(attendees chatting indistinctly) (gavel banging) - [BM Arcand] I now call this meeting of School Board Independent School District 624 to order. Will the Clerk please call the role? - [BM Streiff Oji] Yes. Thompson. - [BM Thompson] Here. - [BM Streiff Oji] Arcand. - [BM Arcand] Here. - [BM Streiff Oji] Beloyed. - [BM Beloyed] Here. - [BM Streiff Oji] Ellison. - [BM Ellison] Here. - [BM Streiff Oji] Skaar. - [BM Skaar] Here. - Streiff Oji. Here. - [BM Arcand] Will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. - [All] 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? Mr. Skaar? - Oh, thank you. I wanted to add a couple of items. - [BM Arcand] Okay. - [BM Skaar] Make a motion to add to the agenda discussion on obtaining more parent input on the shift to fourth/fifth grade multi-age classrooms for next school year. - Can I just ask a point of order, Mr. Chair? - Yeah. - Do we need to approve the agenda? I'm sorry. Do we need to make a motion and a second and then have an amendment? - I was gonna see if we could do it first,
so we wouldn't have to approve it and then re-approve it. - Okay. Thank you. - So, right now we have in front of us a motion to add a discussion... Can you say that again? - A motion to add to the agenda a discussion on obtaining more parent input on the shift to fourth/fifth grade multi-age classrooms for the next school year. - Okay. We have the motion in front. Do we have a second? - [BM Beloyed] Second. - Second. Any discussion? Okay. - I do have a - Yes. - question.
Is this agenda item, 'cause I've had questions on this as well, is this agenda item scheduled to be on an upcoming agenda? - Yes. We're gonna have it at the work session in April. - Okay. - Yes. - Can I make a clarifying comment? My motion, really, is to talk about how we can get more parent input and guardian input on the process. We received a very thoughtful, articulate email from concerned parents, and I've also heard from a couple of other parents.
So... - I just want to say that I kind of like to wait until we hear from the committee when they come in and talk about it, so that we have more information. That's my stance. Like, if we were gonna bring it forward, and that might be the time, but we have the motion on the floor to put this to the agenda. Yes. - Point of order. Just a clarifying question. Will that be included in the agenda item that will be on the next board meeting as far as the input from the parents and the community? - No, right now we get the input from the designing team,
and so we can go from there, but I think it's important to hear from the designing team before. - Okay. - See what they are gonna bring forward 'cause we don't really know what's coming forward yet. That was what I was thinking. - Okay. Thank you. - Yes. Question? - Yes, that is also what I was thinking. I think there is going to be a process, and there's a plan to share that process. - Yes. - I would withdraw the motion if we are going to include in the discussion at the next meeting, parental and guardian input into the change.
And then, if we do it next year or next month, are we gonna have enough time to make that adjustment for the following year? - It's in two. It's the meeting in two weeks, right? - Yes. - Okay. - So we should have enough time. - We hope, yeah- - So I can always- - Well, you could bring that motion back at that point. - Will do. - We'll see what we got coming forward. Did you have another motion? - Yes. I'd like to make a motion to add to the agenda discussion on methods to improve board governance with more transparency and accountability for the benefit of the public interest and our community.
- So we have before us a motion to improve board governance. That what I'm hearing, the highlights. All right. Do we have a second? Do we have a second? One more time. We have a second? Motion fails. All right. So we have before us an agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the current agenda? - [BM Ellison] So moved. - Okay, by Ellison. Second? - [BM Thompson] Second. - Second by Thompson. Any discussion? This will be a voice vote. All in favor say, "Aye." - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. We have an agenda. Motion passes.
We also have before us a consent agenda. This consent agenda contains a variety of business items that come to us monthly, including donations. We are always truly grateful for all the support the community shows us and the donations they give to our students and staff, and I want to say on behalf of the Board, thank you for that. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? - [BM Beloyed] So moved. - Okay, by Deb. - [BM Streiff Oji] Who is it? - [BM Thompson and BM Ellison] Beloyed. - Beloyed. And do I get a second. - Second. - Second by Ms. Ellison.
This would be a voice vote. If you could call the roll. - [BM Streiff Oji] Thompson - [BM Thompson] Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. Aye. - Okay. (gavel bangs) We have the consent. Agenda's been approved, All right, where it's now time to do public forum. During public forum, the portion of the meeting we ask public members who've asked to come up and speak, we give them three minutes. We have nine speakers for tonight. With one minute remaining, you will see the orange card will be held up
to say that you have one minute. With 30 seconds remaining, you will get a yellow card. And at the end of the three minutes, we'll just give you a like, light tap or let you know that it's over. School district policy and data privacy laws preclude personal and student matters or data being discussed publicly. Speakers may not make allegations, charges, or complaints against any student or employee. Speakers will be called to the microphone and recognized one at a time. Only those individuals who have been recognized will be allowed to speak. Members of the audience may not engage in conduct that disrupts any part of the school board meeting
or that otherwise impedes school board's ability to conduct business. So what I'm gonna say, is that after your three minutes are up, I have one more opportunity for you. When you are done, and we say, "Three minutes up," you can also tell us what is one hope or dream you have for your child. We'd like to hear that too after you're done. So what's one hope or dream you have for your child? So as we get. Tonight we proudly celebrate the achievements of our Athena Award Winner: band, jazz band, choir and orchestra students, and speech team members. Congratulations to each of you.
We also extend our sincere gratitude to the dedicated staff and supportive family members who played a vital role in these state and nationwide successes. Please join us in watching a video highlighting their accomplishments. Go Bears. (bright upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music) (bright upbeat music) - That was very impressive. Thank you. We're gonna transition now to C2 Superintendent Report. Dr. Kazmierczak. - [Dr. Kazmierczak] Thank you, Chair Arcand. Tickets are now on sale for the middle school musical, "Matilda JR."
Shows will be performed from April 23rd to April 25th at Central Middle School Community Auditorium. Find the link for online tickets on the homepage of the district's website. In partnership with Light in the Well, White Bear Lake Area High School proudly presents "A Time for Light," a free multisensory orchestra performance centered on inclusivity and connection. The event will take place at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, April 28th in the high school's Performing Arts Center. Tickets and additional information are available online at the Light in the Well website.
Community members are invited to join me and other district leaders for coffee and conversation at the last Coffee with Dr. K of the school year. We'll be at Caribou Coffee in downtown White Bear Lake from 7:30 to 8:30 AM on Tuesday May 5th. This is an opportunity to ask questions, share ideas, or just enjoy a good cup of coffee together. Willow Lane fifth graders have been learning valuable career skills by working with community members on cover letters, resumes, and interview preparation. They're getting ready for their Donatelli's "Takeover" where they will experience working as cooks, servers, and hosts from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
on May 5th, 19th, 26th, and June 2nd. I certainly plan to support them on at least one of those Tuesdays, and I encourage you all to do the same. We had a terrific time celebrating with incoming kindergartners and their families last week. Students enjoyed spending time in their elementary building and even participated in a kindergarten signing day activity. Those families who haven't yet enrolled their child for kindergarten can do so on the enroll page of the website. We offer strong neighborhood schools along with options for International Baccalaureate and Elementary Spanish Dual Immersion.
And we recently received word that two of our school leaders have been honored by the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals. White Bear Lake Area High School's Joe Held was named Capitol Division High School Assistant Principal of the Year, and Mariner Middle School's Christina Pierre was named Capitol Division Middle School Principal of the Year. Good luck to them as they move forward in the process for state-level recognition. Thank you. - [BM Arcand] Thank you, Dr. Kazmierczak. All right, we're gonna go to Information Item C - Scott. - Yeah. - Just a couple of questions on that. With that Coffee with Dr. K.,
would it be possible if we get a kind of a number of people that show up that are not district staff, you know, and maybe highlights on some of the topics that are on people's mind? I think that might be helpful. - Yeah. - Thank you. The other suggestion that I have is maybe we should have, I would suggest the chair do a report and maybe poll board members and anything that the chair's, in addition to a Superintendent's Report. - [BM Arcand] We'll look at it. - Thank you. - Thank you for that suggestion.
All right, we're gonna move on to Information Item C3: Graduation rates. Dr. Gillespie. - Good evening, Chair Arcand, Members of the Board. I'm gonna quickly introduce who's here with me tonight. I'll be sharing our graduation data and then attendance data, and then I've asked each one of them to share, you know, another thing that we're doing from the field, and then at the end we'll be here to answer any questions. So we have John Leininger, Elementary Principal at Matoska International, Russ Reetz, High School Principal, Ange Nelson, Principal at Otter Lake Elementary, and Cathryn Peterson, Principal at Central Middle School.
So I've really spent a lot of time thinking about how to present this data 'cause we're really proud of this data, but I think, as we've heard a little bit this evening, people often have questions on all of the different ways that we continually improve. And so tonight, I'm thinking about the kids that persevered, especially our class of 2025. They were our first unified high school, and Mr. Reetz could better talk about the impact and the leadership that they had, but this is a reflection of their graduation. Additionally, we have adults who are continuously committed. You've heard, every time our principals present,
we're highlighting where we're excited about things and where we're continually improving. And so tonight we're excited about our data, and we couple that with continuous improvement and what we want to do to get better. And so I hope that you continue to hear that. So, again, our graduation data and attendance data. These two measures are lagging measures which come out for us. As you know, the graduation data comes out now for the previous year, and then attendance data, actually, is two school years behind. So I have our approximate data for last school year, which will come out in this August, in 2026,
but last time we presented about this, we didn't have the finalized data from 23/24, we had our estimates. So as we've talked about a couple times tonight, and then you've seen throughout, we're really proud of our district-wide data. Our high school last year graduated at 97.3%. Our ALC graduated at 82.2% and then district-wide, when we couple those, it's 93.9%. That does put us at the top of the metro area, and it's something we've been continuously committed. And what we keep talking about internally is graduation rate often gets coupled with our high school,
and it is a high school measure, but you cannot have a successful high school without every single thing that we're doing across our system. So it is something that our early childhood educators, our elementary educators, middle school, and high school should feel proud of because each time we're working on all of these different continuous improvement things you hear about from literacy, math, the work we're doing at ninth grade, middle school and the unique time that our kids have in there, and they're discovering who they are. All of that matters and comes to this final graduation data. We do look and get compared to other area high schools,
and so I kept theirs from last year too to see. You know, ours is real consistent, a little bit of growth from the previous year, from class of 2024, and then, as you remember, not everyone has an ALC or ALP. So these are the high school graduation rates, and then when our district graduation rate gets coupled, it is that ALC and high school graduation. So, celebrations, I think it's important, and last year we really worked hard to describe what are the stories of those students who maybe haven't graduated yet 'cause we want to make sure that we really know
1, that we're not losing people in our system, but 2, where are our students? And so of the 24 non-graduates, 98.2%, so 593 of 604 graduates, graduated according to plan. And what we mean is, is we're proud of we have transition education programming where students can be with us through 21 and 22 and get really specialized. It's based on their IEPs goals, but that that is part of the plan that's planned as they're looking at transition goals. And so understanding that, we have students who've continued with us.
