so we're having a little bit of technical uh difficulties right now but we're going to move forward and do the best we can with what we got so that being said uh I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Columbia Heights Public School school board please if you are able rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you so much Michelle if you could would you please call do roll call I sure will uh Smith here P here rude anoir here mad here pway here Palmer here branlin here superintendent stck here thank you so much Columbia Heights Public Schools we our mission statement is creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner all belong all succeed our core values are Community Excellence collaboration Integrity respect courage and Innovation before we move on to um approval of the agenda and whatnot um I'd like to take a second and have a moment of silence for our retired Native American mentor and program coordinator Valerie Larson who passed away last week so um we'll have a brief moment of silence all right thank you all so much um moving on um can I have an approval of the agenda so moved can I get a second second all right all those in favor say I I I opposed abstained motion carries okay that is you know loud it's a little loud that's all good okay so announcements we have spring break coming up March 31st through April 7th there's no school no meetings uh April 8th at 4:45 we have the subcommittee on policy superintendent conference room uh April 8th at 5:00 pm as of right now there's subcommittee on community engagement in the community room April 8th is also our next scheduled School War meeting here in the community room and April 15th at 5:30 we have our school board work session also here in the community room uh now we're moving into communication to the board where citizens and employees are able to come in and briefly address the school board school board will listen to the brief remarks ask clarifying questions and if desired request that the administration follow up the board will not take action at this meeting on requests presented at this time and time will be limited to 3 minutes per speaker uh is there anybody here who would like to speak to the board no no all right sounds good so uh moving forward into the consent agenda our consent agenda includes the Personnel report um the calendar the policy first reading um of the legislative changes and our Schoolboard minutes can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda so move Michelle can I get a second second Jessica all those in favor say I I opposed abstained motion carries okay now for the acknowledgement of contributions as I'm waiting for to hold up okay so acknowledgement of contributions Minnesota statute 123b do2 permit school boards to quote receive for the benefit of the district requests donations or gifts for any proper purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated on that behalf the board may act as Trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district and for the benefit of pupils thereof therefore the school board of Columbia High Public Schools Independent School District number 13 resolves to accept with appreciation the $767 monetary contributions detailed in the background uh so detailed background is monetary diane. dis roach D roaches uh donated $25 to the Columbia Heights High School retired staff scholarship Bradley Miley and Philip lundine both donated $100 to the chhs retired staff scholarship Luanne p restand and Scott Hansen both donated $50 to the chhs retired staff scholarship Dean kuster donated $1,000 to the chhs retired staff scholarship Cynthia s jersa donated $50 to the chhs scholarship fund Mike SCH donated $1,000 to the chhs scholarship fund Dean and Joyce Bliss donated $2,000 to the chhs s scholarship fund the Fridley Lions Club donated $3,000 to the chhs scholarship fund and Colin Anderson and PDS Health both donated $150 to the Valley View fundr run total the total fiscal year 2024 2025 monetary contributions to date are 70 thou $ 7,858 can I get a motion to accept this resolution so moved Julie can I get a second second Michelle okay any discussion as always thank you very much to the community for supporting especially the scholarship funds um that goes to very it's um it's very well appreciated by for our students to be able to um have access to some higher education opportunities and um it's a great investment and we appreciate our community for doing that very much nicely said we are very blessed Jessica I just add that it's exciting in this season uh to see our scholarship funds getting shored up in anticipation of our uh upcoming graduates so that's fun to see so wonderful all right as this is a resolution we need a roll call vote Michelle yes um Smith hi who I madas I pway I Palmer I granin I all right motion carries thank you very much okay we'll move on to reports from members of the board um we'll start with start with you Laura youve you've got a lot I I do have a lot going on so um um I did get the uh well uh I did get the honor of being able to attend the Kasa conference um at Atlanta this past uh week um so the the it's it's the new um Consortium of school boards um that was created um when um the National School Board Association kind of broke into a couple of years back if you want to look into all the controversy and stuff it's all online um but anyway so this will be the first time I've ever attended the conference thought it was very well done very well presented um and um I had a lot of great collaboration with a lot of um you know of U of school board members from all over the state uh all over the country sorry and um and it was it was really funny you know it's like you got your little tag on and at the bottom get a little ribbon what says what state you're from and we' be talking about a subject you know be it you know trauma or um you know or or safety or you know school board or organization or you know whatever the subject was and they go oh you're from Minnesota you know Minnesota is the leader in that particular field do you know how nice that was to hear so I you know I got to brag on a lot of the things that we were doing in our school district you