(gavel thudding) - I now call this meeting of the school board of Independent School District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Thompson? - Here. - Arcand. - Here. - Daniel's here. - Allison. - Here. - Skaar. - Here. - All right, so for the first thing on the agenda for discussion items B1: Birch Lake Elementary update. Dr. K and Julian Stanke. Yeah, Julian, just come on up, and get rolling. Thank you for being here and providing an update. - All right. Good evening, members of the board.
Thank you for having me. I'm Julian Stanke, and I'm the proud principal of Birch Lake Elementary. Tonight I've got some updates for you. Just a little bit of background about Birch. We'll go through just a little overview of who we are, a little reflection on how we ended the year last year, and then some things that have been moving us forward here as we've started the year this year for '25-'26, so. All right, little bit of a breakdown of who we are at Birch Lake. So we are one of our Title I school programs at Birch Lake. We're approximately 15% ML students,
about 31% special services, so receiving some form of support through their IEPs, 504s and so on. And then about 53% free and reduced. And approximately 1% homeless, highly mobile. That number is a little bit, it changes throughout the year a little bit. And then one of the other big pieces for numbers wise is just our team. This year we're up to 73 staff members total that work in and around Birch Lake. And more and more each year it's been that their home base is Birch Lake, which has been a really great thing to see that growth
with our school. This year, we're at, I have 244 on here, but I double checked our enrollment this morning. It's actually 246. So that's our three-year high for student enrollment. So just since about August 18th, we had just over 30 students enroll at Birch. And the representative of a variety of places around, not just Minnesota, but across the country and around the world, of students that were having come into Birch Lake. So that's been super exciting for us as our community has grown. And I'll circle back to that a little bit towards the end of the presentation.
Other programs that I just wanted to highlight that we have that are doing really well at Birch Lake this year. We've been working for our third year now with Educators Thriving. That's been something we've done at the district level, but also at the Birch Lake building level. And we opened the year with them. And it was a fantastic experience during our opening days to do a strength assessment as we developed. Since I arrived three years ago, of our teams, we only have one team that's been together more than three years. So it was a really great opportunity to collaborate with them and focus on our strengths as teams and where we wanna focus on
as we get underway with this year and supporting our students. So the other piece of growth with that is that we have two sections now at every grade level, kindergarten through fifth grade, which has been super exciting. And we also host two sections of early childhood in our building. You'll see a long list there of organizations that we collaborate with throughout the year. Two that I do wanna highlight though, just because they are coming up quickly. First is the YMCA. We start with our second grade swimming unit here early October. And that same week our fifth graders will be going up
to Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland, Minnesota. So that's a super exciting thing, and it'll be a really fun and busy week for us at Birch. So some highlights from last year that I wanted to share with you all. We met two of our three goals at the end of last year, which was really exciting for us. We really focused in on our ML student population as that is a population that has grown. So our multilingual learners. And that's grown a lot in the last three years. Like I said, we're up over 15% now this year, and that continues to increase.
Our aMath and CBMr risk decreased in all assessed grade level. So that was super exciting. So you'll see on the next couple slides here, we have our early reading assessment for our K1, and then we also have our CBMrs for our two through five, all which saw increases and we continue to grow with that. So while we're celebrating, we're also seeing that we wanna continue that growth in the projection that we have. We're also focusing heavily on our Tier II and Tier III implementation this year. Really locking in what our instruction looks like,
especially during our, What I Need, our win times. And then finally, our building culture has just continued to grow, and that'll be highlighted towards the end. And our attendance rates are up and up. We're averaging upwards of 90% of daily attendance, which is exciting. That also means though, we still have 10 to 12% of students that we really wanna focus in on and making sure that the supports that they need are available to them to get them to school, so. There was just a quick overview of those scores. Again, like I said, from the early reading and our CBMrs from last fall to winter,
and then ending up in the spring. And then here's our attendance data. And so like I said, we've got a lot of green, which feels good, but it's really focusing in on that red and yellow for that final 10-ish percent on average per grade level to see what it is those students are needing to get them consistently attending school. So as we move forward in our area focuses, we'll continue to be our academic goals and how we make sure that our instruction is unified, and that we are being consistent with our interventions and our supports in our direct instruction. That photo there is our new staff photo of the year we have.
I've gotten a collection going now, every year at that Birch Lake sign, which is beautiful. But that was brand new the first year I got here. And so now every year we get at least one a year. Right around there. Here's our new goals for '25-'26. So looking at, first of all, for our first through fifth graders at 65%, we'll score low risk on the FastBridge CBMrs. And then that 63% of our second through fifth grade ML students, so our multilingual learners will score low risk in the FastBridge aReading assessment. And then for our student experience, again, like I said,
we're focusing on bringing up that attendance from that 88%-ish all the way up to 90 or higher. And we do feel that that is a very attainable goal as we start to look at our supports and ways in which our staff is collaborating to get our students to school. So a few things I talked a little bit earlier about our building growth and our community development. These are a few of our major things that have happened just in the past few months that have really helped in that area. So I spoke a little bit about our enrollment gains at our three-year high. We also expanded our CUBS program.
So our CUBS program supports students in the community with some of our highest medical needs. They're developmental and cognitive delays, high level autism. And we added a third section to our building this year. So our CUBS program now has three full sections of CUBS with three paras per teacher. And it has been incredible. We've built some really great relationships with our families and the students in that program. And then I'm gonna jump over to the third point on here.
