of the United States of America and to the reps nationis andice for all. >> All right. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening. All right. Do we have any changes to the agenda? No changes. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? So moved by Forsberg, second by Schmidt to approve the agenda as presented. All in favor, please say I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. Please check the district calendar for Please check the district calendar and resource guide or the district website for a complete list of monthly events. Uh Monday, September 22nd, 2025, school board work session at 5:00 p. a.m. Tuesday, October 7th, 2025, school board regular meeting at 7 p.m. with communications to the board and administration at 6:45. Moving to consent agenda. Can I get a motion? >> So moved by Hennon, second by Vala to approve the following items of the consent agenda. Minutes of the August 4th, 2025 school board work session. August 11th, 2025, regular schoolboard meeting. August 26th, 2025, school board work session. Bills paid for July 2025 in the amount of 6,570,5958. Personnel items and adoption of Spring Lake Park School's language access plan. All in favor, please say I. >> Those opposed? Motion passes. Moving to discussion, reports and information items. Effective operations improve our effective management of human financial and physical resources. General obligation school building refunding bonds series 2025A pre-sale report. Miss Amy Schultz, our executive director of business services, and Aaron Bushberger from Ellers's um municipal advisor. >> All right. Good evening, board. I'm going to be really brief because we have been talking with the board about this since I think back in July as a possibility. Um, so with that, what Erin is going to present is really a pre it's a pre-sale report. So we've been talking about the option of refinancing some bonds. And so with that, there's a whole process that we have to go through. We don't just walk up to a bank and ask to redo our loans. So Ellers are are independent financial adviserss. And so they are the ones that help us through this process. So, they help us work with the Moody Moody's for a rating call. We will have that updated as well as get all of our bonding documents together. So, I'm gonna let Erin present and I'm just gonna step aside. >> All right. Well, thank you. Good evening. It's nice to see you all again. Uh it feels like just like a year ago, we were here refunding uh bonds uh previously as well. So, uh good to see you. Um as Amy mentioned, you have our our pre-sale report in your board packet. Um, I'm just going to touch on a couple of uh kind of highlights in that pre-sale report in in the upcoming process. So, again, uh, refunding bonds, it's similar to refinancing a mortgage. Um, it's a little bit different because there's what's known as a call date when it comes to bonds. So, you can only re do a tax exempt refunding um, 90 days prior or anytime after that call date. So, the call date is February 1st, 2026. So, we're getting this in motion kind of as soon as we can uh to take advantage of these savings. And again, um any savings that we do see as a as a part of this refunding goes directly to your taxpayers, right? That's you can't use this for general fund or operations or anything like that. It's automatically reduction in your future property tax notes. So, a couple pieces uh regarding the process. So, the resolution that you approved last month uh included a cost to participate in the state credit enhancement program. And so, the state guarantees Minnesota school district payments um in case the districts aren't able to make those payments. So, there's no charge for that. And again, you also get that state credit rating as well uh when you go through that process. So, so that's a huge benefit. Uh, as part of the process, as Amy mentioned, you will go through a rating process similar to like a credit score when applying for a mortgage, right? Um, so you'll get a rating and generally speaking, the better the rating, uh, the lower the interest cost. And so, um, Spring Lake Park currently has a a solid um, underlying rating and so that will come in beneficial um, when we're going through this refunding process. Uh, as a reminder, um, and I know you approved this back in August, but you did approve a parameters resolution, meaning that we must achieve a certain amount of savings to move forward with the refunding bonds. And so that parameter is a minimum of 500,000. And so our current estimates right now, uh, with a little bit of cushion built in, a little bit of conservative estimates, uh, show a savings of over 800,000 right now. So, we're hoping um when we sell these bonds in in a month or so that uh we'll see um those those good results. Um just a a couple notes about the process. Um again, we're here presenting the pre-sale report. Uh we're going to work with Amy and her team over the course of the next couple months to gather information, go through that rating call, that rating call process. Uh they ask lots of questions. Um, but Amy and her team are always uh wellprepared and represent uh the district well. So, that's a little bit about the process and then we'll be back here um on October 7th at your board meeting um with uh those sale results and and ask for your approval at that time. The last thing I'd like to mention is um we we took a look back through some of our records uh and the last um so over the course of the last 10 years, the last five refundings uh have brought over $13 million in savings uh that again go directly to your taxpayers. So, so we're really uh excited to hopefully add to that that tally in a month or so. So, um that's all the information I had to to present. I'm more than happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Any questions from the board? >> I have no team for always keeping their eye open for these opportunities and with others so that we get the opportunity to >> just does how about the interest