- School Board of IndependentSchool District 624 would ask the clerk toplease call the roll. - Thompson.- Here. - Arcand.- Here. - Beloyed.- Here. - Daniels.- Here. - Newmaster.- Here. - Streiff-Oji.- Here. - All right, I would askeveryone to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. - [All] I pledge allegiance to the Flag of theUnited States of America, to the Republic for whichit stands; one nation, under God, indivisible, withliberty and Justice for all. - All right, I would askfor approval of the agenda. Or, sorry, just got a littleahead of myself there. We have before us an agenda, may I get a motion to approve the agenda? - So moved.- Second. - And a second, anyquestions or discussion? All in favor, please say Aye. - Aye. - Opposed, same sign, motion passes, we now have an agenda. - Who moved it?- Marge. - Who seconded? Thank you, make sure I get thatin there, thank you, sorry. - We have before us, a consent agenda, this consists of the various items that come before us monthly, it includes the items fromprevious meetings, invoices, overnight field trips,and personal changes. It also includes donations fromour families and community. And as always, the communityis extremely generous and we are thankful. May I get a motion toapprove this consent agenda? - Moved. - Motion by Beloyed and second by Daniels. Any questions or discussion? This will require a roll call vote, will the clerk please call the roll? - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Beloyed.- Aye. - Daniels.- Aye. - Newmaster.- Aye. - Streiff-Oji.- Aye. - And the motion passes, wenow have a consent agenda. It is now time for the publicforum portion of the meeting. There was one request submitted to speak. The public forum allows forthree minutes per speaker with one minute remainingon an orange card that will be held up. At the end of the three minutes,the gavel will be tapped. Speakers will be called to the microphone and recognized one at a time. Only those individualswho have been recognized will be allowed to speak. School district policyand data privacy laws preclude personnel andstudent matters or data from being disclosed publicly. One student recognition, Dr. K. - All right, thank you ChairThompson, members of the board. Tonight, we celebrate students who have represented thedistrict in various activities. Members of the speech team competed at the state and national level. Additionally, we hadmembers of the fishing team and the trap and skeet team who participated at the national level. Congratulations students and thank you to thestaff and family members who supported the studentsalong the way, Go Bears. (upbeat music) - Always a great reminderof all the things our kids stay active induring the summer months. Our next on the agenda is C2 Superintendent's report. Dr. K. - All right, thank you ChairThompson, members of the board. So I'd like to welcome Susan Herder, our new Director ofTechnology and Innovation who is here with us today,and if you could wave. Yeah, I don't know if you had a chance to meet her before the meeting, but, so, Ms. Herder hasserved for more than a decade as the instructionaltechnology coordinator at Mounds View public schools, managing the district'sinstitutional technology, and serving as a liaison tothe curriculum department, so welcome Susan. We are excited to welcome students back for the 24/25 school year, families can find backto school information, including school supply lists,parent view information, beginning of the school year events and district calendars onthe district's website. When we begin school inSeptember, families and staff and community members are invited to share back to school pictures along with why they areexcited for the school year on Facebook with a#BacktoSchoolBears hashtag for a chance at being featuredin a September community e-Newsletter, photo entriesmay also be emailed to us at communications@ISD624.org. Students and families fromthroughout the district are invited to attend afun, informative events from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PMon Saturday, August 24th at White Bear Lake Area High School. The free event willinclude the opportunity to receive backpacks and school supplies, vaccines, physicals, and assistance with registration forms. There'll be activitiesfor the whole family and it's always a fun event. All right, we are part of Minnesota's free school meals program, which means that all studentscan get one breakfast and one lunch free ofcharge each day at school. It is still important thatfamilies fill out the application for educational benefits because children mayqualify for other benefits, such as reduced rates forsports and activities, advanced placement tests registration, college applications,driver's training, and more. Complete the application linked on the nutritionservices page of our website, paper applications can be requested by contacting the nutritionservices department. With