And that's our new playground. That playground is super exciting. It is super accessible for all students. Whether you're fully physically able or you have impairments, you can get to at least 80% of our playground with the ramps that were installed. There's all sorts of interactive pieces to that, and I'll show you some more photos than that in just a little bit. But that was installed in August. They took it out in two weeks and had the new one in in about a week after that. And the whole community's been so excited about that. As a neighborhood school, Birch Lake is a gathering place
for families, not just during the day, but even after school gets out. And so it's been a really great place for our families to be able to come and spend some of this great time outdoors. And then we had a ribbon cunning ceremony back on September 12th. Thank you to Board Member Arcand and Dr. K for being there. We had a great turnout for that too. And we collaborated with our Chamber of Commerce to have a full ribbon cutting ceremony where they brought me in extremely large, sharp scissors to cut the red ribbon with. And it was a blast. Carbonis helped out with and collaborated with our PTA so that all of our families could be fed.
So we had some pizza and salad there. And then we had our PTA sponsor bounce back to school night that same night. And if you remember that Friday was pouring rain by about seven o'clock. So we did close up a little early, but it didn't slow anyone down to celebrate the great happenings at Birch. And then finally, our continued partnerships within the community here. North homes, we have a new CTSS worker and a new in-house therapist that we're sharing with Lincoln Elementary too, which has been super exciting.
And like I said, our with PTA and the Chamber of Commerce Commerce already this fall has been super encouraging to bring our community together. So here's just a few highlights of our ribbon cutting ceremony from the 12th. And just a couple overview photos of this beautiful new playground. So if you really like the color scheme, you can thank the students at Birch Lake 'cause they picked that out for us too, so. We have a lot of great exciting things happening at Birch, and we're super excited to have the '25-'26 school year underway. And I'll open up for any questions that you may have. - [Scott] Does anybody have any questions?
- I have just one. - Okay. - Just one. Just wondering about the slide that talked about 65%, the goal, 65%, one through five for all students and then two through five. Where are the first graders for the ML? We don't measure that? I mean, it's, you know, I don't know if my question's very clear. So if you go back to your slide that talks about your goals, it says one through five will get 65% low risk. And then for ML students, it's two through five. So I'm just wondering where the first graders,
the ML students, first graders are. - Yeah, so it depends based on the assessments that we're using for each student group. So the FastBridge CBMr, that is only given to our second through fifth grade students. That's not something that we have for our kindergarten, first grade. So that's why they're not included in that measurement. - Okay, but the all school is included- - Correct- - For first? Okay. - Yes. - That answers my question. Thanks a lot. - [Scott] Yes, Mr. Skaar. - Thank you. Thanks for the presentation.
On the one slide where you had, I think it was slide six, the demographic one. So you're saying there's 244 students? - [Julian] Well, we're up to 246, but, yeah. 244 was when I was creating the slideshow, where we were at, yeah. - And then 73 staff. - Yes. - So that basically, if you do the ratio, it's 3.3 students per staff. How many teachers are there? - [Julian] So licensed general ed classroom teachers,
we have 12. And then we have five special ed teachers. We have three traveling specialists, so music, art and phy ed. And then we have two intervention teachers that are both full-time. - So I get my math right. So that's 12, 2 is 14, plus 5 is 19. So plus 3 is 22. So you're saying out of the 73 staff people, 22, that's like less than a third?
- We have total a total of about 39 that are licensed staff. So that does include our social worker, our school psych, our OT/PT, some of the folks that we have that travel between multiple buildings as well. So 39 are are licensed. So the non-licensed staff members would be everyone from our paraprofessionals to our custodial staff to our health aides and so on. - So this might not be a question for you, but maybe for the administration. When you look at that ratio, it seems like the when you compare the non-teacher
to the teacher staff, it looks like it's way higher for the administrative staff versus teaching. Do you see what I mean? If we have 22 teaching in a total of 73, doesn't that seem like- - Yeah, very few of those staff members would be administrative staff though they'd all be student, you know, the vast majority are gonna be student-facing. But this is everyone who interacts, you know, at Birch.