rate environment? Does that have a bearing in this at all? >> Yeah. And so um great question. And so what we're seeing is um so this is kind of a shorter term uh refunding. So we've only got um I think like five or six years, six years. Um and so what we've seen recently is actually it was a relatively flatter yield curve and now the yield curve has kind of shifted where the shortterm rates are pushing lower and the longer term rates are pushing higher. And so, um, that should be a big benefit for this refunding as we continue to see, um, those shorter term rates decrease. Um, and that conversation, um, regarding the Fed lowering rates, uh, definitely has an impact on this as well. >> Thank you. >> Other questions, comments? >> This I just want to say this is something that we commonly do with all of our bonds and I would say levies too, or just bonds, sorry. um is is to go through the um refunding process because it gives us an opportunity to save our our taxpayers uh some money. So, uh this does not benefit the district, this actually goes back to taxpayers and anytime we have an opportunity to do that because we we we're proud of the um being good fiduciaries of the finances we receive. So, anytime there's an opportunity to do that, we're we're on board. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Good. All right. We'll see you in a month. >> Sounds good. Thanks. >> All right. Moving to 2025 2026 district operational plan. The district operational plan describes improvement projects within each district strategic anchor engaged enthusiastic learners and effective operations and communications and connections. Uh Dr. Jeff Renberg, superintendent and Dr. Hopron. Thank you. >> All right. This is a presentation that we're required to do annually. It used to be called the world's best workforce. Now it is the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report. It rolls right off the tongue. So um we do that and this all starts with um a requirement of that I was going to say world's best workforce but the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness is that districts have a strategic plan. And so this starts with that's our governance document. um at the core of that is um our vision of personalizing learning for each and every one of our kids and that's something that we work on all the time. So that is what we do. Aligned to that then is this district operational plan where well it's an annual document as I often um share with you as a board and others and you review this each year with us. this really has a we're always looking three to five years out what are emerging influences how are we planning um and then we say so within the next year with looking into the future what are those things that we're really going to work on and uh you can see these are set of uh projects that we have within um each of our three strategic anchors within our strategic plan and this is how we really work to continuously improve and innovate throughout the system to better meet the needs of kids um in August we provided a broad overview for you of our district operational plan we did on each project with just a brief highlights of that and focused um on really on that deepen student engagement through innovative and personalized learning. That was really a focus that we did in August. At our August work session, we then also really dug into um results that we're seeing throughout the system and spent an extensive amount of time at that uh that work session talking about that. Tonight we're just going to provide a brief overview of the um work that we're doing. So, and we that's really they're all aligned to this idea, these vision goals that we have that we want each child to be we want to be on a positive trajectory each year um towards our goal of seeing each student graduate prepared for that next step in learning beyond the walls of our schools that they've discovered a spark in their interest areas. And it's always fun to hear those the stories of how kids have discovered that while they're moving their way through our high school and then having earned 12 college credits by the end of 12th grade and that we can see that uh positive trajectory towards that. in the past year, we've seen a ton of progress towards that in the past few years. So, it's been a lot of fun to see that. Um, and then with that, what we really worked on last year, got input from people throughout kind of the system and we worked with a gentleman named John Tanner and we said, what are the benefits? And this is something that we're really using is we're talking to people about this levy that we're going for this fall and how do we maintain this work and like people like what's the benefit of investing as a taxpayer in our school district? And these are the things that we really believe are valuable, rare, um, and unique about the Spring Lake Park schools. Um, and that we want to make sure that each child is known and valued. Number one, we want to be life ready when they leave our schools. We want them to be engaged um, each and every day and engaging environments um, and really discover their future paths as they move beyond us. And as we do that, we want to engage the community. And I think that's evidenced by we have over 200 community partners that are actively involved in our schools on a day-to-day basis. And then in order to do that, that's that piece about fiscal stewardship. So if we're going to really build the capability of our system to achieve this for our kids, that last part is just as we had with uh Chrisburgger here a few minutes ago is that we want to use those resources well and that's something that we're going to be working on this. So and then really that's what all these projects are. everything that we've looked at is how are we building the capability for our system to achieve this work, right? So, that's what we've really been working on. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Hope to kind of give you a snapshot for the public of what we've reviewed in more detail at our recent work session. >> Thanks, Jeff. >> Uh so, as a reminder, we've developed our portraits of readiness at key transition times in Spring Lake Park schools, and these are the measures that we report out on each year. And Jeff already mentioned this, but at our work session a couple of weeks ago, we spent quite a bit of time reviewing all of the results in depth. And so, while we won't go into the same level of detail tonight, we'll certainly be taking a look at each of those portrait measures at uh those key transition times, grade four, grade eight, and grade 12. And on this slide that you see in front of you, you can uh see what those portrait measures are for our fourth graders focused primarily on uh foundational reading and math skills, students uh starting to get to know themselves as learners. Uh we really focus on collaboration um up through fourth grade and then engaging in learning that is relevant, interesting, and meaningful. So a few highlights um again just kind of going through the things we talked about a couple weeks ago. Uh first of all, our students are reporting positive engagement in learning, especially when that learning involves at grade four movement, creativity, collaboration with peers, and hands-on projects. And um not surprisingly, we talked about 87% of our fourth graders report that they're super interested in when they're in their most engaging class. Okay. Um when we look at proficiency as measured by the NWEA measures of academic progress, more commonly known as the MAP assessment. Um in reading and math, our proficiency rates for both reading and math at grade four have remained largely stable over the past years. Um and as an example in the area of reading students when we uh look at our student group students with the fewest risk factors have maintained proficiency at about 74% um over the past three years. We'll see a graph in just a minute. Um well uh we also see an overall upward trend in the percent of students in grade four whose growth um who are growing at average or higher than average rates from fall to spring for both math and reading. So, even when those proficiency rates aren't quite where we're wanting them to be, the student growth is that uh is at that level where year-over-year we're able to see them um make progress toward those proficiency levels. Um, additionally, all of our fourth graders have learner profiles that highlight their sparks. Jeeoff just mentioned that. Um, which include things like from our fourth graders voices, soccer, reading, family and friends, dance, and math. Uh in those learner profiles, students name adults at school at our at the elementary level. They name the adults at school who care for them and care about them and can help them with whatever problems they may encounter. And it's super great to see so many of our classroom or homebased teachers being named there. But I also want to point out it goes well beyond that. students um in the spring when they took the survey in fourth grade named principles, our academic specialists, learning venture staff, paraprofessionals, front office staff, bus drivers, nurses, and others. So, there are just a large number of amazing Spring Lake Park School staff who really have a positive in uh influence and impact on our kids each day. And that's really cool. Um, we also have many examples um from our our POSSUP regular surveys we send out of positive family feedback about the them under them seeing their students feeling valued and known by the staff here known by their name, by their strength, by their interest and by their need. And um it can be easy to say, "Oh yeah, this is this tagline that we have." But hearing it direct from our parents on a monthly basis is just super meaningful. um and they share stories all the time of how their child is known and valued and so that's really encouraging. All right, here is a glimpse at our map results for grade four this past spring. Um this is specific to reading. Uh we have it disagre disagregated here by some of our student groups. Certainly not every student group that we could disagregate by. But this reminds us too when we look at that and look at their overall grade four percent proficient, it reminds us of the importance of talking about student results in multiple ways and looking at multiple data points to triangulate our data. There's a lot of nuance that would be missed here if we just reported out our overall percent of students at fourth grade that were proficient on the math reading. So, we have to dig deeper into that. Um, as you see and as you will see replicated on many of our results, um, students with fewer risk factors have a higher proficiency rate than students with more risk factors. And importantly though, I think it's it's very important to note that our when we look at growth, our students with more risk factors are showing strong growth that will get them eventually toward those grade level benchmarks. Um, as one example here at grade four, our students who receive educational benefits or um are eligible for free and reduced price lunch had a lower proficiency rate here. And when we look at that same population in growth, most of them met or exceeded their fall to spring growth target. So while they may not have had enough growth or enough time yet to reach the grade level benchmark, they are on that positive trajectory toward that. Um this gives the same view just looking at math on the measures of academic progress. And again you can see on the very right 78% of our students with the fewest risk factors proficient grade level proficiency and and you'll see again that we have lower proficiency percentages for students with more risk factors. And it's the same story. We're seeing high levels of growth for students um with more of those risk factors. So, the work we're doing on our continuum of supports and interventions is making a difference. All right, we're going to move to our portrait of an eighth grader. And this slide shows those portraits