- I now call this meeting of the School Board ofIndependent School District 624 to order. I'll ask the clerk to call the role. - Daniels, here. Ellison?- Here. - Skaar.- Here. - Streiff Oji.- Here. - Thompson.- Here. - Arcand.- Here. Okay, we ask everybody to stand as we do 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 libertyand justice for all. - We have before us an agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. That was me.- Ellison. A second? - Second.- Second by Thompson. Any discussion? This will be a voice vote.All in favor say aye. - [Board] Aye. - Opposed, same sign? We now have an agenda. We also have before us a consent agenda. This contains a variety of business items that come to us monthly,including donations. We always want us to saywe are truly grateful of the support that the community and everyone shows every monthto our staff and students. So, we wanna say thank you. Can I get a motion toapprove the consent agenda? - So moved.- Chair? - Yes, sir. - I'd like to request that the following items beremoved from the consent agenda to be put on the regular agenda. - Okay. What items are they? - 5A. 5B. And 5G. - Okay. So, what we have is you'reasking to pull 5A, 5B and 5G. - Correct.- All right. So, then before us wehave a consent agenda. Can we maybe approve the consent agenda excluding 5A, 5B and 5G? Can I get a motion to approve that agenda? - So, Mr. Chair, point of order. Ms. Daniels approved, so, dowe need to take that back? Her motion to approve theprevious consent agenda? - Yeah, I went quick and I didn't get his, I didn't hear right away.- Okay, no worries. - Who made the, okay, are you okay if we remove it? - Okay.- Okay. So, now since she's theone that made the motion, we can pull it back. We're gonna go forward then. Can I get a motion toapprove the consent agenda excluding 5A, 5B and 5G? - So moved.- Okay. By Ms. Daniels. Is there a second? Is there a second? I am gonna go ahead and second it so that we can move forward. So moved. Now, we're open for discussion. Actually, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. We don't discuss the consent agenda. This goes forward. So, we have before us a consent agenda that excludes 5A, 5B, and 5G. This will be a voice vote. If you can call the, I mean, this will be a roll call vote. Can you call the roll please? - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - All right. That's carried. Now, according to the rules, we will go then now to the next piece. We have before us the items we pulled. And so to discuss thosebecause we need a movement, I'd like to ask, can we get a motion to accept 5A, 5B and 5G? As they are presented. Then, we will go todiscussion if we need to. - So moved.- Okay, so we have Ellison. Do we have a second? - Second.- Second by Daniel. So, we have the motionto approve as presented. Now, what I'd like to dois open it for discussion. Mr. Skaar. - So the first, excuse me, the firstitem is on item seven, which is under the meeting minutes. And it's E, the very lastthing at the bottom there. And during the boardmeeting on January 12th, the board blocked my attemptto move the consent agenda item to the regular agenda for discussion. That was the invoice register. The board was out of order on this matter, according to policy 203.6, had no right under existing policies to prevent any board memberfrom requesting a consent agenda to be moved to the regular agenda. Now, I see that you're proposing to revise policy 203.6 to prevent any boardmember from moving an item from the consent agendato the regular agenda with a second majority of vote. This policy in effectsuppresses Robert's Rules, which looked for fairnessfor all to be heard. I think it's on, and we can discuss it whenwe get to that policy, but it's unprecedented, undemocratic, and it's just a boldattempt to silence those who have a different point of view. And actually, I talked to the School BoardAssociation of Minnesota. They don't know of any district that has adopted a policy like that. You know, we like to teach everyone that they should beseen, heard and valued. But it seems like we onlywant to see, hear and value those that share the same viewpoint. And I think it's a pattern of behavior to prevent transparencyand control speech. If you recall the audit findings presented at the work session, we hadapproved a double payment of an invoice of $535,000. This is precisely why I asked to review the invoice register as aseparate discussion matter because I believe weneed stronger oversight over our financials and management. I'm here to help thedistrict to be successful and it starts with myduty as a public servant. So, I am proposing thatwe revise the minutes. We make a note in today's meeting minutes that the board was outof order on January 12th with regard to the consent agenda. - I'm okay with making anadjustment that I was out of order because I was the one in charge. It wasn't the board, itwas me who ruled on it. So, I would say that I was out of order. But we'll need a motion to amend that. Because before us we have 5A, 5B, and 5G. - Could I?