know our environmental um doing um you know you know the the the the going with more uh green kind of uh supports for energy and our school district uh also uh we're going to get a presentation later from our 9116 class collaborative uh group and I also spoke about a lot of the things that we're doing um for uh for the special education stuff and I invited them all to come on up and check it out so um that was great and I'm I'm super excited and there's a lot more stuff and I'm going to kind of we'll kind of roll it out I think sometimes over the next couple of months and I appreciate the time um I also attended the chair meeting prior to this one so awesome that's it all right thank you I think I managed to tighten that up a little bit I could go on for hours you know me all right Julie do you want to go next yeah um I did participate in the board work session last week um as well as participating in the Columbia academy career fair representing my my employer Clifton LaRon Allen and I just have to say that was probably the best event I've been to in a long time lot of children coming through you know these are kids that can I chose my career at the age of 13 so they were right in that in that you know deciding um age group I think and just what they're good at and what they're not good at and um they asked a lot of great questions I did run out of Swag in the first flow not realizing I was going to get 250 kids I should have bought four Bays of candy um but they they were wonderful and um interested and generally very resp respectful and I really really had fun I met some of the other um people that had come as well vendors that were set up um and they all had great responses to the to the career fair as well so I just wanted to give a shout out to hopefully we do this again next year wonderful thank you um all right Michelle we'll have you go next absolutely um if I just turn that on um so I went to go see uh Annie the musical put on by the Middle School um it was great uh I was very surprised that it was a Middle School production it was very very nice um and we have lots to look forward to next year when we hit Middle School um so I see that being in our future um I also attended last week's work session and we had a um we also held a bipac family advisory committee meeting um over at North Park last week um kind of you know kind of getting smaller still trying to build the group uh hopes and dreams to make it a district group maybe next year um since we'll be moving on to and it might be a nice transition to include um the other schools in that uh in that atmosphere so uh that's what we're working on um and I also attended the amsd and mssa uh day at the capital um yesterday seemed like it was so long ago I'm like oh that was yesterday um which was my first time going to a day at the capital um I was very nervous and and felt very insecure at a moment and then uh Jessica was there and helped me along the way I joined the frle group too we went and spoke to our um our legislators it was just a really good day um and and a great experience so I look forward to going back um and and spending more time now that the The Edge is off of uh of going so that's me thanks awesome thank you uh Karina we'll have you go next sure um we attended the work session meeting last week and just beginning the uh science of reading modules that I have access to now so thank you so much for that um that's it all right great thank you um Jessica sure thank you since the last board meeting I had the opportunity to um watch the Columbia Academy students participate in their mock trial event at the University of Minnesota we're very fortunate in this District to have mock trial opportunities at both the middle school and the high school level um and the Middle School um program is run by uplift legal Institute for teens which is run out of Maslin lop and so um the students had all been coached uh by uh volunteer attorneys and volunteer law students so it was pretty amazing to see them in a courtroom in front of a argue in front of a real federal judge so um I don't know if I would have had the wherewithal to do that as a middle schooler so that was cool to see that I was also able to see uh our students perform uh in Annie Jr uh which was great to see too we're also very fortunate to have a really great musical theater program or just overall theater program here in the district um and those kids worked really hard so kudos to everybody involved with that um I was also able to participate uh with local 710 in the National walk-in and solidarity of public education as I know U many of my fellow board me members and superintendent senic were able to do as well um Highland H held their book bash last week um where they had lots of literacy opportunities all over the school lots of free books being given away to students and their families um so that was a very fun event as well um like uh uh treasure hul and Cher grenland I also participated in the career fair at Columbia Academy um and I Echo everything Treasurer hul said about um the students being really excited and having really great questions um I too ran out of Swag and Candy uh but I I had a prize wheel they were spinning so that was maybe maybe uh too much of a a dry I had to take that back a little later a little earlier in the event but um the students really did have great questions and we were very engaged um and also just a shout out to the organization of that event because it was clear that the students had also been prepped they weren't just thrown into this environment without that opportunity so they had already thought about questions they gave the students sample questions they could ask and it was on the tail of the students participating in um interest inventories career interest inventories so that was um they had already been kind of thinking about a lot of this um in alignment with the Avid programming at the school as well so that was that was really great um and then I did attend um the amsd day at the capital yesterday uh with with director pway um and uh it was you know there hasn't been much time between this event and the MSB msba day at the capital there hasn't been a ton of movement at the