share some of their challenges, but getting facetime with all of you has mental help to them. So, thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Um, I guess I just want to circle back to the ALC ALP
piece because I'm also a little confused and I just want to my understanding is that if we have an ALC, we should have an ALC that also serves our elementary and our middle school students. Middle school, not elementary. Not okay. Because you said
that we needed to have an elementary piece. So, elementary is targeted services. And so you have to as a district have an ALC designation to be able to offer targeted services at the elementary. And that that is when you think of um the afterchool programs and summer school that we offer to kids who
are getting extra help based on academics. And so that really is the elementary part of it. But in order to be able to offer that, you as a district have to have the ALC designation. So pause right there. The ALC designation means that you have a partner district that you specifically work with, which
my guess is at one point we had Mamedi as our partner district. That partnership isn't as strong anymore. And so in order to do a program review, that's one of the things we'll have to decide. Do we want to, you know, double down on that partnership or does it make more sense for us to have the partnership with 916? The other piece
you have to offer is a comprehensive eighth or middle school program. That's an ALC, meaning offering all of the subject areas and being able to be offered to sixth through 8th grade. What we do right now meets what I would call the basic requirements of compliance. And it's not, we would want to double
down on that and say, okay, really, what are we offering for middle school? Um, is this really meeting the needs of our students middle school, we have other ways as well. We have access funding which helps with intervention staffing at the middle school. So when you think about supporting kids who might struggle at middle school, we might not through
this process decide it's best to double down our resources to have a comprehensive kind of either school within a school or literally to have some of our middle school kids go to our current area learning center. Those two things have to be in place for you to truly be in compliance to have the ALC designation, then that's what you can
offer targeted services. So we can't lose the targeted services piece. We also very much are committed to the high school program that we offer. So, one way many districts do this, and I too have been a part of ALC's for 20 years, and both of my previous ALC's, one in Richfield and Inisetta transition from
ALC to ALP because it because they have partner districts who can help that. And really, it's the middle school component that's the most challenging to figure out. And so then what we can do is still offer all of these things for our students, but we do it in a way that we're partnering with 916, but it gives us more flexibility to say this is who
our ALC is and we actually aren't going to try to be everything to everyone. We're meeting the needs that we have immediately in our program, but it is, you know, constantly growing. So that really I hope I'm explaining it well, but um there's pieces that right now I would not say we're completely out of
compliance, but they're not to the level that I feel comfortable with for us to double and so we have to decide to double down on. Um either we're going to increase that ALC or another way to do it is to look at the ALP. And so 916 would be able to support all of those
needs. Yep. So what they do is you it really doesn't change a lot for what we're doing right now besides free us a little bit up from not it does free we would not have to do anything in the middle school and would still be able to offer targeted services. We our ALC it really doesn't change much of what we're
doing right now and 916 would actually be our partner district and so then I don't know that yet I will the logistics of how you know students get coded but the funding would still come to us. It's much like we have partnerships for other things with 916 and they're very used to it. It was not a hard, you know, initial
conversation with it even being a possibility. So then the middle school students who need those services would get them, but they would get them through 916. They could. Yeah. But it's really uncommon for middle school kids to be transferred to area learning centers. Like I have yet to do it since
we've since I've been here and I can't think of in my previous life. They're just really uncommon to have those programs. And when they do, it's really specific needs. But most school districts, you're really trying to figure out through intervention, other supportive programs, how can we keep our middle school students um in the middle
schools. And when you need them to have a smaller school, you can almost always do it a little bit easier in terms of, you know, slowing down sixth grades in a hallway as opposed to being all at the high school. So, it's rare. It's rare, but we would just like we do with other situations. We can partner with 916 for
a specific student's needs. Okay. Thank you, Miss Baloy. I was wondering regarding jumping back to sports, is the eligibility requirements, are they different for the ALC for participation or how does that
work? Um, so sometimes the like I'll work with um Mr. Pelquin to see because sometimes if our students are not necessarily on track for graduation in the same way, but they're making progress towards it, you know, then we we have a conversation. Um but no then
all the other requirements are the same but sometimes we do have a conversation in terms of like if they're on track for graduation um we have we do have conversations about that and if they're progressing um at a rate that makes sense for that student um then sometimes
that particular one is is looked at a little bit differently. Okay. Thank you. All right. I just have a couple of questions. Um when we're talking about the mini masters, I'm assuming that uh the students aren't earning full credit. What it does, it allows them to get
partial credit in those six weeks. And if something happens, sometimes a student is gone for a while, then they come back, they don't lose that, they can continue to build on that credit. Is that how it's working? So, um so basically cutting the trimester amount
in half. And so if they have, you know, a bad six weeks, then that's kind of in the past and they start over with the new one. Um, we do do partial credits, which I think is another strength, um, of the ALC, which is, you know, not obviously offered at the high school
because it's just not manageable. Um, so in that case where like a student is able to earn partial credit, you know, we always do that. Um, but it's just again like a little bit of a shorter time for them to be able to earn credit. And if they, you know, get off um, track
for a little bit and they they do earn some partial credit, then they would earn that part of it. But I could ear can they earn the the full credit of the course of the six weeks or not not it's it's only the trimester divided in half. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Okay.