- Yes. Go ahead. - Ask, how do we know that, I guess, what did theytell you was the reason why we were out of order for doing that? - Well, first of all, thank you Chair and thanks for listening tome, fellow board members. What I did is I went out and I reached out toRobert's Rules experts. - So, not MSBA like you just said. - No, I actually talked to both and I triangulated the information I got from Robert Rules with MSBA and the gist of it was, is typically, if a boardmember wants to move, any board member wants to move anything from the consent agenda, they can move it withouta second or a vote. However, if you have a procedure, if you have a procedure thatembeds in that in your policy, we have a policy that does that. So, in the policy that we have, we have no provisionto block a board member from moving it from consentagenda to the regular agenda. That's the reason, because ourpolicy does not prevent it. - So, because I justattended the MSBA conference, and I did a Robert's Rules ofOrder training with the MSBA and they're professional thatguides Robert's Rules of Order for school district,which is very different from any other kind of Robert'sRules, like corporations, and all kinds of otherentities that don't follow, Robert's Rules is very convoluted. And it depends on whatboard we're sitting at of how the Robert'sRules of Order is enacted into our rules as members. And I would just bring apoint that in the last meeting that I was at, not thelast regular board meeting, I did make a statementthat we're not allowed to have cross-conversation. Because I hadn't learned yet at that point that we're considereda medium-sized board. So, that rule doesn't apply to us. So, I apologize for that part, that I made some misstatements about that as I'm learning also. Because I've never needed to know as much about Robert's Rules of Orders. But I don't, I guess, understandhow we broke the policy by not letting it be discussed further. - Would you, I can speakto it, or go ahead. - No, go ahead.- Well, I was gonna say, because in our policy we don't provide for that specifically, where a board member or theboard can block a board member from bringing it into the consent agenda. You can't, you're, the board is prevented fromblocking a board member from bringing somethingfrom the consent agenda to the regular agenda. Now, the way that you haverevised the policy that's later, it's the first reading of the policy, that would prevent any board member from taking somethingfrom the consent agenda and putting it on the regular agenda. That does prevent it. - I'm not sure if that's totally true, but we'll focus on this. - Yes.- You're making a motion to say that the Chair was out of order. Is that the motion you wanna make for 5A? - Well, I would just, you know, I don't wannamake a big deal out of this, but I thought it was, I justdidn't think it was right. So, yes, I would appreciate that. - And so your motion is to amend this to say that the Chair was out of order. - I'd rather say theboard was out of order. - Because I was the onethat made the decision. It would be me. - So, point of order then, Mr. Skaar, I think for the record, you need to speak your motion, or are you speaking the motionand you're saying so moved? - So moved. So, this is an amendment. We have then, is thereany further discussion? We have to vote on the amendment first. - We need a second first.- Okay. So, is there a secondto change, to add that? - Can you repeat what youwanted us to add please? - On January 14th, theChair was out of order when the board objected to the consideration of moving a consent agenda itemto the regular agenda. - Okay. Do we have a second of that? - Who did the first motion? - Mr. Skaar.- Mr. Skaar did it. Okay, I'm just trying tofind all my notes here. - I mean, I guess I'll give it a second. - Okay, we have a second.So now we're in front. Any further discussion? All right, we're gonna amend it then to accept as presented, except 5A, we'll add that the Chair was out of order. And the minutes. Now, what about 5B? - 5B on the monthly, and if you go to 5B, page 15, it has a invoice for IdealEnergies Solar Leasing. We identify that as electricity. I think I brought it up a couple times. Is it really electricityor is it lease payments? - It's electricity.- It is? - Yep.- Okay, thank you. - Okay, how about 5G? - No, I had one other one.- Okay, sorry. One of the things thatwe had talked about, I think not at the last board meeting, but I think it was at theDecember board meeting, was we have all of these Amazon purchases and what kind of controls dowe have over those purchases? And if you can fit that into what steps or where we are with thecorrective action plan on the disbursementfrom the audit finding, that would be helpful if youcould weave those two in. - What did you want changed on this? - I was just asking a question. - Okay, because I'm going back, I was looking for the motionthat we wanted changed. - Change what? - Well you were questioning 5B? - No, it's fine the way it is. I had a question on itand the answer is fine. The other one had to do withcontrols over Amazon purchases and how that fits in withthe overall oversight. And if I can just get anidea of when we're gonna have an update on the internalcontrols material weakness that was found at the audit. That would be the question. - Yes. Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, what are we asking? Are we... - We're trying to approve these from the, so, I'm asking if there'schange made for those. If there's not a changemade, then we're out of, yes. - Right, I'm hearing that somehow someone assumed that our finance folks were directed to do somethingaround Amazon purchases. - No, they won't.- They were not? Thank you.- Yeah. - Yes.- And I believe the finding there was already a plan about a corrective action on that, which was not relatedto the Amazon purchases. It was related to anotherpurchase not related to Amazon. - I understand that. But it's your overallcontrols over disbursements. And I think that that's one of the issues that we have with having, what is it, 14 findings?- No, point of order. We're talking about theconsent agenda right now. - Yes. - I was just responding.- Point of order, then. - So, we're here, the agenda before us isto accept as presented except for 5A. We will add the Chairwas out of order for 5B. And 5G, are there any changesthat you are proposing? - 5G just had a question.I'm not proposing a change. I mean, on page 74, 5G, let me see if I can find it here. It's the quarterly report page 74. So, when you look foryear ended 2025/2026, we have year-to-date numbers and the revenue over/under expenses is over a million dollars. So, we have really kind of anet loss that we're showing. Can you explain that? - Yep. So, schools operate ona modified accrual basis and so we don't preparefull accrual financials on a monthly or quarterly basis. And so this would be reflectingbasically a cash basis and it really justsolidifies the importance of having a fund balance sothat it can help as we have, it can help with cash flow. So, our revenue comes to us, it's metered from the State of Minnesota. The largest part of ourfunding is our state aid. And that comes to us based on the formula that the state has. And so this is not uncommonat this time of year for this to be a negative at this time. You can see two years ago, wewere in a similar situation. - So, it's really a timing.- Correct. - Okay. Thank you. That's all I had.- Okay, so, any other discussion? Okay, hearing none before us, we've heard the motionto approve as presented except for 5A. We'll mark that the Chair wasout of order when he pulled. This will be a voice vote. - It's roll call.- You want roll call? - Yeah, because there's financials. - Okay, so this will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels, aye. - Okay, the motion carries. Okay. Let's see where I'm at. Sorry. It's now time for our publicforum portion of the meeting. Public forum allows up tothree minutes per speaker. With one minute remaining,you'll see the orange card, and then with 30 secondsyou'll see the yellow card. At the end of threeminutes, we'll let you know that your time is up. School district policyand date of privacy laws preclude personal andstudent matters or data from being discussed publicly. Speakers may not makeallegations, charges, or complaints againstany student or employee. Speakers will be calledup to the microphone. Only those who have been recognized will be allowed to speak. Members of the audiencemay not engage in conduct that disrupts any part of this process. We are now gonna move on to item C1, Superintendent's report. Dr. Kazmierczak.- All right, thank you. Chair Arcand, members of the board. I'm excited to meet withfamilies and community members later this month for Coffee with Dr. K. We're switching up our usual location for this particular day and we'll meet at the WhiteBear Lake Area High School from 12:00 to 1:00 onWednesday, February 25th. Attendees should park in the front lot on the division side of the building and enter through the main entrance to complete our guest check-in process. Please be sure to have yourID available when you join us. Find more information andpre-register if you wish in a news post on our website. White Bear Lake Area High School is currently accepting nominations for the Alumni Wall of Fame Class of 2026. This honor awards graduates whohave demonstrated excellence in their careers or community service. Ideal candidates are lifelong learners and positive role modelswho inspire others to reach their full potential. Find complete nomination information on the high school Wall of Fame webpage. The nomination windowcloses May 15th, 2026. And special Black HistoryMonth community events are happening at two of ourbuildings in the coming weeks. On February 18th, the White Bear Lake BlackStudent Union will present Black History Month Showcase:African Americans & The Arts at the high school'sPerforming Arts Center. Admission is free and doors