legislature over those last couple of weeks um but it was helpful to hear just different perspectives on the panel discussion um in the morning and a different perspective from um uh Masa region 9 and amsd as a whole just because the legislative platform is slightly different um so that was a really good event uh director pway did great she did all of the heavy lifting meeting with our representatives in coordination with our our Fridley Partners in the afternoon um so I was glad I could attend that um and then I also attended the um Columbia height city council meeting last night as well so wonderful well thank you um for me I uh last week attended the uh work session um I had phone call with Zena and Michelle I also participated as you said in the walkin with our local union um I attended the career fair which was amazing and to be fair Julie I had um I had three bags of candy and I still ran out by the end so uh I'm not sure even four bags would have would have cut it uh my husband came with 30 things because he was also there for his job and I just shook my head that that was definitely not going to cut it so uh but again the as you had mentioned um as you both have mentioned it was a really well done event the kids had really really thoughtful questions um my husband came home and was talking about how um the kids had asked him questions he had not been asked before uh they were very thoughtful and so uh he really enjoyed it it was a lot of fun um as did I I thought it was great uh and I agree I hope that we continue to do this because it was a lot of fun and um the kids just were so interested um I also attended all of the showings of Annie Jr and the one thing that I heard time and time again was I can't believe that this is a middle school play um over and over and over every night more and more people said that um I think the most spectacular part of it for me was um the last night of the show the music did not come on for whatever reason and the main character uh had to sing solo a acapella just like yep um and it was it was really beautifully done uh and she held her own it was it was phenomenal um so kudos to everybody who worked so hard to put that together and especially to the students um they should feel really proud because it was a really great really great play um I also returned to the capital last week uh after the msba day with our um Partners schools uh who are also looking at compensatory Aid funding and the um sort of all of the challenges with that so it was great to be able to speak with Senator Kesh in that partnership with South St Paul and then I had a meeting with superintendent stenvik and then the chair meeting and now I am here so that's a lot I'm sure I forgot something always happens but we will go to superintendent report thank you uh last week last week I was able to testify alongside with our local 710 president Daniel honig um before the education finance committee in support of a bill that would remedy the um calculations for compensatory Aid um I have been checking in on our new boys volleyball team and the excitement is building um just a reminder that April 16 we're hosting an inaugural season event um and that is before the varsity game in the main gym at the high school uh today assistant superintendent nway and I met with the local clergy group um and I really appreciate the local the collaboration and support of our local faith-based organizations we had um I provided some updates and we talked about opportunities for collaboration they talked about bringing back the prayer be breakfast maybe calling it a peace breakfast at this time some of you have may have been to that and remember that um so lots of things in the works they do a lot to support our schools um including volunteering for every meal reading with students do you know donations of U winter coats and things like that so very excited um last week as um I attended the Minnesota of Association Masa Minnesota Association of school administrators uh board meeting as the one of the region n reps um I also attended the um Masa conference and one thing I'll share out is that the keynote speaker's name was John Garrett and he encouraged leaders to understand and seek out and value um the outside interests and passions that your that staff members have um and he wrote a book called what is your and so he is um he works in the finance world and he's a comedian so I thought member who would find that interesting but everyone might find that interesting so there's everyone's Dynamic right well-rounded thank you all right thank you so much for that and then we'll move to our student Representatives so ATA uh since the last school board meeting I um attended and participated in the South St Paul speech tournament um this is my first time going to that tournament it's very interesting to see um the school and the structure cuz it's a very like old school so they had like pictures of like the class of 1912 and stuff wow um and then I also attended the rosebowl speech tournament it's my second year attending it and it's one of the biggest tournaments so it's very interesting seeing like a lot of schools in the Minnesota and tri metro area I also attended and participated in the U ofm um scrimmage for high schoolers at the UFM Fieldhouse it very interesting uh to see schools we don't usually compete with during the regular season so it's very nice um I also attended the CHS speech showcase um because of my category I don't get to usually see my teammates pieces so it was a nice Showcase of everyone's hard work throughout the season um and I also watched Annie Jr and that's one of my favorite films so it's very nice to see the middle school is he did such a good job wonderful thank you now to put you on the spot the are we talking about the 80s version of Annie or the '90s 2000s version the newer one the newer one yeah I mean I won't hold it against you just kidding no thank you very much for that that's great um okay so next up we have um uh we you have sorry Scott Thomas and David havan who are here tonight to present on our collaboration with Northeast Metro 916 Intermediate School District perfect okay sounds good thank you sorry about that uh thank you so