today's start ofthe fall sports season, I want to be sure to mention that district communitymembers age 65 and older are invited to request alifetime Senior Activity pass, which allows for free entryinto home athletic contests. Go to the About tab onthe district webpage and then click on supports, or simply call thesuperintendent's office at 651-407-7563 to request a free pass. We continue to hire forthe 24/25 school year, we offer competitivewages, flexible work hours, and a chance to make a differencefor kids in our community, find postings on theemployment page of our website. And we look forward to welcoming students to the 24/25 school yearin about three weeks. If you're new to the school district and still need to enroll,please click on the enroll tab on our website to learn aboutour programs and offerings. If you're a returning family, please be sure to completethe annual online update in your Synergy account. And last but not least, we look forward to welcoming everyone to a community open house at White Bear Lake Area HighSchool from 3:00 to 6:00 PM on August 29th. This project was a major part of the 2019 bond referendumpassed by the community, this support has allowedus to bring students in grades nine through 12together under one roof for the first time in over 40 years. So please enjoy a brief videoinvitation for the events. (upbeat music) - All right, we expect a bigcrowd, so get there early. - All right, thank you very much. We'll now move into discussion item D1, Guaranteed Energy SavingsContract for Solar. Mr. Wald. - Good evening, chairThompson, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak, in the memofor this item for in tonight's board packet, it explains the how a guaranteed energysavings contract works. Essentially, it's an agreementbetween the school district and a third party solarsupplier that takes advantage of government tax incentives to install solar on school district roofs. For the school district, there's no upfront cost,that's a great benefit. It's a guarantee that theschool district will see energy savings over the years, as well as reducing our carbon footprint. We have solar panels alreadyon nine of our schools, we've been working withIdeal Energy since 2019 to install those solar panels. When we replace a roof on a school, then that's been a good timeto put the solar panels on, they sit on the roof, and soit's best not to take them off. And so when we do roof improvements, then we've been installingsolar panels on those roofs. Or where we have a newschool such as North Star and soon at the high school. Our next project you'lllearn about tonight is utilizing the Solarfor Schools program, the state of Minnesota for the installations at Venice Heights and Venice Height Elementaryand the high school. And Rich Ragatz from Ideal Energies, Senior Vice President at Ideal Energies is here to walk usthrough that arrangement with the Solar for Schools program and then show you how thefinancing of it works. So Rich, welcome. You can just push this arrowdown to advance the slides. - Okay, thank you. - Ms. Chair, Dr. K andmembers of the school board, my name is Rich Ragatzfrom Ideal Energies, thank you for giving methe time to get up here and tell you about theSolar for Schools program. So the other nine projectsthat we've done to date, we haven't had the grant monies that this program is offering for this, so these are gonna be reallynice, nice savings deals, and I'll get into that as we move along. To date, we've done 200 school projects across the state of Minnesota. And in addition, in theSolar for Schools program, there's been six rounds. Your project is in round fiveof this, the two projects, and we've done 140 projects that are in various stagesof those for development. So we're talking about not only the Solar for Schools program, but this also qualifiesfor the PV credit tariff. And that gives you, fromthe hours of one to seven, an additional 7.113 centsfor every kilowatt hour that's produced during that timeframe. It's basically Xcel providing compensation for people that help them not have to go out and buythat expensive backup energy during the peak times. And so they give you that benefit that goes to reduce your demand charges. And then with the Solarfor Schools program, your district qualifiesfor $675,000 of grant money that will utilize all of that through these two projects here. And here is an example, the one that we're talkingabout on the high school, that's gonna be a 469 kilowatt project. And it's on that whole southernpart of the building there. And then here's the second one, which is 171 kilowatts onVadnais Heights Elementary. And again, these areself ballasted systems that just sit on top of the roof membrane so there's no puncture to the membrane. We'll make sure that theroof warranty is not voided as part of the construction, we do a pre and post inspectionwith the manufacturer. We've done it with every roofmanufacturer in