open at 6:15. The show starts at 6:30. And on February 26th, the Mariner Middle Schoolstudents will present Mariner Black History Showcase from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at theMariner Middle School Theater. Admission is free for this event as well. And just a few notes onour music department. I recently enjoyed the SuburbanEast Conference performances by our choir, band and orchestra students. Congratulations on youroutstanding performances. And looking ahead, WhiteBear Lake Area High School's Wind Ensemble and Mariner's Choir will perform a concert at 7:00PM on Friday, February 13th, so, this week, at the high school'sPerforming Arts Center in celebration of being selectedto perform at this year's Minnesota Music EducatorsAssociation conference. And that, however, wasunfortunately canceled. So, we're still gonna allowthem an opportunity to perform. So, please join us as wecelebrate our student musicians. Then finally, the 44thAnnual Jazz Night Club will be held on Saturday, February 21st in the high school Student Union. Dinner tickets must bepurchased by tomorrow, February 10th, via the Hudl app, which can be found linkedon the activity's website. Tickets for the dance onlyare also available on Hudl or may be purchased at thedoor the night of the event. This is always a terrificnight to enjoy live music while supporting our talented students. - Thank you.- Thank you. - [Arcand] I just wanna check, is there anything our studentliaison wanted to share? Anything exciting happening? I'm sorry to put you on the spot, I just wanna make sure you can be heard. - Not really.- Okay. (audience laughing) Well, thank you for coming tonight. We always look forwardto hearing from you. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and move on to discussion items. We're gonna go to D1, overview of the revisedfiscal year 25-26 budget and projected fiscal year 26-27. Mr. Wald and Ms. Johnson. Welcome and thank you. - Good evening Chair Arcand,members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak, our studentrepresentative, Mr. Reese. Good to see you tonight. Each year, when we bringthe budgets to the board, we share this budget cycle and it shows the kind of cyclical nature of presenting a budget. And you can see there's manytimes throughout the year where we present. We have budget touch points wepresent to the school board. The revised budget weare presenting tonight was first brought to the board a year ago as the projected 25-26 budget. At that time, the board approvedthe revised 24-25 budget and the projected 25-26 budget. In May, we brought that projected budget, adjusted a little bit aswe had more information. We brought that to the Maywork session for discussion and then to the June boardmeeting for approval. Since that time, we completedour 24-25 financials, developed a revised 25-26 budget, as well as a projected 26-27 budget. Those two budgets are before you tonight. We built projected and preliminary budgets for the school year basedon trends and projections based on the informationwe have at the time, the nature of this industryto the best of our ability. We educate every studentwho comes before us, whether we plan for themto come before us or not. That is our moral obligation,but also our legal mandate. So, we start this year witha budget based on assumptions and projections and revisethat budget mid-year as we have more information. Okay, next one. You've seen this slide before. It tracks the stategeneral education formula, the primary fundingsource for public schools, and illustrates one ofthe greatest challenges we have in public education. If you look at thebottom left of that chart in 2002-2003 school year, you can see the generaleducation formula allowance from the state at $4,966 per student. If you follow the blue line, you can see what that generaleducation per-pupil formula would be if it had only kept pace with the rate of inflation. It would be at $8,901, which would ensure approximatelythe same buying power today that we had in 2003. The orange line represents actual funding on the student formulafrom 2003 to current, and that provides for a per-pupilfunding level of $7,481. That's a delta of $1,420 per student, or 19% if the state formulawould have been adjusted for inflation. For the White Bear Lake schools, that gap represents over $13 million. Inflation's hit our organization like it has every otherorganization and our families. We're paying more for labor,utilities, insurance, supplies. So, we definitely feel thatimpact as a public school, as do public schools across the state. Ultimately, this gap hasforced public schools to rely on local operatinglevy to fill the funding gap. - Andi?