uh portrait measures again at grade eight. Um at grade eight, we expand our portrait beyond reading and math to include social studies and science. And additionally at grade 8, we start all along the way, but explicitly at our portrait at grade 8, we start looking for those next steps beyond high school as well. Um, just to support our students in their future success. Uh, and same as grade four, and you'll see it also at grade 12, we really want students to have high levels of engagement in their learning. So, a couple bullets around our grade eight results uh through our student surveys as well as interviews. um and uh different exit tickets that our teachers are doing too. We hear from our eighth graders that they are most engaged in learning when they have opportunities to have choice in their learning, when they are have when they have hands-on projects, um when they're able to collaborate with peers and when they feel like their teachers support them. Um so not all that different from grade four, but maybe a little twist on that at grade eight. Uh and similar results. Of course, our eighth graders say, um, in my most engaging class, I'm super interested in it. 87% of our kids say that, uh, our proficiency, both our proficiency and fall to spring growth rates for our grade eight students have remained largely stable. Um, uh, one area in our map growth shows we're moving toward that upward trajectory. So, that's good to see. Um, and, uh, a key element is that, uh, our kids are reporting that they are gaining skills in their own self-awareness and self-reflection which is part of being life ready right um so as uh as they as we've talked to kids and done focus groups they're recognizing hey I understand what success looks like and when I am successful and I'm taking a lot of pride in that so that was good to hear and then finally that key element of um looking ahead toward next steps after high We do a lot of preparation and that begins in 8th grade through one-toone counselor meetings. And in those meetings, our counselors get to know each student and support them in exploring their interests while they're still in middle school. And this exploration helps them select high school courses as they head into grade nine or beyond. And that might look like, I found something I'm really interested and I want to keep going. and it might look like I tried this in middle school and that helps me know I might not want to do that in my future. So that can look and sound all sorts of ways. Here are the map. Here's the map reading results. This the same graph with grade eight results um that you saw for grade four. Um we're continuing to see more students reaching proficiency at grade eight um overall proficiency at 67%. And when we compare that to our grade four prof proficiency rates, we're seeing an increase. So we have more kids hitting proficiency at grade eight than at grade four. And again, that reinforces when our students have multiple years of strong growth, they're able to make enough progress to hit those grade level proficiency targets. And math at grade eight um is here. And I just want to point out uh again we talked about some of the some of these things in more depth in a couple weeks ago, but just looking at time in Spring Lake Park schools. Um so that is the bar right to the left of all of grade 8. Okay. So we look at that we disagregate by time in SLP. So specific to grade 8 math, 41% of our students met uh grade level proficiency in math who had been in Spring Lake Park for less than four years. When we look to the right of that, our students who have been in Spring Lake Park for um four or more years, 66% are hitting proficiency. So that that just shows I mean that's one piece of data as we look at our student group groups that lets us know that's a pretty big difference between students who are just coming and joining us and students who have been here over time. All right, moving on to our portrait of a graduate. And this of course focuses on graduation and um providing opportunities for students to be prepared for whatever step is next for them after graduation. And here we again want students to engage in learning and experiences that help them identify and be successful in those next steps beyond high school. Um and we want students to be engaged all the way through graduation. um and see their work as relevant, interesting, and meaningful. Uh as we look at our results, when I flip to the next few slides, just a friendly reminder, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but for anyone who may be watching um or our group here tonight that we want to be sure we know these results reflect the class of 2024. So, it is not the class that just graduated because the Minnesota Department of Education has a one-year delay in re uh releasing graduation data. Um so, we're going to start with some of our internal data. When we look at the data related to that portrait measure of um getting that early college experience, working toward that 12 x 12, we really see a lot of positives all across the board. uh on the upper left. While uh 74% of students in the class of 2023 took at least one college credit, while at the high school, 83% of students in the class of 2024 um took at least one college credit, one class for college credit. And that is a pretty big jump over the course of a year. Uh if you go to the right of that on the top, uh when we look at students earning 12 or more college credits by the end of 12th grade, which of course we refer to as that 12 by 12, it's pretty amazing to see that nearly half of our students in the class of 2024 met that goal. Um and then when you look at the percentages on the bottom, we're really consistently seeing high percentages of students who are using those pathway courses at the high school um to explore career possibilities while they're still in high school. Um, it's just such an amazing opportunity. I know I've shared stories about my two kids doing that and I I hear stories about that over and over