I now call this meeting of the school board of independent school district 624 to order. Uh will the clerk please call the role. >> Straoji >> here. >> Thompson >> here. Arand >> here. >> Valoid >> here. >> Ellison here. Scar
>> here. If we could please stand and face the flag. The pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. >> We have before us an agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> So moved by Miss Baloy. Can I get a second? >> Second. Second by Strife OG. Is there any discussion? >> Yes. >> Okay. You want you want for this agenda
or you want for the consent agenda? >> Consent agenda. >> So we'll grab that next. >> Thank you. >> All right. This will be a voice vault vote. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. >> Okay. The motion passes. We have an agenda. At this time we uh we're going to have an introduction of our student
representative representatives, Dr. Kasmichek. >> Right. Thank you, Chair Aran, members of the board. So, we're pleased to welcome our student representatives for this school year. We have Tom Ree, 12th grade student at White Bear Lake Area High School. He will serve as a student representative. Tom is active in student
council, Nordic skiing, and the link crew. And then we also have uh Lily Johnson. She's here. Maybe give a wave. Everybody's met you. Yeah. She's an 11th grade student at White Bear Lake Area High School and she will serve as the alternate student rep. Uh this year,
Lily is active in student council, theater, mariners's choir, Dungeons and Dragons league, and uh crochet uh club, and karate. She also enjoys writing, reading, and learning new languages. So, welcome to both of you. And I think we're going to take a photo. Is that
right? Okay. >> So, I have two photos to take. >> Oh, yeah. If you come up to the front and then we'll get our students in there as well. on either side behind.
There we go. Okay. And a bit more, please, Chris. Oh, sorry. Oh, there we go. Oh, >> okay. Look here, please. One, two, and three. We'll take a few. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Sorry, that's all right. Okay. Well, welcome. Thank you. We're glad you're here. We also have before us a consent agenda. This contains a variety of business items that come to us monthly, including donations. And once again, we want to
say we are truly grateful for the support shown every month to our staff and students. Thank you. Um we have before us that um consent agenda. Can we get a motion? >> So move
>> by Miss Thompson and a second. >> Second. >> Second by by Miss Valoy. Any discussion? Yes, Mr. Scar. I'd like to move the payment of invoices to the regular business agenda. >> Okay. You so you want to pull it off. You
>> No, just put it in the regular agenda. Wherever you want to put it. >> That doesn't matter to me >> because I think if we're going to pull it, we can do the consent agenda and then immediately after that talk about the invoices. >> That's okay. >> So, and that means you be pulling it off does not require a vote then.
>> Pulling it off doesn't require a vote. No. That No. I read the rules before the meeting. Uh p pulling something off the consent agenda to put it on the regular agenda according to Robert's rules does not require a second. Any board member can pull something from the
>> Yep. That's what I was saying. Okay. So, we can just go ahead and do that without >> Okay. >> So, what I'd like to do then knowing that's there, can I can I get um because we're going to change the agenda or
we're going to change the con. Um, give me a minute. We are going to change the consent agenda. We're going to pull off the uh check registry or the invoice payments. >> So then, uh, can we get someone to amend
that motion to accept it? >> We don't need an amendment. We're just going to vote on it as is with the >> I didn't know. >> Okay. So, we're going to vote on this with the invoices pulled. Um, this will be a a roll call vote. So can the clerk call the role?
>> Strifeji >> I. >> Thompson >> I. >> Arand >> I. >> Bloy >> I. >> Ellison I. >> Scar >> I. >> Okay. So now what we're going to do is we're going to look at the check registry. Can I get a Can I get a motion to approve the invoices and then we'll
have discussion. Okay. >> So moved. >> So by Thompson, a second. >> Second. >> Second by Stripe OG. Now we're open for discussion. Mr. Scar, you have some discussion points? >> Yes. Okay. >> Thank you. By the way, I just had a questions on some of the items on the um
invoice register. >> We had a number of uh invoices paid to various universities. Bethl University, Century College, University of Minnesota. I can go on and on. What are the And they are fairly substantial when you add them all. >> Those are the scholarships that were
awarded to students as far as scholarship night. >> That's great. Uh I have another question on it's a line item 148080. It's a check for 1160 695 to a Constantine Vashank. Ken, what what is
that about? >> Uh it's for enrichment, youth enrichment classes. It's he just happens to be the owner of a a group that we use to offer some of our uh youth enrichment. >> Okay, good. Thank you. Then I had one other question related to item 148 242
Hazelton Betty Ford Foundation for $15,000. What was that for? >> That's who we pay for our bar programming. >> Pardon me. >> Bar B A R R building assets removing risk. >> Reducing risk. >> Reducing risk. Y >> it's a program within our schools. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Um one another that's all questions I have for that. Okay. My other um suggestion which I've suggested to staff >> um can I just interrupt? So this is a time we're discussing the accept accepting the um invoices. So is this a
question about the invoices that we're going to accept or is this others? >> This is a this is a yes this is a question on >> okay >> on this register which we're want to >> make sure we're phrasing everything >> we're approving. >> Yep. So, one of the things is is that,
you know, it has these letters on the side, R C A, and you know, he gave me a description of those at the last board meeting and I wrote them down. But, you know, I'm I'm old and my memor is not
that good, so I have to go back and look at that. It would be much easier if you put down in the bottom like a legend that tells us what those are. Is that possible to do? >> Yes, that is something that would be possible. It would need to be um
something that the whole board would want us to include and if that would be the case, we'd be happy to do that. >> Okay. Um, the other one is to just add a classification on the far right
to describe what that is, what each item is. Otherwise, we're, you know, I'll likely have questions every month if we don't have some kind of a description. And as I said before, you know, as a CPA and somebody that's presented these things, um, you know, you have to look
towards who's using the report. It's the public and it's us. So, we need to make it easier for the public and the board to decipher this invoice register. >> Yep. Understood. Yep. I would say again,
if that would be the wish of the whole board, that's something we'd be happy to include. >> It requires an improvement. an improvement >> approval. >> No, an improvement to this report which is a simple, logical,
um, rational, reasonable way to make this report better for the public and that requires board approval for that. Is that what you're is that what you're telling me? >> Uh, that staff can't that staff can't
generate improvements. board um the board would act on um recommendations to to make changes like this. So if it's the will of the board, we certainly would go we certainly would do that. >> Well, then I would make a motion to make
those two changes. >> Well, we have a motion on the table right now to accept the or just or not accept the registry the way it is presented. So, are you asking to amend And and we can't change it for now.
>> No, we can't. >> So >> So I would have ask that to be as a separate agenda item to talk about this. >> Um we've already accepted approved the agenda. This is just for the um consent
agenda. So that's where I with that. So do you have any other questions about the payment of the invoices or the checks? >> No. >> Okay. um >> other than improving it. >> Now do we have any other questions?
>> I just want to say that as a board we must determine what is required toffect effect effectively fulfill our role as governance. And so if the board feels that they cannot fulfill their role as governance then we will you know we can bring that forward. Um otherwise then if
you're comfortable with what we have Yes. Um, can I you may >> is a description anywhere else like on the website in the finance documents? Is there anywhere else that would be that information is >> not at like on a per invoice level?
That's not something that it's something that could be generated, but it's not something that's out there anywhere. >> How many different classifications show up on that report? >> Um, I I think it would it would probably be 50 to 100 pages to include that level
of detail. Um but the C like >> oh that that classification would be pretty simple. It's the if we were to provide like the breakdown or more description that um Mr. Scar is asking for that would really enhance the the um length of the report.