So we're talking about after school programming, for instance. We're talking about paraprofessionals, noon supervisors, media center folks, you know? So I mean, it's everybody regardless of how part-time or what that looks like, nutrition services, et cetera, so. - [Daniel] Do we know what a good ratio is? - I'd say no, but I mean, I don't, I'd say the ratio would look very similar at all of our buildings. A little bit higher at Birch, because it's a smaller elementary,
we do have more staff members that are shared between Birch and other buildings. So that's going to bump that number up a little bit. But when you look at all of the services offered, you know, that's what that snapshot gives you. - Do we have like benchmarking numbers related to that? For an elementary school of this size, how many teachers versus how many, I call 'em administration so that maybe that's not the right term, but anybody that is a non-teacher, the ratios,
'cause that does seem like it's- - So we have benchmarking in a couple of different ways, but it also depends on the site and what kind of programming they offer. So for instance, if you're looking at a site that has the CUBS programming that Julian was talking about, that's going to mean that there's quite a few more individuals there with our setting three special education programming. You know, that's what it's gonna look like. Whether or not a school has a robust after school and before school care program,
you know, that's going to move all of that. Where we do have benchmarking though, is yes, we make sure that those ratios are relatively consistent within all of those programming, within all of that programming. - [Daniel] So that 73 number, is that FTEs, full-time equivalents, or is it just- - No. - [Daniel] So it's not full-time equivalents? - No, not at all. - [Daniel] Okay, it might- - Many of those individuals would be, for instance, two to three hour a day employees, like our noon supervisors, for instance,
folks that are providing afterschool care, et cetera. Our nutrition services employees, some of which would be full FTE, some of which would be quite part-time. You know, it really runs the gamut. And so, you know, I think as Julian put this together, he's saying these are all of the professionals that impact the school as you're looking at that number. - So I see. It's just like when you're looking at productivity or ratios where teachers versus administration
or non-teachers having FTEs, full-time equivalents, would be helpful. And it's also helpful to have the total number. - Sure. - But the other one was on multilingual learners. I mean, what kind of, is that a, 15%, is that a high number as compared with other elementary schools, or is it about average? - I can't speak to a lot of- - You could just guess. - But for Birch, if you look at the last 10 years to 15 years of time, that's a big growth
in what our community has seen and the shift. And so it feels like a big number. And on a scale of 244, 246 kids, 15% does add up to a lot to what it brings into our community, so it's a huge piece that we are super proud of having at Birch. - [Daniel] So what kind of challenges does that bring to the school having- - Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think sometimes, right, we had that big influx of students that enrolled in the last couple weeks of summer, and a lot of those students were,
we had a handful that were new to country, some that were new to the state, but many of which would be receiving ML services. So just finding exactly what it is that they need for supports to make sure that they're starting the year in a really positive, strong way was one of the things that we just, it's all hands on deck to help with that right away to make sure that they are all set up for a successful school year, aligning them with any of our, like our social worker does a lot of work there too, to help out to make sure that they have the basic necessities that they need and so on, transportation. - So it likely increases the requirements
of support staff to have that higher percentage is what you're saying? I see. You know, when you're looking at attendance, your professional opinion would be helpful on this. And maybe you guys know all this stuff, and it's open really to anybody. But what's the biggest driver for improving attendance or making sure attendance is high? What do you think that is? - I think something that's challenging is that the things that get in the way sometimes for students
that are having chronic absenteeism are things that are perhaps out of our control. Things that we can help with, support with finding some resources through our networks here, but also there's things that we can't control in the student's home. So when we get them here, it's making sure that they have a place that they're feeling welcome and cared for and have all, you know, the things that they need for a successful academic day. So that's the, I mean, I don't know if that's exactly answering your question. - No, that does. - But I think that that's one of the challenges because there are pieces that we can definitely support
and then there's parts that are challenging beyond our control. - Right. So illness is probably below, is not as big of a deal as some of those other, not that you control illness, it'd be great if you could, but some of those other things, you know, like family issues or whatever, those types of issues are probably the biggest driver. Right. Gotcha. - Yeah, without having exact data, yeah, I would say that that's definitely has a major impact. - [Daniel] All right. Thank you.
- Can I just make a comment regarding your question about the number of staff. And you know, as a former director of special services, and I'm very familiar with the CUB program. The staff ratio there is high because the students need a lot of support. So all those people are gonna be counted in that staff, staffing ratio. Some of them are there may be like a physical therapist, which is required by law, might be there just two mornings a week. They're counted in the 73. A speech and language, part-time, but they're counted in 73.
We have lots of people that need to be a part of that student's education by law. So having a program like the CUBS program, which is a wonderful program and something we're very proud of, and I think you should visit sometime. We've talked about you visiting some of the programs. That would be great if you could come and see. And then that would help kind of illuminate, you know, why staffing might seem higher in some buildings because of some of the programs and some of the supports that we are required and that the right thing to do for all of our students.
- [Daniel] Right. I was a volunteer in that area. - Did you? Oh, at the CUBS program? - No. - Oh, okay. - In St. Paul Public School District. So I saw firsthand what's required. And I know it's a lot, so. - [Kathleen] Yeah, well, I just wanted to comment on that because I know that's a big part of your program and the students are, you know, very welcome there and it's such a wonderful program. So thanks for the presentation. - Anybody else? Well, I wanna thank you for coming in. I wanna say that I love your playground.
(board chuckling) I'm gonna try that zip drive there and see if I don't lend over the church. But I know I'm coming, so. And it was easy to see with the kids there, how much they, not just the playground, but the staff and the building. I mean, that's their building. They're taking ownership. And that's their home. And that's one of the things I say is that that helps you get the kids to school because they like being there and they feel welcome there. And so thank you. - [Julian] Thank you. Thank you all. - Thank you. - Thank you.
- All right, that moves us right along to discussion item B2: Oneka Elementary update. Dr. K and and Lori Mosser. - [Dr. K] Yeah, we'll just hand it off. Lori. - All right. - [Dr. K] Just jump right in. - Ready to go. All right, well, good evening, everyone. And thank you for letting me come and talk about Oneka. One of my favorite topics of all time. Yeah, it's true. I'm telling you. All right, so I just wanted to start, you know, I love, you know, all the photos that we always see online and, you know, like this highlights our new addition too.
But just, you know, can't understate enough, the fact that our students and families are our top priority. We're dedicated to providing them with that exceptional service and experiences that exceed their expectations, so. And I see it daily in my staff, you know, they come here and they absolutely wanna do this and they show up and they work beyond. You know, like when I was leaving today at like 4:45, there are still teachers working, you know, and I've laughed. I mean, that's how dedicated they are to our students.