the state. So you'll make sure thatyour warranty is preserved. A little hard to see the details in this, but I gotta put my cheaters on here. So this is an example of the, the high school going from left to right, it's gonna create $68,397 worth of utility bill expense savings. We're gonna pay you rentand revenue during the, the first 20 years so thatwe can get up and operate and maintain the system onour behalf for you guys. So that's total revenue of 68,847, you're gonna pay just $42,000, $42,250 to help pay for the portion that's not given by the tax credit, and the Solar For Schools grant. You also have to get a writeron your insurance policy that won't cost you morethan $1,200 annually, so you have total expense there of 43,450. So you're gonna have asavings in year one of, I think that's 25,197. And then on a cumulative basis, you can see that afterthe 20 years of payback, you're ahead by $653,000 for this project. After the 30 year panel warranty, you're up $1.9 millionof electrical savings. And over the system life, you're looking at 3.6 millionof electrical savings. Are there any questionson the numbers there or? Okay, then here's the second one, which is the elementary school, and it's pretty much pro rata,so this is a smaller system. You're gonna save 17,000 in year one, 445,000 after 20 years,$910,000 after 30 years, and 1.5 million in change after the 40 year life of the system. And then we kind of roll it up here, putting the two projects together so that you can see in year one, you're looking about $42,000of savings in year one. And you're looking at over amillion dollars after 20 years, 2.8 million after 30 years, and over 6 million after the 40 years on these two projects here. Our program, again, you guysown this, the solar array, you have fee title alone orthe day one of the system. There's no upfront cost for your district. We monetize, again, the tax credit and the solar grant behind the scenes to help pay for the system. Your only obligation is topay a discount on the energy that's created from the solararray during the payback. And then after 20 years,you get free energy. And again, we operateand maintain that system. We have two dedicated guys in our office that monitor your system, and if there's anything's wrong, we'll come out here and fix it. We also provide a solar curriculum that's up to the threecurrent learning standards in the state of Minnesota. We have it kind of around the fifth and sixthgrade science classes, and then we also havean 11th and 12th grade kind of pathways program, so for kids that don'twant to go to college, they can learn about the other trades thatare associated with it, and we've had some good luckwith districts using this and really getting somegood traction with it. We also provide a monitoringplatform that's web-based, where you can have it on your phone. It's through the invertersthat are solar edge inverters. And this will show youthe production daily, well instantaneously, daily,weekly, monthly, annually. It also has some cool feel good stuff down in the right hand corner there, how much CO2 was saved asa result of doing this, how many equivalent treesplanted and things like that so that kids can learn aboutthe environmental benefits. So we've kind of completed,we got funds awarded, waiting for grant contracts to be executed to move forward on these projects. So the next step is I'm here asking you to approve executing a contract to move forward on these two projects. And we'll do a construction startup probably summer of next yearonce all of this is together. And we will have it up next year and provide maintenance as it moves along. And that's basically theprogram, I'm here for questions. - Does anyone have any questions? - I think I do. - I'm looking at for like the high school that it might be Mr. Wold's question. So our first cost is gonna be $43,450, that's the initial cost forthis looking at the first year? - There's no cost to you. - Just, total annual expensewas 43,450, who pays that? I'm looking at the annualenergy expense savings summary. It's on slide 20. - Yeah, all of that savingscomes out on the solar, the solar generated by the panels. - And so we generatemore than we have to pay, so we're, okay, that was myquestion to make sure that there's a positive- - Thanks for asking that question, but yeah, there's no upfront cost for us and there's really no ongoing cost for us because it's all through, it'sall generated by the panels. - [Arcand] And then who'sresponsible for the upkeep? - We are. - [Arcand] Forever, or the first 20 years? - 20 years, and I should note that, I guess I can go back tothat page here to show you. For this example, so if you look at the insurancemaintenance and utility fees after year 20, we have, youcan see that it's hard to see, but year 21 we have a cost of $9,265, which is up from the 1748in the previous year. That's if you wanted us to continue to operateand maintain the system, that's