All right, welcome everybody to the May 27th uh Columbia Heights public school board meeting. Um if you are able, please rise and join us 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. Thank you so much, Michelle. All right, Michelle, if you could, will you please call roll? Absolutely. Uh, H here, Smith, Anoir here, RDE here, Maderas here, Fedway here, Palmer here, Granland here, Superintendent Stick here. All right, thank you very much. Columbia Heights Public Schools, 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. So, tonight we are starting off with some of the best news. We get to celebrate our Highlander highlights. So, um we're going to call people up in two different sort of batches at a time. So um I think we are going to start first with uh the Athena and Oscar Ang award recipients Karolina Waldovvenos Miranda and Daniel Abiba if they are here. No is that right? Oh hang on. Mine are in I have mine I signed them and put them in the wrong order. Look at that. Sorry about that. All right. So we will have Carolina Bald Baldinos, Miranda and Daniel Biva come up for triple A as well as Elizabeth Shonbower and Laur uh Lauron Collins um our Athena award winner and Oscar award winners. So if they are here and they can come up with Mr. Henderson with Mr. Henderson. Yep. And I'll read a little blurb to the table. Right. Huh? To the table. Yes. Please come up to the table. Yes. Look y'all, I have not been doing this for often. Okay, so come on up. I've It's We're all still learning. So um so while folks are walking up, I'm going to read a little bit about um these achievements. So, we're going to start first with Karolina Baldo Baldinos Miranda and Daniel Abiba with the AAA nominees. So, um Columbia Heights High School seniors Daniel Aibba and Karolina Bald Baldino Miranda are this year's academics arts and athletics awarda nominees. Each year, high school seniors are selected for their participation in the Minnesota State High School League sponsored arts and athletics while maintaining high academic standing. They're eligible to receive a thousand scholarship and be honored at the AAA encourt ceremony at the Minnesota State High School League boys state basketball tournament in March. Uh to be eligible for the AAA award nomination, a student must be a high school senior, have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 0 or higher, participate in at least one MHSL sponsored athletic program and one arts activity program, comply with a student code of conduct, and complete the application form and submit it. So, with that, Mr. Henderson, do you want to talk a little bit about Yeah, I'll say a couple of things about uh Chair Granland, members of the board, Superintendent Sten, thank you all for having me. Uh usually quite a big group. Um, so we'll talk about our first uh two AAA award winners who are sitting to our um right, a really uh awesome award from the Minnesota State High School League. Uh, Karolina uh was recognized for obviously her high GPA, her recognition by the Minnesota State High School League in art, specifically an excellent rating in the region 5A uh festival, her involvement in speech, and her involvement in volleyball and track and field. Uh she received an allconerence award this past season from volleyball. Um and she's been just an awesome leader within our building. Um and a really great example of what a student athlete really is. Um, and then Daniel uh is recognized for this award for his high high academics, his allstate band accomplishments, and for excelling in both or all cross country, boys swim, and track and field. Uh, he received an all uh allconerence award in cross country this past year and just missed out on the state tournament there. And I think still working on hopefully making a state bid here on Wednesday and Friday. and Karolina also has an opportunity for that too in track. Um really just a great uh example of determination and hard work for over the years. Um and for Daniel in particular uh dealing with some injuries too throughout that and just coming back from that. So um two really awesome examples of student athletes and ath uh students within our building that are involved in many things while also keeping their academics up. So wonderful. Thank you. Um, Karolina and Daniel, do either of you have anything you want to share? It's time for you. It's okay. You don't have to You don't have to share a lot. You can say anything if you want. That's okay. Um, does anybody on the board do you have anything that you want to to share or to ask? Go ahead, Julie. I I get excited when we see students really achieve these kinds of awards. It's it's it's amazing how um how you take this into your adult life going forward. Either of you going to continue in a sport after high school. Do you know if you're going to like I know they have women's volleyball, they have men's vol they have all kinds of things available. Do you have any plans to continue maybe into college? You have one. Okay. Uh yeah. So I've ever since I first had my injuries, uh I always always wanted to continue in high school because I never really thought I had my chance in high uh in high school because um um because of these setbacks. But I plan to uh go to Minnesota State University, Morehead, um and in uh do division 2 athletics uh in track and cross country. That's awesome. Oh, yeah. And also uh pursue in band as well because um I just love music and I don't plan to major in it. Um but I do plan to continue it and minor in it and hopefully succeed there in in college as well. That's fantastic. Thank you. Um, I'm not typically planning to do any of my sports um after high school just because I'm entering the engineering field and I feel like that's a lot of work coming up ahead. Um, but I I definitely like my brother, he's um a freshman varsity on boys volleyball. So, I know for a fact I'm going to help him over the summer or like whenever he's off season. So, volleyball will always stick with me. My family loves volleyball. I will always play volleyball, I think, for the rest of my life. Um, and for track, um, I'm not sure as well. Um, I mean, the real aspect of track that I love is more like just working out. So, I know I'll be working out for a long time as well. Um, but coming up ahead, I'm I'm really just focused on this school part because I know it's going to take a lot out of me. I understand that. Thank you for sharing. Appreciate it. Yeah. Um, yeah, thank you both so much. Um and you know you have always been you know involved in these sports activities and and um and the you know music and all you know the arts and it's so wonderful. This is really one of the best meetings is when we get to have these conversations and to celebrate your achievements with you as well. Um Karolina, I know I've seen your art over the years at Silverwood. Um Danielle, just last week I got to hear you play your trumpet. um the song that you had composed at Silverwood, too. So, um it's really great to be able to see you all just really achieving so much and it's we couldn't be prouder of you. So, that's right. Yeah. Um Oh, sorry. Yep. Um I just wanted to echo my congratulations to you both on all of your accomplishments and achievements. And um I've also had the opportunity to um meet both of you a little bit uh in your time here in the district. And I just think that the um all of your involvement and engagement, you've been able to take that and also bring those perspectives um to um everything else you do um in our schools. I had the opportunity to have Karolina join me at at Highland a couple times volunteering over there and Daniel is able to participate in our strategic planning process for the board. And so your involvement across all of those areas um really helps um bring those perspectives forward and inform everything else that we're doing too. So congratulations again. Yeah. Wonderful. Um, so we'll have you hang out there for a second and then we will talk about our Athena winner and our Oscar award recipient. So I see that we have Elizabeth Schumpower here. Uh, so I'll read a little bit about this. So uh, Columbia Heights High School seniors Elizabeth Shar and Lauron Collins are this year's winners of the Athena Award and the Oscar Ang Award. The Athena Award is given to one senior female athlete from each participating school who has distinguished herself in special individual athletic achievement or superior achievements in one or more sports. Um, and then the Oscar Ang was a longtime educator and administrator for the Columbia Heights School District for three decades. He served as an assistant principal for a number of years and was the first athletic director at Columbia Heights public schools. This award is given to a male senior student who has exemplified hard work and excelled in athletics and academics. So with that uh director Henkis or not Henderson, sorry it, you know, nobody can hate on me too much because there was a lot of times where people were saying Kathy Kelly, Superintendent Kelly. So the first Thank you. Um, I can talk uh Lauron was not able to be here uh tonight, so I'll talk uh just briefly about him. Um, he joined us in uh the his sophomore year at Columbia Heights and he lettered in football and track and field. Uh, he received an all district award twice in football and this past year he was named the MVP of our subdist in football. Um, so not only from our school but from our whole subdist. uh he absolutely loves football. He loves the every aspect of football and it's really been a pleasure uh watching him over the years. I I really enjoy the way that he plays. Um and he does plan to continue uh playing football uh next year at the Ellsworth Community College. So exciting. He just did a signing day with us. Um I think that was last week. Wow. Two weeks ago. I don't I think it was last week. Um but unfortunately he was not able to be here with us tonight. Uh but Libby uh is our Athena winner. Excited uh for her. She's been a three sport athlete for us here at Heights in swim and dive, dance, and softball. Uh she received three honorable mentions and two allconerence awards in dance and two honorable mentions in swim and dive. Uh overall she's had 15 varsity letters in her time here and uh she's also a PSO PSO student for the past two years or one year. Two years um with a nearly 4.0 GPA. So pretty incredible stuff. Uh also a really just a great example um of a student athlete and just a leader within our building. Um and especially uh seeing her with some of those younger Highlanders that we have on some of those teams. Um, so, uh, congratulations to you all. Congratulations to you, Liby. Yeah. Um, so again, I'll open it up before I say anything else. Uh, who has some questions or Julie? Go ahead. I just um I just want to say I was at the JV meet and um timing and I saw how wonderful you were for the younger girl girls coming up and learning, you know, learning the process of competitive swimming and I just appreciated seeing you support them and I I could just see that you were going to be that Athena winner. So, I just want to thank you for that and I want you to consider um continuing swimming after high school. It's my daughter was a swimmer and I know how hard it is. The thousands of yards you swim is incredible work as well as keeping up with your academics, but it's great for your mental, you know, your mental clarity and everything. And I can see that obviously with your GPA, you kept up. So, congratulations to you because I know that's a really hard thing to do. Yeah. Does anybody else have anything that they want to add before I get to go? Okay. Um, so in the information we have, it looks like you are planning on pursuing your nursing degree. Is that correct? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Um, that's fantastic. dance. Um, yeah, I plan to like dance at Concordia, but they don't really have like a dance team. It's more just like a on the side for fun. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, well, we're really excited and proud um to see that, you know, all you've accomplished and honestly when 15 letters Did you leave any for anyone else? No, I'm just kidding. No, congratulations. That that alone is an achievement. um just and it really speaks volumes to uh to your work ethic and to you know everything that you bring to it. Like you definitely are probably very tired. Um but you know thank you for for all of this and our school is better for students like you. So thank you. um with that. So, now we get to do this really fun thing where we're all gonna take pictures. Um and Emma's going to tell us how she wants that to go. Uh and then, um then we'll talk with our next person after that. So, uh and you'll get to shake hands with the board and the directors that are here. So, we'll start here and the rest of the board and superintendent will go over by the And you get to go down and shake. Yeah. So, they're coming this way and y'all are coming up to No, no, no. They come this way. And then they'll go that way. Don't listen to me. Don't listen a little bit. [Applause] Yes. Thank you. This one. You get a photo with your certificates. Okay. So, that's what I thought. I'm just going to borrow hers. Thank you. Yes. Perfect. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Go that way. So this way [Music] shake your hand. Thank you. We did great. [Music] And now I get to make everybody come sit down just to get back up again soon. We need it. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Break it up a little bit. Okay. So now everybody's back. Um could uh Tamoy EPS eps come up with I believe uh Mr. Hollerman and Miss B. Yeah. Come on up. So super excited um to have you here. So, Columbia Heights High School senior Tamoy Eps made history, made history, y'all, as the school's first ever state speech tournament winner taking gold in poetry. Woohoo! So proud. And with that, I will pass it over to Mr. Helen and Miss Man. See if they, you know, what they want to share. Yeah. Uh, I'm Nick Hollerman and I am one of the speech coaches with, uh, Rachel Man. Uh and we're just say really excited to uh talk about uh Tamoy and his amazing accomplishment at the state speech tournament. Um it is a big deal to get to the state speech tournament. Uh only 24 students per category qualify for this out of of eight sections. Uh and then from there they compete as a normal tournament and then the top eight students go on to a final round and they compete in front of a panel of five judges uh who all score them and then from there they rank out. And so Tamoy uh after all of his final round got to the final round and um he should state that he is a two-time state qualifier. So he this is his second year going to state. He went to state last year in pros. Um and then after finally at the final round, he then uh was named the state champion in poetry. So exciting. And then I'll just add on that uh this was Tamoy's second season in speech. So you can tell he's just got a knack for public speaking and that personality and character he brings with him. Um and he actually participated in three different categories this season. So, not just achieving excellence in poetry, but was a consistent finalist in his other two categories as well. Um, and aside from placing highly at I think every single tournament he competed at, um, he was one of our speech captains this season and just such a leader and such a positive presence on our team. Um, someone who's always encouraging other speakers, bringing that positivity and just like lighting up all of the rooms. um and really celebrating not just his wins, but the team as a whole. So, we're definitely going to miss him next year because he's just embodied like the heart and soul of the speech team this year. Awesome. Um Tommoy, do you have anything you want to share with us? [Laughter] I know, right? Like not to put you on the spot. I was going to say something and then I forgot it. So, we here. But um no, it's just like it's been a really fantastic experience like being on the speech team, meeting so many different people from so many different schools and like winning a sick like it was just like a lot and I'm still sometimes I'm still thinking about it like wow I did that like but yeah. Yeah, that's that's fantastic. Um, I want to say when I saw it come across my Instagram, my Insta, uh, and I read it out loud, my son goes, "Tamoy, he's the goat." So, um, and that's very true. And then later when I saw, um, the the Insta post from I think it was the Minnesota State High School League where, um, you were very surprised and very happy and they loved that, too. And honestly, I don't think that anybody should have been surprised and certainly not you because you are really fantastic and that that shows and that comes through. Thank you. Yeah. So, um glad to celebrate with you here today. Does anybody I'll open up to the board. Oh, Asa. Yes. You were just such a great speech captain and Miss Man is right with being like so supportive of everybody and you're just so great today. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. Anybody else? All Were you gonna say something? All right. So, now I get to make everybody come up again. You get to shake hands. We'll take pictures. Um, but yes, we're so glad that you're here. So, congratulations. [Applause] So, I'll take pictures and then you'll get to go. We used to do it where you take pictures and then you'd awkwardly go over here and then go back over here. So trying new stuff. I'm a little far. It's all good. We got you. So I'm like I'm like this. I was going to say congratulations. You're welcome. Congratulations. Yes, absolutely. Congratulations. [Laughter] [Applause] So now this is the moment where I say if you would like to stay, you are more than welcome. But if you need to go, that's also okay. They're already out. They're going, you know. At least we know I said it right. Um, it's all good. Moving on, we'll go to agenda approval, adjustments, announcements. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Laura, can I get a second? Second. Jessica. All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Abstained. Motion carries. Announcements. Hang on everybody. June 10th, 6 PM, schoolboard meeting in the community room. Uh June 11th, last day of school and graduation. June 17th, we have our work session here in the community room. That starts at 5. That is a different time than it usually does. It is earlier. So, please note that if that is important um for you. And then on the 19th of June, our school district is closed. Communication to the board. Any citizen or employee may briefly address the school board. The board will listen to their brief remarks, ask clarifying questions, and if desired, request that the administration followup. The board will not take action at this meeting on requests presented at this time. Employees, students, and schoolboard members are covered by the data privacy laws, and concerns and/or complaints about either are inappropriate to address during an open forum at a public meeting. concerns and or complaints about specific students or specific employees should be addressed to the administration. Complaints about schoolboard members should be directed to the schoolboard chair and or superintendent. Um, we do have communication to the board, so please wait. We're good. All right. Moving on um to the consent agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? So move. Michelle, can I get a second? Second. Laura. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Abstained. Motion carries. Just for clarity at home, the consent agenda includes the personnel report, the um AB lease, minutes from previous meetings, and the second policy reading. Moving on, we have the acknowledgement of contributions. Okay. Much shorter than previous weeks, which is wonderful and much appreciated. Okay. Acknowledgement of contributions resolution Minnesota statute 123B.02 permits school boards to quote receive for the benefit of the district bequests, 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. End quote. Therefore, the School Board of Columbia Heights Public Schools Independent School District number 13 resolves to accept with appreciation the $2,860.35 in monetary contributions detailed in the background. Detailed background monetary the Valley View Sunshine Group donated $1,000 to the Valley View Sunshine Scholarship Fund. The Liddell Fund donated $250 to the Valley View Sunshine Scholarship Fund. Rebel donated $1,110.35 to North Park. And Jennifer Carrera donated $500 to Columbia Heights High School for teacher appreciation. The total fiscal year 2024 2025 monetary contributions to date, $182,837.54. Can I get a motion to uh approve this resolution? So moved. Julie, can I get a second? Second. Jessica, since it is a um resolution, we'll need a roll call vote. Michelle, yep. Uh I Maderas I Pway I Palmer I. Granley I. Discussion. Just a point of order for discussion. Oh yes, Jessica. Just a point of order for discussion. I mean, the motion's on the floor and we're voting, but just Okay. Motion. Motion carries. Discussion. Just for future motion. We need a discussion. Yeah. Yep. See, look. I'm still One day I will make it through a whole schoolboard meeting without screwing up the Robert's rules, everybody. Today is not that day. Okay. So, that passes. All right, we will move forward into discussion reports and information items with reports from members of the board. Uh we'll start with Laura. Okay. I don't really have a whole lot to um to uh report on. Um I attended the work study session last week. I was briefly and sadly only able to make a small portion of the um Expressions art show over at Silverwood, but as always it was amazing. And although that those that got to go out there and listen to all the bands, I only heard part of the jazz band, but they were they were so good. And um you know, and next year next year I'm going to make all days the whole time. So, um, good job to everybody, um, out there. It's such amazing artwork. And, and there was one that I thought was really nice. Um, my, uh, my kid, um, had actually made in, um, in class, one of those, uh, little side tables, and then there was a fish hanging from it on the inside of it. I just thought, I thought that was so clever. I I just absolutely loved it. So, I actually have that table in my room, you know, so now I look at it and I kind of go, "Wow, I remember this great art project with this fish hunt hanging from like chains underneath. I thought it was so beautiful." Um, that's pretty much it. Oh, I was able to review some of the curriculum out there this when prior to this meeting. That's it. Awesome. Thank you, Michelle. Yeah. Um, so I attended the family center garden party um that they had a little bit ago. It was a lot of fun. It's really hot, but it was a lot of fun. Um, I also attended last week's work session. Um, and the uh AMSD uh board meeting. Um, and I also attended the uh Silverwood uh art showcase in honor band and choir. Well, I did the um primary day. Um, so I went for the littles. Um, and it was awesome. It was great to see um like my daughter be now in that fifth grade area where we used to watch her you know either watching the older kids or be you know a little younger. So that was that was a great experience. Um and yeah it was it was a great time. That's all I have. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you Jessica. Sure. Well for better or worse I uh was not able to attend the last board meeting. So you're stuck with a longer list of updates for me because I didn't have a report at the last meeting. Um, I did however uh was able to to watch the board meeting I missed and so I saw everyone's updates including uh member Pway had mentioned that she attended the parent and child cooking class, the strawberry shortcake class that they did and I always have to mention u my attendance at those here because I just think that they do such a great job with those classes. It's a really great way to connect some of our um younger Highlanders uh with uh the different activities we have available in the district. And so, um, I'm excited to see, uh, more folks participating and signing up for those parent and child cooking classes, and I'm excited to see that they're continuing into the fall. So, that's great. Um, I was able to attend fine arts night at Highland. Uh, I also volunteered at the Valley View Carnival. I know I was slinging pizzas with uh, Chair Garland, so that was lots of fun as always. and congratulations to everybody involved with that endeavor because it is it is a it is a big big event. Um I also stopped by the local 710 reception for teacher of the year Jennifer Cahill. Uh so it was great to be able to celebrate everything that she's done for students in our district. She was also uh my uh middle child's teacher. Um, so that was cool to kind of talk to her about her time here in the district and her connection uh with my family as well. Um, I attended uh PTO meetings at both Highland and uh Columbia Academy. Um, I was able to, um, like many of you, attend scholarship night at the high school, and I really appreciated the invitation to attend both that and also the donor reception before the event to be able to talk to some of the uh, leaders and organizations that um, support our students through scholarships. So, that was really just an amazing night all around. Um and then I w did attend the um the secondary night of the expressions art show and I watched uh many of the performances and all the students did a wonderful job but I have to say a personal highlight for me was the MIMA band from Columbia Academy. They are incredible and the students look like they were having so much fun performing. So I really really really enjoyed that. Um and then uh I attended the work session last week, the policy subcommittee meeting tonight. I was able to stop by um one of our uh school field days and see the kids running around the high school track and participating in events. And I have to say, speaking of um large events that have lots of pieces that need to be organized, our uh teachers and staff do such an amazing job organizing field days for um all of our uh preK through fifth graders. Um all of the events. And then we always have um high school students that volunteer to help um lead through students through all of the stations and cheer them on. and they always are such they're just so incredible with our younger students and it's just really great to see um see that volunteerism and and kind of helping out our younger Highlanders. So that was really cool. I think that's it for me. Thank you, Chair Granland. Thank you. Uh Julie, um I missed one of the board meetings this month and but I did want to mention that I did go to scholarship night and like Jessica said and the scholarships. We're so grateful to our community. Um and just wonderful to see the achievements of these young people going up and receiving their scholarships. We hope every one of them use those scholarships. Um I also attended the work session last week and then um I did perform my duties as treasurer to review January and February's um financial treasures report and um selected samples from all different categories of expense and found everything to be in in order. So great thank you. Um, so as for me, I uh since the last time we met, I also attended the work session. Prior to that, I signed some diplomas with Superintendent Stenvik, which was delightful. Um, I also had phone calls and um, exchanged messages with uh, Senator Kunesh, who is our senator and also chair of the Senate Education Finance Committee um, to talk about, you know, where things are at. uh and to again remind her although she knows and is very very much in support of us um uh the funding piece with compensatory aid. Um, I also attended the expressions uh art uh at Silverwood and that was it was so wonderful and um my you know it was great to see the kids there, you know, doing a song from Annie and then the bands playing and uh Daniel Abiba had his original song that he had written that they played and it was just so fantastic um to be around all of that art uh music you know uh pottery and uh you know pictures and paintings as well. So our it never fails to delight me to see how um how creative and inspired our students are in the work that they do is just amazing. So um and then I had the I I signed more diplomas today. Um which is a fantastic problem to have and I love it. Uh I had the chair meeting prior to this as well as the policy meeting. Um I also had a chance to look at some of our curriculum that was here um for the public prior to this meeting. And I also was able to speak with a student about uh some concerns and questions that they had about AP classes moving forward. So, and was able to allay some of her some of their concerns. So, uh moving on to superintendent report and correspondence. Superintendent Steenic. Thank you, Chair Granland. Um, I've had multiple meetings with our student schoolboard representatives and they're going to be presenting some information next. Um, I completed the joint school visits with our teacher union president Hoigs. We visited together um, classrooms and programs at all five schools. Have not made it yet to the family center, but that's that's next. Um, I met with principal Burkus and incoming principal Sherk as part of their succession planning. And there will be a summer uh this group this summer there'll be a group of Columbia Academy um staff that will get together