much for being here tonight well thank you chair and superintendent stenvik thank you for the invitation members of the board and of course uh director Palmer thank you for your service on 99116 uh my name is Scott Thomas I'm the director of ed services which means it's kind of a nebulous title but I support our general education programs our ALCS career in Tech uh care and treatment as well as teaching learning and I am Dave havan it's good to be here tonight I'm the executive director of special services so um I I'm a new position as of last year so as Dan nit is working his way toward retirement which will be at the end of this year they brought me on a year early to start taking over the special education programs and the like that fall under that umbrella of special services so it's great to be here tonight and uh our superintendent Dr Val B sense her regards she had a family emergency she had to take care of and so we are glad to be here uh with her in spirit so I'll begin by just giving some background and context to Intermediate School Districts for those of you who don't know because a lot of people don't know about Intermediate School Districts um but there are four of them in the metro area kind of in the four quadrants as I do my little hand motion here um and we are of course the north and east Metro there are the other regions as well um you'll see that the larger districts like in okah hennipin Minneapolis St Paul um um rosan Val Ean are not part of intermediate school districts because we are an economy of scale we provide services that smaller districts um find inefficient to do on their own and so with our 13 members we really determine what is the programming that we offer to meet your needs and so they're very tailored to that um and so across the Metro there are approximately 20,000 students served in Intermediate School District districts in 916 we began in 1969 uh before my time uh with six districts not to give a plug for how young I am or how old but um but you can see the original districts located there uh listed in green and this is the map of our 13 member districts and it is enormous so we do cover a lot of territory um with districts all over uh north and east Metro last year according to our annual report we served uh almost 5,800 students uh across all of our 17 programs you can see the numbers almost 2,000 in our area Learning Centers 1,200 in our Career and Technical career and tech center 571 in special education 251 in care and treatment we have two care and treatment facilities and uh 1,7 81 in home districts through this specialized staff that we employ and send out into your districts and this year's enrollment uh we are currently serving 2004 students and last year that number was 1,975 so our enrollment has grown uh mostly we've seen that growth at our career in tech center and this just breaks it down a little bit further uh so about 20% of uh the enrollment by service area is special education 25% is Alternative Learning Centers or air Learning Centers 6% uh care and treatment and by the way this is uh this is this their this is I think their number right this I believe is overall overall okay yeah um Credit Recovery which is um oftentimes referred to as night school and then career and Tech half of our population and then uh lastly this bit of our overview um the Columbia Heights enr in programs you'll see that 74% of the students that we serve for Columbia Heights are in our ALC at Metro Heights uh 21.9 in special education and 5.7 in career and Tech all right so we'll pivot over to me and the special IDE of the house for just a little bit and so of the programs that Scott was mentioning a few minutes ago seven of our programs are in the special ed realm so we have two K8 buildings uh that are kind of sister programs on both sides of the twins City so carer blue is a little closer to you panalo education center is over in the Woodbury Lake Elmo area to serve that end of our region we have a middle school program called B Bel Air education center and then a high school program that's kind of the partner to that with the type of programming that goes on there and then our high school program that kind of mimics what our Ka buildings do is core education center and we will have some transition programming as well so when you look at the percentages here on in this upper box on the upper leftand part when when our with our 13 member districts combined together in one big pie your District of 3420 students make up 4% of that whole piie so as we look at the percentage of usage at 916 we're looking at that in comparison to what your percentage of is of the whole and so 6% of our special education students that are in level four programming are are coming to us from Columbia Heights so that's 25 students in the upper leftand part of that that box there career and Tech represents 1% of that but of those 11 kids that doesn't mean that those aren't students on IEPs like they might be students and likely are students on IEPs as well but they're not counted in that 25 that were in that in that box in the upper left um 9% of of your students are served with that come to us through itinerant services and then 14% uh are go to Project return or part of our consultation team Project Return is an alternative to suspension and expulsion so students can come to us for up to 45 days to have some restorative work done and to receive an education while we're there so that they're not on homebound or something like that while they're um in a situation where they're trying to restore whatever happened in back in the regular District so and then there's a stat at the bottom here with Columbia Heights having 100 students at Metro Heights Academy as well overall on the next slide here do I Advance this or do they okay thanks all right overall with fed sending 4 this is just a picture of a broader broader picture here when it comes to C right now currently we have 177% of kids who are are in Minnesota in K12 that make up uh you know students that are on IEPs and so I don't know what your percentage is here in Columbia Heights I could pull that offline somewhere and so could you but that's kind of the average right now and that's grown