what a typical maintenancecontract would cost you. But you can see in year 21 that you're creating $113,000worth of energy value, so that may be worth it for you, we're happy to do thatif you'd like, and yeah. - Okay, thank you. - We'll see how you'redoing the first 28 years. - Thank you. - [Thompson] Ms. Daniels. - [Daniels] How long do the panels, like what's the life of a panel? I mean, do they have to bereplaced within that 20 years and is that part of the ongoing cost? - Well, there's a 30 year panel warranty. Two years ago, all the manufacturers increased their warranty from a 25 year to a 30 year warranty and the panels we're using are heavy duty, there's no moving parts with them, they have tempered glassand we've really kind of dug into the tempered glass piece, you gotta make sure youhave enough protective glass so that it can withstand a hail event or some other storm related stuff. And so we know based on all ofour installations out there, the products that are muchbetter when it comes to that and that's what we're gonna be using. - [Thompson] Ms. Beloyed. - [Beloyed] So since the panels, mean when the technologyon them is changing, is there any, at anypoint during that 20 years where those panels can be upgraded? - You could upgrade thembut wouldn't recommend it. What's happened over the 14 years that we've been in business, they haven't gotten any more efficient, panels are about 17.5% efficient. You can get some thatare used out in space, but those are gonna costyou 10 times what these do. So you want to just keepthe panels that you have. What's happened though,they've come up with a way to kind of create more energyin a smaller footprint. So the size of the system, like this system that we're talking about, the 445 kilowatt size system, in the past, thatwould've taken up probably 70 to 80,000 square feet of footprint. And with the new system, we're looking at about 35,000square feet of footprint so that it's gotten a lot smaller and created a lot moreenergy in that footprint. - And how many systems do youguys currently keep track of? - About 400, 200 in theschool space currently, which will go up to 340pretty quickly here. And then we have a bunch of county and city solar arrays around the state too that we're also operating and maintaining. - And you guys are monitoring those, you have two people monitoring all that? - Yeah. - How does that work? - It's worked just great, yeah, so they use this,the monitoring platform that you guys have as part of this, that the kids can look at. And so they're looking at that every day and they're comparing your systems to the other ones in thedistrict, also your systems to other school districtsand arrays in the area. So we kind of know whatit should be producing and if it's not on par, thenwe'll get out here and fix it. - Okay, thank you. - All right, they all asked the questions I was gonna ask, thank you so much. - Okay, thank you verymuch, really appreciate it. - Thank you.- Thank you. - We'll move into discussion item D2, summer construction update, Mr. Wold. - Yeah, and I'll justnote on the last item, we'll be bringing that backas a action item tonight for a resolution to entera guaranteed savings energy contract. Construction, we have are inour really our fourth year of really pretty intense construction in that construction gets muchmore intense in the summer. And we have projects rightnow at Central Middle School, Mariner Middle School,the high school and, and the project that SunrisePark just began this summer. So it's a significantamount of construction, but we have our representativesfrom Claus Anderson, AJ Lilzvi is our senior project manager and architect and partner from Wold Architects andengineering, Sal Bagley here to answer any questions. But I think we'll start withAJ, both of you come up. Okay, AJ and Sal. - Good evening. Let me pull up all my notes again here. How does that. - No, I can, I can do this. - I'll hold it.- You got it? - Gotta click through to the end of his. - All right, so first project we got up is the White Bear Lake area high school, everybody's familiar with obviously, so on the phasing planhere, that's pictured all that will remain after August is that teal area 7A right there. So we'll be working throughthat space into October. Otherwise, outside of that, the rest of it will beready to go for this fall. And I was getting alittle worried when I was watching the video ifyou guys were gonna steal all of my highlights in my video reel, but I got some extras in there. So teams are working diligently to get the building fully operational and have currentlycompleted final inspections for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. So for a building, beingable to get through final inspections with that regard is, that's a major milestone for a project. However, we do still have alot of commissioning, balancing and control work to get it astuned as an Olympic athlete. So if this buildingwere an Olympic hurdler, they have now qualifiedto run the medal race and the rest of the refinementsare what gets us that gold, gotta get some Olympic. There's a couple morejust to preface that, so. - Buckle up.