Additionally, a measure that we're really proud of and focus on is, How do we know students are doing well? So we've raised the graduation rate. What does that look like for students needing developmental courses in college? And in 2018, 19% of our graduates needed develop developmental courses. For 2024, 9%. Now this data lags two years. So we don't yet have for the class of 2025 'cause they're currently freshmen, on what they needed for that. So I will be able to report on that next year. Again, I'd like to highlight our ALC graduation.
82.2% not only is a huge growth for them but does stand out significantly with other area schools. And so our continuous focus on how to help students with learning loss, and a lot of that translated in high school with credit loss during the impact of the pandemic. All of those students were in middle school. So all of those things coupled together. I wanted to highlight some of that 'cause I think it's important. Every one of the indicators that we look at, so when you look at early literacy and early math, which we talk continuously with you, not only are those important for life outcomes, but they too impact whether students will graduate on time
as young as third and fourth grade. We look at our multi-tiered systems of support and the levels of support that we're doing, and so to me this measure is our students' persistence and the wonderful adults that work here and are continuously committed. But it is also that our support systems are working the way they're intended so that we really are raising the expectations for all students while closing that gap in terms of students who aren't graduating, recognizing that sometimes life throws all of us curve balls, and it happens even for our students, and so we do have programming for students who, maybe graduating in four years,
just isn't part of the plan, and they can continue in our ALP or ALC, and then those students who is according to their plan, and that they need to be with us longer for their transition skills. The other pieces is middle school, I've really been working hard with our middle school principals and how best to describe what's going there and the successes we have, but really identify where are areas that we want to improve on 'cause middle school is a really unique time. Students' brains are forming really fast, they're discovering who they are. Many parents know that. You can reflect on your own students. But when we look as a whole system, we really want to honor the work that's done there.
And so how are students exploring who they are, looking into interests, really connecting and belonging at school 'cause those are years, as you know, if you lose them it's hard to get them back, and so thinking about that. And then finally our high school. The work that we do in ninth grade is transformational because ninth grade is the most accurate indicator for graduating on time. If a student fails even one class in ninth grade, their likelihood of graduating drops significantly. So I think keeping all that in mind, when you think about our whole system and all the things we're doing, again, none of us have said we've arrived yet
because we think about the kids that are there and what we can do to support them, but we're really proud of this data and we should be. So we had 43 students who didn't graduate. Who are those 43 students? 22 of them are currently enrolled. And so that's huge. They're continuing with us. They're in the programming that we've designed to support students. We had six students that were continuing and then dropped because they didn't show up with us. Four students transferred to different schools. Two students reached compulsory age, and then nine students with unknown reasons.
Part of what was different this year is because this is our first year for data for the unified high school, some of the students, we lost them when it was north campus. and so we weren't able to see. They didn't re-enroll with us, but they are part of that overall factor when we count our graduates. We had 16 non-graduates from the ALC and then three transition education students. So as we continue to dive in and look at, what I will tell you is connecting attendance and graduation may not make a ton of sense sometimes when we talk about it,
but attendance is one of the greatest indicators that we have in terms of students who can consistently attend better, do better academically in all of those outcomes that we've been talking about. They're more engaged, and then they're more likely to graduate on time. And so that is why we coupled these two areas. But if you think about it, our schools, we're continuously doing interventions around attendance, and so as those two things are out there, I want you to think about, What is a student's daily lived experience? When we think about, Why would I want to come to school? Families, as we know, some of our littlest students
aren't the ones who get them to school, but there are barriers, real barriers that people are experiencing, and you may hear some of that as our principals talk with that. With that said, we also are really proud of the growth that we've seen in our attendance data. Again 23-24, when I presented last year, was our estimate. Our internal person who does his estimates, he's really accurate and within just a couple of percentage points, and it is a confusing metric. So let me explain it. This is the percentage of students who attend school at least 90% of the time
and they had to have been enrolled with us at least 50% of the year. So, principals, this isn't the way principals look at data. They may tell you this. They look at their daily attendance. Who's here? We absolutely have systems that catch the consistent non-attenders, but this can be a frustrating data 'cause it's lower than their daily attendance. And so people who don't understand that metric will think only 80% of students are in school daily. That's absolutely not true. Most of our schools are above 90%, if not close to 95%. This is tracking, How do we cumulatively look at kids?
And 10% of the school year is 17 days, which seems like a lot, but if you've had a child get sick, multiple sicknesses, a family vacation, they can add up very quickly. So our average attendance for elementary has grown from 21-22 at 65.11% to our estimate for this past school year to 85%. That is significant when you look at four years, the years that we've had in terms of rebounding during the pandemic. And so the work that we're doing is really paying off, and it absolutely is in partnership with families.
We can't do this work without them. Secondary, at the high school, it has grown from 60.27% to our estimate for this past last year is 81%. Again significant. If you look at some of our middle schools, you'll see some really big gains. Our high school steadily moving up. Our district data factors and our transition education center data and our ALC, and those are lower and not accurate as we think about ways to take attendance. They're unique programs that have flexible attendance requirements.
So we're still working through some of those glitches to make sure that that's an accurate. We have it internally, but what gets publicly reported on those two programs. All right, so really who you will love to hear from are our principals, and so how I asked them, again thinking about that day in and day out experience, I asked them to each highlight something for you that they're really proud of in terms of the work that we're doing to help kids feel stay connected, engaged, persist through our system. Then I have a few closing remarks, and then again we'll take questions, so... (Principals laughing and chatting indistinctly) - Thank you, Board, I'm John Leininger,
principal at Matoska International, and thanks for having us. And, you know, one of the things that we think about in the elementary and at Matoska is just how we build relations and connections. We know that, you know, students want to come to school. Parents want their children to come to school. Unfortunately, sometimes there are very difficult circumstances, sometimes tragic circumstances that really get in the way. So one of the things that we work on is how do we, and our support staff, our district partners in teaching and learning and student support services help figure out how can we help our families
when they run into these really difficult times. So we can work together, we can find community resources to help get them transportation to school, to help them find ways to, you know, walk to school or get to school. The other thing that I like to highlight is just how much our teachers and staff care about the students. It is amazing how much I see our teacher staff, you know, picking up the phone, calling, and saying, "Hey, how's it going? "How can we help you?" You know, "What can we do to help reach out, you know, "and get your child to school." I've even seen teachers who will go around the classroom
with a video camera and each kid will say, "Hey, we miss you. "I wish you were here. "I hope you can come back soon." And we get that out to our students and families. So we have our systems that are really important. We have our county partners. We also know that, you know, families and elementary kids mostly, they really want to come to school. And how we can help them get here and support them is just really important to what we do. Thank you. - Good evening. We continue to focus on improving our period and full day attendance with students.
Last year our theme was, "Do I belong here?" I think every student consciously or subconsciously asks themselves daily if they feel a strong sense of belonging. And then where in our building is that belonging taking place? I want it to be in every classroom, and we continue to work on how we greet students and how students greet one another, and then the different activities that we do in class, ensuring that they're meaningful learning experiences, and that no matter where students enter into new learning,
we're there for them to support them and then help them make connections to their lived experiences. That that has gone a long way in helping students continue to go to class. We have tried many different procedural-type things. No pass is the first 10 and last 10 minutes of class. We think students are more successful when they understand the learning targets for that day, and then they can provide evidence of their learning at the end of the class period. We don't allow students to take their cell phones with them when they do leave the classroom on a pass.
You'd be surprised how quickly students want to be back in their room. They don't get access to their phone, but they never want to be too far from it. We're looking at ways to prevent students from inviting other students to leave class if they need to be out on a pass. We also have so many adults in our building that have gotten to know our student body and do a really wonderful job helping move students along, getting them back into class if they're somewhere they're not supposed to be. It takes a village.
We talk about the importance of every minute of every class period in terms of their learning, and I think the common language in some of the narratives we're discussing with our students is starting to resonate. But our kids, we have great kids, and they make good choices every day, and much of our improvement is because our students understand there's an ownership component to their learning, and they've chosen to make good choices. - Awesome. Yeah, I think you really cannot discount
the power of welcoming students to school. I mean, first and foremost. So, you know, at Otter Lake, you come in and whether you're on time or tardy or coming back from an appointment, you're gonna get welcomed with like, "Oh my gosh, we're so glad to see you," a hug. Students are coming to find us to greet us. And, you know, everyone's kind of talked about that relationship piece, but you cannot discount students feeling safe and cared for at school because it really matters a lot. You know, some of the things that we've done, we have really unique opportunities at Otter Lake
where we've done, like our month-long Readathon. Students have been quoted to say, "it's their favorite part of their whole life." So students like coming to school. (laughs) Yes, very excited, (laughs) because of opportunities to connect, to be welcome to belong. This year we have a kindness theme. If you drive past Otter, you'll notice that there's some signage out front that's really kindness to our world. But students being able to connect with peers, even of different grade levels. We have buddy classrooms. We have Bear time
where students get to reconnect with peers because that is a driving force for elementary because that is, they don't drive, if you didn't know. So in order to connect with their friends, they need to come to school. But, beyond that, students are really excited to learn. They're so incredibly excited to learn. They know that when they miss, that they are missing something that's happening in class. And I have to say, so we have our new CKLA literacy curriculum that we're, you know, in our third year of, and students really enjoy what they're learning
in the CKLA units and get really excited about it and the different things that teachers have kind of brought in so that they can experience that learning. I would just add too, that the systems that we have in place for students who are needing additional support are really structured and theirs, so that could be a reason why students might not wanna come to school. If they struggle in school academically, it's hard for them. You know, they don't want to continually do something that's hard for them, but if they are supported,
and they are given positive reinforcement, they have someone walking alongside of them, they know that it's safe, and that doesn't become a reason then to miss school. John mentioned some of the systems and structures we have just in terms of like tracking procedural-type things like that, but part of that is educating families on the importance of attendance. You know, for the elementary level, I think probably the most is that families go on vacation, which we totally appreciate, and those days add up really quickly even though they're excused, and so it's really educating families around the importance
of every minute that a student's in school, and when you're gone multiple days in a row, kind of what that adds up even at the elementary level when they're learning how to read. So partnering with families and welcoming. You know, we want families to have fun and be with their family and be mindful of our school calendar, so students aren't missing so much school. - Here, here. - I'm sorry. - There we go. Better. So thinking about middle school, I remind myself every day that I get to live with a small village of 950 11 to 14 year olds,
and I choose to be there, and I love it, and I also remind myself that there is no other time in a child's life, other than from birth to 12 months, that their brain is changing so quickly and rapidly developing. And so, at Central, we have just really embraced the student experience. We want kids to leave and feel happy and proud of themselves. It's a time where they're really pushing independence, and sometimes that means pushing boundaries, and so we have a commitment as a staff to say, "You know, when kids make mistakes,
"how do we help them to learn from their mistakes, "that those mistakes don't define them, "but they can change what they do going forward." And sometimes there's attendance issues, whether it's kids who are tardy, whether it's kids who are absent, and some of those things are within their control when they are 12 years old. And what we do is we really sit down then and get to know them and talk with them. I want to give a huge shout out to my school counselors, my school social worker, and my school psychologists who are anchors in doing this work.