>> Can you give me a couple examples of those classifications? >> Um yeah. So like the one that comes to mind that's really obvious is Amazon for example. Amazon we get an invoice for every single shipment. So, we may make one purchase that comes in seven different shipments. And so, each one of those would show up as a separate line
item. And then each of those payments may show up as a different um like budget code. So, maybe it's Mrs. Johnson's supplies and Miss Bloyd's supplies. Um and so it just that's the kind of data that would be presented. We
tried to be pretty detailed in our descriptions in our finance software. Um, so yeah, it it would show it would show the supply, it would show the name of the consultant, it would show um well, there's a a couple different varieties
that we could pull. Are there any other subcategories that you have? Uh, A and A could be one of A could have 500 different classifications under it
based on what what it is. Correct. >> Yes. >> Probably not 500, but y >> is there another subclassification that is smaller that could go under a so that we're not talking about 2,000 pages worth of
meeting notes. >> I'd have to dig in and kind of see. That's not like a canned report that um I'm a aware of out of our finance afterwards. Certainly, I think something that we could create. Um, how long does it take to I'm assuming
this is just program and we put it together and it runs and we print it out. So, how many I don't I didn't catch I didn't count how many pages this was, but if we went to all the classifications, how many pages would that make this? >> Without actually running it, I I don't
want to misspeak and and say, but it would be significantly larger >> because right now it's 90. Would we say over 200 >> potentially just because this is one line item per check and it's really not uncommon for each check to have multiple
budget codes? So, um I I'd have to run it. I don't want to >> um Is there a possibility before anybody makes a decision on this that we could see an example report before? >> Yeah. And I think maybe something we would run by our executive finance
committee. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. Miss Thompson. >> Um, if anybody in the community wanted to ask any questions about what is on our finance report, they are welcome to call
and talk as we know with anybody that they had a question about. So, if they wanted to know what item 148248 is, they could call up and say, "Hey, can you explain what we spent this money on?" >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. I just ask would that require a data
request or is that a simple question? >> Um I guess I don't know whe if they just called it pretty simple I would be able to just answer. >> Okay. >> Yep. >> Depends on the scope of that request. If it was a simple one like that it' be >> Mr. Scar you had a question too. >> Well you know there's other ways to
simplify this. I mean you could just put everything that's class whatever is over 10,000. We could stratify it based on that. that would be a lot less and then you could put the description on there. So, anything less than 10,000 we don't
review or approve. We we rely on the controls that you have within your department. We can take this offline if you want to have a discussion about how to simplify this report to make it more meaningful and not put the onus on the public to call the district, but put the onus on us to be clear in our reporting
to the public. I'd be happy to do that. >> Yeah. Uh, Miss, Miss Thompson, >> just a followup. How many times has anyone in the public called and asked about >> I've never received a call. >> You used to be in our finance
department, Mr. Casmer. Dr. Kasmmeichek. >> Um, yeah, veteran call any >> as board members, we're all able to call and ask any number of questions about anything that's in our packet that we receive. >> From time to time, board member will do
that. Yeah, I mean I could see adding the table at the end. What RC A that might be something that's simple and doable. Um those are questions I had to ask what those letters stood for. Um with the ones that I couldn't figure out. Some are obvious. Um
okay, no further questions. >> Okay. I would just say that us asking and communicating with staff outside, you know, outside of the public, I don't think is necessarily a good practice. So, I'm thinking that,
you know, the questions that I have, maybe other people have, they don't know how to they don't have the time to call. Why shouldn't we make this convenient for the public to understand our finances? That's all I'm getting at. >> Okay. And I would be happy to work with staff and the board to try to simplify
this to make it more meaningful for us and for the public. >> I I think it's important that we follow our governance and so this is something we can have here that we let the finance department bring forward. That's my opinion. We don't want to do something we want it out in public if we're going
to do that. So what I heard was maybe they would run a sample report so we could first see and move that way. But the question on hand I go back to um we have the um the uh invoices and check
registry we were trying to approve. So I want to bring it back to the question. Is there any other questions or comments? Okay. This will be a a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the role. >> Stri what are we voting on now?
>> Approving the register the >> register that we pulled off the consent agenda. The invoice is right >> now >> as it stands. >> As it stands. Okay. >> Strioji. >> Hi. >> Thompson. >> Hi. >> Arand. >> Hi. >> Bloy. >> Hi. >> Ellison. I >> Scar. >> I.
>> Okay. And then we can look at future meetings. See how you're going to put it on the agenda or something. I'll look at that. >> You will? >> We'll look see if we can get it in. >> Can I get a commitment that we'll put it on the agenda to discuss? >> Well, we're going to wait and see what they bring. >> Okay. >> All right. Okay. So now it's time for
public forum, but we have zero requests to speak. So now we're going to go down to C1 student recognition. Dr. Kasmichek. All right. Thank you, Chair Arcan, members of the board. Tonight we proudly celebrate the achievements of fishing team members who participated in the
Minnesota Junior Bass Nation High School Championship. Congratulations to each of you for state level recognition. We also extend our sincere gratitude to the dedicated staff and supportive family members who played a vital role in this success. In recognition of their accomplishments, students have received
a certificate, a bear pin, and a letter acknowledging their achievement. Now, please join us in watching a video highlighting their accomplishments. And this is a shorter one than what we've seen lately, but go Bears nonetheless. [Music]
Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Well, [Music] >> that was awesome. Thank you. They can
always come at my vote and fish with me so I can catch you teach you the ropes. >> Um, we're going to move on to C2, superintendent report. Dr. Cass, >> thank you. Um, all right. So, in addition to our regular communication, we invite our community to follow us on our district
Facebook and Instagram pages. Every Friday, we will post a video update of the week in 62.4 seconds. And weekday mornings, right at 6:24 a.m., we will share facts on the district's Facebook and Instagram pages. Videos can also be
found on the district's YouTube channel. Uh, Otter Lake Elementary and Mariner Middle School are among just 13 schools statewide to be recognized as 2025-26 Minnesota schools of excellence by the Minnesota Elementary School Principles Association. Wiper Lake Area Schools is
the only district in Minnesota to have more than one school earn this prestigious honor this year. We are incredibly proud of the hard work the Otter and Miriner staff members have put in to innovate and lead their schools toward student success. Terrific things are happening in both buildings and our students are benefiting from the
investments of our staff, families, and the entire community. Two of our elementary schools are celebrating new playgrounds with ribbon cutting ceremonies this week. Otter Lake Elementary's community dinner ribbon cutting and celebration event is happening from 5:30 to 7:00 on Thursday,
September 11th. and Birch Lake Elementary's ribbon cutting will take place at 4:00 uh p.m. as part of the bounce back to school event on Friday, September 12th. The event is hosted in collaboration with the Birch Lake PTA and the White Bear Lake Chamber of Commerce. The playgrounds were built
with an emphasis on inclusiveness of all abilities and were designed with student input. We look forward to the structures being enjoyed for many years to come. Homecoming will kick off on Sunday, September 21st with a bear bike ride and a bounce house carnival. It's a fun
event for all ages, so bring the whole family. The homecoming parade is Friday, September 26th at 4:30 p.m. in downtown White Bear Lake, followed by the football game versus Forest Lake at 700 p.m. The complete list of homecoming activities can be found on the district website.
and join us at Central Middle School to tour completed construction projects, including the new gymnasium edition, expanded cafeteria, renovated learning commons, and more. A community openhouse event will take place from 4:30 to 6:30
p.m. on Wednesday, September 24th. And September is the Minnesota School Boards Association's School Board Recognition Month, guiding light for student success to recognize school board members for their commitment to Minnesota's public school students.
Board members, we've created this year's version of our Beer Bar to commemorate and uh and honor you. This is our traditional um >> Yes. >> Yeah. at the board meeting. Uh, thank you for your commitment to the success of our students and our our community.