- Yep, buckle up. So on the site, there'sstill a lot of work going on and crews have been smashing out a ton of work in a shortamount of time this summer. So the weather whilelast week was fantastic, hopefully everybody got to enjoy it, that has not been thetheme of this summer. So we've had more thanaverage rainfall obviously, and that's been since May, totaling six inches above the average, including the August outlook. So 19 of those events have contributed to almost 20% of any given monthly total. So basically what that means, that's a lot of water ina short amount of time and it's really hard to do masquerading and ponds and parking lots when the site's covered intwo inches of water and mud. But even with that, thecrews have still managed to achieve completion of allthe utility installations, mass grading, pond work, all of the curb and gutter,first lift of the asphalt, and then the wear course and striping will be I think next week. And then now obviously you can see a lot of the plantings are going across the sitenow as well as you drive by. So videos coming up next. - [Arcand] Can I justask a quick question? - Yes, sure, - Sure, doctor, - What is seven A in this phase? Well what is that area? What is that gonna, what's in there? Is that like classrooms or what? - That's the auditorium piece, sorry, yeah, so used to calling it by, that was our denotion. - That's the new performing arts center? Okay, I just wanna knowwhat it was, so thank you. - [Thompson] You mean the Theater? - [Wayne] The new performing Arts Center. The existing theater will be,we'll be able to use that. From day one, but thiswill be October, November, it sounds like November. - Technically dubbed theperforming arts center. Do I hit space? - Will make it advance. - [Sal] Okay, play the video, perfect. (upbeat music) You can see a lot of thefinal parking lots in here off that Division Avenue kind of looking south as it circles. And here's a nice shot of the crews actually makingthe pour on the bear paw on that west side entrance. So that took a lot ofeffort to get that right. A lot of drone imageryjust like this actually that they dimension off of, and they do CAD overlays with that to make sure that everypiece of that is to scale and all the joints end upwhere they should end up. So flying east northeast, looking at, you can see the wetland and all the rest of thepond taking shape there. Flying around the auditorium piece. So that call precast section and, and from this view aswell, that's the fly loft of the performing arts center. New bus loop heading towards the southend of the field house. Got a nice view inside the union, even though the video you had, it was a little more up to dateto this with the furniture, but you could see they got all the trowels poured and polished, all the lighting and sprinklers and sail features are going in, the kitchen on thebackground there ready to go. Little 360 view of the frontoffice on the east side there. And then here's got a nice view of the performing arts center. So you can see they got allthe brick, all the stadia, the slope concrete slabs reports, and now they're really working on a lot of rigging, lighting controls for the performing artscenter, backup house controls. So that'll bring us into our next one, which is Central Middle School. So it's central on thephasing plan pictured here, teams are working on wrapping up the areas in pink and green. So that's for the start of school. And yes, that green is the gym and no, it doesn't fit as many basketballs as the main gym at the high school. So currently wrapping upthat gym wood flooring, tile installations and finishes throughout bathrooms and corridors, and there's still substantialefforts being made to finish all the mechanical,electrical and plumbing, as I'm sure some of youhave noticed around here, if you've been around here lately. There's a lot to be done above work, above ceilings with all the controls in time for the school start, which will inevitably be a photo finish. So crews have installed enoughhydronic piping by weight. They could make approximately695,751 Olympic medals. There's a lot of newpipe in this building. - Is that with the weight of the water? - The weight, not including weight ofwater, just the metal. So on site too, they've also been battlingsome very wet conditions as they've worked to completethe underground utilities as well as the masquerading around the chiller enclosurepond as well as the building. So we get the next video here so you can see the pond and that chiller enclosure there on the west side of the building working around the southside of the price as well. You can see a lot of that pipematerial both with that JLG and all the pipe as we keep flying around