They take the time to talk with kids about their privileges that they have at middle school and how those privileges come with responsibilities. They really talk about why these are important, why they're important life skills, and how these skills will be used navigating situations both in school and out of school. And they're really working to teach kids, How do they advocate for themselves? How do they communicate? How do they use resources so that they can be successful? I brought an example of a plan where they really sit down, they talk with the kids about,
"You're being tardy. What's happening?" And then, "What are some of the things within your control, "and what are some options that you have?" Everything from setting an alarm clock to, "What if my transportation falls through? "What if I'm struggling with something "that's causing me to be late? "Who are people at school that can help me with that?" And so I'm just, I'm proud of the work that we're doing that kids are being seen, they're being known by name, and they're going home happy and proud. - Thank you. We get to be the face of a whole administrative team
that serve our educators and who work with kids. And so we really work with wonderful, wonderful people who are crystal clear in their focus that our kids are gonna succeed. And you know, as Russ said, our kids are wonderful, and it's a real privilege to get to work with them. And so, I don't know of anyone who's not trying to get it right for our kids, and we are pushing together as a team, and so I hope you keep their faces. We have kids in here right now. We have some educators, but we really get to represent and be the face for that. And I think it's important we honor their work.
Lastly, our system and system change is hard, it's complex, especially for public schools when we have all these different moving parts, but we've really done a lot to enhance the way we talk about data, and so I wanna highlight those things I did, and I always look back. What did I tell you that we were gonna do? And did we actually do it? And I'm always excited when we have, and we absolutely are leaning in in all these areas. So part of it is making sure we have accurate data and that we're monitoring it. And so we have had to do some tweaks internally around attendance,
and also it's really important to me that for every student that doesn't graduate, we know the why, and we've connected, and if we haven't, we have multiple checks in our system, including me looking at it before it's even finalized, that we do everything we can to find students as we know the doors that stay open for families when they have a high school diploma, and we want to make sure that they don't lose out and know that these resources are here, especially as we have a partnership with 916. There's just a lot of options. We really have worked on, How do we support our new and transitioning students? So thinking about,
you saw some of the kindergarten pictures. Students entering kindergarten this year, they did a little signing ceremony, which is so exciting where kids got to really be excited about coming into school. We think about going into sixth grade and what that looks like and making sure we're supporting, and then ninth grade as well, and so thinking through all of that 'cause when we looked last year, we noticed those are some times where we're seeing either increase in absences or when I looked back, when we lost students, "Where were they in those areas?" Ninth grade success we've talked about. We've had bar-implemented building assets reducing risks for quite some time now.
Really looking at ninth grade success. We talked about pathways and being really clear as we transition to an ALP in our partnership with 916. How do we make sure students and families know about those options? And then continuing to work with families around attendance and the supports. We're working right now to get some more videos describing attendance and its importance in elementary school and secondary and what that means as we continue to partner with them and then with the county resources if and when needed. So I want to reiterate as we close, we're proud of our results, and we know we still have work to do
on behalf of our students and families, and the commitment is there, and we're constantly doing different things, but graduation really is a reflection of our system. Our students stay engaged, our educators connect with them, and we should be really proud of where we sit in White Bear Lake Area Schools. So, thank you, and we're here now for any questions you might have. - Do we have any questions? - Ms Streiff Oji. - [BM Streiff Oji] So, congratulations. I think that is excellent news about the graduation rates. Having been in education for 32 years, knowing how complex our little people can be,
and how we are always trying to meet their individual needs and help them. So, thank you. The SLEDS data. Can you just remind me what that is? - [Alison] Yeah, so SLEDS data is a database. That link will take you there. And they track post, the ones I know, it's quite a robust data, but post-high school data. So it'll show us what schools our students enrolled in, and then they track students and the percentage of students that had to enroll in developmental courses, and developmental courses, as many of us know, students pay for but don't get credit towards
whatever, you know, certification or a degree that they're working on, and so, to drive at that significantly over time is wonderful, and we obviously want to keep leaning in and finding out how we can best support our students. - Thank you, because that does say a lot about when people are saying, "Well, the achievement, "they're going on to college, "and they're being more successful "than they were in the past." So, thank you. I do appreciate working with a team that focuses on attendance statewide, how you welcome kids, what you're doing when they're missing. It really matters, especially when they're late.
It really matters. Things that I had not thought of before. We really had to hone in on attendance statewide. You spoke of 22 of the students that didn't graduate are currently enrolled. Are they in our regular, like as a senior? What does that kind of programming look like? - [Alison] They're either at the ALC, or they're at transition education. We really work individually. Most students don't want to stay at the high school. It doesn't mean they couldn't, but they usually go to those two programs. - Okay, and then I noticed in elementary attendance rates
that Willow is significantly lower than the other schools are. Are there specific supports that you are all talking about to target that issue? - Yes, really Willow's team is phenomenal, and we'll definitely have Jen Sexauer here to present on the work that they've done, but we've used that team as a model, and so how they've really leaned in on the support teams and stuff. They are partnering with some state resources around how to really look at the data and increase it, but, you know, a lot of their work there,
it has been rippled out. So they really do intentional family engagement events. They're really looking at how to partner with families and remove barriers of students helping them. If you've gone in Willow lately, they even have on the sign, "If you're late, this is what you've missed." And so really, that welcoming, asking teachers to reach out, which really, you know, research would tell you, that has the greatest impact. That's where the students have the strongest relationship. So they're trying all of those things, and they are seeing the growth is just not as fast. - Thank you. Thank you for all your work every day. - [BM Arcand] Thank you. Other questions.
Mr. Skaar. - First of all, I think you guys deserve great recognition for this. Graduation rates are strong, and more encouraging, I think, is the fact that there's a positive trend in attendance, and that's great because, you know, attendance is just basic. It follows student success. So I think that's great, and I think comparisons with other districts are instructive, and benchmarking ourselves against our peers is essential. And I think, you know, there's other signs of encouraging news,
and the early grade performance shows promising movement I would say, overall. Our proficiency in both math and reading trended up from 2024 to 2025 a little bit, but it trended up which is a good thing. So I'm really excited about our progress, and I didn't know you were gonna be here, John. Our own Matoska principal captured this well when he noted that, "His school is holding its own "against the best schools in the metro." Do you remember saying that or something close to that?
- [John] I do. And I stand by it. - Thank you. (attendees laughing) I think such comparisons are useful, not because you know they flattered John but because they clarify where we stand, where we need to go. On that score, we do have challenges. I mean in both math and reading proficiency, we trail significantly with our adjoining districts. You all know this. Between Centennial, Mounds View, and Mahtomedi for 2025, Centennial's, 24% better in math, 18% better in reading.
Mahtomedi is 46% better in math, 30% better in reading. These are comparisons that matter to the point of one of the speakers. But that's not the end of the story, right? It's not the end of the story. Positive trends are a good sign. We're pointed in the right direction. So I'm hopeful our staff, you know, it seems like we're all up to the task of continuous improvement, keeping that trend line to improve, but I think our community should demand better results, better accountability,
and hopefully the message was received here by this board on accountability for that. The other footnote that I just want to make is, you know, K through 12 education is really up against some significant challenges with social media, you know, tied into cognitive development. I'm sure you're aware that the two cases were one in California and in New Mexico demonstrating that social media such as Facebook
is damaging to cognitive development in our children, and we're up against that, and we're gonna need to adapt to that. Just one last question for our high school principal, which is, I'm interested, I talked to him ahead of time, so he is not gonna be surprised. The correlation between attendance and discipline. Is there a positive correlation with that? - Yeah, I did have a chance to dig into our DIRS data.
So that's our Discipline Incident Report. - Yeah, that's what we have to report exclusionary discipline to the state throughout the year. and it yeah, that's what it is. - So, it's interesting. We implemented a cell phone policy last year, and so we had 160 cell phone referrals that, if you removed, because that cell phone policy didn't exist in the past, we had a significant decrease in discipline incidents. It's actually a 46% decrease in our first year
as a unified high school. So our attendance rates were almost a 7% increase, and our discipline incident referrals were down 46%. I do think the two things are related. When it comes to like certain areas of the building, but we had far less incidents occur in our hallways and in our bathrooms. We had less physical altercations and far less chemical use from one year to the next. Some of that is due to the new spaces.
Some of that is due to just the number of supervising adults within the building, but a lot of it is because students were in class. - [BM Skaar] All right. Thank you. - Other questions? Ms. Beloyed. - When is the full implementation of the new math standards? Is it math standards? - I don't know the date off the top of my head. What we're implementing right now, next year, elementary will implement a new curriculum. Middle school is also next year, and high schools will be a year after that. - [BM Beloyed] So this coming fall.
- Yeah. - And do we have a feeling on how the teachers at both levels are feeling about it? - They're piloting two and three curriculum. We have a lot of ideas of how they're feeling, and those committees will make those decisions soon. We have done learning walks. I've been in, and it's been really fun to see the curriculum, and I'll be interested in their choice. - Are the standards... when we go from one standard to the next, do you see a big jump, or jump's probably not the right word for it,
but are there a lot of differences that then the teachers need to roll out through the curriculum, 'cause you have to learn, I mean there's pages and pages and pages and pages of it when it comes out, but... - Yeah, so I can give a general answer, then these guys probably can give a more specific, but what I know is sometimes when standards change, like we just implemented science, it is a almost a, or literacy is a great` also completely different way to teach than teachers have educated in terms of the science of reading or science, and my team will be super glad that I know this,
phenomena-based instruction, and so it really has changed in that way of how units are designed. So sometimes that can happen. Other times they're more closely aligned. I do not know specifically about the math difference. - I do. (Alison laughing) Yeah, so, in elementary, even though we're, you know, we didn't know what curriculum we're gonna be using next year, we've taken this year in our communities of practice, so that is our grade level meetings that are on the PD days, professional development days, to work on mathematical practices. So, and those align with the new standards.