And the ingredients: thoughtfulness, uh, accountable, uh, open, representative voice, goodwilled, conscientious, fiscally responsible, supportive, and proud. So, I'm going to I'm going to hand these down. Tom, there's one for for you here, too. All right. Now, Marissa, were you going
to do another picture or not? Not not on this. No, I don't think I think we're good. So, >> all right. Thanks for all you do. >> Okay, thank you. Uh we appreciate the support. Um now we're going to go to an
exciting time. We're going to go to opening school report. Dr. Kasmich. >> All right, I'll kick it off. We've enjoyed welcoming students back for the 202526 academic year. Elementary and secondary students started last week. early childhood starting this week. Throughout
the district, there were many exciting smiles as students returned to school uh after summer vacation. Um and for many students u they're in White Bear for the very first time. So, welcome to those students as well. And tonight, members of our leadership team will provide an
update on the work done this summer to help students, staff, and families get off to a good start. So, up first is teaching and learning with Dr. Gillespie. Arcan, members of the board, thanks for having us tonight. Get to share all the work that happens over the summer to make sure we're ready for another school year. Really, the key to
the work that we do in our teaching and learning departments is we partner very closely and collaborate with our principles to make sure not only are our staff ready for the upcoming school year, but also our students. And so, I'm going to highlight the work that our staff has done over the summer, then also some opportunities that students have taken advantage of to start the
year with a lot of momentum. We do a lot of leadership development over the summer that actually starts in June. You know, we prepare for the beginning of the school year as you know throughout the spring. But in June, our leaders took two days to really dive into what was the data showing us how do we start preparing and really thinking about
launching the school year in August. And that was an enhanced version of what we've done um in other school years. And so we keep doubling down on this. What's our instructional leadership? How is that influenced? As I mentioned before to you, principles are um second depending on the research, sometimes first in terms of their influence on
students because they our teachers absolutely have an influence on student achievement. Principles because they influence the teachers in in each one of our buildings. And so we worked on instructional leadership, database decision-making over the summer. A lot of curriculum work happens with our instructors. Um we worked and I'll talk
a little bit more specifically. We also had our instructional leadership institute which we started a few years ago enhancing that where in August so we solely principles and um have two days in June and then there's two days in August where each principal we bring them together at Northstar and we they
dive in with their teams of leaders and educators to really specifically look at each one of their schools. What are their continuous improvement goals that it launches a process for them. They work then with with their leadership teams turning in their school improvement plans to us by the end of September. And so um we're really proud
of the work that's been done there hosting it at Northstar as you know it's a beautiful space but it also allows for our schools to do cross um collaboration. So we have elementary schools sharing their goals. We're able to quickly get you know if there's transition goals that come up for our kids coming from fifth to sixth grade.
And then teaching and learning staff is there to support the principles. Uh and then finally we have professional development all summer. Um a big focus is our continued implementation of the read act and our literacy professional development and then again I've mentioned curriculum um implementation
and development. Two areas of professional learning that I want to highlight is we are um this year will be the year that we do our uh literacy training with our pair professionals. And so in August we had 150 of our pair professionals come together for a day of learning and that was the first half of
their their learning. The second half will come um this coming school year. But really the the focus of the read act is any of our pairs that support instruction with our students. And so the instruction is directed by the teachers, but they also need to have professional development around the science of reading. Whitebear continues
to be a leader in terms of the timeline and implementation of that. I'm really proud of our staff. Thankful for the paras. That's a lot to come into right away, but it's really important for our students. The other part is our middle school English um language arts curriculum planning continues and that's been really exciting seeing both of our middle middle schools have an
opportunity to align and really think about what's that guaranteed experience that we want to have for our students regardless of what middle school they might attend in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. We welcomed close to 70 new educators. We do that the week before workshop week and so August is extremely busy. The
year the theme this year was proud to be a bear. It was really exciting. Our new teachers spend time with their mentor teachers, instructional coaches in their buildings and then we bring them together for a half day on the second day to talk about what it means to be part of White Bear Lake. Um they hear from each one of our different departments in the district and it's and
get a chance to meet each other and so it's a really exciting time and they were very lots of positive energy starting their time with us. Then as I mentioned our students have been really busy this summer as well. Uh, I asked uh Brian Peloquin, our activities director, who will come
throughout the year and update you, but our numbers, we have 850 plus students participating in student activities in the fall, which is an increase from what we saw last year. We had third 347 students participate in summer strength and conditioning. Um, our progress towards graduation. So, over the summer,
we offer credit recovery opportunities for our high school students. We had four additional summer graduates and then 200 plus students participate. And it's really important that we get them back on winning streaks is how we would talk about it. If they failed, life happens to all of us as we know. Help them recover those credits and so they
can start the year close to being on track. Um so it's exciting that we had that many students participate. Then our career pathways. Um we've mentioned this a few times. We had 15 metro area students participate in the Minnesota Trades Academy. Whitebear continues to um have the highest number of students
participating in that. We had five high school students work at Chromebook parts. and I wanted to make sure they worked in production, repair, and wirehouse roles um to meet local industry needs as you've heard. Um but this is when Derek received the award.
Our automotive career pathway program was named 2025 auto automotive secondary program of the year. So that's very exciting. And then we also received a donation from Luther Cadillac and White Bear Subaru of a 2018 Subaru Forester for our automotive career pathway. So
just really thankful and exciting times in those areas. I want to make sure I didn't forget anything. I didn't. And then lastly, I wanted to highlight and give a huge shout out to our small but mighty team is how our tech department described them. These um young students were part of the tech depot this summer.
And they worked to prepare and deliver 1500 student Chromebooks and 200 staff Chromebooks, managing the entire process from unboxing to deployment. They also ensured that all return devices were efficiently processed and prepared for repurposing.
They're dynamic and we're very grateful for them. That's a lot of work that happens over the summer. So that was my highlight. >> Do my question is do we want to take questions at the end? >> You can do it at the end. That >> okay. You want
>> grab it at the end if that's okay. Right. >> Good evening, Chair Aran, members of the board. uh for the operations update. Uh we provided a construction update to the board in August. And so this is just a very short version of what you saw in
August. Um you see we completed the Mariner Middle School phase 2 HVAC improvements and that's actually the end of the HVAC improvement projects at Mariner Middle School. uh a complex project and we're really pleased to have that done and and uh and the ceilings
all closed up at M Mariner before the kids arrived. Central Middle School, the phase 2 building renovation is complete. Cafeteria and the kitchen were a big part of that this summer as well as HVAC and I didn't put on the slide, but also the renovation of the old district offices.
uh Sunrise Park, uh the building we're in now, uh we completed phase two, so the senior center, um the professional development suites, gymnastics, all of those are completed. And it's been a lot of fun to see our seniors in the building making good music and lots of
good energy and as well as our gymnasts have been filling the gym just about every night. Uh so, a lot of excitement around Sunrise Park. And then as Dr. Casmmerick mentioned the inclusive playground completion at Birch Lake and Otter Lake. Um the big project underway
still is Sunrise Park. We'll complete the early childhood and transition education projects by spring and have those spaces ready for uh for use in the fall. We have a couple solar projects that will be um rolling out later this
fall at Venice Heights Elementary and uh the high school. fellow solar projects uh were in possible in part because we were able to get a really generous grant through the solar for schools program. Um you can see the uh Sunrise Park fac
uh uh renderings on top and you can see how those entrances to early childhood and transition education will uh pop a little bit so it's clear where to enter just as we have on the district service center side. And you can see the rest of the building
once you get past that construction wall. There's a lot of construction still happening uh for uh safety and security. This is definitely um heightened awareness and concern around safety and security in schools and our our hearts are with the
enunciation Catholic community uh as they grieve. Um our ongoing SEC projects and improvements in security are ongoing and as we complete the projects such as uh Central Middle School recently um we
complete the security upgrades with them and so much of centrals was in place before this summer phase of construction and then as we completed um like the kitchen and cafeteria we add those new security features as well.
um emergency drill and management. We have a new digital system to manage tracking emergency drills. And so this is a communication improvement just helps us with the efficacy of those drills. And we're rolling out a um digital package um communication app
that we're starting at the high school and that's been rolled out with administrators and uh our student supervisors initially as we start the school year and we'll be bringing teachers and staff on board at the high school over the next month. Then we'll be rolling it out to middle school and elementary schools. And this will
provide really improved communication. teachers and staff will have the ability to report anything that they have concerns right through that app. It will include our first responders and so we're uh pleased to be rolling that out as well. Um
last spring we in uh added some videos to our safety and security web page. So if you go to the about and safety and security you'll find the standard response protocols. Those are really considered best practice in schools. The standard response protocols are from the I Love You guys Foundation
and they provide that common language for all people who are concerned and involved in a school community to utilize when um you know when considering uh locking down a school for any any reason. So encourage you to look
at the security safety and security uh web page for that. nutrition services. Uh they're entering the third year of the free school meals program. Uh but there's some pretty crazy numbers there. They've served almost half a million breakfasts last
year and over a million lunches. Remember that that's a crew of about 80 people in our nutrition services staff that are putting out about 9,000 meals a day. So a pretty incredible effort. So, I congratulate Bridget Lane and her entire team in the nutrition services
for what they do to provide our kids really great meals and with a pretty positive attitude while they're doing it. Um, they're the recipients of the Bronze Berry Award and that recognizes nutrition services departments um who
have a lot of creativity in how they utilize locally grown uh foods raised by Minnesota farmers. on the photos on there, you can see um one of those locally grown foods, that big I don't even know how to describe
it. Um tank of chicken wild rice soup that they're making there. And then uh the the meal on the bottom right, she tells me, are honey hot wings, salad, biscuit, and a banana, and one of the favorite lunches for inner schools.
nutrition services department has been awarded uh two grants for electric school buses and so um they're continuing to work on preparing for that. Um one from the MPCA and then two buses from the Department of Commerce.