that's been getting loaded in, the two big new chillers thereon the bottom right corner. More chillers, old boiler room entrance, new louvers, more pipematerial being loaded in with that JLG. So this is inside the gymnasium, this is the last bits of sanding. So right now, it's actuallyalready seal coated and painted as well. So they're a little bit further along. I can see they got all thepaint acoustic panels, HVAC, everything's ready to go. All the finishes in the gymbathroom, they got all the tile, they got some doors and hardware as well as some above ceilingcommissioning to wrap up before they drop the tiles in. Inside the flex area, so here this is again older video footage, we're further along I promise than that. So, but you got the framing, a lot of the MEP rough ins overhead, now they're working througha lot of the corridor spaces as well as the commonson these curved ceilings and lighting and paints and floors. Hop in the cafeteria and kitchen. So for the next project here, we've got- - [Thompson] Excuse me, AJ,we have a couple questions, maybe we'll take a minutes, just let them be asked, Dr. Arcand. - I had just a questionabout the new gymnasium. Is that a storm center also? So it's the high quality,like we have at North Star? - It is.- Okay. - Yep.- Thank you. - Okay, I don't, what is the chiller? I saw you mentioned it several times and I've seen the big tanks out there, but I don't know what they actually do, just outta curiosity. - Yep, so the chillers are what, it conditions the air,the air conditioning. So basically, it's the same as your airconditioner at your house, just- - Big.- Much, much larger, yes. - It doesn't have a,didn't have a roof on it, does it have a roof on it? - They don't, they actually need thefree airflow circulation. So there's actuallyglycol that flies through, flows through those units, through coils. And the airflow is what, along with the fans iswhat cools that fluid. And that fluid then in turnflows to all these VAVs and intermediary areasthroughout the building. And as air passes across the cold coil, then the air becomes cool. So we do the same thingwith the heat as well. - [Thompson] And where is the flex room? The flex rooms are those, is that right by the main entrance there? I mean, I couldn'tidentify where they were. - [AJ] There's a few of them. So, the commons is rightby the main entrance and then each grade level kindof classroom house area will, will have one of their own. Yep, so I think where theone you were pointing to was. - [Sal] That one'straditionally like truly flex, this one's that commons, whichis kind of the combo area. - There will be one. There will be seven of themtotal when the project's done. - Okay, thank you.- Yeah. - I had one.- Sure, go ahead. - So I had a question on, soafter October of this year, will the high school be completely done? I mean always touch it, so it'll be done. - Yep, yep, it's been a long time. We've had a lot of boardupdates over the years. - And that is the, that isbasically the schedule that is, it's pretty much on schedule. - It is. - Some delay with someof the outside work. But like the performingarts center, that was the, that was the anticipated completion date, that hasn't been set back atall by the weather for example 'cause it's all inside, so yeah. - And there's typically some of that is not necessarily entirely the construction, like if you were to walkinto it closer to October, you'd be like, why isn't it open? A lot of that is training as well too because there's a lot ofsystems for all of those lights and AV equipment forfolks to be able to like properly learn how to use that space, you don't just kinda walkin and hit like a button, it all just works. - Lot of safety issues too.- Yeah. - Thank you. - [Thompson] All that trainingcome with all the equipment? - Yep.- It does. - Wanna go forward to. - So sunrise, so give youa break on the Olympic, but on this day in 1851, American inventor Isaac Singer patents his famous sewing machine. So on this phasing plan pictured, we are currently workingon our first stitches of the sunrise quilt. So that includes thebuild out and MEP rough in and the areas highlighted in green. So crews have worked ahead into phase two and three withdemo and general preparations for work to continue. Basically as soon as phaseone substantial completion is achieved at the end of December. As a part of that prep work, the team has mobilized the cranes, so some of you have made seen that out. But that was to move largeequipment into the courtyards so that they can open up the tunnels to remove all the oldpiping and prepare for new. So if we go to video here, it'sa little bit shorter video, but you can see the two courtyards there, that east courtyard is really gonna be the one that's getting kind of reimagined with the full courtyard space. (upbeat music) This, as it pans, it'llbe that right courtyard. So we've got two views hereof the future boardroom, which