- Okay. Each year, throughout the fall and winter, we conduct a comprehensive review of our financial landscape. By incorporating knownchanges in realtime data, we arrive at the revised budget that you see before youincluded in the packet. So, on this slide I've highlightedthe primary adjustments and I'll move to the next to walk through some of the main adjustmentsto the budget this year. On the revenue side, we've tightened up thebudgets in those areas where we've outperformed overthe last couple of years. So, that includes itemslike student activity fees, facility rentals, gate receipts,and miscellaneous grants. We've also received twogrants from the state that are reflected in the budget, the Afterschool Community Learning grant. So that provides enrichment opportunities to four of our elementary schools. And then the Grow Your Owngrant, which provides funds to allow us to enhanceour education pathway at the high school to encourage students to enter the education profession. Our state special education aid is based on our prior year expenses. So this year's revenue has been updated to reflect our actual allocation. And then on the federal revenue,you see a slight increase to reflect some of the positions that were added thisyear using federal funds. On the expenditure side, the most significant increase is tied to substantial rise inspecial education enrollment. When students enroll inWhite Bear Lake Area Schools, we wrap around them and providethe services that they need and we're happy to do so. This year, meetingthose needs meant adding three cluster programs,which not only require teachers and paraprofessionals, but also related serviceproviders as well. These programs are costly, whichis reflected in the budget, but much more cost effectivethan if students are placed in an intermediate districtor other outside program. Those programs can costsometimes 50% or 100% more than if we providethose services in-house. So, in the case of specialeducation this year, you'll seen an increaseof about $2.7 million and a good portion ofthat comes back to us as special education aid inthe following school year. And you see that reflected aswell in the projected budget. This really speaks to the importance of having a healthy fundbalance so we can weather that one-time expense that's then made up as revenue in the following school year. Now, we're also seeing an uptick in transportation expenditures. This trend emerged during our 24-25 audit and it's carried forwardinto this school year. To address this, we arecurrently partnering with our transportation department and an outside consultant to perform a deep diveinto our audit of routing. Our goal is to maximizeefficiency and find opportunities for cost savings withoutimpacting service. So, what does this all mean? Currently, our budgetprojects a fund balance of about $9.7 million. We're about 6.6% of total expenses. So as you know, our board policy requires maintaining an 8% fund balance. And so we're taking proactivesteps to bridge this gap. We're currently developing a plan to implement approximately $1million of budget adjustments for the upcoming school year. So, this targeted approach is designed to restore our fundbalance to the 8% minimum, to the minimum by the 27-28 school year, which will ensure financial stability for the school district. Also reflected in the revised budget are our nutrition services fund balance, our community services fund, and then our debt service fund. So in the case of nutritional services and community services, they were able to look at their operations and each of those areprojected to outperform what their initialpreliminary projections were. So, you can see that thenutrition services fund is projected to be at about29% fund balance for this year. And then community service is just about out of their deficit that was reflected from COVID at -0.2%. So, we think they'll probablyoutperform that this year. And then the debt servicefund, if you remember, that's where we pay allof our debt payments, which is kind of like ourmortgage for a school district. There's no changes in that fund, so, and that's driven by our debt schedule. MDE, the Department of Education, does all of that calculation for us. So, that puts us at 19.6% there. Any questions? - I just have one I'm gonnaask before I open it up. In the community service fund, they took a hit a fewyears ago during COVID. We knew that, and they'vebeen working their way back. - [Johnson] Yeah, yeah. - You could see how they're rebuilding? - Correct. Yeah.- Other questions? Mr. Skaar? Well, you probably alreadyknow which what I'm gonna ask regarding that general educationformula allowance slide, if you could get to that. So, one of the things that you explained, but it's not on this slide,I think would be helpful, because I think when I look at this, and I know I'm probably beatinga dead horse on this thing, there's no, it's kind of stale. There's no call to action. There's no description ofthe underlying issue here, what you're getting at. So, I thought the things that you said that aren't on theslide could be captured, which I think would providemore meaningful input for stakeholders to understand. So, something likethis, state funding has, and I just wrote this, state funding, based onwhat you were saying, state funding has notkept pace with inflation or with mandates imposed on the district. To compensate for the lack of funding, the school district has hadto make difficult decisions and choices in the past in its budget, including raising taxes to make up for the lack of fundingprovided by the state. I don't know, I just thinkthat that's more clear and it could maybe fostersome call to action so that we can get some traction on this. So, I would ask you to consider that. - [Arcand] Okay. Appreciate that input. - I have another question.