Um we're pleased that while we have a bus driver shortage continuing nationally and in Minnesota in Wiper Lake schools, we are fully staffed with our drivers and aids. uh that doesn't mean we will always be fully staffed and so we continue to look for really passionate people to work in that area.
Um yeah, it's cut off a little bit on the bottom there, but our contractors and and our drivers will drive over 1.8 million miles >> bringing kids to and from school this year and they'll have over half a
million bus stops. And so that requires a lot of safety, commitment to safety. You probably know this, but our director of transportation is better known around the district as safety Dave. And so they have a terrific um record of safety in
our in our uh transportation department and we expect that to continue this year. And that's it. We'll turn it over to Mr. Ms and human resources. Hello everybody. Um, as Tim was saying,
uh, often we are, uh, staffed for the moment and then still looking. Uh, we, my department took on the somewhat herculean task along with all of our hiring managers of bringing on 152 new employees this year and, uh, 67 of whom
are educators in our system. and that's a ton of work to make sure that we get really excellent people in front of all of our stakeholders. So, I'm deeply appreciative for all of that. Um, the summer is definitely not the time in the human resources department where we take
a break. Um, that tends to be our busiest time of the year as we make those transitions and wrap up for staffing. But we are very pleased to note that we are fully staffed. Um, at the same time, we're always looking for
quality candidates that are excited to join our team and this is uh this moment is no different for that. Um, we will absolutely have ongoing openings through the year and uh we make lots of efforts to go out and reach our community. Um,
and we'll continue to look for opportunities to do that. Uh, you know, one thing that I will note is we've, uh, really, I think through the school culture positive news that's out there, um, we're in a much better place
uh, staffing wise than a lot of our neighboring districts again, for which I'm deeply appreciative of. So, that's really the work that we've been doing as we have made our way through the summer and geared up for the year. All right. Good evening, Chair Aran,
members of the board. Thanks for having us here tonight to share the opening school report updates for our departments. Um, we're kicking off uh my departments right away with a slight name change. If you guys have noticed or if you've seen in our uh our recent catalog that just came out into homes as part of our strategic emergence planning
process last year um one of our two of our main areas of uh focus or that were around identity and culture uh which were tasked to divide or to create uh newly developed core values for our department. So through a process throughout during the year we developed
new core values um for our department which are care, connect and create and then a really strong focus on joy uh in many different areas but we diverted that into a tagline at the bottom there which you've also seen in our catalog as well uh where the you know community
education and recreation discover your passion define your joy. Uh and I have to give kudos to Dan Schmidt principal at Northstar as he did a mic drop at one of our advisory council meetings for that tagline. uh but everyone loved it and it stuck. Um and uh following developing those core values, we went
through a cohesive branding standards process and to create a new brand and new marketing materials and stuff to create those cohesive branding standards across our departments or programs all across our department. So uh what I'm just showing here a quick overview here is some new logos that you'll be seeing
and probably have seen on the website. Um so the name change between change from community services to community education uh again following that process our whole team was involved in that really felt that that that that has been our name since 1955 as you can see we kind of put that into that brand of
established the department's been established since 1955 kind of honoring that history uh but really felt that shifting that shift from services to education really reflects the heart of who we are and connects our work to the broader field of community ed across the state the state as well. Um, and you
will see us, you should see a slight logo on the left that resembles a t-shirt that some people have been known to wear around the area. So, again, kind of fitting that history into a new logo and a new brand, but honoring that history of where we've come from and where we are and where we're going. Um, so we're all very very excited about
that. So, a core logo on the left and then you'll see individual badge logos that we call on the right uh throughout the uh presentation which have um our every one of our program areas are able to use to help promote their programs and find that unified source. So, we what we really wanted was anybody that
received anything from early childhood to senior programming sees our stuff and they know it's community, right? So, uh, super excited to kick our year off this year and then, um, as we lean in more into our strategic plan priorities for this year, that'll be grounded around, uh, communication and staff development.
So, looking forward to moving that forward this year. Um, uh, as Dr. K mentioned earlier, uh, in his update, uh, early childhood started today. We were very excited to see our preschoolers join us, uh, for the school year. Um, the numbers you see on the screen for ECF and preK have been
adjusted a slight bit. Uh we're at 131 and 282. So um we are ECF is up uh 19 students from this time last year and then we're up 18 students from this time last year in preschool. Um again um I believe you are all well aware but we have full day and half day program
options across the district at all of our eight sites which includes six of our elementary buildings and then our uh Normandy Park Education Center as well as our partnership with uh Tamarak Nature Center. Um uh we continue to have a maintain focus on alignment with our elementary buildings and and preparing
our students to get ready for elementary school. Um we have a new leader uh our new assistant director of early childhood Jennifer Shapi started with us in the fall. Uh has really hit the ground running. Uh things are going great. She was hitting she hit up four or five buildings today and I hit up the other ones. But uh strong start to the
year. Um and looking forward to day two tomorrow. Um, and another partnership that we're continuing to work on is with our Washington County Head Start program, uh, in the north end of the community in Hugo. Um, as they complete their licensing requirements and get approval, uh, once that approval is
done, we'll be looking to partner with them and our ECF team on some outreach and family events and activities to bring awareness to the Hugo Early Childhood Center um, up in Hugo, the former uh, Hugo Elementary building. uh as we continue our facilities plan of transition trans uh transitioning that
space uh to an early childhood center uh out of school time which includes extended day I think uh the big focus right there is in that little shaded region for this fall uh we're currently at 1 contracts to start the year which is amazing big increase from where we
were last fall but the biggest uh highlight on there is the current weight list current weight list of 33 kids um and a majority of those have all been people that have submitted contracts within the last two weeks. Uh so that's a huge huge like appreciation and and
recognition for all the work and out of school time, all the work they've done to build partnerships across our buildings uh and working on finding staff uh to create that. That is a significant shift as you see from the last two years. Uh couldn't be prouder of all the work that they're doing, the
passion they're putting into it. Um uh it's just been great. So, uh, uh, another big shift in that has been the, uh, partnership with our future bear educators, uh, at the high school. So, I think you guys remember us sharing about that last year. So, when they start, uh,
they're able to start, um, I think, uh, this week or next week after training, they have to have their first couple days of classes as part of that program and that partnership. Uh, but once they begin programming, we do expect to alleviate that weight list pretty quickly. So, uh, it's a huge, huge, uh, partnership and we're super excited. Uh
the high school folks have been fantastic. Uh and then I will you know Matt mentioned numbers from human resources and again you know we couldn't do it without um HR having our backs and processing people onboarding people bringing them on board. So it's been a huge lift. So I want to take time to recognize our team and and uh human
resources as well. They've been amazing. So, um, as we get going, their focus is going to be increasing non-school day and summer registrations and then, uh, continuing to offer before and after school programming in partnership with our afterchool community learning grant. Um, we're in year two of this grant we
are awarded from MDE to provide uh, additional opportunities to our title schools in the south end of the district. Um, just some highlights from from there listed. So we are um actively working with students that are in extended day and then uh working in collaboration with our school sites and
social workers to uh identify other students who might be in need of some uh enrichment opportunities that would qualify for some free experiences. So um we do that in collaboration uh with them and partnering with community vendors. We offer opportunities between that 2:15 to 3:30 time and then uh additional
enrichment by our team uh for that uh remaining time until 5:00. uh students that participate in this program. Um that will end at 5. Uh and then we do have a transportation partnership with our uh community friends at new tracks uh that we have uh kids that may need a
ride home are able to uh get a ride home from those uh four sites uh after school. Um and their goal is to continue to expand that offering. It's a three-year grant. So they would like to see an additional 83 kids uh recruited to participate in that program after school by the end of this school year.