was, I believe itwas the old wood shop and maker area. So this is kind of on thenorthern end of that room now with everything removed, and then we've got anotherview a little bit further south looking up towards that boardroom. So by the time we get throughit, it won't look like that, it'll look very different. So not as much to share forshow and tell on Sunrise today, but they have got a lotof that building interior pretty much unrecognizable at this point. Next is for Mariner. So what you can see on the phasing map is that we're working oneverything in the pastel pink and the orange areas upthere on the north side. So that's this summer for phase one. And the remaining areas are gonna be next summer for phase two. So what's hard to interpretfrom this phasing plan is the sheer size and magnitude of the work that is goingon in such a short summer. Crews will have worked inover 70,000 square foot of that building in three months. Generally speaking,that's about twice as much as we would usually runthrough in the summer. So because of that, our trade partners havebeen working two crews over multiple shiftssince construction began. The bulk of that work has been related to the newand hot water hydronic piping, so the heating and the chillingportions of the building as well as the structuralreinforcement for the roof to include for that weight hanging below, which we'll see some ofthat in the video as well. So for perspective, the2024 Olympics had 329 events over 19 days, which is 17 per day. And this project has just had a touch under that by the equivalent. So that's a lot ofsupport and coordination 'cause just like theathletes, they have trainers, they have event coordinators,cameramen, announcers, all of the things that go onto make an Olympics happen, this project had its equivalency. So, and that includeseverybody in this room as well. So for the video. So we're kind of flyingeast there over the fields, haven't done too much on the site with regards to thisportion of the project, all of that has done been done previously. But you can see they have got a lot of material on thatnorth side of the building going in, literal tons of steel. So this is the old auto shop, which will eventually becomethe district maintenance shop or a district maintenance shop. And if you've been in that before, you could probably imaginewhat the ceiling heights and everything looked like in there, there was a lot of stuff going on. So this is the old metal shop,which will become, again, still metal, but also robotics shop. And then the wood shop, I think this is probablythe bigger transformation with regards to how muchceiling height has been re maintained in that space with a lot of the equipmentmoving up to the roofs and or into mechanical rooms. It still looks busy, but it was way busier before, I promise. So here's a shot inside the corridor, you can see a lot ofthe steel reinforcement up underneath that roof line and pipes, pipes and pipes and pipes for days. And that's what we have forthe construction update. Any questions? - All right, well I don'tknow what we're gonna do when you're all done becausethese are some of my favorite, minus when the studentscome to present to us. AJ, you just, you're a lotof fun, so I appreciate it. I don't know how we need to getyou in front of the students so you can tell them some of these things. And have you ever presentedhow much cabling we've run through all of the projects? - We have actually, wedid at White Bear north, we had enough conduit tomake it from here to Duluth. - Oh, that's right, yes. - He remembers it too. - Yeah, I know, it's just wonderful and what a blessing forus to be able to have all of this work beingdone in our district, it's an asset to our students,so thank you so much. - Thank you.- Thanks for having us. - Thank you. - All right, now we willmove into discussion item D3, the first reading ofschool board policies. We have quite a few before us tonight due to some legislativechanges that we had to update, many that we've already gone through, but these are the first readingof school board policies 102, 204, 413, 416, 418, 425, 503, 506, 509, 512, 513, 515, 516, 521, 524, 535, 601, 603,604, 609, 613, 615, 619, 624, 707, 708, 709, and 802. As mentioned, these policies,this is the first reading, so they will come beforeus for a second reading at our September 9th board meeting, which is when they willbe up for approval. If anyone has any questions? - I just have a comment. Thank you to the policy committeefor updating everything. There's 28 policies here,which is equivalent to, I'm counting the pagesnow, I mean there's a lot and for everyone toreview 'em and work on 'em and make sure that all thechanges that are required, I mean, sometimes it's just one phrase, sometimes it's, something more significant because of legislativechanges, but I just wanna thank and for working on them,it's a lot of work. - Same, comment; written downas I read them