from families in our system. So again, 92% of the class of 2024 took at least one Pathways class and 85% took more than one Pathways class. Uh here is our grad rate data and this slide reflects you can see um in the darker blue bar the Minnesota Department of Education published graduation rate and then as we talk about this all the time we analyze it beyond the published grad rate because our high school follows up with each and every student. Um, so we do that and we work with them to create a personalized plan and despite that sometimes kids don't come back when we expect them to and then our counselors call and follow up and maybe do some home home visits to see if there's any support that's needed from there. But when you look uh at the numbers at the top, like what we call that stacked um that really reflects students who graduated in the spring of their senior year, those who needed a little more time and continued their learning throughout the summer and for some continued their learning into a fifth year and graduated then. Okay. Um these are these are all each of these beyond that MDE published rate are personalized plans that are established in partnership between students families and our high school team for as one example and I I don't have that number right in front of you but uh when we talk about grad rate I think it's good to just give a couple of examples right so one example is of our students who are eligible for special education services a number of them work with their um IEP or individualized education program team to make purposeful decisions to continue on into our transitions or thrive program which serves stu students through age 22. Students who continue purposefully in that program are counted against us in our graduation rate published by MDE. However, it's that plan that makes the most sense for the kids and best prepares them for their next step beyond high school. So, it's just something I want to remind us of as we look at our grad rate data. >> Um, I appreciate that breakout >> because I think if you just look at the published published, you don't get a real feel for what is actually happening and how much work those counselors do and the people within our schools do to track these kids down and to know that those numbers really are a lot higher and based on student need. And so I I appreciate the work that's done there. So thanks. >> Yeah, a big thanks to our high school team. >> Right. And I would just like to add is even if you went back to the two slides, when you look at the number of kids taking those college credits, there's a lot of people um it's our counselors, there's teachers that wrap around to to help these kids get there. And that's one of the things and giving feedback to MD MDE on this that it's discouraging to people who are working really hard when you do the right thing for kids. And that's up to 15 kids a year. sometimes seven kids to 15 years of kids, kids that go to our transitions program and that counts against us. That's it makes absolutely no sense because people are doing what's in the best interest of those kids. Um and I think of like when I talked to some of our elementary teachers, they work really hard with these kids and as you saw at our work session when they're looking at their local results, the assessments they're using, they're seeing the kids achieve at higher levels. um especially some of those kids that have some of those indicators where you would expect them to struggle because they have multiple opportunities multiple ways to demonstrate that learning as they're working with their individual teachers versus a one-day test on an MCA or a math assessment, right? Or maybe that they don't have that opportunity to show it. That can be discouraging when they look at that and see those results. What we want them to look at is this slide because those kids that maybe aren't showing that in fourth grade, you saw the progress they've made by eighth grade, but then by the time they're getting to high school, they're able to take advantage of these pathways classes. And that's what we want to do is not just chase the test score, but position those kids that when they get to the high school, they're ready to take advantage of these pathways classes and the college credits. And that's a whole bunch of people, counselors, teachers, um, and all the other staff that Hope mentioned repping around to help those kids to get to that point. So I think it's important to look at this slide as well as Melody how you mentioned that breakdown looking undergraduate. >> Uh okay I want to well kind of nice segue into this. Um I want to make sure that we talk about results in maybe what people view as a more non-traditional way too. And this is a these are results in these series of pictures here. Okay. Um, this last slide really aligns with the capability of engaging environments that Jeff referenced at the beginning of this presentation. Specifically, that we uh that we work to not confine learning to just classrooms. Okay. We often talk about this as what we call breaking that 2x4x6 paradigm that learning can happen and probably frequently happens outside two covers to a book, four walls to a classroom, six periods of a day. Okay, we still use two covers to a book, four walls of a classroom in six periods of a day. And that's okay. But I just wanted to share some examples too of learning that happens outside of that. Okay, so you can see in these pictures, our business and entrepreneurship students are working on marketing projects in local organizations and industries. Our opportunities in emergency care students are learning and gaining experience at community events. Our construction trade students are building a house that then is given to a family in need. Our thrive or transitions students we we just talked about are here purposefully learning job skills by running the coffee cart here at the district services center. And these are just a few of many pictures we could load slide after slide after slide