Uh so again, wonderful opportunities happening. Uh it's nice to it's nice to have opportunities in buildings that um in the past on the on that side we've seen a lot of cancellations due to not getting minimum numbers. With the grant in place, we're offered to we're able to offer these without worrying about
minimums. It's cost is covered. they're coming in which is great because it allows that foundation to grow and that that word of mouth builds up across you know friends tell their friends tell their parents and they participate and then hopefully we get increased numbers. So uh just just some examples of
enrichment topics that are included too around cooking, art, engineering, theater, improv, yoga, fitness and many many more areas. So, uh, that's also in collaboration with our youth enrichment. Um,
so we've seen an increase of 150 students enrollment, uh, for over our summer programs, which you saw a couple slides back. Our our middle school flex program numbers were down a little bit from the year before, but our enrichment numbers have increased. So, we think it's a nice little trade-off of families
just looking for different flexible options, providing their kids different options and opportunities throughout the summer, uh, and still participating within our program offerings. Um, they did do an intentional reduction of core offerings for the fall. You see, it's 20 less courses, but only, uh, what is it,
eight less sections. Um, mainly for we we offered a lot last fall, then ended up having to cancel a lot. So, what they did kind of reflected uh, we have a new person that filled our youth enrichment role, too. just kind of reflected on starting the fall of what went well last year and let's start with those and try
to get those filled uh so we have less cancellations happening uh to start the school year here. Uh and another great you know we continue to explore additional partnerships constantly to create different opportunities and and new activities and and things for our students to participate in. Uh so we're
always looking for new vendors uh and working especially with vendors to offer some music and cooking classes especially at our middle school level. Uh, and I think another great thing too, um, towards the end of last year and even a little bit over the summer, we've had our our own teachers reaching out asking if they can provide different
enrichment opportunities after school, which we love. Um, we're, you know, working with a specific teacher with us. We're able to offer that at a lower cost for families, too, since we're not paying a vendor, uh, like an outside business coming in. So we highly uh encourage and are are excited to work
with our teachers to offer different opportunities around areas of uh you know focus that they like to work uh focus on outdoors uh cooking whatever it may be. So um if they're listening which I'm sure they all are uh we'd love to have them reach out to us and uh look
for different opportunities we continue to offer the kids throughout the year. Uh our youth rec and middle school athletics are off and running in the fall are off and running. um you know these programs especially in flag football, soccer, I mean it's it's just insane the amount of kids that we're
serving to come out. So we between uh flag football, wreck volleyball, wreck soccer, we got over 900 kids uh participating in our programs right now. Um we have uh in collaboration with some other surrounding communities, we have a new girls flag football league uh for grades three through eight. So, we'll be
looking to uh have those uh teams play against other surrounding communities of the of the girls flag football, which is awesome. It's nice to see uh that those opportunities grow and uh and the uh popularity of flag football grow uh around the area. And we of course we
couldn't do any of our rec sports without our parent volunteers and adult volunteers that help coach. So, uh Matt's working with over around 90ome parent coaches that make this go. So, a huge thank you to them and, uh, we hope to continue that that high volume of
volunteers in the future. It's a huge, huge help. So, uh, middle school sports, again, we're off and running for the fall, so it's busy. And, uh, we're also running some ultimate frisbee as an inter mural option at this time and and just, uh, Matt made sure mentioned that WCK basketball's right around the
corner, so that, uh, information for that will be coming out soon. And then going into our adult programs and facility use. Uh again, Wayne mentioned this in his report. Uh last week over at the senior center, we had our grand reopening of our new space and it was a hopping place to be with little
kind of exhibit vendor tables of our clubs and different activities that they can do as part of our senior center program. Uh I saw Mr. Wall talking to a handful of people a couple times or over there for a long while too. They they had your attention. Uh but it was great. We had a lot of people over there volunteering, helping out, and a lot of
staff from district center came down to support and check in and see and see what everything was about. But, uh, we've seen a lot of new people coming through, too, which has been great. I think the move, um, Marissa helping with, uh, sharing the update of the new space. It's kind of caught a lot of people's eye. We had some people that
live right across the street that popped over last week and just said, "Well, you guys moved across the street, so we figured we might as well walk over and see what you're doing." So, um, so welcome everybody. Welcome all. We hope to see more coming through. Uh we're at about 241 members at the senior center. We're averaging about 35 to 50 visitors
a day uh on a non-foot care day. U so traffic traffic doubles and we have our foot care uh come in which is is a huge uh program and glad to offer it. Um um yeah, so they're working to continue to advocate for our new space and make
people know what's available to them. Uh we'll continue our TGIF meals, our holiday meals, our craft corner events, and partnering with local service organizations uh to help kind of gain awareness and gain some new membership and let people know that we're here to help them out. So um our meals on wheels
is running strong. We're averaging around 1500 meals a month coming out of our kitchen. Uh they're heated, packed, and delivered uh again daily by a team of volunteers. So again, it comes back to people in the community that want to make sure they're helping their neighbors and helping people out. So, if uh anybody here is interested or anybody
listening interested in wanting to be a Meals on Wheels uh volunteer driver, uh don't hesitate to reach out. Um we're always in need of of people that want to help deliver meals. And adult enrichment continues to be strong. We're starting to use uh more space at the high school with growing enrichment classes and
activities as the buildings have settled in there. um excited to use our new spaces to expand offerings and new class options for our our adults uh that are looking to to find hobbies and explore different interests. So, we're really excited to use our spaces. Uh it's also
been evident in our facility rentals. We continue to see expanded rentals across the district of people that want to use community room meeting spaces and especially our gyms and our fields uh field spaces. Um uh we have an amazing facilities that that we should all be proud of and we're here because of them.
So, we're happy that they're using them. Um, and our local associations and community are benefiting from those new spaces as well. So, it's really been a great great thing to see. Um, then another big shout out here on the right, uh, the Hippad Drrome Ice Arena. Uh, we had a new dehumidifier put in the past
year, allowing us to start putting ice in a little bit early and maintaining that ice a little bit later, uh, which has been great. So, thank you to our partnership with the local hockey association to make that happen. Um and then our dryf flooror activities in the offseason, the off ice seasons have also been expanding uh with inline leagues,
craft shows, home improvement shows are just some different opportunities and programs that have used that hippodrome in the offseason. Uh but a special recognition coming out this year. This will be the 100 years of the hippodromeome uh this coming fall here. U so I'll be working with John Anderson. We we haven't come up with finalized
plans yet, but we definitely want to find a way to recognize and and uh highlight the hippodrome this year celebrating 100 years. It's a big deal. Um, and then just another update, uh, it's out there, but, um, on the about us section of our website, you can find all of our publications and upcoming events.