to help collectively plan for the school year. Um I participated in the graduation ceremony for our classes parapadres which is a parent class that ran for about nine weeks. Um so it was really exciting to have all the families and children and parents and parents walking across the stage receiving their certificate. Um, and as mentioned, the expressions art show this year was outstanding, and I just want to thank the heighten the arts committee who worked so hard to put all that together. Thanks. All right. Thank you. And now we will move into the report from our student schoolboard representatives. And we're doing things a little bit different. And they are going to give us a presentation. Uh, greetings, Chair Granlin, members of the board, and superintendent Stemvic. Today, we have an update for you guys. Our mission, All Belong, all succeed, creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. This presentation has all of our core values included. This is anformational pre presentation. There is no governance to follow. Um this presentation includes um all belong student relationships for our vision 2030 um 1A students will have values included at every level allowing them to grow self- advocacy and leadership skills. We met with Columbia Heights Public School student leaders in grades 2 through 12 and asked, "What do you most value about your school? What time of day at school do you most enjoy? What changes would you like to see at your school? What are your top school related issues? And what matter most to you about your school?" Uh we met with value view who had 35 students engag in grades three through five and what they value is kind people amazing staff and students was a quote for one of from one of the students specialists math silent reading time and recess and something they wanted to note was that value students collected nearly $2,000 to donate to Sikka. Wow. Their recommendations for change were to remove the requirement for uniforms, improve the playground, involve students in planning lunch menus, improve the student bathrooms, and extend recess. Of course, uh what matters most to the students of Valley View is uh removing the requirement for uniforms, improving the playground, and improving the student bathrooms. At Highland, we have met with 15 students in grades 2 through 4. Their values were math and reading projects, outside activities for science, gym, connections with teachers, and friendships, and making gifts for parents. Their recommendations for change were to have recess before lunch rather than after, increase safe play at recess, when the weather is nice, they would like to be able to eat outside, more free time, and less phone usage. What matters most to them is connection with teachers and friends. Highlander of the month which shows the values that are discussed at the school assemblies and are chosen by teachers. North Park School for Innovation. What they value is teachers and how they care for their students. Their STEM focused curriculum with math and science environment. how they focus on taking care of nature and their biodigtor. They're one of the only they are the only school in the country to have a biodigtor and their projects in specialists like art which feature a lot of creativity. Their recommendations for change were less testing and more projects, giving leadership jobs to the kids, no more hallway passes and just going when you want to. We let students pick Highlander of the month and more field trips. What matters most to the students at North Park School for Innovation was caring for the earth, learning how the plants grow and utilizing their biodigtor, how creative they can be in different specialists in class, and how the whole community cares about them, which is a specific quote from a student. At Columbia Academy, we met with seven students in grades six through eight. What they valued most is after school programs like sports and activities, number of course offerings like engineering, diverse student bodies, breakfast and lunch options, student council web, AVID and career fairs, and different community events. Their recommendations for change were that they were concerned by the cost of uniforms and extracurriculars, more options in colorway choices regarding hijabs and pants, more access to their cell phones, and improving the process for getting lunch, letting more students go at a time, higher number of cold lunches, a lunch pass to the library, bringing back more water cups, and increasing portion size of lunch. What matters most to them is allowing black pants with the uniforms and the prices for activities, uniforms, and supplies. We met with 14 students at Columbia Heights High School. And what they value the most is PSO and take and being able to stack AP classes in ARCC, which is an NOA Ramsey Community College, ELA and the math department. a wide variety of activities and course offerings and how no one gets turned away band and the variety of instruments provided the schedule two days and four blocks a day Chromebooks and working/arning digitally allows for more organization. Their recommendations for change were most post-secary resources including college counselors, update and add more equipment and sports, more social workers, access to more sites on Chromebooks and better Wi-Fi schoolwide and education about vaping and eliminating vaping in school. What matters most to CHH as students was upgrading the Chromebooks more often, increasing communication about events, activities, and district news, post-secondary support planning and counselors, and more support staff, including social workers, therapists, and psychologists. Our next steps, we will connect with Principal W on the high school topics. We will work with Superintendent Stenvik to address the topics at the other schools and we will send a welcome back to school letter in September to all the students and inform the students of the topics we are working on. That concludes our presentation. Thank you. Ah, thank you. Um, yep. So that was really fantastic. So, uh, board members, what questions do we have? Michelle, I wanted to applaud for I know, right? Like, I think we should to be fair, you guys did a great job with that and you had less technology problems than a lot of the adults that come up. So, I'm just saying like I think including myself. No, I just wanted to say uh thank you for that. It was very informative. Um, you know, our schools all have their own identities, right? I mean, we're in the same district, but they all have their own thing that they do. And, uh, it's really nice to hear all of, you know, their perspectives, you know, in one place and see them all kind of come together. It's so funny to me how they all had very serious and real things that they wanted, but they also had some, you know, some surface things that, you know, that they probably know we can't change for them. But um I like that they still felt comfortable enough to share that and and uh get it to us. But thank you guys for doing that. It seems like it was a a more fun day than a work day. I'm hoping so. I hope you had a lot of fun doing that and and thank you for following up um and letting them know that their voices matter. That is so important. So um I appreciate your work. Thank you, Jessica. Excellent presentation. Thank you very much. Um, I am so glad that you got to get out into our school buildings across the district and talk to our students. And I was just wondering if maybe you could share a little bit with us about like what that experience was like. Um, you know, asking the students those questions and um, summarizing the things that they told you. Yeah. So, having two student schoolboard members is great because uh, both me and Atan missed one of the days, but we were able to fill in for each other. So I talked to Highland Valley View and the high school and it was the with the high school they're like really serious with lots of like intense topics and then the elementary schoolers are like kind of serious but also very silly. Um I really enjoyed getting to see the other elementary schools cuz I went to North Park so I never really had a chance to go to see Valley View or Highland. Um, and it was really nice to hear what the students had to say. They all were very passionate about what they wanted to say and what they wanted us to know. So, it was nice to go out there and hear directly from them. Thank you. Yeah, Julie. I do. I I just want to say I really appreciate the little study you did on this is you know when it comes down to it. We're looking at our student body and finding out is there a way we can help them achieve some of these things that they feel are missing in their school or areas where they want more of. So I noticed the theme of connection in in most of the schools was to be connected with friends and um I I think that you know those are things that hopefully those topics can come back and um can be discussed by administration and how we can possibly come up with ways to help the students achieve those suggestions that they made. So thank you for doing that. It was that's really great to hear. Thank you. Laura, um I this was amazing. I I I was so excited when I saw your saw the theme of your presentation here, you know, because this is really this is really what we we were we were hoping that we'd be um you'd be able to to to bring to the board and and help us to have that connection that we just don't have without your help. And I appreciate that a lot because I think coming from you and engaging these students is is is a lot more um I I think that they can they they'll be able to identify with you a lot more than they can identify with any of us. Um so and I and I love the idea of eating outside if the weather is nice. I like could totally get on board with that one. You know, I mean what a great way to spend the afternoon. So, a lot of these are um are uh pretty reasonable asks and I don't know how well they would work into, you know, into a new philosophy, but being able to to bring those forward and see if there's something that can be done for it is is is a great way of connecting with the students and making sure their voices matter. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I want to say um I loved that uh there was sort of a throughine as Julia said about connection and um I especially loved you know you know a couple of the things that stuck with me was obviously that there's a lot of the community cares about me, my teachers care about me. Um, and that is exactly what we want to hear. And we want students to walk through the door and feel connected and to feel like this is a safe place where people care about them. And so I'm really glad that that came through. Um, I have to laugh about the the uniforms because I have heard it for lots of years because my kids went to Valley View and then CA like everybody. Um, a lot of our students do. So, uh, that I chuckled. Um, I know that that's always a thing that students are concerned about. I did notice that I think by the time they got maybe to CA, they were just it it's just a thing that happens just uniforms happen like, you know, so less less concern there. Um, the I also really loved that CA talked about the career fair, especially since that is something that was just done for the very first time. So to see that that was something that they really liked and was a positive I think just shows how um how important that is uh and I am sure that that feedback has been given already to um assistant superintendent Namboy um but it's again it's wonderful to see and to hear that the students also found a lot of value in those things and that helps us um you know no decisions about us without us and this is you you guys are in the front lines in doing that work and helping bring that voice. So, we appreciate it. Um, if possible, Superintendent, can we get this presentation in our packet on Friday? Sure. Thank you. Um, is there anything else anybody would like to add? Go ahead. Well, I just I just think it's funny about the uniforms. When I first started on the board, it was the big rush was let's get uniforms in the school and everybody wants to have uniforms. So, so it's it's kind of funny to see this full kind of full circle as kind of as as it es and it flows here. I personally like the uniforms because I didn't have to go figure out how to buy school clothes when they were growing so fast overnight, you know, but um but I can understand how students want to have individuality. Yeah. And I will say one thing that I heard um last summer when I was out talking to folks in our community is I came across a former board member and he had said the idea at the time for having um uniforms at the middle school is because we are all coming from three different elementaryaries and everybody's feeding into the same place and it's a really easy way for for kids to feel connected right away because they're all coming in and wearing the same thing and it's a new place for everybody. And that was really a lot of the the idea behind it. And I can see that makes a lot of sense. Um and so I think that and I never had that on the same team. All on the same team. That was that was the theme. Yeah. So um but thank you both so much for that for for bringing us this. So thank you guys. Did you have one more? Wait, one more. I thought it was interesting that the high school pointed out vaping and um phone use or electronic use. Um hopefully there's something, you know, we're seeing other districts having um their high schoolers are also mentioning those things as being some issues in the school. And so hopefully that's something that can be addressed as well. So I I love that we had some really positive things and some things we can improve on. Yep. Excellent. Excellent report. Yep. Thank you both. Thank you. All right. Next, we have uh a presentation on AVID with lots of people. Um Miss Hedon, uh Miss Menddees Chambra, Chamba, sorry. uh our Columbia Heights High School senior student, um Miss Gartner with teacher teaching and learning. Okay. Hi. Hi. Welcome. Uh good evening, Chair Granland, members of the board and superintendent Senvic. I'm here this evening with Darcy Haden, who's a high school teacher at Columbia Heights High School, um teaching math and AVID. And we're also here with a student, Fernanda Mendes, who's going to share a little bit more about her experience. Um and we are here with an AVID program update. So, our mission in Columbia Heights Public Schools of creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner, all belong, all succeed. And our presentation tonight aligns with all of our core values, um, which are also aligned with the board of education equity statement. This is anformational presentation with no