So tonight, I will go over this agenda. So just the overview of Oneka again, and just giving you a review of our 2024 results, what I reported on in March of last spring, and then our fall preview of scores that we just received from our fall screeners. And then looking ahead at our goals for '25-'26. And then what other things we have in store as far as like student experience and family enrichment. All right, so we are K-5,
but we also do have pre-K and ECFE programming. So we have six, Tim, right? Six programs? - Six sections, yeah. - Yep, six sections of pre-K, and they are incredibly adorable. And our fifth graders often love to help our little pre-K students around the building. And we include them in anything that we do as far as assemblies or any other, you know, events. You know, in the evening they are absolutely invited to come and attend and they do. Right now we have 457 students.
We have 18% free and reduced lunch. We have about 29 students of color, which is up from last year. And then we have those five programming clusters in our building. So we have ASD, DCD, cross-categorical, cluster pathway program and then a Tier II program. And some of our programs are ASD/DCD and our cluster pathway are district programs. So we have students that open enroll from other buildings to come to us for those. And then we have about 7%
of our students that are multilingual. And we have one that is brand new to country, so is just learning English right now. So that's new for us. So that's an interesting conundrum. But our teachers are embracing it and using all resources available to help communicate with that student. So this is our mission and vision. So we're a tight-knit community. We advocate for student focus, innovative education, embrace challenges, promote growth, ensure and empower lifelong learning in a loving, compassionate, inviting environment.
So we help our students be self-advocates and agents of their own learning. We respect diversity. We try to have our students understand their local and global impact. Social and emotional health and wellness are top priority for our students as well. And how we do that in our classrooms with Second Step. And then we wanna provide educational opportunities that are authentic, compelling, and relevant. So here are some photos of student engagement or family engagement and student experience
that we've had over the past. So we have Wargo that we partner with, and they come to us and we go to them. So it's all environmental learning. So some of those pictures up in that top left hand corner, right? Yeah, are at Oneka actually. So just like in our backyard, the one in the very top is at Wargo. And then we have our Boosterthon fun run that we do every year. It's a PTA fundraiser. That's coming up again. It's the glow run. So the students are really excited about that. It's the day before Halloween, so that'll be interesting.
And then students are coding. So Molly Lee, our media specialist comes and helps our students do all kinds of things related to STEM. We are fortunate to have a lot of people that are engaged in art. So we do a lot with our art that we do throughout the year and try to have some kind of a fun art party every year. And now we have a full-time art teacher that'll be there every day all year. So hopefully we'll see some really cool art exhibits. And then of course our bingo night, which will come again in November,
which we always fill our gym. Like we pack it in. And every year I plan for more tables and we always run out. Like, the last three years in a row, like, "All right, we need 90," and then we get there and it's like, "Okay no, we're gonna need like 110." So this year I planned for 110, I'm probably gonna need 115, so. But it's a great event. Everybody just loves to come out and just play bingo for an hour and a half. And then our family dinners, our intentional social interactions are fantastic to have community come in and just talk about students,
and talk about their needs and talk about what the family needs, how we can help support them and how we can help make them feel a part of our community at Oneka. And then we always have some really great engaging assemblies that come into our building. I am reaching out to the Minnesota Twins and what they did at Otter last spring with their strikeout program with mental health. And so hopefully I'll hear back from them soon. We'll get them to come in as well. And then just having fun game nights,
you know, where the kids just come and play games and the families come with them and then we have food trucks and everything else, and it's just a really great time. So just trying to find as many ways that we can to engage students in school and then have their families also feel like they are part of the community. All right, so, oh, these are the football players. They came out to spend a day with our kids last year, and the students like absolutely loved it. They could not wait. So this is one of the games that they played with the kids out at recess.
So just playing football. Then they came in and ate lunch with them too. It was great. And we're working with the basketball team to get them to come out again this fall and do the same kind of thing with our kids. And then I'll talk about that later, but we're also doing a high school mentorship program with some other students to do something with our third through fifth graders. So last year I talked about first grade. We focused on first grade and what was happening there, is it's a pivotal time in our students' development as far as literacy goes.
So at the beginning of the year last year, they were at 49% low risk, 51%, like some are high risk. By spring, we got that number to 71% low risk and 29% some or high risk. The high risk, so that 29% is including some in high, it's actually only three students were at high risk by this spring. So that was a fantastic result. And our teachers worked so hard to achieve that,
and I'm so proud of them. And the one thing about early reading, and this is the fluency piece of it, and they got to 72%. And again, you know, it was two students, possibly I think two or three students that were at high risk. But to highlight this is our first grade students start taking a reading, like they read to someone to check their fluency. It's something they have never ever done before. It's something sitting in front of a student and they have to read a passage to you.
And that's something brand new for first graders. So for them to move from 55% to 72 and being more fluent readers was an incredible achievement. And I'm so proud of our first grade team. And not only there, you know, I'm just highlighting first grade, but we saw results across the board, you know, with all of our teachers. So I'm very proud of everyone in our building. So now I will go, excuse me, into our fall screening and the results that we have coming up and then it leads into what our goals are for the school year.