Yeah. And then my last question is when are you expecting to wrap up your study? Um, my timelines, uh, Chair Arcan, are often faster than our system is willing to go. So, I will tell you my goal is to have it by completely wrapped up next year. I wanted to be a little bit
further along than we are right now. And so, um, that is for sure that we'd have recommendations, but I don't know that we'll be as far along to start the fall as we want to because obviously we need to have we have many conversations to have internally, but that is what I'm shooting for. Yep. And absolutely a timeline is timeline and you adjust it
as you go. So, well, thank you very much. We appreciate the time you put in and coming to visit with us. Um we're wishing you a lot of success these last few weeks of school, too. I'll also be sending out um an invitation to our graduation. So, it will be um the day before the high school's graduation on
the 4th. Um so, just be looking for that. We'll be sending that out this week. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to discussion item B2, fiscal year 2526 preliminary budget overview. Mr. Wald
and Miss Johnson. Thank you, Chair Arcan, members of the board. Dr. Casmmer. Uh today we're uh looking at our preliminary budget for the next fiscal year uh 2526 and we'll also look at what we're projecting to be
a budget for the following year. Uh we usually start our budget presentations just reminding the budget cycle. We're we're always juggling two budgets. So as we end this school year, we'll start our audit process. So we'll keep a foot in this current school year
while we're still working toward or working in next school year's budget. Um so in uh we're starting with the audit process in the summer. Um start working on the tax levy in the fall. um present their audit report to the
school board. The truth and taxation hearing in December is when the board sets the final uh levy. Um and then mid year we do budget adjustments knowing that we're um you know we're assuming certain things when we build a budget.
Uh like like any budget, it's built upon assumptions. And so uh midy year we make some adjustments to it because we have better numbers to work with. Um, and then, uh, brings us to where we're at now, where we're presenting the preliminary budget, and we'll be bringing it to you next, uh, in June 9th
for approval. Uh, you've seen this chart before, I believe. Uh, this follows the US the general education formula allowance, and this is our primary funding mechanism for public schools in Minnesota. And if we go back to 2003 and
we use that as the starting point and then um track the what the per pupil formula was uh the general funding formula over those years. You can see in the orange line in the bottom what that funding formula amount has been. And
then you can see the blue line tells you what our what the inflation rate was or or what it would be if it were adjusted for inflation. Really our buying power. And you can see that our buying power is s significantly lost ground um over
these last 23 years. Uh in fact, if had it just kept pace with inflation, our per pupil formula would be $1,470 more or 13,365,000 impact on our budget. Last year when we had this conversation, uh
the number was uh 11,26,000. So each year is a significant um that just continues to move the wrong direction. Five years ago that difference wasn't 1470. It was
$632. So it's uh really gotten significantly different. Recall that in the last bianium the legislation legislators passed a um bill that that school funding would keep pace with the rate of inflation up to 3%. And
so if it's rate of inflation's above three, the increase would cap at three. Um so um that leads us into assumptions for next year's budget. I said all budgets are built upon
assumptions and um these are the key assumptions that uh that our budget was built with. So from an enrollment perspective at that 8,300 number, we're in a a pretty stable period now of of for enrollment. And so we see that
remaining pretty stable. Um the formula allowance was for next year will be adjusted, we believe, at 2.74% increase. Um so we're in pretty good shape there. The following year,
um, we're using the number of 2.5%. It could be a little bit higher, could be a little bit lower, but we think we're probably going to be pretty close at 2.5%. Um, summerterm unemployment, uh, that was a bill or a a
program that was passed in the last legislative session, and it provides summer unemployment benefits to 9-month employees. And so, um, the state funded it for the first few years, but their estimates of the number of employees who