all prek12 throughout our system of uh the different kinds of environments that our kids are learning in. And that's that makes me super proud. I just think that's a that's a great opportunity for our kids and really helps prepare them for whatever that next step might be. Okay, I suppose this is a great time to transition to talking about how those current results drive our efforts for continuous improvement in innovation. Um much of this work, as Jeff mentioned, is reflected in this year's district operational plan. And again, at last month's meeting, um, I stood up here and gave you a a little bit on every one of those projects. And then we spent more time talking about the deepen student engagement project last month. So, I'm not going to to repeat that, but I do just want to point out our strategic anchor of what we call engaged, enthusiastic learners really focuses on aligning the work of adults to continuously improve those personalized learning experiences to meet all of our each of our students unique and varied needs. You can see on the graphs that I showed, you know, we have different needs um of kids across the system and it's our work to continue to focus on improving and innovating to meet the needs of each of those students so they are engaging in deep learning and have success not only here in SLP but for whatever comes next. Um, next slide is still that strategic anchor and these are just explicitly the four projects on our district operational plan that fall under that anchor. Okay. And what I thought I would do tonight is get in like give you a summary of hey within these four projects here's what we've accomplished from July up until today. Um, and that would we'd be here for like another 30 minutes talking about that. Um, and that is I mean we've had teachers in um they've been working all summer when we talk about the graduation. We had a bunch of people in working summer school and summer programming. Um so there is a lot that goes into it. Um, so I will hold on that long list for tonight. And of course, as we always do as we progress through the school year, we will take time at each meeting to give you real- time updates on the work that's happening in each of these projects and the resulting impact on student learning. Okay, that brings us to the end of the presentation tonight, which in combination, as Jeff said, with last month's presentation, meets a number of reporting requirements from the Minnesota Department of Education explicitly here, our comprehensive achievement, and civic readiness. Um, I also do want to remind the board and anyone watching or listening that our full district operational plan that really goes into what's the work we're doing in each of these projects and what's the time frame for that that's available on our website and it also includes opportunities for staff, parents and families to be involved in that work. >> That's what I have. >> Great. Thanks. Any questions, comments? We did we did the deep dive in our work session and uh had a lot of questions then. So >> just just one quick comment. Yes, we've had a lot of our questions answered. So thank you for that. Um and it's important to get the numbers of course. So thank you for presenting those and breaking those down for us. But to me, it's as important, perhaps more important, to hear about, you know, we know our students learn best when they're engaged. And we know they're most engaged when they have some choice and they, you know, feel a piece of what they're learning. And so watching, you know, even from when my kids graduated, the the choice options for the kids grow and grow is is in high school is wonderful. But seeing that, you know, I made note of you talking about all the choice available in eighth grade now, and I'm I'm sure in seventh grade as well. It just keeps growing. And that is I just think that's amazing because I do think that just helps kids get more engaged and learn even better. So thank you for all of those efforts to everybody here to you and your team as you guys can continue to make those choice options available that that also still meet of course their their math and their reading and all of those things need to learn. But um the I just I and the more you know what you like the easier it is that it steps after high school. Like I think in those in my generation up here, we kind of went on to our steps after high school like fingers crossed. I hope I like this thing that I chose to study or do. And um the more that they can learn before they graduate, the better. So thank you for all of that. Um, I just wanted to I've been thinking a lot about this material since we had it in the work session and kind of like bouncing around in my head and I think where I landed is one of the things that I honed in on was once a student was with us for a period of time how successful they were able to be. So the average is important. It's our it's the middle that we are keeping track of things. But clearly when they are around our educators, when they are in our environment for an extended period of time, they have the ability to be successful and not even necessarily on the top where there are no risk factors and and what those kids um are achieving. the the group of of students when given sort of like an even or all things being equal even though they're not uh how much just the systems that are in place the education the or not the education the engagement that helps them um do well and I and I almost think that's more important than the average number because I think that shows the work that's been put into helping those kids be successful. Any comments on this side? >> Well, thanks again. I I just appreciate the time and energy put into producing this report. I know we have to do it for MDE, but um it is it every time I see this report is just enlightening. Um, I'm always finding something new that we're we're discovering and and seeing and and uh I just appreciate this report immensely, especially around the graduation because I think uh