So our kindergartners came in at 68% low risk for literacy in early reading and 86% low risk in math. And then our first graders came in at literacy at 52% low risk and 68% low risk in math. And then second grade, they take an additional reading assessment. So the aReading that's the comprehensive, you know, like overall of all reading. So it's testing all those skills, especially comprehension. So they came in at 55% in second grade,
their fluency, that's just reading a passage at 56%. And then their math overall was 61%. So third grade, same thing. So 63% in comprehension, 62% in fluency and then 74% in math. Our fourth graders are starting off comprehension wise, it's 76% low risk. Their fluency is at 66% low risk. And then their aMath or their math overall is 64. And then fifth graders are coming in at 62% low risk in reading and their fluency is at 52%.
And then their aMath is at 64%. So we take the average of all of these scores to decide what our fall goals will be and what we want to achieve by the end of the school year for all of our students. So we have three goals, and I'll start with academic. So we are stretching to get to 80% of our K-1 students will be low risk on the fast early reading composite. So that's testing everything. So that's their phonics and phonemic awareness and letter sounds
and all of those things that combine, you know, to get them to start being readers. So we want 80% of them to be at low risk. And then our students in second through fifth grade will be at 80%, the same thing for the CBMreading. That's fluency. And then 80% of our students in second through fifth grade will have that low risk in aReading, which is comprehension. So all of those fall screeners led to us wanting to have this stretch goal of 80% this year.
So how are we gonna do that? So really focusing on our instructional practices this year and all those tiers. So Tier I is your universal, that's core instruction with your classroom teacher, you know, receiving your literacy and math instruction. Your Tier II is when we have our 30 minutes of literacy and 30 minutes of math in addition to core where the students are getting what they need. And then our Tier III is if we have high support needed for, you know, a certain, you know, small number of students that need to have a pullout service
to come and really focus in on specific skills that will get them, to, you know, leave either low or high risk and get into, or sorry, some in high risk to get to low risk. And then this year we're starting data meetings. So we had our first one on September 11th already, and we went over all our fall screening results. And that's when teachers we partnered with, it was myself and my instructional coach, and we had our cross-cat teacher, and our school psychologist, and our speech pathologist
and then our ML teacher. And intervention, I think I said that already. And then all of the teachers on the team, and we met to discuss all of our students' needs. And we looked at all of their scores, and we really decided, you know, this is what we need to do for our students instructionally. Here's how we're going to do Tier I, here's how we're gonna do Tier II and here's how Tier III will work. So we will do that four more times this year around like critical, like every six to eight weeks of progress monitoring. So teachers will do some kind of intervention,
you know, within that Tier II and in their Tier I instruction. And then keep a really good record of how students are progressing, and then use that data to inform their instruction. And then we meet all together to talk about it, you know, as a whole group to really decide what our students need to be successful. And then again, teams are doing that, you know, that progress monitoring, either weekly they decide or biweekly, you know, so every five days or every 10 days to determine what our students need. So that'll be a big, you know,
piece of how we get to our 80% this year. So our student experience goal, we want at least 90% of our students to report that they feel valued, safe, engaged and respected. And then for attendance, we want at least 90% of our students to maintain a 90% or higher attendance rate. I believe we're at 89 this spring. So I hope we can surpass that. But that's our goal. So then how we're going to achieve that? You know, through those daily class meetings and really creating that culture
and that community within our building. You know, so that students do feel that way and they want to come to school every day. That gradual release of responsibility, like putting that, you know, we talked about earlier, that onus of, you know, their advocacy and how they're agents of their own learning, you know, that'll help there too. Teaching them skills for learning. That's our second step with social emotional. Making sure that we understand that empathy and kindness are a huge part of how we create that culture and that environment within our, you know, classrooms and also our school helping with emotional management,
problem solving, growth mindset, not yet, I can't do it yet. Goal setting, establishing safety and building connections. So that's a huge part of what we do daily. And then family engagement, we wanna make sure we continue our PTA sponsored events, our community dinner and conversation is always a huge hit. And so we are planning that for probably later the spring. And then just having Free Family Nights that we do ourselves, our bingo an art fair. And then there has been rumors of a talent show,
so we'll see if that comes to fruition. But I know the kids want it so badly. They've been asking for years, so we'll see if that happens. Just having meaningful conferences every time we meet with parents, you know, be it the official conference dates or you know, through phone conversations or emails. And then consistent and timely communication. You know, Parents Squares helped a lot with that, so. Okay, looking ahead. So we have a group of high school students that reached out wanting to help support our third
through fifth grade students in our building. So they contacted me over the summer. And I know they're working with a few others, you know, I think Birch Lake and Otter. And wanting to just meet with students. They can come between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning and then just be like a big sister, big brother, you know, to some of our third grade students. So my school psych and our social worker are taking that on. And hopefully, you know, like we can also work with the basketball team to make that just a huge piece of, you know, continuing to build that community and that engagement.
And I'm hosting the Hugo Bus Tour this year, so that'll be fun to have everybody, you know, like start at Oneka and then I'll, you know, like do something like this again, you know, tell, I mean how great Oneka is. Like they probably know that. And then we go on the bus tour and come back. And it's a great time. I don't know if you've ever been on it, but the city planner who does the tour talks the entire time. And he is so engaged and so he is so knowledgeable about everything Hugo. So it's a really great time. And then of course our Booster Fun Run is coming up right before Halloween, which is always fun.