So, you'll find cataloges, our senior center, the voice publication, our, uh, community bridge publication as part of our community bridge for our adults with disabilities programs. Um, and then our preschool registration guides, ECF guides, every anything you want to know, find out about our register for 30
community ed can be found there. Um, and then as Wayne also mentioned earlier, our uh bear bike ride uh supporting uh youth scholarships will be Sunday the 21st as we kind of kick off homecoming. Um, so we have different options there. You have a 9 mile, 25 mile or 50 mile
bike ride if you'd like to. And then we're also opening this up to all families with little ones as well for a onem little fun ride around the high school and central middle school campuses. Um, it can be free to participate and if you're looking to help uh contribute towards those youth scholarship funds, we do have different
uh donation options that we ask if people would like to, but it is not a requirement to pay. If you want to come ride, come ride. We'd love to see you. Um, and that will wrap up right as those other uh high school activities begin to kick off homecoming. So, we're excited to be a part of that day on Sunday. So,
thank you. And for my uh portion of the meeting or this report, I'll just do a quick show and tell. I'm Marissa Vetty, communications director for anybody watching, but hello to all of you. Thank you for having all of us. Uh the first showand tell item that I'll I'll show here and I know you all have them at
your at the deis as well. Our printed calendar and that is something that I think that some districts do printed calendars. Whitebear absolutely does printed calendars and anytime I ask a family member or a staff member um you know do we go by the wayside they say no
we do not I wait for that calendar and I know Rachel get call gets calls we get asked at at marketfest in July when is a calendar coming so that's always really fun for us to be able to produce that and work on that during the summertime the other thing that we certainly do all
the time but during the summer uh we work on doing the back to school pages of the website really trying to help people have a one-stop shop for where they want to find information. Of course, very detailed information is always at the school site, but trying to help families uh really figure out where they're going as they start the school
year. Um and then in addition to that page alone, just making sure that the other pages of the websites are up and ready to go as we start the new school year. So, additionally, we had done uh we always do a beginning of the school letter. So, we send a letter out to our
families and our staff members as well uh through email, but our families receive the letter in the mail and then families also do receive a Spanish version of that. Um, something that we added this year because we had the capability to do so with parent square is that we took that information and we
sent it out through parent square to all of our families electronically as well. And what that did was it it did get it to our families in English, but then it also got the information to all of our families in whatever language they speak that we have in our parent uh parent
view system. So families did get that information mailed home to them, but they electronically got it in whatever language they speak at home as well. So that was something and we'll talk about parent square later quickly as well but that was something we were able to add into the mix for this year uh because of
that new solution that we have started to use. All right. We also worked with the nutrition services uh department. They really we worked with them a few years ago and they just run with it every year this um so that's a full confession. They've done an amazing job
with it. But they send a postcard home to all families. So you can see the little so students can work on punching in their numbers. Um which we know when we tested it a couple of years ago that families literally did and students literally did have fun, you know, doing
the number. Um and then of course they were sharing information about the um application for educational benefits as well which is very important for families to have on at top of mind as the school year is beginning to get discounts for obviously um our school
lunches are free to everybody but that application for educational benefits is really important for families to get other uh services and benefits as well. So Tia and I were also able to work on some school videos this summer. Um so the Central Middle School screenshot
that you can see up there is coming out very soon. That's being finalized this week, but it's well on its way to being an invitation to that event that Dr. Kasmmerch talked about. Um that's happening coming up on the 24th. We did do a a principal welcome video or a
principal introduction video for our new Willow Lane Elementary principal. And then the bear Bears bus tour on the bottom pointing to the map. Um that is something that we we showed uh our new um our new staff members to give them just a glimpse and obviously it's
available on our website as well, but to give our new staff members and families a glimpse of throughout the district. Uh convocation was something that we all came together in at the end of August. So our department worked on pulling together students and staff members to
to rouse the crowd. Thank you all who were able to make it for that. The weather did turn out to be beautiful as opposed to last year when it was hotter than hot. So uh the the weather was perfect and it was a really fun way to start the day. And uh the having the
addition of the band, the drum line has always been amazing, but adding those extra bodies in and having the full band was a really really fun way to kick it off. Um back to school bears, we haven't been um saving the the fun for ourselves. Um our families have gotten
into the into the mix and done back to school bears photos as well. So that's been fun. Again, this is um a preview. you will on uh Sunday when you get the e newswsletter, you'll see a collage of uh photos that have been turned over to us. So, it's been fun to get the community
involved as well. And then additionally, we've been doing our regular communications, of course, our e newswsletter that we send out is now again on the more regular uh process throughout the while we're in the school year. Our 624 facts that Dr. K also talked about we do those every day at
6:24 a.m. And then our weekly videos on Friday we got to publish our first one of the school year and hopefully you saw that saw all the the uh students sort of running into school excited and then showcasing uh the back to school bears photos as well. Um some other things
that we have on the docket. We started in August with our leadership team some communications trainings that we're doing and then we'll do trainings throughout the year um monthly as well with our principles and members of our our school teams. And then as I
mentioned, parent square that is a communication that uh tool that we have been using as a district a district-wide and buildingwide principles have been using it last school year and this school year our teachers will be using that to communicate with our families as
well. So that provides families with an opportunity they will get an email. They can have text capabilities as well and um and it's back and forth. So it's we've called it sort of a many things in one. Um it has taken the place of email
systems that we used to use for community e newswsletters. Um school messenger that we used to do uh for school school closing days snow days. Um we can use it for that. And then again um the at this classroom level we can
use it for that as well. And something that's really neat about this program is that it has um back and forth translation capabilities. So I might send you something in English and um Chair Arand, if you speak French, you
would receive the information in French, you'd write back to me in French and I would read it again in English because that's what is in the system for me in knowing what to read um and how to communicate. And so that is really exciting. are will be using that more robustly starting or this year. Um, and
it's we're excited to have that capability. >> That's it for the show and tell. >> We have a lot of fast talkers in our group. >> Yeah, there's a lot of Viking fans. It might be that. uh opening school opening week
enrollment. We uh we run our opening week enrollment uh to report to the board at 3 pm for the on the first Friday of the school year. So these are early numbers. Um and they will look different at some point, but this is where we're starting and we'll just compare to where we were last year at
this time. And so as we look at uh elementary, we'll look at elementary, secondary, and then we'll look at cohort changes. At the elementary level, um we see some uh Birch Lake is up 20 students graduated a small class, but we've we
see have seen cohort growth improvement at Birch Lake in every grade level from last year's kindergarteners through this year's fourth grade. So, they're attracting students um there. Mosska, North or excuse me, Northstar Onikica, Otter um all seeing growth and that
reflects um the you know increasing enrollment on the north end of our school district. We're seeing a drop at Lake and Lincoln both of those schools um enrolled smaller elementary classes. Um and as we look at uh kindergarten or
excuse me birth rate data um that's to be expected at Lincoln uh we underperform that birth rate data which can happen sometimes within a within elementary schools you can see a 20 student jump in a kindergarten class. Um
we see that often at in Otter Lake. Not usually Lincoln has a weight list in kindergarten. This year we just saw a really small kindergarten class report to Lincoln. Um and then at Willow Lane we saw really pretty slow enrollment throughout the summer until the last few
weeks and then we really saw pretty intense registration at Willow Lane. So Willow Lane's up a bit at the secondary level. We saw we're seeing a plus 22 at the middle school. We're seeing some good gains at the
middle school level over this time last year. Um, however, I'll caution you about secondary numbers that families tend uh are more apt not to withdraw their students when they move or enroll in a different school. And so, we're
taking those first two weeks of the school year and really cleaning up those secondary numbers to determine, well, how many students didn't let us know that they weren't coming back. Um, and that was the case last year. We saw it um in sixth grade last year significantly. And so um so I would just
warn you not to fall in love or to hate any of our secondary numbers. High schools that numbers is down 55. Um if you look at uh 612 total, we're down 68 students from this time last
year. Um and then uh with a plus 22 at the K5 level and the K12 total at the bottom is minus 46. We thought we would see a bit of a a a down tick this year because we are graduating a larger uh
senior class. Um bringing in a smaller ninth grade class, it it really the ninth grade class has performed better than expected. And we'll kind of get some context in these numbers as we look at cohorts. As you so you follow the cohorts from year to year, you can see
in kindergarten we enrolled 557. and first grade we have 564 first graders. That cohort as kindergarteners were at 546. So this year's kindergarten class is a tick bigger. Um but that uh uh really
good growth in first grade and then second grade uh from 600 to 628 is great. I just want to point out that cohort of 628 second graders was 591 as kindergarteners. So, we really are seeing some good growth in the early
grades. Uh, and you see that all the way through fourth grade. Pretty significant cohort group uh growth. Fifth grade kind of leveled off. Um, sixth grade, I said uh we had a smaller fifth grade class entering, but it's a large sixth grade
class. So, that's interesting. We'll see um how those numbers pan out here over the next few weeks. Sometimes people have enrolled their kids in multiple schools trying to figure it out over the summer and then forget to tell the school they're not attending that they're not attending. Oh, we'll keep
watching those numbers at the secondary level. Um, yeah, that ninth grade being at plus 41 was a surprise. um 12th grade uh we always see a large cohort jump in 12th grade and that's because we count in our transition
education numbers into the 12th grade class. So if you take 49 is what we have at tech out of that then you see the 12th grade cohort increased by 35 and we see um some significant changes as students are
finishing up that senior year. We get a lot of um uh new students and some open enrollments in 12th grade. Um mostly at the area learning center, but uh we're see we see some growth in 12th grade.