would claim the summer unemployment was significantly lower than the number that's actually been claiming it. And so, um, we're not sure how that's going to play out now in this as they as they bring this, uh, bill to together with the Senate and the House, they bring it
to committee. Um so we believe for the this summer of uh well for next summer of 20 summer 26 um it looks like uh the house and the senate both are proposing funding that and then as we go ahead to
the next fiscal year there's uh um the house is recommending that school districts fund that and the senate uh might might be in the same place. We don't we'll know soon, but hopefully by the time we bring the budget to June 9th, we'll have a better understanding
of what will happen for fiscal year 26 27. But we've built $650,000 of expenditures into this budget to cover that um if we need to. The House bill recommends sunsetting that program in fiscal year 28, and I
think the Senate has a different opinion on that. So, they've got a lot to work out for paid medical um family leave or paid family medical leave. That also is a new mandate from the previous bianium
that starts on January 1st. Um we've budgeted in 226 and 376 over the next two years for that. that is funded through uh payroll taxes 08 and the employer pays half of that and the
employee pays half of it and so that 444% is reflected in the assumptions. Special ed transportation um we think that will probably be what it is up there at 95% pration and so
that's a significant um budget expense for us as well. So those are our key assumptions going into next year and you'll walk us through our budget summary. So knowing all of those assumptions that Tim just went through,
um what's the impact then on our for the numbers for next school year? So focusing on the shaded column, the preliminary uh 202526 column for revenues for next school year, we're projecting just short of 147 million and then expenses just over 147 million. So
looking at a deficiency of revenues under expenses of about $500,000. And there's three main pots that that deficit rolls into. Our operating capital, our capital projects, and then the unassigned. And if you recall, the unassigned is the is the uh fund balance that we typically really
focus on. We have a schoolboard policy that requires that we maintain a minimum of 8% fund balance and our unassigned fund balance. So that $500,000 deficit, 313,000 of it is going to reduce our operating capital. um fund balance. We're going to increase our capital projects fund balance a little bit um
based on some need of about 250,000. And so our unassigned, we're projecting a deficit of about 454,000 for next year. So if we look then at the bottom in the blue line, the ending fund balance for our unassigned fund balance for next school year, that these assumptions put
us at about 11.4 million, which hits right at that 8% target fund balance. So feels pretty good coming into next school year. Um really what this shows is that we've made a lot of budget adjustments in the past several years and they're really coming, you know, they're working out. They're doing what
we needed them to do. And so that feels pretty good that we've done that hard work and it's it's done what we needed it to do. If we look forward to what we're projecting for 2627, I'll just focus on the unassigned fund balance. Um looking at just shy of 11 million for that year in our fund
balance. That does put us down to about seven and a half. So based on what the legislature actually approves, we will fine-tune comb this and change that. Um so we're just under for 26 27. So if that's really where we end up coming out, um then we'll have to be making some budget adjustments next year to get
back to that 8%. Then looking at the other three funds that we need to bring to the school board for approval, um our nutrition services fund, if you recall, we have free meals for all and we're just in our second year. And so we're still having a hard time knowing exactly where
everything is going to come in. And so as we've been working with our nutrition services director, we feel that we have a conservative budget here um just because we don't have the full year of data yet for this school year. um COVID was was pretty um nice in the in the
nutrition services fund. So, we've had a very healthy fund balance. So, having these conservative numbers for the next couple of years are are okay. If you look at the preliminary budget for next school year, we're projecting a deficit of about $800,000, which would put us at about 1.4 million or 18% fund balance.