So it doesn't matter what curriculum you use 'cause the curriculum's really the resource to help, you know, get to the standards work. But the mathematical practices, that is looking at how it's gonna be taught differently. So there's a great graphic that we'll pull up at some point, but it shows where students learn certain ideas like spatial reasoning or geometry, like where it was in the old standards, and it was very compartmentalized. In the new standards, it's like everything all the time. So it's interwoven, and it really focuses on discovery
and allowing students to problem-solve the different ways that you can answer questions with some, you know, baseline instruction, but there's a lot of discovery for students, and that is a different way of looking at it because it's not, "I'm gonna teach you this unit, "and that standard's done, and now we're done." That will continue on throughout the rest of the year, which is amazing, and so our pilot teachers, I've been in those rooms quite a bit. Both of the curriculums seem to be working well, but both really do focus on students critically thinking
in a way that they maybe were not asked to in previous, you know, math curriculum. - I would echo it's very similar at middle school. They're in the process right now of reviewing three curriculum, and what I've noticed in class when I go into math classes, students are learning still the procedures, but they also really have a conceptual understanding. Teachers are asking them, "How do you know? "Why do you know? "Can you explain it? "Can you identify, you know, where the problem is?" So there's more conversations around math which is helping kids then to hang on to that math.
I've also noticed them, they really come back to the math as well as working on some fluency pieces. So it's, "Do you understand it "procedurally and conceptually, "and do you know it really well, "so you're not always sort of drudging through it." And, at middle school, we, like elementary, we have prioritized collaboration time for teachers across the two middle school buildings. So they have time once a week as well as they've had time on professional development days to be able to talk about, "What are we doing in class? "What's working? Who is it working for?
talking about assessments and data. - And I would just say educators are really excited about the new math standards. You know, the learning, the mathematical practices, and this new way of teaching has been really exciting for them. And the people who are piloting are seeing really great results with the students. And students are more engaged and more excited. And so people are excited for decision day, and that would be when they decide (laughs) what math curriculum we're gonna use because they are very excited to implement something next year. - [BM Beloyed] Is there a way to describe briefly why the standards change?
- You're asking really hard questions. (all laughing) - Yeah, I don't know that question, but I'm gonna go for it. I don't know. I wasn't on the standards committee, but what I do know, is, along with the literacy standards, it's really taking away this idea that you can just compartmentalize learning, and that it has to be fluid, and it has to be connected to something so a student can actually remember it, and, you know, adjust any preconceptions they might have about it, right?
So it's gonna provide a background information, some core instruction, it's gonna latch onto something that the student knows about, and if they don't know about, it's gonna give them baseline knowledge, so they can actually utilize the skills as opposed to, like, "I'm gonna just do spelling, "or I'm gonna just do division, "and then once I teach you this one little thing, "now we're done." It just is a constant fluid approach. - And I would add also, then the application part of it all. One of the exciting things about education right now, I sometimes pull up my cell phone because this was born the same year, I think,
our last year high school seniors. So we're literally developing students to live in a world that doesn't exist. And part of that then is not just a great math, reading, and writing, but how are you going to apply that in new situations, in different situations, and in unique situations. So it's a super exciting part to be in education, and, you know, why we continue to look forward, how our standards change, our curriculums change, 'cause our students are changing and engaging in a super awesome world. - Well, and for me when I think about it, so those of us who've been in education long enough, standards really came in 1999, 2000,
and it was really to streamline the expectations we have around learning, and they're made, it's a robust process on how standards are, you know, created with voices from educators and public comment and then eventually voted on it, the legislature. But as you think about continuous improvement, we're constantly learning more about how students learn. Science of reading is a great example. Really, how do you learn to read? And now that we know better, of course we really need to do that for our students. And so I think it's constantly getting better at what we know about kids, and then as we see learning, we want them to learn at high standards.
And so some of us, kindergarten standards and what's expected at kindergarten is very different than it was quite a few years ago. Our kindergartners learn to read, and it's amazing when you're in classrooms, but that is different because we know that they can, and it is developmentally appropriate where maybe we didn't, and I don't know the exact number of years ago, but standards have been a conversation for 26 plus years now for education. - [BM Beloyed] Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you. Ms. Ellison. - Yeah, I mean I can answer that question a little bit about standards.
So it's in statute that all of the main disciplines have to be revised on a schedule, and a lot of times it's seven years. In some places it's 10. But what's really interesting is that every state has their own process for developing standards. I know social studies the best. Social studies in Kansas, there are only five social studies standards, just five. In South Dakota, there's like 200, and so, at the time that's required by the legislature,
then, like Dr. Gillespie said, there's a committee that's convened, and it always includes educators, it includes admin and leadership, it includes parents, it includes community members, and it includes a lot of times scholars from that field because the other thing that changes is the field. And so we want to make sure that the standards that are being implemented reflect what's happening in these academic fields. And so what's really, I think, important about how standards are done in Minnesota
is that teachers and parents and community members have always been involved in the process of writing these standards, which then go to public comment, which happens in a number of different ways. There's meetings across the state so that people can comment on the standards, and then they have to be eventually approved by the state legislature before they can go into effect. And then there's an implementation process. So it's not like, "Hey, new standards in June. "Good luck in September." It's a process,
which means that not only do you have to learn the new standards as an educator, then, as a district, you have to go out, and you have to find curriculum that meets those standards. And sometimes curriculum doesn't move at the same pace as the standards. So this is all just to say that, you know, every state does it differently. That's how we do it in Minnesota. A lot of it is directed by state statute, and it's a lot of work
for every single person involved in making sure that our students meet those standards. Sorry, I get really excited about standards. (attendees laughing) - Thank you. Ms. Thompson. - I guess I don't have any questions. Just a first, I'm very grateful for the report that came out to show all the hard work that you all have been doing for years ever since I have been on the Board. And so it is coming to fruition now, and we knew this was a marathon, not a sprint, right?
Like we are in this for the long haul, and it's gonna take time because there are a lot of things that we are addressing that are often out of our control. As an example, so we have statewide, like 32% chronic absenteeism in the state. Of those students who are chronically absent, 32% are special education students, 28% are often English learner students. And then we can break it down by 20% being our Black students, 33.4% being our Hispanic.
And it just goes on from there, right? Like if I would've got into like the economic part of it, I'm sure that would be a whole nother scenario. So when we often get compared to our surrounding school districts, I think our graduation rate is a great example to show what we are doing in our school district because our school district has 32-33% of its students that qualify for free and reduced lunch rates. And that is, I'm sure, low because many parents probably aren't filling it out anymore
because their kids get free lunch at school now. So we aren't getting the full data anymore. In Centennial, they have 19.7% students on free and reduced lunch. And in Mahtomedi, it's not an exact science, so they're like at 9-15% free and reduced lunch. So you can't compare. We have three counties in our school district. We have 10 cities in our school district. Centennial has one county, five cities. Mahtomedi? I grew up in Mahtomedi. It is a very small community that is affluent.
I was not one of those students, and I barely graduated high school because of the things I brought to school with me every day. Ever since COVID, students kind of, and families got this, "We can do online learning, "and maybe you aren't gonna go to school today." Anxiety in kids went up. Anxiety in families went up. Right now, the cost of living is out of control. People can't afford to buy groceries, let alone make sure their kids are getting to school in the morning. There are a lot of circumstances that are out
of our district's staff ability to control outside of what is happening in our buildings. But the work that you guys are doing in the buildings is reflected in the data that is coming out, and I am just honored and proud to be a Board member in a district that is doing this, and we are not giving up. We know that we're getting to an end goal of meeting all of that, all the goals that we have set, which are out there, and attendance is a huge one. And looking at the attendance graph,
like it was sad to see the attendance graphs, but it isn't just in our school, it's across the country and across our state, and it is a lot more factors than what we can deal with. But hearing things like you guys, I know we have teachers who are going to homes and trying to talk to the families, and, "How can we support you? "How can we help you get your student to school? "What are the things that you need "that we can help provide?" and then partnering with the counties. And as somebody who works in child protection, I know a lot of reasons why kids aren't coming to school,
and it has nothing to do with staff at the school or what the school is able to control. So, again, like those graduation rates, thank you for all the hard work you've done over the years 'cause it is coming to light now, and I'm grateful for it, and, yes, we do have a long way to go, and, I'm sorry, but testing is a touchy subject with me because testing isn't the same for every student, and tests aren't the end all, be all of how we decide whether or not a student is capable of being successful later in life
because if that was true, I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have graduated college as an adult while I worked, while I was a mom, while I was doing life, with honors when I graduated high school with a 2.02 GPA because I had things that prevented me from learning in school the way that I should have been able to. So, again, thank you because that's just my 2 cents, so thank you. - Thank you. - [BM Skaar] Scott. - We have quite a few things... Like, can I just speak please?
- [BM Skaar] Sure. - We have quite a few things left on the agenda, and every board member has had an opportunity to speak to this. I'm wondering if we can move on. - [BM Skaar] Well, I'd just like... Can I be recognized? - Can we, a couple of people. Can we wrap it up real quick please? - I would just like to respond to Board Member Thompson's... I mean, it seems like when we have good results, then we compare to other schools, but if our results aren't where they need to be as compared with other schools, then we have to rationalize those. I don't think that's fair.
So... - That has never been what I'm doing up here. - Sounds like it. - Could I just... - We've got to, kind of, if we can, wrap it up. Are we speaking, 'cause I think we want to continue to focus on what's in front of us, so, after... - Yes. - It's students, and what our students bring to school every day with them. And that is what I am talking about. And the data, that I don't... Doesn't matter if the data's good or bad. The students are still coming to school with those same impacts every day. - So everybody's had an opportunity to speak.
So I think I'd like to move on. I just want to say thank you for all the time, and you've had to create these systems where kids feel welcome, and Ms. Nelson, you can let your staff and students know that every day when I drive to work, I'm gonna remember to sparkle. - I love that. - Thank you. - [Angela] I'll tell them. Thank you. - [BM Arcand] And I want to thank the Board for your allowing us to continue with other agenda. - [BM Skaar] I appreciate it. - [BM Arcand] Next up we're on C4, American Indian Parent Advisory Committee Resolution of Concurrence or Nonconcurrence.
Mr. Shavers. - Good evening, Chair Arcand, Members of the Board, and Dr. Kazmierczak. Thank you again for having us. I have two individuals with me as well: Tonya Flowers, who is our American Indian Education Coordinator, and Ms. DeLong, who is our APAC Chair. So, every year we have to come before you and discuss whether or not our AIPAC voted concurrent or nonconcurrent,
and I am happy to say that this year we have been voted concurrent with meeting the needs of our students, American Indian students, and really it's from all of the things you heard in that last session that we just had about the impact that the building principals and staff members are having with students throughout the academic day. So really that student experience. So, with that, it is an informational piece just for you to be aware of as well, but I wanted to make sure that you had opportunities
to ask questions, if you have anything you would like to ask these two individuals. - [BM Arcand] Do we have any questions? I do have one. And looking at our data, are we doing a better job of graduating those, your students? And if we're not, what can we do better? - You can ask or I can. - You can, yeah, anybody there? This is important to us. So we just talked about graduation rates, so I'd love to hear. - Well, thank you all for your time and attention tonight. My name is Danielle DeLong, and I've been a parent here within the White Bear School Districts since 2010.