When we look at just then take uh tech out of it and just look at the cohort growth, we're at up 138 students in grades 1 through 12. So that's an encouraging number for us. So that's uh like I said uh we'll feel
more confident in the numbers as we get through these first few weeks and see uh where our secondary numbers are. We don't expect to see changes at the elementary. Those are pretty solid numbers. Okay, that's it. A lot of work has gone on this summer and fall. Do we have any
questions about any other presentation stuff that we covered? I do. >> Yes. >> Of this presentation or all of them? I thought we were >> doing anywhere of those that we had. >> Okay. So, um with the operations, thank
you for that update and I agree with you on the nutritional staff being, you know, happy and engaging. I walked through the cafeteria in the high school and felt like welcoming and I almost ordered something, but I didn't because I shouldn't have.
>> Yeah. You know, I I mentioned to our nutrition staff how friendly they are to the kids, and I hear from them all the time. We have the nicest kids in White Bear Lake. >> Really? That's nice. That's good to hear. >> Um, question on the electric buses. Um,
have we baked into our budget the infrastructure to charge those? >> Yeah, that's included in the grants. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Good. And then on safety and security and maybe this is for the other board members. I was I was thinking it it may
be you know um a good idea for us to have like a security assessment by facilities in a in a executive session or close to session. I've done a number of um assessments and done security systems on facilities including K
through 12 and critical infrastructure. So, I'd be interested in that if you know you you think it's something that we should do in executive session. I I it may be a good idea. Um the other one was on the facilities
and you're you're not going to be surprised by this because I've mentioned it a couple of times before, but the budget versus actual. We did such a great job on being transparent on the front end of where the money was going by facility. It was very detailed, very
transparent. And now that the chickens have come to roost, I think it'd be helpful to get what the actuals are compared to what the final budget was by facility. And uh I know the project's going to be com all everything's going to be
completed uh what at the end of December is the completion date for everything. >> Yeah, it'll be spring. It'll be you you know there the punch lists continue and then um there's final billing. So it it's quite a while after a project is
complete before that budget is really sound right where we can say that this project is done. >> Yeah. So I I think that would be helpful at the end to do that. So maybe January February or something like that would be the time frame. >> That might be a little early. Okay.
>> I think we like it it might be um probably next fall before we'd really have what those numbers are. >> Okay. >> That seems a little late, but I'll I I trust you on the timing. Um and then on
the H on HR, can I ask a question on that? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. So, I don't need I don't know if you need to get up, but this was a just a quick question. you know, I saw those new um people at the convocation, which
was, you know, it was a lot and that's a lot of staffing work. So, uh kudos to you and your staff for recruiting. And then, as I got to think about it, I thought, well, do we have a high turnover rate? Do we know what our turnover rate is for just overall or by
teacher? Yeah, our uh turnover rate is generally right under 5% is kind of what that tends to look like. >> Is that voluntary or total? >> That's total. So that's including our uh
you know our uh retirements, our resignations, etc. >> How many Okay, that's good. 5% is good probably. What what's the average with the school districts across the metro area? >> I don't have a sense of that.
>> Okay, that's all I had. Thank you. >> Yep. You bet. >> You want more? Well, just on the community I'm sorry, but on the community ed one, I just wanted to say on that it was on 59 that you know this is really kind of an
important nugget that I saw which should not get unnoticed which is our weight list was 390 and it's gone down to 33. So that's a reduction in the weight list by 90%. That's that's impressive. And
and our numbers are up more about 30%. From 753 to 1010. Don't quote me on the 30%. I was doing that on my head and I'm thinking about the Vikings maybe losing. So, um, but no, they won't. Listen, I
got a bad history with Monday night at the Bears with the Vikings. I don't want to get into it. But anyways, I that and that's a nugget that we can take to say hey the investments that we made in this in the facilities translated into real
benefits which is reduction in the weight time weight list and also increase in capacity. So I think that that's that's an important nugget that shouldn't get overlooked. Thank you. >> All right. Um this is Drake Oji. >> Yes. I had a question also for community
ed. Um, Mr. Mau, quick question for you. Um, I also was going to say good job with things being way up, enrollment up and weight list down. I had a question. >> The group, it's the dean, but thank you. >> You and your team.
>> Um, and to everybody just so much good happening in this district and I really appreciate the work of everyone. My question was about um the senior center. I heard 241 members of the senior center. Do they be pay a fee or do they register? And what
do they get for that? >> Yep. So, it's a it's an annual fee of $35. >> Okay. >> Uh for the year just to become a member and then they will get access to the clubs and activities that go on during the day. So, if they want to be a part of wood carvers, cribage, any of the
clubs or different activities we have just gives them access to come in to participate in those groups. >> And that all takes place in the senior center. >> Yep. All here. Yep. >> Feel free to stop by anytime. They love visitors. They love to show what they're doing. Nice. >> Um and I think I think another note too is part of our u senior consortium with
Ramsey County. Um we have additional resources that we can if there's anybody that's in need of something whether it be housing help or any kind of different resources that we don't provide but we can obviously we have a connection to help them find the people they need to talk to if they need any of those supports. >> Nice. Thank you.
>> Y can I just ask for some clarity real quick? How many trips around the sun do I have to make to be part of the club? You can join tomorrow if you want. >> Can I? Yeah. >> Hey, am I old enough? >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, I don't know. >> Yeah. Yep.
>> Yeah. Um, >> what is the age, Tim? Some of us might have just hit a milestone. >> I think officially it might be 55. >> Well, I I think I meet on >> I think I meet that.
I mean, I mean that. Let's just say Miss Ellison. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, I just want to start by saying kudos. I mean, this is a tremendous amount of work. Um, for anybody who thinks that educators don't work in the summer, I feel like this is the proof that that is false. Um, so
thank you for your professionalism and expertise in your work. Um, and I'm not sure if this is a question for Mr. Mau or um or Dr. Gillespie. I love that the future bear educators are the ones really helping to alleviate the weight
list. Um, one of those is my kid and she loves it. It It's really an incredible transition for students who are interested in the education world to get to have this real life experience. And I guess my my
question is because when we also have the students in the summer who are working with the Chromebooks, what are they called? What do you call them? The tech. >> Yes. Tech Depot. Are those kids from the IT career pathway?
>> It was a good question for Susan. >> For Susan. Okay. >> No. Well, okay. Because this is like a multi-pronged question here. So, for Susan that, but then are there other ways that we are integrating our career pathway students into the district.