governance. Um, so AVID's mission is closely aligned with our own mission in Columbia Heights. So, AVID's mission is to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college and career readiness and success in a global society. That part got cut off when we downloaded this. Um, and AVID is not just in Columbia Heights Public Schools. It's an organization that is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year. Um, it started in one classroom in California. Um, and has since spread to be an education nonprofit that is in over 8,000 schools across the country, um, and in Canada and Australia. So, um, we're talking about AVID and Columbia Heights, but it is a larger organization as well. So, AVID in Columbia Heights started in 2008 with one class at the high school. Um, we've now expanded quite a bit. So, we have eight sections of the AVID elective. Um, two sections at each grade level in grades 9 through 12. Um, and then we also have the AVID elective at Columbia Academy. So we had two sections this year of sixth seventh grade, one section of seventh grade and two sections of eighth grade. Um and then in addition to that AVID elective that students participate in, teachers are also using AVID strategies um schoolwide. And then at Valley View, North Park, and Highland, um again, AVID is schoolwide, so there's not like a special AVID class or group, but teachers are using AVID strategies um throughout the day in all classes. Um AVID and Columbia Heights is funded by the Achievement and Integration Program. Um, so some highlights about AVID. Um, and I was happy to see it show up on the list from students. Also, um, AVID provides students with a comprehensive curriculum that's grounded in Wicker. Um, AVID is big on acronyms. So Wicker stands for writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading. Um, and students in the AVID elective um, have group tutoring, college campus visits, and career exploration opportunities. Um, and we also have data that shows that students who are enrolled in the AVID elective have higher attendance rates, increased enrollment in rigorous coursework, and higher um, high school graduation rates and acceptance to end enrollment in post-secary opportunities. So, some updates about AVID at Columbia Academy. Um, again, we had two sixth grade, one 7th, and two eighth grade sections. We had a total of 109 students in the AVID elective at CA this year. Um and again higher overall rates of attendance and participation in honors and advanced courses. Um a highlight this year was that they participated in finance park through junior achievement. So that has a curriculum that goes along with it and then culminates in a field trip where students have a full day kind of immersive experience where they learn about money and have a job assigned to them and there's a mayor. Um so that they named as a highlight this year. Um and then we were also able um a a silver lining of the the redact requirements for elementary were that we were really able to focus on um some secondary AVID professional development this year. Um so all Columbia Academy teachers who are not completing redact required training um were able to participate in four days of AVID training. So they had um four days of academic language and literacy assetbased instruction for all classrooms. Um and then on the afternoons of those inservice days had application time to right away start planning for how they were going to implement their AVID learning. So some pictures of that um field trip to Finance Park. Um they even get to practice being parents and seeing the financial implications of that. So um yeah, it was a a fun and exciting day. All right. And then some updates about AVID at Columbia Heights High School. So again, two sections at each grade level. We had a total of 186 students in the AVID elective this year. Um there was a really strong AVID site team that met uh monthly around their schoolwide goals of post-secondary readiness, community activities, and academic language and literacy. Um students took uh field trips for college visits to several institutions including Minnesota State University, Mano, the University of Wisconsin Oclair, St. Cloud State, uh University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and Dunwy. uh AVID 11 and 12 students had the opportunity to attend a national college fair and then our high school teachers also participated in that AVID um training. We had two separate groups. We had facilitators with the high school and facilitators with Columbia Academy teachers. Um so again over those foreign service days they were able to participate in professional development around academic language and literacy. So we got some photos from some of the um field trips that they took. I think that might be a student we saw earlier in one of the pictures there. There's some photos from oh again another student that we saw earlier. Um 11th and 12th grade students at the national college fair. Um and then AVID 11 students also participated in an ementor program with United Health Group. So they virtually met with a mentor throughout the year um and then had the opportunity to actually go to United Health, meet their mentor in person and take a tour of the facilities there. I'm gonna pass it to Miss Haden to share some information about our seniors. All right. Good evening, Chair Granlin. Hello, school board members. Good evening, Superintendent, sorry, Superintendent Senvic. Um, thank you for having us here tonight. So, we are kind of wrapping up the school year. We spent a lot of time this year getting everyone ready to apply to college and well, really just talking about all different aspects of what to expect in the fall. So, one of the traditions that we passed down from the the seniors to who's coming next, we take these senior photographs and if you're ever in the high school, swing by the AVID room and you can check out the senior wall. So, those pictures that are currently there will soon be replaced with all of these pictures. And these students were very excited about grabbing their flag early, taking their picture early. So, this is what we have so far, but we have a lot more to come. And part of what we do, we apply to a lot of scholarships. In the fall, we apply to a lot of schools. So, just an update. So far, this was as of last week on I think Friday is when I updated. So, so far seniors have applied to 232 college scholarships and counting and over about $2.3 million in scholarships thus thus far. So, and that is not including the FAFSA or the DREAM Act. All right. And with that, I will pass it over to one of our exemplar AVID students. Um, she is a future Auggie. She is a Wallen scholar. Um, and her name is Fernanda Menddees Chamba. Um, good evening members of the school more. Thanks for having me today. And this is like a small presentation about me. So um I came from Ecuador three years ago. Um I am the only child of my family. I live here with my parents and um I grew up with nine cousin and I always enjoy singing and belong to the choir school since I was five years old. uh part of my school educa high school high school education is like right now I'm a senior here at CHHS and my favorite classes were choir and in English and least favorite classes were health and math. Um, some activities that I did through all my three years in here with was theater, speech, soccer, lacrosse, kick club, and this year I got a job as well. Um, some shout outs with to my parents uh who always are supporting me to achieve my goals as well as my family that is in Ecuador. But we always keep in contact keep in touch with them and my teachers who always supported me and pushing me out of my comfort zone and uh they always told me like uh when I came here I didn't know any English at all. So they always pushed me to that not knowing English wasn't a barrier to try some new activities to open up to know get to know people and uh it made me feel more comfortable being here in the country and my first high school in the USA. So it was like a nice experience having all these people supporting me and yeah and how Avid has helped me. Um well they actually helped me a lot because uh in Ecuador it's like a totally different thing college and stuff like that. So I didn't know anything about a college in here. I thought it was something like look for a college pick register for that and that's it. But I was wrong totally wrong. And then it help Avid uh taught me about a lot of college like what things to look in a good college. Um they prepared me for the SAT, the ACT. Um they also like pushed me to apply to a lot of scholarships. And uh one of the most important to me was like the smart goals because like I realized how powerful is like when you write down goals. And I remember this activity that we have in AVID like at the beginning of every year we write down some goals that we want to achieve through the high school year. So and then at the end of the year they gave us back this sheet of paper with all our goals and I was and it was just satisfaction when I saw that I I did many of these goals. I achieved all of these and it was like a good experience for me and problem solving. When we get to the TRF, the tutorials and we get a chance with our peers to work in homework and to help each other and also learn from other classrooms that we have like um environmental science, arcc classes, AP classes and we help each other together. And also like volunteering um where I feel like I learned a lot of things doing volunteering and also Abby helped me to stay organized with all my folders for each class and also important to learn how to take notes. So I know in college it's really important. Uh my plans for the next four years is hopefully obtain my bachelor's degree and uh hopefully um right now I'm undecided in what I what what I want to major in but one of my options are like music or business administration and my other goal was to buy a nice car. Sorry. Uh, some things is in my buck at least. The most important to me is like hopefully I learn to speak Portuguese. Um, travel to Argentina and um hopefully I can travel to Ecuador and see my family. uh some strengths and skills that I developed through all these years it's I consider myself a good singer good at sports uh good listener listen listener as well uh I got a lot of discipline persistence and attention to detail and things that I enjoy again singing as my passion uh playing guitar exploring new new places and going to Buffett. Well, thank you. Thank you for your time. That's the end of my presentation. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Um board members, do you have any questions, comments for our AVID update, Jessica? Thank you very much for the presentation. And Fernanda, thank you for being here. I think it's so awesome to be able to hear firsthand from a student um and hear how the AVID program has um helped you um hone in on, you know, your skills and your goals and be able to, you know, see the accomplishment as you check those goals off. I think that's that's wonderful. Um we've had AVID presentations in the past and at least in my time on the board, we haven't had a student as part of that presentation. So it just thank you for being making the time to be here and share that experience with us. Um Chair Granley, I do have a couple of questions though if I can just continue for the other presenters. Um so just a couple things. Uh I'm just interested in learning a little bit more about um AVID sort of across the different levels in the district. Um, and one um, common piece you talked about sort of a shared academic language. And I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about sort of I guess the connection between that shared academic language um, throughout AVID and then as you're preparing students for like post-secary careers, like how some of that shared language um, like how do you connect students with bringing that shared academic language into a post-secondary environment if that makes sense? anything about the PD that you have? I I guess put another way, I think like there's a certain there's a certain like knowledge, right, about what it means to go to college, attend college, like navigate the college environment. And I know AVID does a lot to prepare students for um you know functioning organization um that shared academic language in that context. So just trying to understand So the the four days of professional development that um staff engaged in around academic language and literacy was really about creating common language structures for students across classes. So things like how do we have um common sentence frames? How do we start class with a scholar starter that engages students in all four domains of language. Um so really creating some common practices that students would then see to support language um across content areas. So that was really the focus of the professional development. And then also within the AVID elective there is a lot of building of opportunity knowledge of um as Fernando was saying like what does it mean to go through a college application process and what are the skills that you need to have in order to be ready to go study for a test. Um and I don't know if you want to share anything more about like the AVID elective component of opportunity knowledge and um um kind of like like tutorials. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so yeah, we we do uh tutorials like Fernanda said and that's kind of that's that helps to develop those study skills like okay, so here's what I know about my question. Uh here here was what my question was in the first place. Um I know I can work it up to this step and then I get stuck here. So then we all just kind of collaborate on that piece. Um and then yeah, just try to work to get to the answer to that question. Um, and with those things, you know, like the your paragraph essays. We spend the fall writing those essays for those college applications. Um, we focus on writing schol um essays for the local scholarship applications. So we do really focus on that writing piece and we spend a lot of time with the application process and we we did implement some of those um uh some of those strategies things like socratic seminar um from that training and the what's the the two lines lines of communication lines of communication there we go so we implement some of those strategies within the AVID class great thank you so much um and then I also just had a question about um incorporation of AVID you know, across the elementary schools and how do we talk about um those AVID strategies or what our students are learning with um parents and families of elementary schoolers? Yeah. Um so, at the elementary level, a lot of it is around organization, right? So, how do you use a planner and kind of get used to um looking ahead and setting goals? Um so, the planner, I think at most of our schools, is something that goes back and forth between home and school. Um sometimes it's a folder depending on the grade level. Um, so that is something that is shared with parents. Um, and then, um, with our new witten wisdom curriculum, there's actually a lot of AVID pieces that are built in. And that was actually something we talked about today is that we really need to to point out when those strategies are AVID strategies. So, they're doing Socratic seminars and taking notes and um, just calling out that those those are AVID also. So, great. Um, and then you mentioned um the, uh, impressive number of scholarships that the AVID students are applying for. Can you tell us a little bit about um how we how the AVID program supports students in applying for those scholarships? So, we I have posted um some databases that help out with scholarships. Um so, that's that's a big place that I go to. I tell them once they're more focused in on what school they want to go to, they should go directly to the source, go to your school, check out what opportunities exist there. Um, and let's see, we also we do spend a lot of time writing that essay for the local scholarship. Um, and I think we had let's see, did we we had talked about also for next year um hopefully doing some kind of fair like with college representatives present who can also help us with that as well. Great. Thank you so much. Um, what else did I have? U, I guess no other questions. I just wanted to say that, um, I have really appreciated as a parent seeing, uh, some of those AVID strategies taught to, um, two of my three kids so far going through the schools here, especially around like organization and breaking down projects. And um I've seen that uh with my current elementary schooler, but I also currently have a seventh grader who's in AVID. Um and being able to see um his growth across those things um in his time in AVID has been really really wonderful. So thank you for all of the work that goes into um training and and implementing that program. Thank you. Thank you, Julie. So Fernanda, I really enjoyed your presentation. Um, it reminds me of of, you know, when you think about the most successful people in the world, they all have smart goals. They all write them down. A lot of times they have a vision board where they lay out exactly what they want to do in their life and put those pictures up so that every day it reminds them that's what I'm trying to get to. And so I'm excited that you involved with the AVID program because it sounds like that's exactly what they're helping you do and lay out that vision as well as you know just making you overall successful just by applying those tools that you learned. So I just want you to know that that is a big deal to lay that out for yourself and and keep it in front of you. Don't put it away once you lay down your smart goals. You don't put it away and never look at it because you won't achieve it. You got to have it in front of you. And that little presentation can be your vision board. I just wanted to say that because it's I I've done my own research in that area and and I think it's it's a excellent program and I'm glad you're a part of it. Yeah. Um thank you very much for the presentation. I think it's fantastic. And Miss Gartner, I remember when um AVID expanded to Valley View. Um and it's wonderful to see how how it's grown and expanded within our school community and knowing that we were really sort of on the forefront of that. Um having it in our in elementary schools um and knowing that now it is not only just national, it is international. Um and so thank you for your work with that. um and making it accessible for all of our students. Um I have two questions. My first one is uh how are students identified or how do they enroll into AVID? Um so there is kind of a like a profile of a typical AVID student but um AVID is really for all different types of students. So often but not always they may be the first in their family to attend college. um typically kind of in the academic middle, right? So maybe in need of some additional support um but not again not always. So um both of our AVID coordinators, so we have a teacher who serves as an avid coordinator at both the middle and high school kind of lead those recruitment efforts. So um students are recommended by teachers andor apply on their own. Um at Columbia Academy this year they actually started a golden ticket program where um students were able to recommend other students who then go through the application process. um for our incoming sixth graders, so current fifth graders, there's a survey that goes out to teachers to identify students who they think would be a good fit. Um and then I go around to all of the schools and meet with those students and send them home with an application. So um it's a combination of teachers identifying those students who they think would be a good fit and then students um selfidentifying and applying um for the program. Awesome. Thank you. Um and then my second question is actually for Fernanda. Were you Fiona in the Shrek play? because you that was the one like that picture was up there that was the one thing that you didn't touch on and I was like that's Fiona. Yeah, I did the um what is the winter play? Yep. To Shrek the musical and I got the role for Fiona. Yeah. Um you were delightful in that let me just say um it was very memorable obviously because I I recognize him. Um, so yeah, thank you and thank you for the presentation tonight too. And um, again, just like when we were talking with the students that were here earlier and our student schoolboard rep, this is this is helpful for us and it is so heartwarming to know that the policies and the things that we do here um, are able to like how it touches all of our students and our staff. and this is just an amazing um example of all of that hard work. So, thank you for everything. Thank you for being here tonight and we're so proud of of you and all of your accomplishments and thank you to our teachers. Can I ask you a small question? I'm really sorry. I know you already um but it just popped in my head. U I was curious because you mentioned um field trips and I was just going to ask like what type of field trips do Yeah. Yeah. So um usually they're um either college visits or um like a career opportunity visit. So um and we try to do something um at every at every grade level so that they really get a wide range of you know from Dunwy to Finance Park all the way to um like the University of Minnesota so they really get a wide range of what their future opportunities could look like. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. All right. Next up, we have Director Henkins to talk about the Northeast Metro 916 long-term facility maintenance plan. All right. Thank you, Chair Granland, members of the board, and Superintendent Simbeck. Give me a second here to find the right one. Okay. So, um uh these should look familiar, uh to everyone on the board. Um annually, we have our long-term facility maintenance plans, um in June that, um need to be approved by the school board in order for the school districts to receive funding. We're a member of 916. So, one of the things that we have to do is approve um a resolution um for their portion of the plan uh for their plan. um um as we fund part of it and uh I'll include that um information in the presentation. So our mission Columbia Heights public school is creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. All belong all succeed in our core values of community excellence, collaboration, integrity, respect, courage, and innovation. All aligning with our uh board of education equity statement. So, this isn't in governance tonight, but it'll come back to the school board at the next um school board meeting on June 10th as an action item for approval. Um, so I'm going to go through the long-term facility maintenance plan um in in uh for this next year for uh 916 um in each category. Um so again, uh not a significant change from before, and I'll go over the exact total dollar amount we're talking about at the end. Um so we have our health and safety category um um within long-term facility maintenance. Um so uh you can see our expenses there. Physical hazards uh um 38,650. Other hazardous materials 14500 environmental safety management um you 916 engages in a in a group just like we do or a vendor like we do for our health and safety management. Um ours happens to be IEA. Um so their their expense there 95,800 asbestous approval and encapsulation not surprising uh they have newer buildings um that they don't have any uh incurred inspe expense expenses there fire safety 26,450 and indoor air quality 12,500. So, a total in the health and safety category of 187,900. And then um within the other category um um of long-term facility maintenance, more in the deferred maintenance um area, we have building envelope 21,500. Uh building hardware and equipment 4,000. Uh nothing in electrical, interior surfaces, so flooring. um uh case work uh any walls painting 179,700 mechanical 40,000 again newer buildings so not surprising that their expenses are a little bit lower there uh plumbing zero professional services and salary zero roof systems 14,000 so just repairs on roofs um site projects 20,000 and then the total deferred capital expenses of 279,200 for a total of their 26 uh FY 26 10ear plan of 467,100. So that's just the one-year snapshot. This uh the plans are a 10-year plan. Um so in the action item, their full 10-year plan with a 10ear grid will be in the board packet um showing the rest of it. Um so but in here we're just focusing on um this year and that's what the resolution um language includes for for their plan. So uh I believe the resolution is attached um to the agenda tonight. Um, so that's the resolution that the board will need to approve um to approve the um 916 our portion of the 916 long-term facility maintenance plan. So our our portion of it is based on, you know, our enrollment um into 916. So we have a 3.6% um of the portion of the capital uh or the long-term facility maintenance plan. So $21,28653 is our portion of it. Um, and again that varies slightly from year to year. I think last year we had 3.5% um of the of the portion. This year it's 3.6%. So um not a significant change. Um just a slight increase in the plan. Um and as uh something that was mentioned before is you know this is the projects that are managed um through 916. Um and we do have a board member that sits on that board and sees those projects. um and um and so you know monitors what what those what the projects are happening through this plan. So questions Michelle's a simple one. What is building envelope? Building envelope is so outside of the building um you know so like windows windows are included in the building envelope. Okay. Um so that yeah that outside part of the building is is the building envelope. Thank you. um brick tuck pointing some exciting things for everybody. Um you know for some more exciting than avid but I don't think many so all right good question. Uh did you have I had one but I figured it out. Okay. All right. The math wasn't working for me. What? You were checking the math the treasurer. What? Um I have Go ahead, Jess. was a a question, but I just wanted to note for anyone watching, I know you, Director Hennekins, you had mentioned this sort of in the introduction, but just to be very clear, we're going to uh we're going to hear more about the the the Columbia Heights Public School District's long-term Yes. facility maintenance plan in the next agenda item. But to be clear, this is talking about our proportionate share of Metro 916's yes uh long-term facility maintenance plan. So, I just want to be clear, it's going to I don't know just because we're hearing both on the same night for anybody watching. Um, and I did just want to note too that in the resolution, um, let's see on number three, um, it actually lays out how the proportionate share for Columbia Heights is calculated. So, if anybody is interested in that, um, it's laid out there. So, thank you. Yes, thank you for mentioning that. It can be confusing. Yeah. Um my my question is about um the rise in cost of materials and things. Um how how does this plan um sort of address that like the the possibility and and right now um sort of the fluctuation in the market for uh materials. Uh yes. Uh anybody's plan has to deal with that. Um and uh for the most part, things that are happening in this next year in in fiscal year 26. Um we we've already we're already well into the plan. For example, for us, we have a roof bid that went out last fall. Um and uh I don't you know, it's a bid out project. Um, you know, I don't anticipate any, um, unless there's something in the roof that we didn't know about when we put the project together that the expenses are going to affect that. Um, but, you know, some of the smaller projects, of course, it can. Um, and it's just something that we have to continue to deal with. Um, but for the most part, you know, we're well into that for this next fiscal year. Um, so we know um, where we're at. Um most school districts, and we are now one of them, finally, um do have a positive balance in long-term facility maintenance that will allow us um to account for any fluctuations um on a a smaller scale, but we have it there. Um so because in the past, we just didn't we didn't have a balance there and it was tough for us to account for any kind of fluctuations. So, it's a growing concern. Tariffs, anything that you know, I swear the conversation just makes the prices go up. So, it doesn't actually have to happen. It's just the conversation that causes them to go up. So, um yes, we're all we're dealing with it. Um but at least for the short term, um you know, the plans are positioned appropriately. uh it's the long term where they get a little um unknown and you're making your best guess on you know where you need to go but on the actual total costs once we get closer we'll know. Thank you very much for that. Yep. Julie, so now my math is still not working. Um so is our portion of the 655,000 that is totaled here 3.6 or 3.2 two percentage. Yeah. 32 because if it's 3.6, we would owe more. So, okay. So, yes, you're not wrong in that. So, it and it's in the resolution. So, the total amount that they're levying is 597,600. The total amount that they're expensing out is $467,100. Yes. Thank you. So, I should have been clear on that. That's a good question. I just couldn't figure it out. Yes, that is why. Fantastic. Jessica, I support this resolution, but just so we understand what happens if this board or