um we know we can't continue to maintain a deficit uh fund balance and so we're working really closely with the nutrition services director to make sure we're monitoring that and we'll make it we'll make adjustments coming forward in the re in the revised budget and then again in the 2627 school year
part of what comes into play when you have a fund balance in nutritional services we don't need to carry that large of a fund balance in nutritional services we have some capital expenditures um that qualify for nutritional services funds that we can bite off when we're dealing with some
excess things like delivery trucks. We had a delivery truck go down this year. So, those types of things come in to fit that. So, um it looks like she's running maybe at more of a negative balance negative operationally than we really are. It's just there's some capital
expenditures in there that um spend that down a little bit. Yep. Then in the community services fund, COVID was not so friendly to the community services folks. Um when you have uh revenue very dependent on participation, it was really tricky for
them. And so we're working our way out of that deficit that we realized in the 2324 school year. So this upcoming school year, we're projecting about 8.5 million of revenue and about 8.3 of expenses. So we're really looking to um cut that deficit in half for next school
year. So coming in at about $115,000 of excess revenue um bringing the deficit in that fund balance to 115,000 as well. Um and we've been working really closely with Tim and the other community services folks and um we feel good about some of the budget changes that we've put into place for the upcoming school
year. So feel like this is probably a little bit conservative but appropriate uh for budgeting purposes for that fund. And then the debt service fund. This is the fund where we essentially pay our mortgage payments. So, as we have referendum um bonds that we issue or facility maintenance bonds, all of the
tax proceeds that are that come in to pay off that debt flows through the debt service fund. So, our revenues are set by the state. We tell them what are our um anticipated debt payments are based on our debt payment schedules and they set a levy equal to 105% so that we always have a little bit of extra cash
to cover those needs. And then the expenditures are really just based on our debt payment schedule. And the uh Department of Education monitors then our ending fund balance. And as that kind of inches up because we get that extra 5% eventually then they have a negative adjustment to kind of get that
fund balance back down. So for next uh school year we're looking at about $6.7 million of ending fund balance or about 19.6%. So that's what we have. As we talked about, um the we anticipate the legislature is going to have some news for us, you know, in the very near
future. And so I do anticipate that what we bring forward to you for approval in June is going to be a little bit different than this. And we'll talk about that at that time. So any questions? Thank you. Questions? We had some questions.
um in your within your budget assumptions um do you have like headcount numbers, employee numbers? Mhm. Yep. For salaries and benefits. Okay. So that would be like a key assumption that would be maybe we should
see you know as well as the enrollment number. Um, the other thing is, um, I'm looking at the expenses and I'm wondering how you budget your expenses. Do you go out
to each principal department head and they come up, they build up their cost kind of like a zerobased budgeting process where they say they they build their then they give it to you and then you summarize everything. Can you Yeah. Yeah. Can you I can speak to our
budgeting process. Yep. We have a more um centralized budgeting process. So um really it the assumptions and the building of the budget really lies within the um finance office. Certainly as the building principles or a program manager might have needs. They'll come to us and say I really have this need
for XYZ program and here's what the cost is. And then as administration we'll talk about that and see if we can work that into the budget. Um, but really it's a 20,000line document that we comb through and and and make our assumptions and build that budget in that way. It
generally builds off of last year's. We don't So there are certain certain programs may have more a more zerobased where you start at zero and you identify every single need and build that. That's not the process that we've used in the past year. I see. So, one of the things
when I look at the enrollment numbers and that generates a large piece of the revenue and we had uh the bond referendum which was $326 million which is going to be construction is going to be complete in December, right? Um we
base that referendum on 10,000 students and we're about 20% off. So that's a miss of 65 million. if you multiply the 20% times 326 million. So, and I know I've asked Tim you this question before.
Um, but that to me is a little bit scare a little bit scary to have that 20% out that we should where we should be at 10,000. We're at 8,300. And how what kind of repercussions is that going to have?