over the last few years I just know that about 10 years ago or so that hovered around 12 or 133% for most districts and now it's really growing in a way that probably is the same for all of you um 916 serves the top three % when it comes to the highest form of need from the districts that we serve so when you think about the students that have the greatest needs from your District that you send our way that is what we kind of serve in general when it comes to those 13 member districts um and then of course from a cost standpoint and a provision of service standpoint you guys then provide the transportation for the for the students that you send our way when you place a student in level four programming with us and then this is this is a lot of numbers here and so the reason that we mentioned some of this the the services that are mentioned here is that there are a lot of contracted services and people that come out to the member districts and I think a lot of people forget this and it's actually probably our biggest team at 9916 when it comes to the 7742 people that are working in our related service our itinerant Service uh department when it comes to people coming out I used to be one of those people as a as a a teacher of the blind visually impaired uh that worked at 917 and I was sent out to work in about four or five different member districts when I worked for 917 and work for St Paul Public Schools back in the day and so when you look through the different the different positions that are here it's like what Scott said early on in this presentation these are the types of things that are positions that you either likely can't find or don't have a full-time need or anything close to a full-time need so you buy a portion of what you need and then you work with our team to be able to to to serve the students that have that need in your District um and so you you'll see that the students served on the on the bottom here in terms of overall students that we serve as well as members and non-members but we don't serve any non-members right now when it comes to our our itinerate and related services so but 1781 service kids served when it comes to the students that we serve with this crew so and as you mentioned ed services is um that umbrella of general education which of course includes teaching learning Department uh we are the only career and tech center in the region that offers as much specialized training uh as we do and so with 1,00 students attending uh it's really an incredible place in partnership with Century College and we're excited to have more students attending um from Columbia Heights and from this side of the district as districts are working together to work out Transportation so forth um I mentioned we have two residential uh care and treatment facilities one is called Willows which is just located north of here in Blaine and that it serves uh women young girls and AIS is a day Treatment Center so we provide uh a half day of Education while the students are in a day treatment um program the other half of their day as I mentioned our three ALCS uh serving over 12200 students I want to talk about Metro Heights because that is where your students attend and uh We've really had a great partnership with Columbia Heights High School uh the leadership at the school and here in the district level um I get to partner with um Bondo nambo in particular we're close colleagues and really just working together to make the best possible experience it's a thing that we do together it's not that we come and tell you what's going to happen it's really something that we work out together and so uh we've done this for a number of years I'm not exactly sure how long uh but a long time and So currently uh today we have 71 students who come from Columbia Heights High School and uh last summer we or in summer 20123 we served 156 last summer 171 students in summer school and uh overall 262 students between summer day and night school um I also like to point out this 12% number because I'm really proud of the number of students that we have who are attending early middle college who and one of your students um is graduating the spring set to graduate this spring uh with an AA in business and we're just thrilled to um provide these opportunities to students and you know three four years ago this this number was zero and so it's about making sure that all students have access to rigor have access to opportunity and have access to those early middle college programs we're quite proud of that um we also have our students um taking the language seals test and we also um you know give credits through that as well following State guidelines um the last sentence here is funding is 100% through state aid so we do not send you a bill for our ALC it is strictly on state aid and so again economy of scale it's difficult for a smaller District to do this um without big losses and so we're able to work with multiple districts um and we get students who open enroll to us as well all right unfortunately we do send you a bill for the special ed services but but we I'm really proud of the team that we have over there at 916 we have some incredible Specialists there that can bring the services to your students or vice versa and so we would just want to thank you for the partnership when it comes to the way that we can help provide those those services and access for the students that need that uh the the direct service and support so thank you for giving us some time tonight we're happy to answer any questions that you have as big or small as they might be wonderful thank you so much um are there any questions Jessica thank you for the presentation I really appreciate the overview I just wanted to um I guess give my thanks um for the uh the annual tours that the district uh sets up and offers to board members from all of the member districts um I've had the ability to participate in a few of those um to get a a sense of um what it's like for the students and the staff uh on a daily basis and so um I was able to attend Metro Heights as part of uh one of those tours and I'll be uh going to a couple other uh sites this year so if you would just pass on that thanks to whoever