another member board does not approve the the the plan. It's a good question. I'd have to get exact detail on that, but we are a member of 916 and this is the plan that the membership so I think that would be a conversation about our membership um with 916 um because uh you know the buildings um you know are built based on the membership um the district's membership and some of us remember and Laura I'm just going to leave it to you to answer that a little bit more but some of us remember the ties as an organization and the assets that ties had and we were a member of ties and and so we have ownership over those assets in a way or liability of those assets in a way. Um so it it comes down to our our um our um p not our participation but our membership with 916. So it's it's not a it's not as easy as a choice of that. Thank you Laura. I I think it might address this. So far it hasn't happened yet. everybody at 9:16 and the members are very supportive of, you know, of uh of making sure that the buildings are wellmaintained. Um, you know, because we do actually have a financial interest in maintaining those buildings and we do own a portion of those buildings and those facilities. Um, so, um, but from what I do understand is if one of the districts did not, then it wouldn't be able to go through. So, it would be it would be a problem. So it would go back to the 9th. They would all have they would everybody does have to approve. All of the districts do have to approve it. It was one of the difficulties with um trying to get some sort of a referendum done is because all of the districts would have had to have passed the referendum um because 916 um does not have any type of levying authority, right? It's just the member districts that do. Yes. It's it's kind of it's its own it's kind of its own it it is it is a true collaboration. you know, it requires um it requires the cooperation of all of the um all of the member districts to be able to function. Great. Thank you. So, thank you. So, um if 916 did not use our funding our funds correctly or um appropriately, our monitoring process is because we have a person from our board as a part of their board. Is that correct? Like if we is that how we monitor that the 916 does just like we're bringing things to you for our projects like our roof um and you know we're going through the bid process of that their staff are bringing it to the 916 board in the same way it's a ve it's very similar it's the same but different you know it's kind of one of those kind of because it's it's it's kind of a a slightly bigger picture because of how the funding mechanism some works and stuff, but similar in general that the public understands that we're not just giving this money over to some other organization and don't have any way of monitoring whether or not they're using those funds in the way they're expected to be used. So this is how I'm trying to communicate to our community that there is some monitoring process to ensure that that the funds are being you know used pro appropriately. I I would actually go one step further too because I do know that there's a lot of collaboration with our finance directors and um our other directors. We mean yeah there there's there's a lot of perfect. Thank you. Superintendent Steenic. Not to belabor the point, but yes, there are multiple checks and balances. The finance directors meet monthly, but so do also the special education directors. So do the the superintendents meet regularly. And so there's there's multiple layers of monitoring. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Don't go anywhere because you're up next again uh with our with the long-term facility maintenance plan for our school district directly. Okay. So, uh very similar um presentation. Um just a little bit more uh information. So, um again, our mission, Columbia Heights Public Schools, creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. all belong all succeed in our core values of community excellence, collaboration, integrity, respect, courage, and innovation. So again, this is anformational presentation tonight. Um, and there's so there's no governance, but it'll be back to the board on June 10th. Um, this portion of the conversation with long-term facility maintenance is something that we've already started um with the board um back uh earlier this year. um and when we're talking about that indoor air quality project at Valley View. So, we've had some very lengthy discussions around that project and how the funding mechanism comes through long-term facility maintenance. Um and you'll see that reflected um in this plan. Now, today um in the 916 plan, we're looking at one year, we're looking at 2026, and in the presentation in ours, I look at three years, I look at the current year, I look at next year, and then I look at the future years. So, we're looking at three years um in that presentation. Again, when it comes to action item, you'll get the full um 10-year one sheet official Minnesota Department of Education plan. Um again, you know, those future years, as we've discussed, are are tough. Um because, you know, we have ideas of where we're going. We're going mechanical, we're going to roofs, we're going to mechanical, we're going to interior surfaces. We know we're going to these things. Sometimes they get pushed back a little bit because of, you know, funding um cost increases in some areas and sometimes we can move them up a little bit. So, and sometimes priorities change like, you know, we have a a roof or a wall that's leaking completely and we need to do brick tuck pointing and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars there. So, um things can happen. That's why, you know, the state, even though we have to approve a 10-year plan, doesn't focus too much on that nine and 10 years because that's looking way too far out. So, again, um, looking at our C category one health and safety um, items, same um, as what we looked in the previous presentation. Um, I'm just going to look at the 2026, the 2027 are there. Um and so in our area we see physical haz physical hazards are you know things that we have on the roof to help protect people from falling off the roof are one of the things for physical hazards. So railings that we put up there. So there's an example but um um so we have a 47,000 um 762 there. Um our other hazardous materials of 18,000. So hazardous materials we need to again get rid of um um in the district whether they be from um science rooms or from uh the buildings and grounds um the shop um 18,540 again our our environmental health and safety management I mentioned it before 84,872 asbestous removal we do asbestous removal every year it just depends on the volume um so we're always doing it we will we we always keep 255 5,000 in the budget for it there because we're always doing it. If a project comes up and we need to do more, we do more with that project. So, an example of that I think in 2026, um, which we just don't know yet. We're in that planning phase of where that's going to be. Um, that's built into the indoor air quality numbers of an an aotment for asbestous abatement. Um, but um, that's something that we we assume will spike there a little bit because of of that project. fire safety 41,200 and then our indoor air quality not category 2 $7,500. So total in the health and safety category one of 222 24,874. Um so the next part is the category 2 health and safety. So when we presented to the board, we talked about um you know the board approved um categories um for levy authority um which are asbestous removal, fire safety and indoor air quality. And again with the Valley View project as is in its title, Valley View indoor air quality project, we are um accessing the indoor air quality. So this um number here is the the total cost of allowable levy for this project based on the scope of work. Um again this is something that um once is LTFM plan is approved by the school board MDE will still follow up with approval um for the project overall. We've already worked with the state um on the project and we know that they're in agreeance with the the project as it stands and the scope of work for the project. Um so it's you know this at this point we truly believe it's a formality of the approval process but um it first takes action by the board before MD will officially say yes approved. Um so again for 2026 um the full amount of 14 uh500,000 um is the total of category 2 health and safety projects under 366 indoor air quality. And then it brings us to our deferred maintenance category. Um again building envelope um 30,000 not anticipating too much work. You can see that we're going to jump up in a future year there. Um, and that's after we get done with uh our that bird just fly in the window. Um, uh, after we get, uh, through one more year of roof, major roof work. Um, just going to power through that bird hitting the window. Um and uh and so building hardware and equipment um you know doors uh repairs that we have throughout the district, electrical uh we don't have a lot um as we move forward once we get into bigger projects in the future in the buildings we may see more of that interior surfaces again flooring 100,000 mechanical systems um I mean we have a great need in mechanical we know we do um we've been allocating more of our dollars and and deferred maintenance into roofs. Trying to get caught up on our roof systems. Obviously, keeping the water out is important. Um, and so, you know, it's a balancing act, but we believe that we've hit that mark now. It took us an extra year. Um, but we believe we hit that mark now so that going forward we can divert the deferred maintenance dollars um again into the mechanical system. So, you can see a big jump in 2027 or in the far column in mechanical. Um so roof systems again you see that drop dramat dramatically because now we're just into maintaining the roofs that we have for a couple years. Um and then site projects not planning on anything there. So a total of deferred of 1,145,000 and then you can see the total expenditures at that 15869874 because of that indoor air quality large project that one time um onetime hit. So again, I I mentioned uh a couple of these already. Uh summer 2025 main projects. We have our Columbia Academy roof work. We're doing three sections of roof there. It's just under a million dollars for those three sections. So it's not even the whole building. It's close to half maybe. Um and uh um it puts us in a good place. Uh we feel at this point with our roofs uh moving forward and we continue to do our districtwide mechanical work. Um and uh it's a never- ending project of um it's hot, it's cold, and or it's not working at all. Um district-wide casework and flooring. Um our buildings um definitely uh aren't uh brand new buildings. Um so, uh you know, things have held up very well. We've maintained a lot of it very well. So, um and you know, like our Trazzo flooring will last forever, but it's not all Turzo flooring. Um, so there's definitely, you know, work that needs to be done there. And as we're moving through the flooring projects, we are looking at um focusing on areas that still have um potentially asbestous tile underneath the um um underneath the carpet. And so we're taking care of that at the same time through these projects. And then in 2026, this is where we hit into that brick tuck pointing. Um, you know, interestingly enough, you know, you have a brick building and, you know, it does last. Um, but eventually that mortar starts to break down um, in between the bricks and all the water to come in and you start having water problems and you do need to retuck point. Um, a few years ago we had to do a project at Columbia Academy because every time it rained, it rained into the um, locker rooms downstairs. So, um, they do come up. Um, we're going to continue on the case work and flooring um throughout the district. And of course, the Valley View Indoor Air Quality Project is the big one. Um, starting in 2026 with approval of of the long-term facility maintenance plan. Questions, great presentation questions. Jessica, um can you talk generally about how our planned uh deferred maintenance expenditures compare with our deferred maintenance needs as a district? Sure. Um so in we know it's higher now but in in uh um you know about a well 20 2021 I think is um when we did a mechanical um we brought in a mechanical vendor and we did a mech mechanical study districtwide and at that point um the deferred maintenance needs in our mechanical systems districtwide was about $46 million. Um, so obviously we're quite a few years after that. Um, and uh, and so that number is growing. Um, I think currently, you know, we're more estimated into the 80ish um, million dollars. Um, so the deferred maintenance needs on our mechanical systems are great. Um, you know, some of our air handlers in our buildings, and again, that's the air handler um, itself pushing air um, are original to the buildings. I mean, there's been things that have been replaced on those units, but they're original to the buildings. Um, so, you know, we have areas where we're grandfathered in as as far as what they're producing, what MV rating the filters have. Um, you know, they're gr we're grandfathered in, the units can't achieve a higher one. But if we put it in a new unit, the standard is, you know, not nine, it's, you know, 13 or 15 now. I think it's 13 still, but um, so, you know, we're below that. So, um, you know, there's a lot of need there. And so, when we received long-term facility maintenance dollars, very happy for them. We haven't received them for very long. It was, I think, 2016 when we first started receiving those dollars. Um, you know, for those deferred projects, you saw we had about $1.1 million. And so, you know, in 2021, we received about $1.1 million, but yet we had 46 plus million dollars in deferred um needs. So, we can't catch up um in that with that funding and we just can't um we can't keep up. We can't catch up. We're just always going to keep getting further and further behind. So, thus the need for these more larger major projects. Um, and right now we have a mechanism with long-term facility maintenance to really address this. Um, and and focus on indoor air quality. Um, and so um, you know, we we at this point um, looked at our building with highest needs. That was in the presentation that you guys received um, previously and that was Valley View Elementary by far had the highest needs. um and overwhelming with the building's deferred needs, it was HVAC that was was significantly at the top of that list. So, um those are, you know, that was our kind of our process for it and focusing on that building to start because it was at by far highest need. Thank you. I really appreciate that explanation. And I know that this presentation is not specifically about the Valley View project, but I think that information that we've discussed as a board is important because it underpins um the need for that project, but also um doing what we can to make progress on deferred maintenance as a whole, particularly around mechanical systems and thinking about how we can approach um our indoor air quality needs um amongst other deferred maintenance needs going forward. I think hearing you talk about being grandfathered in on some of our systems, um, I mean, I'm certainly glad that we are so we can continue to operate, but that's, you know, a concern because we're not able to to to meet sort of, um, the current standards when it comes to indoor air quality and other things. So, um, I I I just appreciate that explanation because as we're as we're making decisions as a board around some of these larger deferred maintenance projects, um, people might have questions about that. So, I think that's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions for Director? All right. Well, thank you very much. We will see you back here on the 10th for the vote. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Uh, next is Jake Henderson, our activities director, who's talking to us up with an update on our activities. Welcome, Director Henderson. Hello. Is mine up here, Stephanie, or do I need to Oh, shoot. It's all right. I got a I've got a flash drive with it on just in case. back up. Now you can call him Hennekin again. He's earned it. Nice work. Well, I don't know. I made mistakes, too, as I was reading this because I looked at my activities winter update and this is spring, but it is all spring. Um, so, Chair Granlin, uh, members of the board, uh, Superintendent Senvvic, thank you all for having me up here again. Um, I'm just uh planning on giving you a brief uh spring update on our activities and then we'll be talking about the Minnesota State High School League. Uh, our mission in Columbia Heights is creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. All belong and all succeed. Uh, the short presentation this evening will uh feature all of our core values here. Um, as happens uh often uh as I stated uh this is just anformational presentation. Uh we will talk about an action item here in a moment uh after the uh spring update on the Minnesota State High School League. So stay tuned for that. As we did with just the the fall and the winter, um we focused on all of these aspects in our spring activities as well. community, being as competitive as possible, um creating a positive culture and and then just um looking out and being mindful of wellness across the board, mental, physical, um emotional wellness, our participation numbers, as we like to share with you. And then I'll throw I also have a couple of pictures because I don't have a slideshow for you all tonight. Um just in the interest of time, but I know that's kind of the most fun part. Um, but if you want to just take a moment and take a look at some of our, uh, participation numbers throughout the spring, uh, I'll highlight a couple of numbers on there. Just some brand new things. Flag football at the middle school, girls flag football in particular, uh, was a new sport for us, very, um, uh, well attended and lots of participants. They just had a two games tonight against, um, White Bear Lake Middle School. They came out with a tie in the first game and then they a win in the second game. So, that's exciting. Um, and then I'll highlight uh boys volleyball for you as well. That's a brand new sport here up at the high school. Um, unfortunately uh their season ended today uh against Brooklyn Center in our section. Um, I was hoping maybe to get over there, but it was a little bit quicker than I had hoped. So, um, but also really fun, exciting season. And I know I saw many of you at some of those events, too. Um, and then the best part is some of our highlights. Me find my paperwork here. But, uh, I've got some pictures. I know that you all uh spoke with Tamoy uh tonight, but really exciting that we had a state uh champion in our midst for speech and uh we also had four or three others go to state in speech too. So, really exciting there. Um, and those three others are coming back. they are not seniors. So that's really really awesome. Um and I think we we placed second right in the tri metatro 2 in speech. So um exciting there. Our entire Synchro team uh went to state this past week at the U of M. So exciting stuff for that as well. They are perennial state participants and um not often though do we get all participants going to state. So that's really exciting. We are hopeful that we've got some more state participants possibly hopefully in track and field. We've got that competition going uh for sections on Wednesday and Friday of this week. Um I already highlighted that we had our first inaugural seasons for both boys volleyball and girls flag football. We hosted the trimero jazz festival and art festival. Uh we hosted the jazz the previous year but we added the art festival to it this year and we had great uh participation among the schools. Um and our own Isaac Lidden uh was kind of uh steering that as the the high school teacher um and got several more participants than we've had in the past. So that was exciting. We hosted a unified basketball tournament here in the Highlander Center maybe about a month ago. blanking on the exact date, but really exciting uh opportunity not only for our students, but also for students um in several other schools participating in that and uh just awesome ways to see our kids participate, but also really step up in leadership opportunities. And then we had several artists uh receive high uh some of the highest scores in the Minnesota State High School League um for for their visual art pieces. And so, you know, this is often an overlooked piece of, oh, the high school league, you know, just does sports, but we've got speech, um, and we've got fine arts as well. And, um, so the visual art pieces are also judged. And, uh, so we often have some, um, some really amazing pieces, but, uh, this year we had three that scored the highest. Um, and so, uh, super super exciting for that, too. And there's probably other things, but I I kept it to a rather short list. Uh we also have a lot of opportunities coming up in the summer. Uh more than we have had uh in the past. We've got dance coming back again. Um we've got several tennis opportunities. We've got theater and triple threat opportunities which we have not had in the past. Um and then we've uh changed some of the swimming opportunities and basketball and strength camp opportunities. So um a lot of opportunities for our kids to just continue to stay engaged, build some of those uh skills, and then also grow just as a community, too. And that concludes my short uh spring update for y'all. Thank you. All right, questions. Jessica, thank you very much for the presentation. I really appreciate these um I don't know quarterly, seasonal updates, whatever where whenever we receive them. It's really great to see um I guess the diversity of athletics and activities offered to our students as well as um the participation rates of the students that take advantage of those opportunities. Um I did just want to ask one question since uh we are on camera and there might be some folks listening. We did hear earlier today um from our student schooler representatives about um some feedback they got from students across the district and one of the things that um we heard from um some of the students I think at the middle school student schoolware representatives can correct me if I'm wrong was um some concern over um the cost of activities and I was just wondering if you could um just talk a little bit about what options there are for students and families for reduced activity fees. and how they how they can access those. Sure. Um and as you know at least I think actually everybody around this table was here we slightly did in or we increased fees slightly last year um just trying to keep up with making some small incremental um adjustments to those fees uh over time. And so we did increase those fees a little bit. We do obviously have a sliding scale whether you uh receive educational benefits or not. And so, um, if you receive educational benefits, your cost is significantly less. For instance, if you're at the high school level, your cost, um, is $160. If you would receive, um, uh, I'm totally blanking, not free lunch, but, um, educational benefits. Yes. Um, reduced lunch status. Uh, you would get that uh, same for $80 or um, if you or sorry, $50. And if you received free lunch, then you would get it for $25. Um, so that is always an option. Um, and it's lower at the middle school or if you're in activities as well. Um, and then we also with all of our communications, if you want to apply for a scholarship, we always have that on there too. And both uh Mr. Opats the middle school um and Wendy at the middle school um have communicated those things uh as well. And so I did take note of that um when I heard those things and I was like, "Okay, well maybe we just need to make sure that those are being reiterated um that that is an opportunity that they have." Um and we have a scholarship form that families can fill out as well and we've never turned anyone away. Thank you. I appreciate um I appreciate that. And just so families know what their options might be because you and your team do such a good job of making sure that those opportunities are available to everyone. I think it's so important that um the the cost of those activities is not a barrier to participation for any students. Um I know we have to support the the cost of the programs overall, but just knowing that those options are there, I think is important. So, thank you. Yes, thank you for that. I was going to ask that question as well. Beat you to it. Yeah, you beat me to it. So, I appreciate that. Um, I think I wonder part of that too might be that students may see that this is the cost and not go any further than that. And I wonder if that's again like are how are we getting that message out so that kids are understanding and so our students and families know that yeah, this is the this is the cost and also please like that doesn't have to be the end of the conversation. Um, and I think that that, you know, that just is, um, I know that that work's already being done and just thinking about it for other students, too, especially since that was such a big thing for that was mentioned. So, I appreciate that. Yeah, Julie. Director Henderson, I noticed that um in your chart that several of the girls teams have reduced girls participation. Um can you explain some of the um some of the reasons that could be impacted? Have you se noticed that? And how are we encouraging our girls to participate? the uh that's a good question. Um I think overall I would love to see all of these numbers jump up uh regardless of um what gender uh sport or activity it may be. Um I think girls lacrosse across if I take that in particular um that across the metro has you know significantly reduced um a lot of our teams within our conference as well as uh just outside of our conference uh haven't been able to field the JB team. we've had a hard time uh also um and my understanding is club has also reduced a little bit and so um we've also had some turnover in some of those coaches where they've been leaving the the school district unfortunately and so when we see that high turnover it's it's hard to keep those students engaged and then we don't have a somebody that is a point person for that for a little while until we've hired someone else. Um so that in particular would be one. um softball actually while the numbers don't necessarily say it right here, our high school participation was really great. Um we co-op with that in Fidley and um I would say maybe in some of these other years too, our numbers are how many people actually sign up and not who how many people actually stick with it. And I would say I was a little bit more of this is actually who stuck with it this year. Um but a big percent or a big chunk of that softball maybe from last year was our middle schoolers. Um, and now this year, uh, not only we we had roughly four, no, we had three middle schoolers playing on the middle school team that co-ops with Fidley, and we had, um, 19 high schoolers playing on the high school team, and we were able to field three high school teams, um, an a varsity, JV, and a C squad team. And so um doubled the length of those middle schoolers that were playing up of their season and they probably got quite a bit uh better in terms of the competition level that they were playing. So um the numbers uh don't necessarily look the same in softball there. In terms of synchronized swimming again um that's pl staying relatively stable. Um there are 19 total synchronized swimming teams I believe in the in the state and so that is uh while we have a very uh and then some of these we're also co-oping actually all three of those sports that I highlighted we're co-oping in those and so those only only are our numbers not the numbers that we're bringing to the table from the other schools that we co-op with um that uh is a is a very small sport overall and so Um, we were happy to get some brand new students out. Um, I believe we've only got a couple of students graduating and that and so it's exciting. We've got some great captains too that are looking to uh add to that team. Um, in terms of what we're doing to try to highlight um some of our opportunities, um, we're taking that head-on with some of our head coaches of, hey, we need to recruit from within where we're at. we need to offer opportunities for kids to learn about this, grow relationships with you. Um, we also had a unfortunately the Athena banquet or Athena lunchon was on the exact same day as our women's coaching symposium that is offered by the University of Minnesota. So, I wasn't able to attend. Um, but I think we had eight coaches that did attend the women's coaching symposium and they talk about aspects of this. There are um quite a few things um for that. I know I know I'm I'm going a bit long, but um coaching her um is a curriculum that is an opportunity for our coaches to take. It's a free curriculum for um any issues um or opportunities to understand um about coaching girls and coaching women. Um especially for some of our coaches um that might be male and they're coaching women. Um, we're also taking a look at what our uniforms look like and opportunities for uh students that may want need or want to be more covered up than what our uniforms offer right now. I just sent uh messages to our um rep for uh tennis etc. Um we're taking a look at what that looks like in swimming and we're looking at period swimsuits etc for some of our girls so that um hopefully taking away some of those barriers that they might be in. So, we're we're taking a few in there. I I do uh see the numbers and um our goal is that we increase all of those things. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Um I just want to add uh congrats to Dan Chow who uh increased the record beat this the school record of 17.6 feet in the long jump by six inches. That's an amazing accomplishment as well. and she's only a junior and she Yep. Oh, wow. So, she's got opportunities to uh she's gone to state multiple times before and we're excited for her opportunities this year. Yeah. Awesome. Yes. Etan, go ahead. Um she's actually beat that record twice now. The 1760. Even more impressive. Thank you for that. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Yeah. Okay, moving moving on to our action items. So, we have um the Minnesota State High School League membership resolution. That is a long one. Um so, I will read it and then I will ask for a motion and discussion. Sound good? Resolved that the governing board or entity of Columbia Heights High School located in the state of Minnesota delegates the control, supervision, and regulation of intercalactic activities and athletics referred to in Minnesota statute section 128 C.01 to the Minnesota State High School League and so hereby certifies to the state commissioner of education as provided for by Minnesota statutes. Further resolved that the school listed is authorized by this the governing board of said school district or school to renew its membership in the Minnesota State High School League and to participate in the approved interscalactic activities and athletics sponsored by said league and its various subdivisions. Further resolved that this governing board or entity hereby adopts the constitution, bylaws, policies, rules, and regulations of said league and all the amendments thereto as the same as are published in the latest edition of the league's official handbook on file at the office of the school district or school or as appears on the league's website as the minimum standards governing participation in said league sponsored activity. activities and athletics. Further, the administration and responsibility for determining student eligibility and for the supervision of such activities and athletics are assigned to the official representatives identified by this governing board or B governing board or entity. Signing this resolution for membership affirms that this governing board has reviewed all required membership materials provided by the league which defines the purpose and value of educationbased activity and athletic and programs and defines each member school's responsibilities. Member schools must develop and publicize administrative procedures to address eligibility suspensions related to student code of responsibilities bylaw 206.2 two violations for students participating in activity in athletic programs by member schools. The above resolution was chairland. Yes, you've read the resolution. I have read it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was the end of it. Cool. Can I get a motion to approve? Thank you. Laura, can I get a second? Second. Michelle discussion great no discussion with I'm sorry did not I missed that if we don't if we don't become you know involved with the MSHSL um or be in it we can't compete against teams that are a part of the MSHL So, it it really is kind of like do you want to have athletics or not? And I think that's probably what we want is athletics. Thank you, Laura. And from what I understand, this is really our only option. Yeah. Yeah. And to be able to participate with other districts. Am I correct about this? It's the only game in town. Yeah. Literally the only game in town pretty much. Um, I mean it it it's 29 sports and activities that we uh are a part of in the Minnesota State High School League. And so most of what I just shared with you is done through the Minnesota State High School League. Yeah. So it would be awkward if we voted this down directly after your presentation. Is that what you're saying? That's right. We would not have fun things like what we started with at the beginning of this meeting if we did not. Yes. All of our highlights would be gone. Yep. Let's continue. want. So with that discussion, um I believe we're ready for a roll call vote. Michelle, if you could do that for us, please. Yes. Yes. W I dear I Oh, yes. Yep. No, we did motion it. Sorry. You're okay. Pway I Palmer I. Granley I. All right. Um motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Thank you. curriculum update with uh Director Tuckrell and um Director No, not Gart Miss Gartner and uh Miss Matus Matovic, guys. It's 8. It's 8:15. It's been a long evening. It's been a long apologize. Got it. You did it, though. Good work. You did it. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Granland, members of the board, Superintendent Stenick. I'm here tonight with coordinators Gartner and Metasovic to share more about the curriculum update and our recommendation. On May 13th, the board was presented with information on the curriculum development process to analyze grades 6 through 8, English language arts and math. The recommendation from the groups and committees is to seek approval of the adoption of amplify for ELA for English language arts and envision for math. In addition, the board was presented with a legislative requirement for personal finance course at the high school level. The recommendation would be to approve starting a personal finance course at Columbia Heights High School starting the 2025 2026 school year. Okay. Well, thank you very much. So, we've already received that. Um, so, oh my goodness. Um, so we need to move forward with the approval of the adoption of the Envision, uh, 6 through8 math, amplify ELA, and the personal finance course. Can I get a motion? point of privilege just we don't have the resol or the motion the per the recommended motion in our board book so I'm just wondering could you repeat that one more time what our actual what the prop the recommended motion is yes the recommendation oh it is here I was looking at the next agenda item apologies oh no that's okay I was like what did I miss um so That being said, can I get a can I get a motion to to approve um the adoption of the uh noted curriculum? So moved. Can I get a Thank you, Laura. Second. Second. Jessica. Um any discussion? Jessica, go ahead. Um it was noted that we had a presentation at this at the May 13th meeting. Um, and so I just wanted to note that that's available um on the board website to watch if anyone is interested in more of the details of that presentation and discussion. Um, I also just wanted to um I mean I well I seconded the motion so obviously I'm in support of the motion but I um I I also thought it was important for people to know that as part of that discussion um in in planning for this recommended curriculum that our teaching and learning team looked at a variety of options but our teachers um across our buildings were also intimately involved with looking at this curriculum and providing feedback um as we prepared for our recommendations. So, I think that's really important to note um as we're moving this forward. Thanks. Thank you, Laura. And I would like to further um further acknowledge and thank you for bringing the curriculum here so that we all had the opportunity as well to um to be able to look at it. And as always, I do believe that the public can with accommodations be able to look at any of the curriculum that we are teaching in any of the schools. and um and um if you can explain how that process might possibly be if somebody is interested. Yes, definitely that is always an option. It's listed on our website the different curriculum pieces we have the resources that we use and the best way would be to reach out to the teacher or the building principal for next steps and we do have many families doing that as well as at conferences or open houses the different events that we have. We try to showcase the same resources that we're using within our classrooms. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um it was really delightful to be able to see the curriculum and I know that you were here um and available if anybody in the community wanted to come and look at that prior to this meeting tonight and I know that that was um that was well communicated to the community. So thank you very much for for having that here. So any further discussion? All right, then we'll move forward with a vote. All those in favor say I. I opposed. Abstained. Motion carries. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Grantland, members of the board, and Superintendent Steic. I'm here to discuss overnight and out of state field trips. On May 13, 2025, the school board was provided with information on requested extended field trips for the school year 2025 2026. We are seeking approval of these extended field trips. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the overnight out of state field trips as presented at the May 13th board meeting? I move it. Yes. Oh, thank you. Michelle, can I get a second? Second, Jessica discussion. We had a really great conversation at our previous board meeting about this and all of the um super important work that goes uh along with that. Um so, thank you very much. If anybody in the community has any questions about that, they can feel free to go and find that on the YouTubes. Um so, in the in No, it was not the ina, but anyway, you're good. So, with that, uh, can I get a, uh, can I get a vote on that? All those in favor say I. I opposed. Abstained. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, last one, y'all. We got this. Uh, yep. So, next is the designation of identified official with authority for MDE external user access reertification system resolution. Um, and we have uh Stephanie Alvarez and Superintendent Steic. Good evening, Chair Branland and members of the board and superintendent Stembeck. I'm here tonight asking for approval of the resolution approving Zena Stemvic to act as the identified official um with authority aka Iowa and myself Stephanie Alvarez to act as the I as the Iowa to add and remove names only for Columbia Heights public schools. All right, thank you. Uh I will read the resolution. uh designation of identified official with authority for the MDE external user access reertification system resolution whereas the Minnesota Department of Education requires that school districts annually designate an identified official with authority to comply with state access control security standard 1.0 which states that all user access rights to Minnesota state systems must be reviewed and reertified at least annually. The identified official with authority will assign job duties and authorize external users access to MDE secure systems for their local education agency or LEA. Now therefore, it be it resolved that the director recommends the board authorize Zena Stemik to act as the identified official with authority and Stephanie Alvarez to act as the OWA to add and remove names only for Columbia Heights Public School District. Can I get a motion to approve? So moved. Laura, can I get a second? Second. Awesome. Any discussion? Jessica? Um, I think we just need to make a correction to the spelling of Alvarez. Or did I misspell my own name? Okay, I will adjust that that amendment. Thank you. Thank you for catching that. I will adjust that. Thank you. That's embarrassing. You're not alone tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Any other discussion? All right. Because this is a resolution, we need a roll call vote. Michelle, if you could do that, please. Indeed. Who? I. Maderas I. Pedway. I. Palmer. I. Granley. I. All right. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving into board topics. Um, I just have a reminder to everyone that this Saturday the 31st is our pow-wow. It is indoors. It will be in the evening. Um, and what? 4:00. 4 o'clock. Yep. So, lots of time. Grand entry. 3:00. Grand entry. 3 to 8:00 p.m. 3 to 8 p.m. Oh, okay. Okay. So, um, and everybody is welcome in our community. So, please come. It's a really wonderful time and we love to see all of our families uh come and enjoy it. So, any other board topics? Michelle, I have a question. Um so, like when we have um action items and people come and I know we always reference uh that we've spoken about things before and that they can find it. Is it too much to ask to maybe like have that date available to give people to look it up? Is that a lot? I don't want to ask for too much. I I believe for example that director Tucker mentioned that it was at the the May 13 meeting. I mean maybe not for the It doesn't have to be for the speaker, but like it would be helpful if we could even give it out to people, but um I I don't know. I could do that homework myself, too. Like it's not a huge deal. um like if I see something coming up like I can look back but I don't know what you guys's uh capacity is for like remembering around when but I don't have it. Go ahead. The typical cadence of the board is that there's a there's an informational presentation and then typically two weeks later or at the very next board meeting there's typically action. Um every once in a while there's there might be a change in that but by and large that's how the a week or two. Yeah, it's the previous meeting. Typically, it would be the previous board meeting. Yeah, but good point. I think Michelle's point is a good one. And um the at least this time I I guess I've never noticed how consistent it is, but I'm assuming it is that in the board agenda on the board agenda under action items for each of the descriptions, it does say like as presented at the May 13th board meeting or whatever else. Thank you. So members of the public if they u look at the agenda they can go back and easily find that presentation. So but this is the first I've noticed that. So I didn't see that. Yeah. So that's that's a good point. Thank you. That's a that's a really great point and much appreciated. Some sometimes these topics are so indepth that it's just you know you know you kind of like we're we're making a decision on something and somebody kind of looks might look at it and just kind of go wow that was kind of a big subject. Why in the world aren't you talking about that? We talked about it for three hours two weeks ago. So if you want us to talk about you can just go back and look at it, you know, and see. Yeah, we asked all these questions. So that's good. Yep. Good points. Oh, any other any other others? All right, with that I will adjourn this meeting at 8:25.