Especially when I see our costs are going up, our enrollments go flat to go declining. Why are expenses going up? That would be the question that I would have. Why why are expenses going up in relation to declining RO
enrollment? Well, what I would say is we we did see decline in enrollment, you know, particularly um during the co years as we've been looking at our projections going forward. We actually feel pretty positive about enrollment. Um I we've
really really looked really closely at our monthly enrollment this school year and that's actually outperforming what we've done u monthtomonth over the last couple of years. So I think we're going to outperform our enrollment projections for this year. And um as we look forward, I mean the kindergarten numbers are are super difficult to predict,
right? It's all dependent on how many babies were born or families moved in, but our enrollment going forward as well, even out a couple of more years, is preliminarily looking positive and and that we'll actually start seeing some growth. So, um certainly it's not the level of growth that was anticipated
by the demographers prior to COVID. Um that kind of threw everything, you know, um threw everything for for a loop. Um, but the co the increases that we're seeing really are more like cost of living increases. They're not very large like anticipated program programmatic
growth. It's really more um what do we think the salary settlements are going to look like? What do we think our utilities are going to go up by? It's not really drastic program growth. So maybe maybe at the next meeting we can kind of get a a picture of like the
average increase in like for example your uh salary infringes that type of thing. What are we you know maybe we can get maybe you can present that that I think would be helpful. Um the I think the the other thing is
and you know I'm a rookie on this so I'm asking questions from a different a different view viewfinder than maybe you're used to but when I look at like your support services one of the things you know across the country what we've
seen is indirect support services increase I looked I read a stat across the country 80 81% of the increase in K through2 education was in indirect or support
services administrative services. And when I look at our budget um we have about I don't know if I calculated it right $26.1 million in support services if you add them all up. I mean I don't know how does that
compare to is there benchmarks where we can say yeah this looks this looks right we're better than you know we're actually running support services leaner and we're getting more value out of it more productivity is there something that we can look at for that to get an
idea where we're at? Yep. So, the the way that we lay out our expenses in the budget documents um the same way that we prepare them in our in our audit are in broad categories that are um that are required by the Minnesota Department of Education. And so, every school district
has all of these different categories in their reporting. Um so, yes, that's there's public information that we can certainly pull off of the Department of Education's website and we can put together comparisons. Um one thing that I always caution when looking comparisons is the data is only as good
as the person who's giving it and it's really easy to code something um as instructional in one district and as support in another right and so right um and I've noticed that even just in my different districts like oh huh I you know I would have coded this as
instructional support and we've been coding it as non-instructional or as more as as support services and so comparisons we can certainly do them but they're just not always apples to apples there's compare There's comparable data in the audit report and the management Yep. In the management letter, there's a
there's a comparison for metro districts and then the whole state compared to individual districts. Right. So that data is in there. I saw some of that. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. And I think as you look at it, our budget compared to others across the state, you find that
those categories are all pretty similar. A little bit of this, but um but not off by a lot. their districts are all in very similar places. We're all required to provide the same services, right? And so, um, that drives a significant amount
of it. And I I would just add one more thing that's, um, very obviously going to throw a comparison office related to our long-term facility maintenance funding. And so, that's really driven by what needs have we identified within our facilities and that we feel like we're able to tackle in this school year. And
we right we we know we have a very focused um budget on our facilities right now whereas some of our neighboring districts maybe they've been keeping up on their facilities in a different way and so our buildings and grounds expense is very likely higher than what a lot of school districts are
just because we have that really focus on LTFM projects and so I would suspect that we would have um a really wonky graph if I were to put up you know our neighboring districts in that particular area. No, when you when you have uh fixed assets like we we've got a lot of
fixed assets, we got a lot of buildings. Um what's the granularity on uh on the district recording the those assets? Is it do you classify them as by building and then
subcategories like the HVAC equipment or furniture? Is that how it's organized? I would say it all depends on the scope of the project at the time. So, um like like uh Northstar for example, that's C like on our fixed asset schedule that's
pretty much one asset because it was all done at one time. The construction was all done at one time. And so on our fixed asset schedule, that's one but or maybe just a few. Um as we have like projects within a building, then we certainly may capitalize that based on
what that project was. Um, our fixed asset policy requires that we capitalize anything over $10,000 individually. So like most likely my laptop would never end up being capitalized, right? Because that's going to be more than $10,000 um individually. And so we comb through all
of our expenses. Any any line item that's over $10,000, we take a look at to see at audit time, okay, is this is this something that we need to capitalize or is it just an expense? It's a tedious process, but we do it. Do you have a asset management system where you key in major components of
equipment? So then you know what you have a maintenance schedule for that for the so that folks know hey this needs to be looked at every year, every five years, that type of thing. Yeah. Our fixed assets are um there's kind of two well there's probably three kind of
broad categories. We would have like our building assets that would fall under our buildings and grounds department. we'd have um like things that we might have purchased at a building level and then we have technology. So technology right now is actually looking at they're in the process of implementing a management software. We've we've done it kind of on Google Sheets basically in
the past and so we've acknowledged that that's not the right solution and so we're implementing that for sure at the um at the technology level. Um at the building level, no really it's you know when they have the needs they come they come up and and we just deal with them then. And on the buildings and ground
side, it's not a system really, but it is a spreadsheet that we track kind of um what do we know is coming up and um our you know our custodial department is they they have an uh an awareness of what the needs are immediately and down the road. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.