responsible for organizing that I think that's a really great opportunity for us as a snapshot into the work that's being done every day so thank you and thank you for your partnership um I do just have one small question you talked about the enrollment at Metro Heights for our Columbia Heights students can you tell us kind of overall I'm sure it fluctuates but what the overall enrollment is at Metro heights yeah sure um so we really try to limit enrollment because we want to maintain you know we only so much space and so our capacity is about 22 students um and so we do of course prioritize enrollment for Columbia Heights and Spring Lake Park because you are the member districts that we serve and so enrollment is prioritized for our for your students um and then as space is available we we get a lot of open enrollment requests and so from time to time we have a wait list for those students while we continue to enroll yours sometimes um depending on how quickly they come we really try to stagger when we enroll so it's not like a daily thing we want to have a good clean start we want to onboard our students properly and so sometimes that does put students out as much as a week or two weeks um but we really work closely with your Administration to make sure that we're keeping tabs on who's where and whatnot thank you so much with the enr2 um next year for your tour I should have mentioned this uh Metro Heights will be changing locations heard that and we're thrilled because um you know the facilities matter and space matters and so we're able to we after a lot of searching able to find a location um that's actually a little bit closer to you by about a mile um right on University Avenue in what was commonly known as the old cumin building it's on the right side as you head north um kind of near Fairview near the library off of Mississippian University uh so we'll be moving there this summer and um opening in time for school so you get to see that next year welcome you all great thank you you're welcome welcome wonderful any other questions I I have a quick little one um so you you talked about itinerate students and I think I know what that means but I'm curious if you could um what do you how do you define itinerant like what does that mean I actually I was referring to itinerant staff sorry sorry if I was unclear no that's that's okay that makes sense yeah so because the needs are sprinkled about we send the the staff itinerant so they spend a lot of windshield time traveling between schools and districts yeah y awesome thank you for that glad I glad I asked um and then you know I also just want to say thank you uh I'm a child family therapist uh when I'm not in this role and so um I've had a lot of experience working with um a lot of our different uh you know the the different Special Districts that we have but I have a a great love for the work that 9916 is doing for lots of reasons so thank you appreciate that it's a pleasure to serve you yeah wonderful all right well go ahead thank you for coming I appreciate it it's very pleasure thank you for the invitation we'll see you next week yes appreciate it thanks everybody yeah thank you so much you are welcome to stay we won't hold it against you if you leave okay so moving on uh the next thing that we have is policy first reading uh the following policies are the first readings for our cycle review they are 410 Family and Medical Leave 511 School fundraising 713 Student Activity accounting 720 vending machines and 808 water safety all of these can be found on our website um and we welcome any any questions or concerns about those all right moving on to our one and only action item for this evening um as everybody here at the board table knows um and what hopefully has been communicated out to families as well is that we um as a school district and Schoolboard are very focused on the compensatory Aid discussion that's happening at the capital and um to that end uh member maderis kindly wrote up a resolution regarding the um regarding our opinions and our concerns related to that so um there's been a slight addition last minute so I will go ahead and um I'm going to read the resolution and then ask for motion and we'll discuss it after all right let me get a drink of water first everybody hang on I wasn't that longwinded I mean I sheesh no it's not that it's long I want to give it appropriate gravitas okay so this is a resolution relating to the urgent need for the legislature to address compensatory Aid certification and calculations whereas compensatory revenue is used to meet the educational needs of lowincome students through additional State allocation to advance academic achiev achievement whereas compensatory Aid facilitates stability of funding and programming and stability for students advances better educational outcomes whereas prior to 2023 2024 compensatory Aid amounts were based on information obtained through completion of free and reduced school lunch forms whereas Columbia Heights Public Schools ISD number 13 received approximately $9 million in compensatory funding from the state of Minnesota in fiscal year 2024 2025 to support the needs of the district students population whereas the shift from calculating compensatory Aid on free and reduced school lunch forms to direct certification will miss just over 900 of eligible students and reduce compensatory funding to Columbia Heights Public Schools ISD number 13 by 3.7 million for the 2025 2026 school year or approximately 1 ,000 per pupil whereas this compensatory funding is vital to serving students in advancing the mission of Columbia High Public Schools whereas a loss of $3.7 million in compensatory Aid equates appro to approximately 5% of the annual budget of Columbia Heights Public Schools and over half of the district fund balance and equates to the Personnel cost of 85% of the teachers in a single district elementary school School whereas the anticipated loss in compensatory Aid would result in budget instability and the need for significant Cuts in programs and staff positions or both which would had have irreversible and compounding detrimental impact on students and families and whereas decisions about programming and positions