The kids, you know, raise a lot of money for our PTA and then our PTA uses those funds to help support our teachers and students throughout the school year. All right, so that is Oneka in a nutshell. - Thank you. - Any questions? - Do you have any questions? - Yes. - [Scott] Yes, Ms. Thompson. - I don't have a question, just a comment. Happy to see the Boosterthon is still going. I was on the PTA when we got that one to kind of take over for the Color Run 'cause it had started to fizzle a little bit, and it was such a great event. And it doesn't matter what the weather is 'cause you do it in the gym.
- Right. - So that's great. And if there's a talent show, I will there. - Are you coming there? All right, awesome. - Because talent shows are so much fun, especially in elementary school. I remember doing one at Lincoln when I was in Lincoln, and I can still remember what my friend and I did. And yeah, so that is really exciting to see and just thank you for coming to me. - Awesome. Yes. Yes, absolutely. - [Scott] Mr. Skaar. - You mentioned meaningful parent-teacher conferences. Does the district provide the principals
and the schools kind of like a playbook of this is how you conduct a meaningful parent-teacher meeting? Do we do that? (attendee speaking off-mic) - No. - So do you provide to the teachers kind of like, here's what a good outcome is for a parent-teacher conference? - Right, we always talk about, you know, the importance of, you know, like making sure that we're addressing the positives as well as, you know, like the challenges and the growth that the students need to make. And then how we do that. You know, and it shouldn't ever be,
you know, we talk about this a lot, it shouldn't ever be a surprise when a parent comes to a conference is like, what? This is what's happening. You know, like that shouldn't ever happen. So it's the buildup, you know, before then and all that, you know, connection that they're making with the family, you know, like in these first couple weeks of school and then throughout, you know, like after that, you know, leading up until February or March, I think they're in March this year. You know, and making sure that they understand that. And then having data present, you know, is always a huge thing, you know, to share, you know, student work you know is important.
And then just, you know, understanding that, you know, the parent is there 'cause they love their child so much and just, you know, like they could ask you some really hard questions, and it's just because they just wanna be there too and partner with us, you know, to make sure their child grows, you know, so just being there to support them and just saying, you know, like just what else do you need from me to help you have a really successful conference. - So no surprises is a big deal. - Correct. It's huge. - Right. So I'm glad that you said that. The other one is,
what percentage of parent-teacher conferences are attended by the parents? Is it a hundred percent? Is it 90%? Is it 80%? - We are darn close. I think last year, you know, most teachers came down and said, "A hundred percent of my parents came. And if they didn't come then they made a phone call or they reached out and tried a different way." You know, like did a virtual conference, you know, with a Google Meet. But the majority of, we're in the high nineties, I would say 98% of our parents always come to conferences.
- Do we keep track of that on a district-wide basis? - [Board Member] No. - It seems to me that would be an important metric to see if parents, 'cause one of the things I think is key to kids in school is parent involvement. - [Lori] Absolutely. - So if the parents are involved, I think the student does better. So it seems to me that would be an important metric, especially in elementary schools. - [Lori] Yes. - The other thing I was thinking too, when I read this on the academic goals,
this is not really a question for you because I like how you laid this out. It's more for the district. I mean, do we elementary education goals, like was laid out here on slide 21. If you could go to slide 21. Do we have- - [Lori] This way? This way? - Right. - Okay. - I mean, do we have expectations for the elementary schools that says, hey, we want 80% of K through one students to score low risk, or does each- - [Administrator] Yes, we do.
So 80% is our goal. And you'll see that some schools maybe need two years in order to reach that 80% and some schools need one year. So yep, district-wide, we have that same goal. So you'll see that common goal throughout all the presentations this year. - Okay, thank you. And the other one I was thinking about is the student experience goal, which is slide 22. So have we correlated the first goal there,
which is 90% of the students feel like they're valued, safe, with the attendance rate. Are those directly correlated or is there no correlation between those? And then I think it would be nice to do the percentage of parent-teacher and correlate that and then correlate that back with that academics and try to bring it all together. This is maybe not a question for you, but maybe a question for the district on how we could tie these.
We have so much data. We're like dying in data. We need to translate it into information and see if we can, you know, tie things together so we know where we have gaps. And I would think that we would wanna do something like that. - [Lori] Yeah, and we can, I mean, the knowing of what conferences are, I can absolutely do that. That's, you know, pretty easy to do and we can do that this fall and in the spring. And then knowing, you know, like what results we get from, you know, our student survey, 'cause we'll figure that out, you know, through our certain student survey
and then through our SEL screener, which is the Sabre that we're using this year to see where that is. So we can absolutely, you know, that's something that, you know, we can do as a building for sure. You know, and see if there is some kind of correlation, so. That's a good point. - Yeah, I think it'd be nice to do that on a district-wide basis to see if all those things tie together and tell a story. And maybe they don't, but my intuition is that they do. - For some students, it may, yeah.