All right, Miss Bully, can you say what all goes into support services? Well, um I can no I would want to see what Dan was looking at specifically and then I could tell you like which ones um I would qualify as as instructional. If
I'm thinking about instructional and I'm looking at the more detailed document that went to the school board, I would think of the elementary and secondary instruction certainly. I would also include vocational education because that's definitely instruction. It's in the So then when you say instruction,
that means Yep. that means instruction I would also include special ed like that's certainly instructional and um you know some of the instructional support services some of those are you know they're touching kids it's just that um MDE requires us to report it in
this category um and the same with the pupil support services I think a lot of that is also I would categorize as instructional so I'd want to take the time to sit down with Dan and kind of comb through it and see this is what I consider really instructional just cate had to be like multiple items
categorized under that. So in terms of when um we first started budgeting for the we had a demographic the bond referendum went through and we we did all that based off of whatever the number was 90 something
or whatever high 9000s. How many times have we right-sized the budget since then because of COVID? So very many. Right. I think I've been here almost five years and I think we've made some type some type of budget adjustments every year. This is the first year where we've been able to kind of feel okay
about where we're at. But all of that right sizing is dependent on the pupils we have in those seats. So when we're right sizing, it's not necessarily based on the building size. It's based off of how many kids we have in each of those
buildings. So, that's what we're building the budget off of. Y so that we can eventually get back up to 9,000 some. Right. That's what we're hoping for. Yep. Hopefully sooner than later. Yeah. Okay. I just wanted to make sure we got that point out.
All right. Thank you, Miss Thompson. I don't have a question. And I'm just going to do my same comment that I do every time you come and present to us and we see the per pupil funding formula. And I looked at it this time and I right away was like that much
more since the last time you guys have all presented to us. And so once again, just if you're listening in the community, call your representatives, call your people and tell them to fund public schools because we're in this situation because we're not properly
funded. And and you two do everything you do and your whole team to come up with the numbers and you always do amazing work with your guesstimations based on what has happened over the last few years and I really appreciate that.
But the we need that funding and there's only so many there's only one area we can get it from. So call your legislature, call your senators, tell them to fund our schools. Amen. Thank you. Thanks.
All right. Seems like it's going to be excited to see what happens when you come back. We're waiting for the legislature. So I hope it comes back sooner than later. I hope we know by now that we're maybe not holding our breath. Thank you for coming in and presenting. It was uh we always love hearing from
you. All right, we're going to move on to operational item C1 action on tenative agreement 2000 for 2025 27th fiscal years for international union of operating engineers local number 70
transportation unit. Mr. Mons. All right. Thank you very Thank you very much. Okay. So, as we've discussed in uh close session, um we uh went a little out of order here because as we went through the process
of reviewing our contracts for transportation, we realized um that uh you know, the market continues to uh really advance rapidly in terms of compensation for our bus drivers. And so
because of that, we went um off cycle and we started an early round of bargaining with our transportation folks. Um we had a really good conversation, a collaborative dialogue there and we were able to reach a
tenative agreement. Um so we really appreciated um the folks that came to the table. want to say thank you of course to our team as well uh Tim Wald Andy Johnson and Cindy Gustiffson for their work in putting that together and
moving through the process and um with that I will ask for a vote. Okay. So the motion we have an action on the tenative agreement to approve the 25th chive fiscal year's international
union oper operating engines engineers local number 70. Do I have a motion? So moved. So moved. Thompson. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Ellison. Questions. Okay. Hearing none. Um I'll go ahead and bring this to a vote. I'll
ask the clerk to call the role. Thompson I Aran I Daniels I Ellison I scar I Okay, the motion carries. Thank you. All right. Well, we're nearing down. I can I get a
uh motion for an adjournment? So moved. And a second. Oh, she second. All right. Uh this will be a voice vote. All in favor say I. I oppose. Same sign. We are now adjourned.