Melody hit it hit it spot on of what's reported and even Dr. Renberg, what's reported is not the full story, but that's what everybody they gravitate to right away. So, I appreciate taking the time and highlighting that and and educating those who are watching and those who are here. So, thank you. >> Thanks. >> Turning my mic off and I'm the next one up. All right, moving on to the superintendent report. >> All right, so just a few things to update you on. I think you know we're in our second week of school. Last week was a blast. I got around to each of the schools a number of times. I think I was each school at least four times in the uh past week. And this is what I saw a lot of and it's not just among our elementary kids. Um it was up through the middle school and high school. Just a lot of smiles as kids were coming to school. I did see a few preschoolers and kindergarters that were struggling without smiles um screaming for mommy. But um by this point they're in the swing of things. So we did welcome new staff. We welcomed uh about 50 new staff ac across all of our variety of job roles. So, um, along with that, it's great to welcome this many. It's also great to see a really high retention rate across the board, um, that we've had kinder camp. We had kindergarters, um, come in for three half days in August. And that, uh, I can't remember exactly, we had over 250, something like that. About 250 of our kindergarters who were able to attend that. So, we're getting more and more each year. And I think it's a great start for them to be able to have this kinder camp prior to that first day of school. All right, we had our staff kickoff. That was a blast. We had the kids singing. I mean, a number of you were able to be there at the upper left and it was just fun to get everybody there. Had a great speaker. It was just a lot of fun to uh bring people back together and kick off the year and then had a chance to celebrate um our 20, 30, and even 40 years. So, um, it's a lot of fun and a number a couple of those people I worked with way back when I was principal at Woodrest. It's kind of crazy. First day of school 2025. We just have a number of pictures to share. So, I'll just kind of roll through these and let you uh chance to look. Can't remember the last time we had so much rain on the So, one of the things that was a lot of fun is I went around the schools this year. Um, and it wasn't just at elementary schools, middle schools and high schools and seeing teachers and I sent a number of messages telling them thanks for doing this. But it's just where they were introducing themselves, taking the time for the kids to get to know them. You know, one of the things to we want to know each child by name, strength, interest, and name. Part of that is also letting them get to know you. So, it was a lot of fun to see, you know, teachers had pictures of their own kids and they the soccer team that their favorite soccer team um I don't think it was Barcelona. I can't remember who Tren's favorite soccer team was, but um you know, and then just kind of the day-to-day let's get things going. Um how to use Schooly. Saw one teacher using um doing that kind of thing. So, oh, are you on there? Oh, upper right. There you are. >> Yeah, that's like you said that then I'm like, oh, there she is, >> Mia. Mia, there you are. Yes, everybody look. Say, doesn't she look great? There you go. All right. All right. Cool thing is we had a bunch of football players getting around to the elementary schools and it was elementary schools they'd attended. So then they like I know at least at North Point they came up after they greeted the kids and said, "Can we walk around and see the school?" So it was fun to have them at elementary schools. So, and then to make sure that we have many more uh really exciting days that go well, um we've kicked off this levy and um we talked about this operating levy referendum at our August meeting. Um that's where you took action to put this on the ballot this fall and now we're spending a lot of time out sharing information, staff meetings, PTO, Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, other community groups. So, um, anybody that's watching, if they'd like to schedule a time, uh, through a presentation or, uh, have a conversation about the levy, I am happy to get out and talk with anybody because this is an important, um, vote for our community this fall. So, a lot of information um will be available to to parents and and community members in the over the next two months. And then, start your engines this Saturday. become an annual event put on by our Panther Foundation. So, um it's a lot of fun. Kids get there, get to see some big giant trucks that they bring there, but food trucks and then just a lot of fun for the the kids. That's over at the high school. Our first live on 65 for the year is on October 27th. That is it. Awesome. Well, you had me at food trucks, so I'll definitely be there for lunch. All right, moving to action items. Uh, can I get a motion for acknowledgement of gifts? So, move by Mlullen, >> second by Thank you. to approve the following resolution. Whereas, schoolboard policy 706 establishes guidelines for the acceptance of gifts to the district. And whereas Minnesota statute 465.03 03 states that a school board may accept a gift of real or personal property by the adoption of a resolution approved by twothirds of its members. Therefore, be it resolved that the school board of Spring Lake Park Schools accepts with appreciation the gifts as shown. Any comments, discussion? Say thank you to the community for their donations. It's always appreciated and and uh yes, thank you. >> I just would add that because sometimes people wonder, there's a lot more donations that come to help various school programs and activities. These are donations that just come directly to the school district and we're required by law to accept it with this um resolution. But there's a lot that come to our various booster clubs, PTO's, etc. that then help with other programs as well. Those aren't reflected here. Just wanted to point that out. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Can you please call RO? >> Yes. Miss Mlullen, >> yes. >> Miss Schmidt, >> yes. Miss Forsber, >> yes. >> Miss Kelly, yes. Mr. Vala, >> yes. >> Miss Hannon, >> yes. >> And Mr. Eastern, >> yes. >> The resolution passes on a 70 vote. >> Thank you. Okay. Moving to board forum and reports. All righty. First off, we want to welcome our student representatives. We have Mickey and Mia returns. Awesome. All right. So, who would like to start? >> I can start. Okay, >> so you guys all know me and I know so many teachers in the audience as well. Um, but yeah, a little bit about me just as a refresher. Um, right now I'm in the middle of tennis season and Panther mentors. Those are definitely two busy things. And then in the winter I do knowledge bowl and obviously student council as well. So yeah, that's about me. As for the school, not much to report yet. Um, but sports are kind of in the middle of their fall season. Um, I've enjoyed going to the football games. I missed the first one, but I went to the second one and it was super fun and I'm so excited to go to all the rest. Um, and it's my goal to go to like one event of each sport. So, I need to like get on that with the other sports. So, yeah. I like that goal. >> Mickey, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself. >> Hello. Uh my name is Vicki. I'm a junior and I'm doing full-time PSO at Ramsey Community College. Uh in throughout the year, I'm an editor for the yearbook club and in the winter I'm on the speech team and in the spring I participate in the boys volleyball team as well. And um like Mia said, it's the beginning of the school year. Not much to report on, but with our student council, we are planning our homecoming week. So, we just got done setting our decorations and posters for our homecoming dance and then our events following afterwards. So, our powder poly and the pep fest afterwards. >> Awesome. >> Sounds like fun. >> So, in that home, Can I ask a quick question about it? The homecoming dance. So, is it in the parking lot? Where is it? I'm just curious. >> Just curious. >> It will be in the same location as then, which is a high school cafeteria. Um, we decorate it and make it look really pretty and you wouldn't even know. >> I love it. Thank you for that. >> Melody, you plan on attending? >> I um No, no, only if I ask. No, I'm just kidding. >> Awesome. Are you board members, any updates? Okay. >> I don't really have an update other than just to say I have my last I said my had my last, you know, first day of school picture >> this year and have had four um sons come through the district with very different needs, very different human beings. And so I just want to say thank you guys for each one of you that has poured into them through the years, too. And just it's different being on this side of it and learning so much more about all of the back things because it seems easy as a parent to think you know what's going on and it's different and it gives me more clarity as a parent sitting on this side of it and understanding all of the processes and work that goes into make this successful for you guys but also for the kids and the administration and all of us. So I just want to say thanks and I'm it's so sad but it's so great too. So there's that. Hold up. >> I didn't listen to the AMSD meeting, but I plan to because it was a presentation by Morris Leatherman who always does surveys and those meetings are available online. So, I'm sure that they have some really interesting things to say at this time of year particularly. Um I was at a 916 meeting and we had a presentation on behavioral threat assessment and manage and suicide risk assessment and quite a bit was on the suicide assessment and uh I think it kind of tugged at all of our hearts because we had one of those board members whose children chose that path this summer. So had much more meaning than it might have had otherwise. Um also presentation on enrollment staffing and they've done a lot of work over there to move programs around and utilize spaces in a different way. And there's been waiting lists for a period of time. and those waiting lists have been greatly decreased by the the new use of space. So hopefully those um waiting lists will continue to decrease. They have 82 new staff and we reviewed the superintendent's evaluation which was very positive. So that is what I have for that. The world >> just just to provide some context for anybody that might be tuning in. Um Maryland serves as our rep to the 916 school board. The 916 school board is uh a intermediate district that serves 13 districts. We're the um farthest west one north and west and it goes all the way down to the south Washington County School District, Woodbury area um so on. And it's really the primary uh focus of 916 is to really serve those low incident high need um students primarily in special education. So that it's difficult for individual school districts to get the needs of those kids. So Marilyn um has been a longtime board member with 916 and so she often reports to the school board on that. >> Thank you. Yeah. I would also add that the new Metro Heights alternative learning is open and we will have our board meeting there on the 15th so we can see that facility. >> Where's where's the is that facility on Mississippi and >> Mississippi and University. >> Okay. >> Is that the old Target building? >> Um well haven't been there yet so I can't tell you exactly. >> To be determined. Okay. It's just I go by there every day and I saw some activity, so I was just kind of curious. >> Oh, that's probably it. >> Located. Okay, great. All right. Any other updates? >> All right. Well, let's move to adjournment. Can I get a motion? >> So move. >> So moved by Forsber, >> second by Schmidt to adjourn our meeting at 7:51. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Those opposed. Motion passes. We're adjourned. Thank you everyone.