- Thank you. - Yes, thank you. - [Scott] All right, thank you. Ms. Thompson? - I guess this really isn't a question, just a comment to what Mr. Skaar is discussing over here. And I would just say that we would probably find a correlation because if we look at Oneka's free and reduced lunch rate, it's 18.36%. Now, if we go back and we look at Birch, was it at 53% are at free and reduced lunch. And 31% of Birch has special services, and 15% multilingual learners
and 1% of a homeless population that we are aware of, that we know of. So those families are gonna struggle. Those families are gonna have a harder time coming to conferences. Those families are working shifts where they're probably working multiple jobs that are not home. Maybe the kids are being raised by their grandparents. Maybe when we look at Birch's attendance rate and we see that, I believe it was fifth grade other than kindergarten has a higher rate in the yellow for some risk of attendance. And my assumption, and this is assumption as someone
who works in child protection and deals with a lot of these families is those kids might be home taking care of other siblings or even the family member who is the adult that cares for them. Because if it's a grandma or there's somebody else in the home that needs care, the kids are the ones who do that work. And so while I'm not sure what we would do with that data if we got it, because we do everything we can to support those families, and I don't know how else we could support them to be here for those things. So, I mean, those are things we have to consider
and look at when we're looking at our numbers. And Birch has the program, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's been a while since I've been in all the elementary schools. But Birch has the room where we have kids in there who have very high needs, who don't go into the regular classroom every, like, they're in that room with their physical therapist and their special support people and maybe they go to the art room or they might participate in music class, but they're not sitting in the classroom with an educator all day long.
They're in that special space that we have, which is absolutely amazing. If you haven't been there, Mr. Skaar or anybody, I would recommend to going and seeing it, 'cause it really is great work that we have that in the building. But that's, I mean, asking for those numbers, I don't, you know, I mean, the data shows it, it shows where the attendance things are and it shows where Oneka is gonna do a little, have a little less in the attendance area probably because those families are a little more affluent
in our community than other schools that have higher poverty in our student body population. - [Scott] Okay. - [Daniel] Chair, I'd like to respond to that. - [Scott] Okay. Mr. Skaar. - I've heard all of those rationalizations, and I think we're still, and we have a lot of resources for interventions and our job is to prepare our kids for the future no matter what their circumstances are. And that's our job here.
And academics matter, attendance matters. And we have the money that we have spent through our levies and through our budget to make that happen, to get those. And I know sometimes you can't bring a horse, you know, to water, but we have the tools to improve that and we should look at that. So I think tying those numbers together is important and it would be important to share it with the public so they see the importance of that information and how it correlates and why this is important. Thank you. - [Scott] Ms. Daniels.
- I just think we are using our tools very well, and we're using our staff very well, and we're using our resources very well. And I can vouch that the teachers, educators, support staff working very hard to make all of that happen. And so, and I think if you've been in education for a while, you know that attendance and feeling safe and valued and parents feeling welcome are all tied together. We know that. It's not anything new.
So I just appreciate everything you and your staff have done and the other thank you educators here, so. - Yeah, they're the best around, that's for sure. - Thank you. - All right, thank you. And Ms. Thompson, I'll look forward to you coming to the talent show. - One thing I do wanna say is looking just at the parent-teacher conferences, I think you need, you know, that doesn't really, that's just a few times slots, but there's so much more contact with the family. And I think all that should be, if you're gonna look at it, should be considered because there's so many times
that the teacher can reach out and talk to those families whether, you know, many different ways. 'Cause one of the things I heard you say is when we get to conferences that shouldn't be a surprise. And that tells me there's other points of contact. You cannot just do it at parent-teacher conference. You have to make contact continually update some different ways to reach out to our students and our parents and our communities, so. And I know you do, so I just wanna thank you for everything you do. And keep up the good work. - Yes, thank you. - Thank you.
All right, we are on to, we are onto operational item C1: certification for the 2025 payable 2026 preliminary property tax levy. - Good evening. This is the time of our budget year when we come to you with our preliminary property tax levy, our property tax, our property taxes make up about 20 to 25% of our general funds. So it's an important funding stream for the school district. As a school district, we're working with the Department of Education
and providing information between August and throughout September to make sure that all of our levy amounts are accurate. We have to ask the school board to approve an amount. And at this point we typically ask that you approve the maximum amount of preliminary property tax levy that allows us to continue to work with the Department of Education and make refinements as they are necessary. So included in your packet today is a preliminary estimate of our taxes for next school year.
So this is money that would be levied against taxpayers in 2026, and then it'll be revenue to us in the '26-'27 school year. You can see that in total it's about a 4.4% increase in total revenue over the 26th school year. And then on the back of the document that's included in the packet, it shows that on the average tax payer, it's about, it's about flat, the increase is about flat, if you have, if the estimated market value of your property hasn't changed.
We'll continue to work with the Department of Ed. There are a couple of estimates that are not yet on the official document from the Department of Ed, but are included in here. And so we need to make sure that that gets reflected appropriately. The next step of the process is the school board would approve the proposed preliminary levy at the maximum amount and then in December we would come forward in the Truth and Taxation hearing and we'd have all of those final numbers and analysis at that time. Any questions? - Questions? Yes.
- [Jessica] Ms. Johnson, I just wanna clarify, so you said 20 to 25% of our budget is property taxes, and that's how schools are funded? - Yes, yes. - I mean, this is not something that's unique to White Bear Lake, it's all over the country that it's property taxes. Right? - Right. - And so when you say it's a 4.4% increase, but for the average property owner, it goes down. Help me understand how that works. - Correct. So the total revenue that we're going to be receiving
is gonna go up by about 4%, but there's a higher amount of property in the school district. So that might come from, you know, new assess values, but it also comes from new construction building, new businesses coming in. And so that's spread over the entire, or the entire property taxes or the property value. And so that's where it results in that almost flat slight decrease for the average home. - Okay. And so then the maximum levy is set by the Minnesota Department of Education?