I'm a proud parent of two graduates, one of 2021 and another in 2024, and my youngest is now a senior class of 2026. That being said, in the time that I've been here, we've had our tax levy, and we've supported the growth of our schools. And, in addition to that, White Bear Lakes restarted their Indian Education Program, and that was in 2010 when my children started joining the district.
Since then, I've seen nothing but great things come from the district in benefiting not just my children but all the children within the schools. I think the work that we're doing towards equity is showing in our graduation rates that we just saw in this data. I know there's a lot of systemic and institutional changes that still need to happen, but when I think about what my ancestors experienced, and what I experienced, and what my children are experienced,
there's a world of difference, and I'm grateful for that. - [BM Arcand] Thank you. Other questions? Yes, Ms. Streiff Oji - I've been up here for a few years now, and I know that we've not always voted in support of this, right? So what's the difference? What can you tell us that is going well or not? - Well, I can say that the hiring of Ms. Flowers, who is also amazing as well, we're really getting into a lot of different aspects with that. So she's involved in elementary programming, right?
Actually, you know what? I'm gonna have her speak to what she's doing instead of me doing it. (Tonya laughing) - Thank you, Brenton. I believe that, in my four months, which isn't very long, but in my four months here, I've been steadily trying to make some changes to the program and incorporate elementary schools much more into the program. Before I took the position, there was a lot of focus on secondary education. I have been making strides to get into elementaries at least once a month. I believe that it starts
in empowering American Indian students in elementaries. I think getting them young and believing in themselves and seeing somebody that looks like them and practices the same traditions as them, it is proven that they will do better in school and believe in themselves. So I have been making strides to get into elementary schools. I think that's been a big part of it. And also we've been changing up some of the way we do lessons and the way we practice our culture in the high school. And we've made some college visits and some college-readiness things as well.
So I think all of those things are contributing. We have a very transparent and open relationship with our parent committee, and I think that they have shown that with their vote of concurrence, and they believe in the work that we're doing. So I'm grateful for our parent committee and for Danielle DeLong. She will be leaving us this year, which we're all very sad to see, but grateful for our parent committee as well. Hope I have answered your question. - Yes. Thank you. Thanks for supporting every child in our district every day.
- And again, too, I know what she's saying, but it's also with our administrators making time and space for that to happen within their buildings as well. - I have to say that was a huge change for all building principals, and, yeah, I have to agree with that. I've had an overwhelming positive result in meeting with the building principals and exploring Indian education in elementary schools as more of an influence in the schools,
and so I'm grateful for our building principals as well and their support. - And if I could just jump in. I don't wanna over say too much or for our time, but I have a mic in front of me, and I'm gonna take this opportunity to thank the school board because I know many of you, I've seen you throughout the years, and I want to say thank you for sending your school board members to be part of our parent committee, to sit down and hear and actually listen and take these things back to the district and make these changes
that have been long overdue and asked. And I just wanna say thank you to the principals, Dr. Gillespie, Coach K, you're better known in our household as Coach K., (Danielle and Tonya laughing) but, all of you, I sincerely, I don't want to just speak on behalf of me but on behalf of our parents that have worked hard on behalf of our students and our children. So I appreciate your time, your effort, and this guy's been doing great as well. So, (laughs) thank you. - Any other questions? Yes, Ms. Thompson.
- I don't have a question. Just thank you for being here and, you know, we have been through a lot of changes in the AIPAC over the years, and so I think that now with Ms. Flowers on the AIPAC and being here in our district to help engage, I just, you know, it takes time for each person to like get in, and you've only been here for four months, but you've already done a lot in your time here, and I just look forward to seeing where you take the AIPAC from here. - [Tonya] I appreciate that. - Always opportunity for growth. And we need parent volunteers.
- [Dr. Kazmierczak] Scott. - Yes, sir. - [Dr. Kazmierczak] What's coming up May 8th? Maybe you want to put a plug in for that. - Oh. Thank you. I would love to speak about that. We've been working on some family engagements in Indian Ed, and so huge announcement. We are planning a huge district-wide powwow for May 8th. It's a Friday night from five to nine. Everyone is invited. We would love to have you all there to support our American Indian students. We will also be honoring five of our graduating seniors that are in Indian Ed and have been very, very vocal
and very, very much Indian at every week. They're wonderful students. They engage in their culture and their language, and they're very excited to have this honoring. I worked in Anoka County for a number of years, and it looked much different there. I shared with students, that when we did senior honoring, it was a formal plated dinner, and I would say some words about the students and give them their gifts, and our students said, "No, no, no, no, no, no." We would like to have a full-blown powwow.
And I said, "If you want to do a powwow, "that's what we'll do." So that's what we're doing to recognize our students, and we're very excited about it. Students are very excited about it. So please everyone come. It's right here at the baseball fields, at the district office here, five to nine. Everything's free except the food trucks if you'd like to engage in that. But I very excited about that. I'm very excited to celebrate our graduating American Indian seniors. So, thank you. - Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you for coming, and we appreciate you.
- Thank you. - Thank you. - All right. We're gonna head on to our discussion items. Discussion item D1, Update on sale of 2026A Facility Maintenance Bonds. Mr. Wald and Ms. Johnson. - Good evening, Chair Arcand, Members of the Board, Dr. Kazmierczak, Mr. Reece. We're happy to present tonight the results of the bond sale today on the Series 2026A facilities and maintenance bonds. The sale's an important step in supporting the facilities plan that was approved by the school board and the Commissioner.
With us tonight is Shelby McQuay who you met last month when she presented on the pre-sale report, and in addition to being a parent of White Bear students, she's a financial advisor and managing director for Ehlers Incorporated. But, Shelby, tell us about today's sale. - Mr. Chair, Members of the Board, Dr. Kazmierczak, the sale went well today. So, this morning, before we went in at 9:30 when bids were due, we had 14 bidders signed up. So lots of interest in the bonds today
for White Bear Lake Area Schools. When the bids closed at 9:30 this morning, 10 bidders ultimately submitted the bids. The low bidder was Jefferies out of New York with a low bid of 3.04. We were anticipating 3.25 as in our pre-sale, and then we subsequently revised that pre-sale to remove the refunding portion as that no longer worked given current yields. That revision, actually, given market volatility,
went up to 3.05, and though we came in at 3.04 today with the bids, the yields were not such that we could reincorporate the refunding at this time. So this is a principle amount of $17.68 million for the facilities maintenance portion. Only the funds will close on May 7th. And everything else was really as we anticipated with the exception of the deposit to the construction fund
coming in a little bit better than we anticipated. That will allow future bonds to be reduced as well as we continue to restructure the long-term facilities maintenance plan. So some of the attachments include the bid tab which shows the low bidder of Jefferies, the cover bid, Huntington out of Chicago, and then the high bid was Fidelity at 3.25. The next two pages of schedules are the facilities, maintenance bonds, sources and uses,
as well as the net debt service schedule, and then, of course, the image on the back page showing the level debt structure over time as we balance out the mix of bonds and levy with the existing debt. Also included here is the rating report from S&P with every rating, or excuse me, with every issuance, and, at regular occurrences, the rating agency will keep your rating up to date. They did assign an A+ rating
which was down from the AA- just as part of this issuance, citing the lower than anticipated fund balance and recurrence of that over time. So, nonetheless, there was lots of interest and demand in the bonds today which helped mitigate any volatility that we've seen in the market overall. So I'm happy to answer any questions on this or the resolution that is your action item tonight. - All right. Yeah, Mr. Skaar.
- So we're voting to approve this? - [Ms McQuay] Ah, Mr- - What are we actually voting? - Can you explain that? - Mr. Chair and Members of the Board and Dr. Skaar or Mr. Skaar, you're voting to approve, award the sale to Jefferies which is the low bidder on the bonds today. So part of the intent resolution at the March meeting incorporated the parameters, I suppose, of the sale that would require you
to award to the low bidder. - [BM Arcand] We'll do that - And so the... - in E1 on the agenda. - [BM Skaar] Pardon me. - And so the... - [BM Arcand] We'll do it on E1. - [BM Skaar] Right. I just have some questions. - [BM Arcand] Okay, just want to make sure you know what's coming. - Yeah. So, first of all, thanks for calling me a doctor. (Ms. McQuay laughing) I played one on TV. On this bond, you said that our credit rating dipped one level down, and that was because of the fund balance, correct? Our fund balance. - [Ms McQuay] They take into account a number of factors, and one of the primary factors that they raised
as part of the change in the rating was the fund balance. - So when we don't maintain the fund balance, our costs go up to borrow. Correct? - The rating is one factor as part of all of this. If there was no demand for the bonds, I don't know that a rating would sustain, even a AAA rating would sustain the cost. - Right. Okay. Thank you. Another question. Can we get a bond schedule? I'm sure we have one, but can we get a bond schedule
that is like readable to a lay person, not like a finance person, that just shows... Maybe we have it. I haven't seen it, but just all of our outstanding bonds, when they're due, and my understanding is some of the bonds are renewable or that we can just go ahead and renew those bonds or, I don't know, but can we have like a bond schedule that shows every bond when it's gonna mature out, (microphone booming)
sorry, the type of bond, that type of thing, the interest rate on it, that type of thing? Something simple that a lay person can read. - Yeah, there's gonna be a pretty complicated report no matter what 'cause they just are complicated, but are you referring to bonds and levies? - Just bonds at this point, just bonds, - Okay, so we don't have bonds that renew automatically. It's not a thing. - Okay, good. - [Tim] Yeah. - Then we could do a separate one with levies and determine which ones of those automatically renew. I think that would be helpful
and something that would be readable by a lay person. And I would be happy to work with staff to put something together like that. Since I'm quasi-familiar with displaying financial information to the public, I'd be happy to help. I think that would be good. 'cause it gives us kind of an outlook for the future where our costs are. And we heard a lot at the Truth-in-Taxation meeting about spending concerns.
So, thank you. - [BM Arcand] All right. Other? - Yes, Ms. Beloyed. - I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but the long term, (clears throat) excuse me, the long-term facility maintenance schedule comes out every year, July, and is predicted out, I don't even remember how many years, but goes out that lists each individual project. It's not the bond per se that it's coming from, but it is the long-term facility maintenance, so you can see where those dollars are planning to go
for at least that part of the bond. - Well I appreciate that, but I think we tend to make things too complicated for the public to understand. So to the extent that we can simplify things rather than complicate things for the public to understand where our spending profile's gonna be in the next 10 to 20 years, I think it would be helpful, and, you know, just make it simple. - [BM Arcand] Okay. I'm sorry, Ms. Beloyed. Were you finished? - [BM Beloyed] Yeah. - Okay. Other questions?