that impact the School District budget in 25 2025 2026 must be approved by the board prior to the end of the legislative session be it resolved by The Independent School District number 13 that the Minnesota state legislature should immediately and expediently pass and the governor sign a bill that creates a hold harmless mechanism and or a permanent solution to address a potential loss and compensatory Revenue to schools the motion for can I have a motion to adopt the resolution so mooved Laura can I get a second second second by Michelle discussion Jessica um this resolution addresses a very uh dire situation that we find ourselves in uh due to uh changes in the legislative certification and formula of compensatory Aid we had a long um and uh Lively discussion about this at the work session um um we uh as a board have uh done a lot of work uh over the last several years to um ensure that our district is in a position of uh Financial solvency um and uh our community has supported efforts through uh Levy funding increases um to allow us to um continue the good work in our schools and to ensure that our students and our families um don't have to um see programming and positions cut year after year um as a result of changes in this compensatory Aid uh certification our district would lose um as the resolution says $3.7 million next year um which would absolutely uh decimate uh our budget in the longer term so um this resolution um if passed uh doesn't have the force of of fixing that uh we look to the legislature and the governor to do that um but I do think that if we pass this resolution um it bolsters uh all of our other efforts as a district to make uh this case um we understand that there's bipartisan support uh for a solution I can hear myself talking uh for uh but we we need a solution uh soon so that we can uh make the decisions we need to make for the for the district and to let all of our uh teachers and our staff um know that they have positions for next year so um I hope that if we pass this resolution it will just help um as I said support the other efforts of our uh discussions with uh lawmakers our um Senator uh Sandra Feist who has authored uh legislation to help fix this um the efforts of our local 710 leadership of superintendent exic um to be able to say that we as a board also uh support an expedience solution so thank you thank you wad any other um I think I would just like to make sure that the public understands what this means I mean not many people I mean there are a lot of people that don't follow what goes on in in the legislature and so um superintendent stenc when we submitted in the past these forms um what was the alternative that they were supposed to they were accepting this year that they didn't accept do you know what I mean I'm trying to say this correctly what was the certification that was was supposed to be done versus taking those forms y go ahead thank you for that question so um going back several years the uh compensatory Aid was solely based on the educational benefits forms which is commonly known as the school lunch forms in the last few years um the legislature and the state have allowed a dual system so both the paper educational benefits forms and um what's called direct certification through the county and so direct certification means um people who are enrolled in things like Snap or other kind of welfare benefits so if they were already enrolled in County um programming then they would be directly certified and didn't need to fill out the paper form but the state was allowing both well now um what's set to be in place for next school year is only that direct certification and not the paper form and it turns out that a whole lot of students will be missed in that calculation um not everyone is yet in that system or might not be in that system but they would qualify for a reduced or a free lunch okay thank you good question anybody else well go ahead yeah um I think I just want to mention that it's incredible and I appreciate the board bringing forward this resolution and doing the work to create it so thank you um and I think I also just wanted to make sure that I understood that the purpose of the resolution is to bring awareness to folks around what's happening and and how the school board is looking to preemptively um address that at the legislature um but then also just so that folks have the foundational context around the potential impacts of what this means for our district yes yep that is exactly it um for context as well historically uh this school board prior to me being on it but um Laura was here for that uh they did a resolution requesting um some legislative action regarding the special education um cross subsidy deficit and so that was also on our website I believe it's probably still there and this will join I think that as well and this is just another way of saying um yes you know as board members some of us have gone up to speak to our legislators we've had our superintendent and the the president of local 710 go and testify but beyond that even though not everybody has has been able to go up in all the ways we're sending this as a as a statement to our legislator that we are all aligned in this purpose so um great question yeah and and generally speaking the more um the more districts that are also going to be putting forward some sort of a resolution the more power that it actually has I do believe that um uh when we did as a as a general rule um pretty much all the school districts put out um basically a um a um a resolution regarding special education funding and um I really do believe that that did have an impact I it didn't get us all the way there but you know a little bit was better than nothing so and at least they were more they were talking about it more aware of it and they need to be aware that when they start changing these formulas that there's real impact involved and um it may be easier to just do it that way but you're missing a whole lot you know and the hold Harless is a great way of handling it because those 900 students didn't just disappear yeah okay they didn't just leave the district you know they're still here so or you know or at least a m vast majority of them