>> So, currently they're not necessarily um part of the career pathway or they don't need to be. as they continue to develop. There's actually the high school is planning to offer a tech techo as a course so they can learn more of that. Then we intend to fully support them and have them work for us in the summer and
continue um and even during the school year actually to help us maintain all of those uh devices during the year. >> It's it's just so hands-on and our these students are digital natives and they know what to do. So >> absolutely >> wonderful. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I can just add with the
future bear educators, which is our um courses for students that maybe want to go into the um career of education, we also have um they can be avid cross tutors. So they can tutor the uh
freshman sophomore students in our AVID courses, which is a um college and career readiness courses. And they also get paid um for that experience as well. Yeah, it's it's amazing. I would be interested to hear about other career pathways as we move forward that we
might integrate into the workings of of this district. I mean, this is the reason that my daughter decided she wanted to be a teacher is because of the career pathway. So, I appreciate that. And then my other question, um, or I guess just more of a comment is that Dr. Casmerch and I have talked about this
for years about middle school sports and the difficulty of middle school sports. There's not Oh, sorry. Thank you. Um that if you want to participate in middle school sports, you often have to be part of a club or an association, which is so expensive. And so I'm
thrilled to see that we have soccer now in the middle school and ultimate frisbee, basketball. I mean, it's the ability for students to be able to play these sports in middle school, as well as getting to
do things that are already available like the musical and music, I think sets them up in such a better way and their families who might not otherwise be able to afford it for high school. So, I'm really glad to see that that's the path
we're on and I would love to see the growth of that in the future, baseball and middle school and softball, please. >> Thank you. Any other questions? >> Yes, Miss Thompson. Well, I don't have any questions because they've been asked already, but I just have to give a kudos
to the new logos because I mean, I saw them both and right away they caught my eye and really like that it they just look nice and fresh and it's awesome. And then the weight list was like >> I was so excited. I think I might have like yelled out loud a little bit
because I know we've struggled with that and you know when you have a lot of parents waiting like in that fall where we had 390 it's a lot of calling and why aren't you know and frustration so to be able to make that go down to 33 this year from 175 last year. I mean kudos to
everybody who worked on that and making sure we had the staff to support all of our families in our community that I mean that's just fantastic to see. Right. Anything else? Yes, that's below. >> Um, just a question, maybe a comment. So, if
we can if the teachers, if our students that are looking to go into teaching, uh, do we have any burgeoning um, people that could fix our school buses or maybe whether if they're 16, they can
drive the buses when we're short people. Just kidding. I think everyone has done an amazing everyone's done an amazing job. I'm cautiously optimistic about um the enrollment
um especially given the the ECF numbers. I mean, clearly we're doing something right. Um, and we're giving There's a lot of families that don't have anywhere to get child care for their kids, which is obvious by the fact that we've got over
a thousand um taking advantage of our our program. So, I think it's it's great that we offer it, but it also tells sort of a bigger tale that um the school district isn't just the classroom and it isn't just the teachers. It's a whole
communitywide the responsibilities are huge. I mean, we we we offer uh some medical services for at at the different levels. We not like medical medical but I have a cold I
go in and they can um social services we bring those people in. I mean it's it runs the gamut and it's a very very large job and I just want to say thank you to all of you because I know how much work you guys put in especially over the summer to prepare for the year.
So thank you. >> All right. Anything else? Well, thank you everybody. Now, when you you know the best thing is when you get your dessert and you get the whipped cream on the top. This is going to be the whipped cream on the top. We're going to be able to see the welcome video. >> Short and sweet.
[Applause] All [Applause] [Music] right. Thank you. Um, we have no
discussion items tonight. So, we'll go right to operations E1. We're going to have action on schoolboard policies 414 and 516.5. As a reminder, we do these all in a group together. So, can I get a motion to approve the schoolboard
policies? >> So, moved. >> Okay, Miss Thompson, can I get a second? >> Second. >> Second by Miss Baloy. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, this will be a voice vote. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Same sign. Okay. That the motion
carries. Now, it's time for board forum. um we use this time to kind of talk about things that are coming up in the district or things that we're doing in the district. >> Yes, Miss Ellison. >> So, something that um I got a notice about as the the mom of a senior that I didn't know that we'd participated in
before is the pilot program with automatic acceptance to universities in the state of Minnesota. >> It's tremendous. And so there's that not all high schools in the state do it. There's a list you can find on the on the website of high schools, including
White Bear, that that allow their students who qualify for certain universities in the state of Minnesota to be automatically accepted >> at the university. Do you Yeah. Okay. So, this is something I didn't know
about. And so the the pressure that this alleviates for our students who are trying to figure out their next step and to see if college might be the good the step for them is something that I didn't even know we did and it's wonderful. So
I just want to say that that's out there. Students will get notification in the next couple of weeks about the schools that they can get into immediately and paying for it of course is a whole different issue. But I I think that's going to relieve so much stress for our
parents of seniors. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Miss Strip OG. >> So, I wanted to share a production that is coming up uh here in White Bear Lake at the White Bear Lake High School uh theater for performing arts. Um it's
called the Penguin Project and it's about empowering children with special needs through theater. Um it was established in 2004. I think there's 64 chapters. This chapter in White Bear Lake is only the second one in the state
of Minnesota. Um it's a it's a national program. Uh it provides a supportive environment for children with disabilities to explore their creative talents. Um it's also demonstrated that participation in the performing arts has therapeutic value by enhancing social interaction, communication skills,
self-confidence, and self-esteem. Um, it's also proven to be, um, a place where kids are able to create a social network that they may not have access to otherwise. There are mentors that support those that need it um, on stage. So, they're actually a part of the
production. So, kids um, that serve as mentors have opportunities to build relationships that are ongoing over time and friendships that they may not otherwise have. Um, and the performance is going to be at the White Bear Lake High School September 11th through the
13th at 7:00 p.m. and September 14th at 200 p.m. Um, and I encourage you all to go. I took my granddaughter to one of these performances and it was pretty amazing to see and um, and made me want to get involved with that as well and I know the school district has supported
in various ways. So, thank you. >> All right, Miss Thompson. Oh, well, I was pointing out. >> Okay. Sorry. >> Um, it we've kind of already gone over most of the stuff since it's the beginning of the year. So, I wanted to put out there that um September is
hunger action month, which also affects um quite a few of our students within the schools. So, um they we White Bear Lake has pantry. Uh Hugo has a pantry. Uh donations of goods are great. Donations of cash are better. um that
way they can put the money to what they need it for um specifically. So think about this that this month. Um and I believe coming since my son was the first year, I'll just give myself a little pat on the back since I was the
one that brought this to Dr. K >> for a very selfish reason. But um I believe what happens is every senior will receive an email and they have to opt in to the process. Um it was amazing
for my son. It took so much pressure off of him just making that kind of decision like who I wanted to apply to and he didn't have to worry about it until he already knew if he sent them something they were going to say yes. So, um, it
was it was an amazing thing for him. So, I'm glad you brought that up. So, I I encourage all the parents, um, do it. And you're still going to have to apply, but it does make the whole process a whole lot easier.
>> Okay. Thank you. I just have one thing to bring up. The >> Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you. Hey, I I just I I was looking at the Minnesota um report card that just came out recently and um our numbers went up in all the key
categories. Percent of meeting standards for math went up, percent of uh meeting standards for reading went up and our attendance also went up. So those are trends. You know, you you don't look necessarily at the raw numbers, you look
at the trend and the trend is going up. We still have a lot of work to do. I know we do and I know we'll um we'll continue to work on it. But I think that that's a good sign the trends are are up. The other thing I wanted to me just mentioned is you know I started uh using
AI and um it's great. It is amazing what it can do and it's going to have you know profound impacts on K through2 education. So in terms of this is what alpha schools claims it's it can increase the
speed of learning, speed of teaching, speed of curriculum development. Those are three very important things. So and we're not going to stop it. So we're going to have to adapt to it. So, I I would think again, I know I'm giving you a lot of work here, Scott, on um adding
things to the agenda, but I think that one is one that we we ought to discuss um on our open at an open meeting just to get an assessment from staff how they view AI and maybe even parents and students in terms of how how they're
using it. Thank you. All right. I'm just going to talk tonight today about um Friday. The Ramsey County League of Local Government is having an educational um program again. It'll be this Friday uh February February uh
September 12th from 8 to 9:00. It's a Zoom and the speakers this Friday is going to be Citizens Against Sex Trafficking. They're called CAST. And this is a very eyeopening um for many of us. I think you don't realize everything
that's going on. And so, um, this is a great session. Anybody from the White Bear Lake schools can sign up and join. Um, if if you need information, let me know. I also know that if you can't make it, sometimes we most of the time we video it and so for the Zoom session and
so if that's the case, we can send you the um the recorded version of it. But I encourage everybody uh school counselors or any you know psychologists anybody because I think this is an eyeopener um for many things we never really realized
was going on. So I invite everybody from um our our school district to um attend that on Friday and if you need information let me know. I can get you the uh meeting invite information. And with that I have that. Is there any others?
Well we've come to that point. Uh, we're at the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjurnn, >> Mr. Chair? I move to adjourn. >> Okay, Miss Elson, is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Okay, motion carries.