All right. We will see you soon. Thank you. - [Tim] Okay, thank you. - We're gonna move on to discussion item D2, the first reading of School Board policies: 201 202 203 214 215 415, and 712. These policies will be approved on the May 11th agenda, are upcoming after that agenda for our second reading. If there's a question, please refer to the policy number and the page in the packet so we can look at it. Mr. Skaar. - I can't recall which board members are on the Policy Committee. I never got... Which board members are on the Policy Committee?
- Ms. Streiff... - Chris and Kathleen. - Okay. I think it's probably posted on the website, but I haven't seen that, and the meetings are closed. I'd like to, just a quick question, not germane to a particular policy, but I'd like to understand how the change to the consent agenda from the Policy Committee was- (gavel bangs) - You're out of order. - That's out of order. - [BM Arcand] Right now, we're looking at- - Is that because it's a difficult question? - [BM Arcand] No, it's because we're looking at-
- [BM Ellison] It's because it's with Robert's Rules, sir. (gavel banging) - [BM Arcand] We have policies 201, 202, 203. 214, 215, 415, and 712. If we could keep our comments towards those policies. - Thank you. - And these policies will come back. Any other questions? Thank you. We are gonna move on then to E1 action to ratify award of the 2026A Facility Maintenance Bonds. - Thank you, Chair Arcand, Members of the Board. A few minutes ago you heard from Shelby McQuay
regarding the 2026A General Obligation Facility's Maintenance Bond. The low bidder at today's sale was Jefferies, LLC, providing the winning bid with the True Interest Cost of 3.04. The proceeds will fund facilities and site maintenance projects in the District's Approved 10-Years Facilities Plan. The recommendation is to approve the sale of the 2026A General Obligation Facilities Maintenance Bonds as presented.
- [BM Arcand] Okay, we hear the recommendation is to approve the sale of the 2026 General Obligation Facility Maintenance Bonds as presented. Can I get a motion to do so? - [BM Thompson] So moved. - [BM Arcand] Ms. Thompson. Can I get a second? - Second, - Second. - [BM Arcand] I'm gonna pick Ms. Beloyed. I saw her first. We're open for discussion. Yes, Mr. Skaar. - [BM Skaar] One quick question. What happens if the board decided not to approve these? Would we have, like, would Jefferies have recourse with us if we decided? I just want to understand what the consequence would be. I'm not saying that...
- So your bonds went on the market this morning, and if those bonds wouldn't be awarded tonight, the underwriters would take note, and it may make it more difficult to sell bonds the next time you take bonds out to the competitive market. - Right. Thank you. I appreciate that. - Other questions? I just have a point of order I'm gonna ask the board here because I know when we do this, I see that we have it at voice vote and not a roll call vote. Is that because we've already approved them? Yes. - Mr. Chair, any vote can be a roll-call vote
if you so - [BM Arcand] Okay. - because - require - With money involved, with your permission, I'm gonna go ahead and make this a roll-call vote. Do we have any further discussion? Okay, I'm gonna ask the Clerk to call the role. I'm sorry to throw that on you. - [BM Streiff Oji] Okay. Thompson. - [BM Thompson] Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. Aye. - Aye, okay. It passes. (gavel bangs) Thank you for allowing me to go down that road. Appreciate it. Next on the agenda, we have Action on the Fiscal Year 24-25
Federal Single Audit. - Thank you, Chair Arcand. Tonight we're presenting the results of the federal Single Audit for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. The audit was conducted by LB Carlson with the purpose of ensuring that we're using federal funds according to federal guidelines. If there were a headline for this audit, it would be positive that the district receive an unmodified opinion. This is really the best possible result, meaning our financial statements
and our compliance with federal programs are accurate and reliable and that the district has met all compliance requirements that could have a direct effect on major federal programs. So while our overall compliance is strong, the audit identified one internal control we can approve on. That was a finding related to the timeline and documentation for monitoring a list of vendors who are suspended and debarred from being paid with federal Child Nutrition Funds.
Essentially, districts are required to check the federal list of vendors who are either suspended or debarred from doing business with being paid with federal funds, and we always monitor that list, semi-annual, but there's a slight change in how this issue was interpreted for compliance this year that affected us, and in as much as it, the compliance is related to checking the list before the school year starts.
We checked in the fall and the spring, and the compliance has changed to... Compliance didn't change. The way that the audit MDE and the auditor enforced it had changed. And so we'll change our protocols to match that, and that's to check the debarment and suspension and debarment list before the school year begins. We take all findings seriously. We reviewed our corrective action plan with our auditor.
It's been approved by the Commissioner, and so it's already in place. So, in summary, our audit reports shows our accounting for federal funds are in good standing. We have already corrected a procedural gap identified by the audit, and our recommendation is that the Board approve the audit as presented. - All right. We've heard the recommendation to approve the audit as presented. - [Dr. Kazmierczak] It's accepted. - Accepted. - It's accepted. - Sorry. Thank you. Accepted as presented. Can I get a motion? - [BM Ellison] So moved. - Ms. Ellison.
Can I see a second? - [BM Beloyed] Second. - Second. Okay. We have the motion on the floor. I'll put it for questions. Yes. Ms. Beloyed. - So mine isn't really a question since I already know the answer, but I do want to express my, I guess, frustration with the fact that it's a finding for something that MDE has not announced. I mean, nothing came out that said, "This was the way that we're changing this," and this would've been in the beginning of the school year. So just want to point that out
because it's a very big frustration point to me to dock somebody who is following procedures as they were stated. And now that you are not following them because they changed, but you weren't alerted that they changed, then you get a finding. So just want to express my frustration. - [BM Thompson] Fair. - [BM Arcand] Okay, Mr. Skaar. - So one question that I have is the, you know, we do two audits. One's the mandated by the state, right,
which was presented during a work session where there's no benefit of public forum yet this one is being presented today in the regular public session with the benefit of a public forum. Can you explain why we're doing this in a regular session and why we're not doing the other audit in a regular session? And does the statute require both audits to be done in a public session where there's a public forum? - [Tim] Yeah, I don't know the answer to that specifically.
- [BM Arcand] It's timing of when they were ready, and no, there's no requirement to do it when there's a public forum. - Okay. Thank you. - And I think, aren't all our meetings open to the public? - Yes - Yes. - [BM Arcand] Okay, just checking. - And this audit was particularly late because the Federal Department of Office of Management budget. - No, the Department of Education, the Federal Department of Education was late to put out the compliance supplement, and so they extended the deadline for auditors
to perform their federal audit. So that deadline was moved to March 31st. - Understood. So I want to go to page, I think it's now 174, which is the summary of audit results. So the auditor that we have does a summary of audit results. That's kinda like a checklist. So the first one is on the financial statement. So that's the state-required one, and it says material weaknesses identified, "Yes," and we talked about that one. That was the double payment of $538,000.
- [BM Arcand] I don't think that then this one. This is only for the federal programs. - Yeah, I know. I just wanna make a point. - Okay, I'm just, okay. So I just wanted make sure we knew that this wasn't on this report wasn't to that audit. Am I correct? Is this true? - No, but I'm gonna get to it. - Okay. Thanks. - So, but it's in the agenda package. And when the auditors have a finding under the GAO rules, Government Accounting Office, or the Yellow Book, they have a structured way of how you're supposed to present a material finding like this.
So the effect, I'll talk about it. So the district paid the same invoice twice. The condition may have resulted in a material misstatement to the district's financial statements if not detected by the auditor. So if we would've found it, if our systems and processes would've found it, there would've been no finding. There wouldn't have been because our systems worked. It found the problem, and we fixed it. So now I'd like to go to the federal audit,
the federal awards audit. Significant deficiency identified. "Yes." Does the auditee qualify as a low-risk auditee? "No." So I want to highlight that. We don't qualify as a low-risk auditee, the school district being the auditee. It's a simple question that they ask, a simple check. or a box that they check. Now when I go back to the findings, we do roughly $6 million in federal awards.
This particular one, because I think it's instructive to talk a little bit about the highlights of this one. Significant deficiency in internal controls over compliance. US Department of Agriculture passed through Minnesota Department of Education Child Nutrition Cluster. Does this have anything to do with the Feeding our Future stuff - No. - that's going on at Minnesota? Okay good. The other thing is the, I want to talk about the recommendation real quick,
is the controls. These controls also include steps to ensure any vendor with which the district contracts for goods or services exceeding 25,000 is not listed as a suspended or debarred on the federal excluded parties list system website. So according to the auditor, our district, for whatever reason, wasn't doing a good job on selecting vendors
for our Federal Nutrition Awards. Is that, would that be... - [Tim] That's inaccurate. - That's not accurate? - That's not accurate. - Correct. - Okay, so can you tell me in lay terms according to the auditor, - Sure. - because I'm reading it right here. That's what I took away from. - [Tim] Yeah. - So can you explain it? - [Tim] The feds publish a list of vendors who are not permitted to do business with federal, be paid with federal funds. And districts are responsible to look at that list
and make sure that the vendors that they select are not on that list. And we - So, okay. - [Tim] And we've been, yeah, it was really about timing of checking the list. - [Andi] So for years and years, we had checked that list twice a year, fall and spring, and going forward, our auditor's expectation is that we check that list prior to issuing any payment to any one vendor. That requirement was new to us that it be done prior to issuing any payment to them, and so we simply didn't know that that's the way
that they were gonna be looking at it anymore. So we didn't implement that change prior to last fiscal year. We've implemented that change now, and we've been assured that the changes that we've made, I've walked through what those changes are with our auditor, and he said, "Yep, "if you do all of those changes, "you won't have this finding again next year." - [BM Arcand] Was a payment made to a company that was debarred? - No, the payments that were made to the companies in this finding were companies that we've done business with before,
and they are not on that list. They simply hadn't been checked prior to reaching that threshold. - So did the auditor check that, or are we just stating that as a fact? - [Andi] No, we checked it. - Okay. - [Andi] Just not prior to the timeline. - It just seems to me that this was a non-statistically valid sample size that they used. They picked four. - That's what they... And it says that in the report, that it's not statistically valid, yep. Yes, I know. - They picked four. Two out of the four they found a problem with. So I thought a 50% hit rate on that was pretty high.
- In our federal funds, we simply don't pay a lot of vendors more than $25,000. There's not a lot of vendors that we make those significant payments to, so they don't have to test a lot of them. - Yeah, and I would like to just talk about this a little bit if you'd indulge me 'cause I think it's important. You know, we had this report from KSDP on April 3rd. - No. - No. - Yes. (gavel banging) - [BM Ellison] Point of order. - How do you get to decide? - This is an oversight problem that I think we should talk about. - [BM Arcand] Okay, but let's not bring others in. Let's focus in on this please.