or there could be more right you know we don't know y thank you um thank you this is a beautiful resolution yes you know I want to add to this like you were saying and you know I will steal a quote from superintendent stenvik who was interviewed last week by car 11 um this funding loss isn't because our students are suddenly more wealthy um and we are not alone although we are the hardest hit in the state yes um there are over 200 districts that this impacts some of them can weather it we cannot and you know my my belief is that our fiduciary responsibility is to also say look this we will accept it when it is because of things we've done this is nothing we have done it is literally they refuse to take a paper where they've taken it before to to certify our students and provide the needs that they promised and that we promis as a school district we're asking the state legislature to really meet us where we're at and and recognize that there's lots of reasons and lots of ways to help make sure that people are getting what they need and completely taking that you know taking one of those options away is not helping our students is not helping us and we take it really we take this very seriously and it was a very very long discussion um and a very good discussion that that we had and I I'm I'm grateful for this resolution and I'm grateful for everybody who's taken time to call their legislators to those who have been able to make it to to testify to speak and all those things um and I I'm grateful for this resolution and to know that we are all um all working towards the same goal so with that it's a resolution so can I get a roll call Vote Yes um Smith I po I maderas I Petway I Palmer I gry I motion carries thank you all so much now we'll move on to board topics who has board topics me me me go ahead me okay so this is where I get to have fun so um I got to see a whole bunch of speakers when I was at when I was at um at the conference and um one of the one of the speakers that I I saw um was this uh gentleman called uh Brandon uh farbstein and um he was a student in a high school in Virginia and um he suffered from a um a uh a very rare form of War ISM so um he at 26 is only 3' n okay and um and he was incredibly and cruy bullied in school I mean bullied I mean he was getting literally death threats okay because he was different and it's completely and utterly unacceptable um but anyway um so he did um he did um some motivational speaking he went on TED talks and he thought well I'm getting y here and I'm going to be able to you know tell my story I'm going to have my space and you know people will understand where I'm at once that it actually got more cruel and no no the school district wasn't doing anything they were saying it was off a student ground even though they were taking videos in the school of him and then posting him online and he was getting harassed so he actually managed to um uh go to um and get some legislation changed to get some types of curriculum in the schools that basically were um I like to look at it as sort of like a good citizenship um is uh is not only just you know teaching the kids you know their their math and their reading and so on but teaching them how to be good citizens and to basically treat each other with respect because this should never have happened so um anyway so I thought this was absolutely great so this is a story about his journey and one of the things that um that um and I him actually I had him signed the book and my favorite quote um that that that he had there was you know diversity isn't a choice but inclusion is and I think we're doing a lot of great work here and um making sure that not only do we are we bringing everybody to the table we are making sure that they have a seat at the table and that they're seen and that seemed to be a very common theme that I had throughout this particular um conference was how incredibly valuable it is and important it is for a student and their future success simply to be seen you know and that's where I'm at so um anyway so there there was lots of other great stuff and the importance of a single individual um really caring about their students that also matters quite a bit as far as their their future success is that is that if a child knows that they have somebody that that believes in them and thech trajectory of their life you know um and that's that was B basically a common theme throughout so I I was very grateful to have that opportunity to go to kaspa and um I was a little leery about a new particular school you know School Consortium um because it's only three years old um but they really pulled it together and they're actually getting more members all the time so I expect it to be incredible and see what happens in the future oh they also do not have actual physical address their entire organization has run through Zoom meetings so um they reflect everything back everything that they they they offer um is you can kind of pick and choose they'll do supports they'll help with resolutions and uh and things like that um so we should definitely take a look at some of the um some of the different um um uh types of services that are available there and resources um that that they will they will ass ass us with so um be sure and take a look at what we get with that organization wonderful thank you um we had talked about adding that to the um work session uh agenda for our next meeting if we could do that that would be great um Julie just um have we decided whether or not we're going to have a board meeting at the end of April not yet we have not decided that yet I just want to make sure that I understand where we're at because it wasn't on on the calendar list yep correct uh superintendent senic uh a cancellation of the meeting will be in uh Friday packet if if it's cancelled and then I can also email out um to directly to board members and then it would be publicly announced as well but thank you I'm trying to yeah no appreciate that I was going to make a comment about it so thanks y yep um any other others I'm going to say it even though it's not technically appropriate all right well if there's nothing else we will adjourn this meeting at 7 o' on the button