- Yes. - Right. And how do they come up with that number? - It's super complicated. - Yeah, it's like the most complicated formula in the country for school districts, I think, right? - Well, I don't know that. I would certainly assume so, because it's a 39 page document with three-year columns of calculations. And so we provide inputs like this is what we think the enrollment is gonna be for next school year. And then they run through all of these calculations. We verify all of them to make sure
that they're coming through in the way that I would expect them to. And then they true it up as well. So we provide the estimates, then they get the actual student counts and then they provide adjustments. And so there's just a lot of facets to the levy, yeah. - [Jessica] Okay. Thank you. - Yeah. - Mr. Skaar. - Thank you. How many times, so how many times have we not asked for the maximum levy? - I'm not aware of any time not asking for that. - So we always asked for the maximum levy. - [Ms. Johnson] At this point, yes. - How many times have we actually not used the maximum levy
when we've done it something less than the maximum levy? - Well, when we approve the maximum, then what the Department of Education is gonna do is they're gonna finalize all of their calculations and then they're just going to go ahead and use that amount. If we weren't going to approve the maximum, we would reduce it by a dollar amount and then they would take that dollar amount and reduce all of their calculations by that dollar amount, if that makes sense. - So what would happen if we didn't ask for the maximum levy? Like if we ask for,
do they have a minimum levy? - No, there's many different facets to the levy. There's the referendum that the voters approve, but there's also, there's a local optional funding stream. Our long-term facility maintenance flows through there, or safe schools. So you would have to identify like which facet of the levy you'd wanna change and then work with the Department of Education to change that. - But isn't this, this levy is all-inclusive that you just showed? - Correct. Yep, but I'm just saying there's the multiple of it.
- I get that. So, but the question is, if we asked for the maximum levy the state would come, let's use last year. We asked for the maximum levy, which was whatever it was, 4%, whatever. Whatever it was last year. So it was 4% when the state puts our numbers through its calculation, however it's done, and it comes out to be, what, 4%? Or is it something less, or is it something more?
- It's a little bit different than that. So actually we have a really great example of this school year for why we're asking to approve the maximum. We work with Northeast Metro 916. We all know that. They have a property that they have leases on that all of their member districts levy their taxpayers to help pay for those leases. And our portion of that lease cost related to Northeast Metro 916 is not yet approved in our levy. MDE is still working on that approval process. And so I have an estimate in here
to give you what I think the total dollar amount is gonna be for our school district. But not actually, it's not actually like a finalized number yet. And so we need to, well, we ask that you approve the maximum so that when MDE has those approvals completed, which will be done by September 30th, then we're able to go ahead and bring that forward and send it to the county. So if you set a dollar amount, then the risk would be that 916's calculations were such that it wasn't enough to cover our expense our
to our total expense. And that would just be a general fund expense at that point. Does that make sense? - So the 68, so the 68 million that is in this right now, would the state, would the state come back, what's our thinking on what the state would come back at? - Well, I think this is very close. Like I said, I just don't know yet those final 916 numbers. And when I reached out last week to ask them if they knew, they just hadn't had that completed yet. - [Daniel] Does every school district in the State of Minnesota always ask for the maximum levy?
- I don't have a, I don't know that for certain, but I would sure expect- - You know that? - The vast majority. - I would guess that's probably true. Is that right? - Probably true. I've not ever seen a district not do the max at this point in the process- - [Daniel] Because it gives you more flexibility. - Yeah, it gives you flexibility and they're, you know, districts might work at truing up enrollment figures from the prior year, for example. And so all that gets factored in the calculation. And ultimately in December, you'll be approving a dollar amount. That's when the dollar amount is approved. If we were to approve a dollar amount tonight,
we couldn't change that. So the board approves a dollar amount in December. - [Daniel] Got it. Thank you. Thanks. - Yeah. - Any other questions? I just have a real easy question for you. You talked in there about if the value of my house goes up, my taxes may go up. - Correct. - What controls do we have here in this room on the evaluation of our homes? - None. That's done by the county. - [Scott] So we don't control anything. The county takes care of that. - Correct. - [Scott] We don't ask them to go White Bear and raise all the rates. - We don't, no. - Okay.
Is real clear, because sometimes people think we're up there, you know, and then I just wanted to make sure that people knew that that's a county issue. That's not something we can control. - [Ms. Johnson] Correct. - Okay. So we have before us, the recommended action before us is to approve the maximum for the 2025 payable 2026 proposed preliminary property tax levy. Can I get a motion for that recommendation? - [Jessica] So moved. - Okay. By Ellison. A second? - [Angela] Second. - Second by Thompson. Any further discussion?
Okay, I believe this will be a roll call vote. So I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Skaar. - Yes. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Okay. (gavel thudding) Motion carries. I believe we have reached the adjournment. Before I adjourn, I just wanna check in, Wednesday, is that Central Middle School's open house? - Yeah. - Okay, just wanna- - 4:30. - 4:30, so encourage everybody to go and see all the great things they've done, so. With that, can I get a motion for adjournment.
- Mr. Chair, I move we adjourn. - Ms. Ellison. Is there a second? - Second. - All approved say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Thank you for a great meeting. We are now adjourned. - [Board Member] Thank you.