- This is focused in on this. It's germane to the topic. - [BM Arcand] Okay. - [BM Ellison] I would like to call the question. - Okay. Call the question. Do we have a second? - [BM Thompson] Second. - Okay. All in favor, call the question, say "Aye." - [Many BMs] Aye. - Opposed, same sign? - [BM Skaar] No. - Okay, the question has been called. So can we explain that to the public what that means? - I would love to, Mr. Chair. - Okay. Please. - We have the agenda where we need to stick to what is written on the agenda, and tangential information that is not related to the specific federal audit that we are talking about
does not apply for something that we can discuss. We have opportunities to discuss these other issues in different settings, in different agenda items, And we had an opportunity to discuss the consent agenda when it was on the agenda, which was twice, once for the first reading and once for the second reading. And what was demonstrated at this board meeting is that when a second is required,
such as adding an item to the agenda, someone can second, we can have a discussion across perspectives, and we can make a decision, which is exactly what we discussed at the consent agenda. So in order to have a meeting that is efficient, if you looked at the policies that are in first reading, it lists in order what we follow: number 1, statutes; number 2, our own policies; and number 3, Robert's Rules of Order.
So I would ask, Mr. Skaar, as we all try to do, is we stick to the agenda item at hand. - Okay. We have the question's been called, which means - [BM Skaar] Is there any more discussion? - Discussion has been stopped. We asked for a clarification - Why is discussion... - and received it. - [BM Skaar] Chair, why is discussion stopped? - Because we called the question. - [BM Skaar] I wasn't able to - I'm sorry. We called the question. - address this. - The question is called. It approved. - Well this is a, you know, - It closes, - this is just a clever technique - It closes. - to shut down discussion. - Discussion. - That's what it is. - [DM Thompson] It's following the Robert's Rules of Order. - Yeah, I understand. - [BM Arcand] All right. So moving forward.
- [BM Skaar] Being heard. - [BM Thompson] No, it's Robert's Rules of Order. - Action is a federal audit. We have a motion, it's been seconded, and the question's been called. I'd like to call a roll-call vote to approve - Accept. - Accept. - to accept the audit. I'd like the Clerk to call the call the vote. - [BM Streiff Oji] Thompson. - [BM Thompson] Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - Ellison - Aye. - Skaar. - No. - Streiff Oji. Aye. - Okay. Motion's carried. Thank you. Ready to go on now to operational item E3. Action on amendments to drainage
and utility easement. To Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair Arcand, Members of the Board. Back in February, the Board approved a land swap with the City of Vadnais Heights. It was to trade a pathway easement for a vacant lot next to Vadnais Heights Elementary School. To finalize the land swap and ensure clean property titles for both parties, our legal counsel has prepared two technical amendments to easements that were originally recorded in 1982. The easements are included in the Board packet
and will require Board approval. The first update, number 725010 fixes the surveying language for a drainage lot on Lot number 5. And the second, 725011 clarifies the City's right to maintain a 20-foot sewer line across Lots 4, 5, and 6. Both documents require the City to fix any of our property should they disturb them during work. The recommended action is that administration recommends that the Board approve
the described amendment to drainage in utility easement number 725010 and the amendment to drainage in utility easement number 725011. - You've heard the recommended action. Can I get a motion to approve? - [BM Ellison] So moved. - [BM Arcand] Second - [BM Beloyed] Second. - Second. I'm sorry, Ms.- - No, no. You're... - Ms. Streiff Oji, did you get who called it? Okay. Is there any further discussion? - Who was the second? - [BM Ellison] Deb. - That's... I realize I didn't say it, so I wanted to make sure you had it. All right, so we have the motion there. Any discussion?
Okay, hearing none, this will be a roll-call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - [BM Streiff Oji] Thompson. - [BM Thompson] Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. Aye. - All right. Motion (bangs gavel) carries. We now go on to operational item E4, Action on School Board Policies 211, 212, and 809. Can I get a motion to approve those policies? - [BM Thompson] So moved. - [BM Arcand] By Thompson. A second? - [BM Beloyed] Second. - [BM Arcand] Second by Beloyed. Discussion. Hearing there's no discussion-
- [BM Ellison] I'm sorry. - Sorry. - Dr. Arcand, we also have 599? - [BM Arcand] That's gonna come separately. - Okay. got it. Thank you. - So hearing that, this will be a voice vote. All in favor say, "Aye." - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Okay, (bangs gavel) motion carries. Now we are gonna pull up action on School Board policy 599 - Chair Arcand, Members of the Board, this is a little bit different than our normal procedure. Principal Reetz and I are here to talk about policy 599 which is academic recognition.
We're asking that it gets approved in one action instead of the two reads because of the timing of the upcoming MCA test. Principal Reetz will be able to give some more specifics, but I just wanted to kind of talk through. We've heard a lot of the debates around our MCA tests, and we absolutely do not discredit their value. It also is really hard when there is an option for families to opt out of the test because when students opt out, which this isn't always commonly known, it counts against us as a student not meeting standards.
At the high school, in particular, if you remember last year, I talked with our middle school students and our high school students. They really talked about how it was hard to see the value in this test, and we have a significant number of opt-outs. 40% of our juniors opted out of the math, and 20% of our sophomores opted out of 10th grade reading and 10th grade science, No one student's academic success boils down to a test. We know that, and we agree with that.
What happens is, is when really those two data points are inaccurate and we're unable to make conclusions around those data points. And so the other piece is that test is used for national rankings, and the way that our tests... So it is, it's a very complex issue, and so I really commend the high school team on trying to figure out how can we really have this be an accurate measurement so we can lean in. And how do you balance that? Because we also all know all of the valid things that were brought up in terms of families and the students and their individual needs.
We also heard people really using, many times when I ask for clarity, and I didn't yet get that opportunity, but people are talking about our MCA results. And so in terms of when they're being really critical on our academic achievement. And so thinking through all of those things, we're here to have a discussion on what we're hoping, an idea that we have around possibly really giving more importance to a student's academics while not over-penalizing our students 'cause we also identify kids are on a wide spectrum. So where have you been, Principal Reetz, (laughs)
on the MCA? - Well, we continue to try to encourage families and students to take the test seriously, to help us measure how we're doing, and we're constantly measuring our success with multiple metrics. We know this year is the first year that we've assessed our students with the A reading exam, and our results on the A reading test, now it is a shorter reading assessment,
have been quite good compared to our MCA results. And so I think by encouraging more of our students to engage in the test, like Allison said, the 20% that opted out as sophomores, we think we're gonna see a significant increase in how our overall school performs in MCA reading and science at the sophomore level. We also think, by motivating more of our junior students to engage and take the test seriously, we'll see higher results
with our 11th grade students on the math MCA. So we've introduced some language to our academic lettering policy that would add a threshold to what we currently measure for academic success. The policy reads right now that students would have to have a certain GPA in order to qualify for an academic letter their senior year. The policy change would require that students also perform at grade level in math
for the class of 2027 and in math, reading, and science for the class of 2028 and beyond. - I think part of, just lost my thought. It'll come back to me. - Okay. I think we can call this for the motion, then we can open up the discussion. The recommended action is to approve the School Board policy 599 academic recognition as recommended by the School Board Policy Committee in the cabinet. Can I get a motion to approve? - [BM Ellison] To Approve. - The policy. - [BM Thompson] Don't? Are we gonna have?
- We'll have discussion once we get a... There's nothing to discuss till we get a motion on the table - [BM Skaar] And then second, then we can discuss. - Yes. So can I get a motion to approve the policy 599? - [BM Beloyed] So moved. - So moved. Is there a second? - [BM Streiff Oji] Second. - Second by Streiff Oji. Now we can open it up and have the discussion before we vote. Any questions? Yes. - So on the opt-out that you were talking about, I get that. I mean, that's a hurdle. We gotta live with it. But really other... I kind of think we normalize our numbers
because other districts complain about that as well, right? So I don't know if 40%... If our opt-out rates are higher than surrounding districts or not, or if that's been correlated with proficiency or not. I think, before we can say that that's a contributing factor, we need to do a little bit more homework on that I think. - 40% of our students don't take it. 40% count as not proficient. So that statistically would have an impact on those. - No, I'm asking about when we compare it
to other districts like Centennial or Mahtomedi. Is their opt-out percentage as high as ours? Do we know that? - I haven't looked into that. - I don't know that. - I think before we use that as kind of a reason, that we should understand what the surrounding districts and who we compete with, which is Mahtomedi and Centennial, what their numbers are. - Mr. Skaar, I'm not using that as the sole reason. What I'm saying is, is we want accurate numbers of how our students are doing,
and we can't. We don't have that. I'm not comparing us at all. I understand why we would. - Okay. Alright. - Right now I'm not making excuses for our results. I want it to be accurate. And if it really is as low as it is right now, we have a lot more work to do. We don't have correlating other points because the 40% of students often are students in the highest-level math classes. We know the kids that are opting out. So what this is, is to help us have our own accurate data. It's not to make an excuse that we don't have work to do. - You know what, thank you for a straightforward response. I understand. We're on the same wavelength on that. Thank you.
The other question. I think one of the public speaker during the forum, I think her name was Jamie, talked about this and, you know, when I was thinking about it, and is there a way that we could, for this academic recognition to do like a three or four factor test that you would say it's part of it's grades, part of it's attendance, part of it is getting a maybe a recommendation from, you know, a principal or something,
and then the test scores, and if you meet three out of the four of those, then you can get a letter. I'm sensitive to that. I don't know enough about it, but I kind of would like to have maybe a discussion. So I would recommend that we're not in a rush with this thing. Maybe we table this for the next meeting for a discussion. Can I get a motion to table? - [BM Thompson] I mean, I would second that I guess. (laughs) (Board members speaking indistinctly) - [BM Thompson] I think we need to have a discussion first. - A point of order. I think if we table it, that's tonight.