over and over. And I thought the state department of Ed and the state had beenbusy making all these minute but excellent changes, and some of the phrasingactually is more readable and means what it's supposedto mean, whether it's what we're hoping for our students in curriculum or whatever, so I think it's goodimprovements, since more clarity. If you ever feel likereading all of the policies, not as bad as it used to be,it's much more clear, I think so thanks to all of you who hadthose early morning meetings that you had to prepare for ahead of time. - Yes, with that, I would like to send a littlespecial thank you to Rachel because Rachel gets them all ready for us before we even see them, and then after we see them,then she has more work to do. And this was a heavy loadand it all came in in July and she had to get us ready and she always does an amazing job, so I just wanted tosay thank you for that. - I have to apologize, Icalled you Amanda and I, that's because it's a differentperson in another district that works on the policies. And I'm so sorry, it's RachelI meant to thank, so sorry. - Yeah, it's my brain. - That's all right, ithappens to the all of us. With that, we will moveinto operational items, E1, approve the resolution to enter into guaranteedenergy savings contract for solar. Mr. Wold. - Yeah, thank you, chairThompson, members of the board, earlier this evening, you heard Rich Ragatz fromIdeal Energy provide an overview of the guaranteed energy savings contract. And there was an opportunity for board members to askquestions at that time. At this point now, we're recommending that theboard approve the resolution authorizing the assistant superintendent for finance and operations or superintendent to signguaranteed energy savings contract with Ideal Energies andIdeal Energy Solar Leasing for solar array installationsat Vadnais Heights Elementary and White Bear Lake Area High School. - All right, you've heardthe recommended action. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - A motion by Dr. Arcandand a second by Streiff-Oji, any questions or further discussion? This will require a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Thompson?- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Beloyed.- Aye. - Daniels- Aye. - Newmaster.- Aye. - Streiff-Oji.- Aye. - And the motion is approved. - Thank you. - All right, with this, we're gonna do things alittle differently tonight, we're gonna move into board forum first. And so if anyone has anythingthey would like to share. - I do.- Dr. Arcand. - I just wanna let us everybody know that on Thursday, August15th from 1:30 to three, there'll be a clean energyfor cities and schools, It's the BlueGreen Allianceinvites you to come here, a presentation from the city of St. Paul and Mounds View schools on their leveraging ofthe federal tax dollars and credits to advance clean energy. There's, I have more information,but it's down in St. Paul. I think y'all should have gotten this, if you didn't, I'll forwardthis email on to you. - Thank you, anyone else? Ms. Daniels? - I know Dr. K alreadymentioned the family event on Saturday the 24th, and I just wanna encouragefamilies to come. I mean, there's so many services that are gonna be available,filling out forms, Bear Care is gonna bethere for immunizations and sports physicals and the backpacks. We just got 260 some backpacksfrom Community of Grace full of supplies that they donated, and they'll be handingthose out at the event. So if you're in need, please come. And I know there areother St. Andrews and Cub and other organizations that also donate to the family event. So please, if you needsupplies for your kids, come on over to White Bear High School on the 24th from 10 to four. - All right, I would secondwhat Ms. Daniels says. It is a great event, I helped there last yearand it's just wonderful. We also have a great numberof interpreters that are there that can help families fill out paperwork for their students, I know sometimes that can be alittle overwhelming, so it is great to have extra support and help to get those things taken care of. And just as we close out the end of summer and get ready for this new school year, I just hope everyone really enjoys these last few weeks of summer. And the fair's coming up, so for those who love the fair, enjoy as many days as you can. All right, so with that, wehave to move into negotiations and this portion of the meeting will be closed to considerstrategy for labor negotiations, including negotiationstrategies or developments or discussion of review of labor negotiation proposals conducted in pursuant to Minnesota statute 179A.01 to 179A.25. Could I get a motion togo into closed session? - So moved. - Motion by Dr. Newmaster, a second? - Second. - Second by Streiff-Oji tomove into closed session, this will require a voice vote, all in favor, please say aye. - [All] Aye. - All opposed, same sign, andwe move into closed session.