We can't table to the next... That's, I think when we table, it has to actually occur in the same meeting. - That's fine. - So if I understand. So we have further discussion, Ms. Streiff Oji. - So this is, as I'm understanding it, an incentive to get kids to take the test because our results are skewed because we don't have students taking the test because of various reasons. Are we able to provide accommodations for those that need those accommodations, whether it's through a 504 or... - Yep, and there's three different types of tests,
so some of 'em are the modified versions of them. So yeah. - [BM Streiff Oji] Okay. Thank you. - So, yeah, depending on what the IEP states or the IEP team submits for accommodations for testing, we would meet those accommodations as well as there's two alternate tests that could be offered to some of our special ed students as well. There's also, you know, I think with every individual story, there's reason for a case manager to come forward
or for an administrator or a school counselor to make a request that we consider some sort of alternate consideration for a student that maybe is new to country that takes the exam, transfers in, and didn't take the exam in their previous school building, is an ML student that is still learning the English language. I think there's lots of reasons to look again
for students that may reach the GPA threshold but not reach the MCA threshold. I can't guarantee that we'll be able to provide a letter to every student who has a question about their performance on the MCA exam, but we know that there may have to be an exception made. So we would have a process for that. I just feel like our school profile and the way people talk about how White Bear Lake High School performs
is often in relation to what they see on an MCA exam. I know, as a principal, I would like to use data that we learned from the exam in making curricular decisions, in making staffing decisions. Right now it's not a valid set of data because the majority of our students, not the majority, but 40% of our juniors opt out, 20% of our sophomores opt out of the exam, and of the students who take the exam, I'm not convinced that they take it as seriously
or try to do as well as they might on a ACT or an A reading type exam. So every school district, you know, that we're compared to is looking for ways to improve the number of students that participate on the MCA exam. I've heard from many principals who are considering giving the students a day off, to moving them up in the order for a parking pass the following year. There's a lot of incentives
that principals are trying in order to help engage students in this particular exam. If we don't find a way to help our students take the test more seriously or increase our participation on the exam, I think we really need to look at the results of that exam much differently. - The other point I want to make that I missed, I couldn't think of a second ago, was this isn't the only thing the high school team's doing, really doing education for all of our students' families to understand the impact of when people choose to opt out,
creating really a concentrated testing atmosphere. So it's one of many things that we're trying, and I just wanted to make sure you're aware of that 'cause you don't always get all of those details as well. - Okay. Ms. Ellison, - I preface this by saying, you know, I respect the work that you both do, and you do incredible things for the community, but I opt out all my kids from all of the MCAs and have for years and have a sophomore that has a 3.6 GPA, which means that he would not be able to letter
because it was my choice to opt him out. So, because the parents have to sign a document, right? - [Russell] They do. That is part of the process. - Yeah, so I mean, so it's the parents making these decisions to not have their students take this test. And I see the outreach that's happening, and I see, you know, the information shared with families, and I appreciate what you're doing,
'cause you're right, the numbers are totally skewed. I didn't realize that it was quite that high of people opting out, and we all have our reasons for doing so. I'm a little anxious about a parental decision to opt out of a standardized test then reflecting on a student's ability to letter. That makes me a little nervous. I mean, if this is what needs to happen so that my kid can letter, I'll make him take the test, you know,
but, again, it's, I think, all of those factors. It feels, and I know that this is not how it's meant, this is certainly not the intent, it feels a little bit like a punishment. So I understand the motivation. I understand we have to get those numbers up. So what about folks like me who fully understand the education system, and I don't have my kids take that test? - Yeah, I think, I mean you're identifying the complexity of it. Of course our goal is not to punish our kids. It's also super hard to listen continuously
about a certain portion of our population saying how terrible we are based on one test. - [BM Ellison] I know. - And so we want to have it be more accurate, and it's not. And so, you know, that is the question, and I think we can get that data and what I've heard is not all districts have that same opt-out culture that we maybe do depending on the age. The kids were super honest in terms of the ACT and all this stuff that occurs for them. But, at the same time, it is now 50% of our national ranking is our MCA results,
and if 40%, that 40% who are excelling the most, which is, you know, there's gray in there, but that is the overwhelming majority, like, we need help to have that data be accurate 'cause otherwise we will continuously not be able to meet the expectations, and it isn't to make an excuse. We are continuously... It's we want it to be accurate, and it is not right now. - Yeah, I fully understand, and, I mean I hear those same complaints as well, about our MCA tests.
It just strikes me, I'm just struggling with this, as a method of acknowledging the problem, how can we express what you have just expressed to us, to parents because a lot of parents, I think probably do opt out their kids because they're like, "We hate standardized tests," or, "My kid doesn't test well, "and I just don't want him to do it," and all these other reasons. How can we help parents not sign that form? I don't know. And I know all the work that you all do.
This one is hard for me. - [BM Arcand] Right. Ms. Thompson? - Yeah, I also see this as a punishment. Of the 40% of students who don't take the test, do we know where they rank? Like would they fall in the category of lettering without this or would they not? So then we're just adding on another thing to students who might not test well, and to me this is a systems issue, not a people's issue. The testing itself is the issue,
and I understand that we get the negative feedback because our kids aren't taking the test or the results of the test. To me that says get rid of the test and find a different way to figure out what students are learning and how they're learning, which are a lot of the things that we're doing with the MTSS and the BAR and all the other pieces, and the other ways that you guys are learning to test and see where the kids fall. To me, this is, I work in courts and oftentimes people try to do...
And I'm not saying this is what you guys are trying to do. I think you come at it with a good intention of trying to figure out how we can get students to engage in this test because it's important currently, but I don't, yeah, I just, I can't. This is one that I just, I can't support this one 'cause I know not all students test the same way, and not all students are, like, I think we just did a thing where we revised the way our kids are gonna test, right? So now we have an option for them
to go sit somewhere quietly or to test in a different way. Lily took her ACTs, and she has a thing where if people are chewing or if you're eating, our daughter cannot sit at the table and listen to us eat dinner 'cause it is a thing that she... She tries really hard, but she can't do it, and while she was testing, somebody was chewing on gum, somebody was chewing on... She literally could not focus while she was taking the test. And she's super stressed out
about how she's gonna do on that test because she had to sit in that environment and test in that way, which is not friendly to all the, you know. It's not equitable, right? So, to me, this is just another, I just, I don't, I would want more information on who the 40% of students are that aren't testing. Where do they fall? Would this impact them? or, "Who will this impact? 'cause just listening to the one parent tonight speak about their child who is on an IEP, like I don't, I just, I feel like it's, yeah,
I'm just, I'm not a fan of this. I just, I can't support this one. - [BM Beloyed] That's my idea. - [BM Arcand] Ms. Beloyed. - I'll make this quick since we're running out of time here. I think we've got a confluence of things happening, and it's obviously really difficult, but for the high school kids, you've got the pre-ACT that they take in 10th grade or is it 9th? - [Allison] Both 9th and 10th. - Both. So they've got the pre-ACT, then the ACT. Then if they take the ACT again, or if they're taking the SAT. So most of the high school students,
if they're planning on going to college at least, are focused on that. That's their priority. The MCA just isn't a priority for those. So, to me, it's, How do we develop a culture? How do we put a carrot in front of those students to take that? and that's the issue to me. - Mr Skaar, just one last thought. I mean, kudos to you guys for coming up. We have a problem. You guys came up with a solution. You presented it here.
So I would just say don't take that as a negative. I mean, you raised something that we should be concerned about, and we need to figure out how to solve it. So is it to triage the NOs to the parents to get them on the hook, put more pressure on the parents, so that they opt their kids in. I mean, we probably can't do this, but how about like a gas card for $20? (attendees laughing) You can take up a collection from the Board for that
if they take it. I mean, but the fact that you're thinking about it, and you came up with a solution, proposed solution, I think is great. So thank you. - [Russell] Okay. - Sorry, this is a timely matter though. This is why, - [Allison] It is a timely... You're bringing it here so that it can apply for this year's. So if it comes back to us next board meeting, which I know we don't usually approve policies at work study, is that still too late?
- [Allison] Yeah, it wouldn't feel right in terms of communication. We've communicated that we were bringing it tonight, and, you know, families really have engaged differently with Russ just by that letter around, and not in a negative way, but in a, "What other ways are there "for my student to take it?" You know, we have heard from concerns, which we've been working through, but we understand that, you know, we're trying to think outside the box. No, that is not how we lead, to penalize kids, and so I believe that you're hearing that, and this is a really complex problem for us. So we understand if... - Yeah. - [Allison] We just, we'll have to keep talking about it
and leaning in if this isn't... You know, we are doing other things and hopefully that helps engage and we see an increase of people testing, but if this weren't to pass, we get that part of the governance, and that's why we're here. - Yeah. - [BM Arcand] Okay. Other questions or comments? - I will just say it's been used multiple times in this setting tonight that we don't have the right, the same scores, and so it's, I can... And yet you're trying to find a solution to get accurate data, and we're not supported.
So... - Okay, I'm gonna go ahead. We have the motion to approve the school board policy 599, and due to the importance of this, I'm gonna shift this to a roll-call vote, so we know where we sit. Yes? - [BM Skaar] I make a motion to table this for the next meeting. - We cannot table to the next meeting. We can only table within. - Okay. - They can bring it back, but we can't... We found out I can only table to the end of this meeting. - Thank you, Chair. - So, I'm gonna go ahead and ask the Clerk to call the role.
- [BM Streiff Oji] Thompson. - [BM Thompson] No. - [BM Streiff Oji] Arcand. - Aye. Yes. - [BM Streiff Oji] Beloyed. - [BM Beloyed] No. - [BM Streiff Oji] Ellison. - [BM Ellison] No. - [BM Streiff Oji] Skaar. - [BM Skaar] No. - [BM Streiff Oji] Streiff Oji. Aye. - Okay. The motion fails. (bangs gavel) Thank you for your time. - [Russell] Thank you. - All right. We are on now to Board Forum, and we're gonna get to it quickly, we can get through this. - [Dr. Kazmierczak] Quickly. It's eight o'clock. Okay. It's eight o'clock. We've hit our stopping time. So does any board member have anything for Board Forum that they're doing? Yes. Be quick. - I just wanted to say, I also went and saw the "Dear Evan Hansen" play this weekend,
and holy, I mean, wow. I thought I was at the Orpheum or like... Our students and the talent and the staff and everything that went into that, it was kudos to everybody involved. Excellent, excellent show and for much less money. - [BM Arcand] All right, thank you. Anybody else with the forum that you're doing as your board member? Yes. - [BM Skaar] I would just shout out to the Community Education Recreation team led by Mr. Maurer here. We had a meeting. It was just a lot of good energy and so forth,
and we have so many activities for our kids, and you don't even have to be part of the district. It's great. But I just want to say, I was gonna bring this up, but I want to put a marker in because on one of the page, Tim, you're not responsible for this, so... "Understanding the role of the board." We need to talk about this. So I plan on... I would like to have, on the agenda, to talk about that. - [BM Arcand] Okay. - Can I get an agreement to put that on? - [BM Arcand] Well, I think that we have another staff development session first. Let's get through that.
- I'd rather have it in a public session. - [BM Arcand] Okay. Anybody else? All right. I vote to entertain a motion to adjourn. - [BM Ellison] Mr. Chair, we do adjourn. - Do I get a second? - [BM Beloyed] Second. - All in favor, say, "Aye." - [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same sign. - [BM Streiff Oji] Who is the second? (Chair Arcand speaking indistinctly) - [BM Streiff Oji] Who is the second? - Beloyed. - [BM Thompson] If you need your assignment signed, we can sign it for you.