- Go ahead. - But if somebody elsedoes, they can go ahead. - [Arcand] Go ahead Mr.Skaar. You've got the floor. - Really? Now I'vegotta go find the slide. Hey, so, you know, one of the things, so when I look at, I think it's page 82, where it shows that we'regonna have a deficit or a deficiency of, what isit, $4.6 million roughly? - [Johnson] Correct. - So, and, so we're gonna have to take, we're gonna have to compensate for that through other funds tomake up for that, right? So, we're gonna be, in essence, we're gonna have deficitspending in the school district. Is that true?- For this school year. Correct, yep.- It is? You don't agree with that? - Well, in as much aswe have a fund balance for these situations, right? And it's because the funding is based on the expenseswhen it comes to special ed and transportation, and that funding lags. So, this is not an uncommonsituation for a school district to have that situation wherethe revenue comes late. And so you're working a year behind. And so we keep a fundbalance for that purpose. - Just one last thing, and I don't know if we've, maybe this is somethingthat the board needs to think about, too, because, you know, I'm stillconcerned with the projection that we had an enrollmentin that shortfall. So, we've built aninfrastructure in this district around close to 11,000 students. We're at, what, about 8,200? Something like that?- 8,300. Yep. - 8,300? Okay, well good. What's the long term impact financially for that 20% difference? I mean, that's gonna cost us. That's real money because funding is based on per student at the state level, or per pupil, correct? What's that impact gonna look like? And are we in for, you know, I just worry that we'regonna be in for a surprise down the road when we havean infrastructure designed around 11,000 students,but we only have 8,300. What is that gonna do? - You don't have to answer that. But I think, as a board,we need to understand what that impact is gonna be in that shortfall in enrollment. How serious it is, should we start doingsome planning around it, those types of things. Do we need to come upwith a marketing program to bring kids in? You know, a brand strategyfor White Bear Lake schools? Which I think would be helpful, too. Just kind of get theboard to just brainstorm, hey, what can we do to bring kids in and what can we do to lessen the potential financial impactfor this, if there is one? And I suspect that there would be. Thank you. - [Arcand] All right. Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, you have projections on enrollment. Do you adjust based on actuals? - Yep. Every year.- Thank you. - Couple times. Yeah.- Thank you. - [Arcand] Other questions?Yes, Ms. Thompson. - Well, I can't find it, but I was hoping to find thefirst time I saw Mr. Wald's, the slide where you show us, you know, if inflation had keptup with where we were. Because now in this one, itsays the difference of 19%. I'm trying to find it. Sorry, I had it too smallso my eyes couldn't see it. But, I feel like when Istarted on the board in 2020, we were maybe at 11%. Now we're at 19%. So, if we wanna talk about action and what we need to do, then our community needs to advocate at the legislative level for public schools to be fully funded. - [Wald] I support that. - I just have a comment.- Go ahead. - When we talk about the infrastructure and that we were preparingfor, say, 10,000 students, we have 8,300, we prepared the physicalpart of the buildings. I mean, we built out the high school and built a new elementaryand did some other things. But we haven't hired people and hired teachers and people like that. When you talk about infrastructure, when Dan was talking about, we're really talking about the buildings that we use the bond for. And when we're talkingabout infrastructure, if we have more students,then our budget would change because we'd hire people that are part of that infrastructure, too. So, you know, having more space that we're not using right now, but potentially may isprobably a positive thing because we know there's gonnabe housing starts up in Hugo, like many, right? I mean, I've heard there's gonna be hundreds of housing starts. Hopefully that'll bring somestudents to our district. - Yeah, you're right in thatas enrollment increases, there's associatedexpenses that go with it. It's more kids, moreclassrooms, more teachers. - Right.- Yeah, for sure. - And again, we can't do anything to move us seniors out ofour houses to make room for those young families thatwe talked about last time. And I think we do brand our district and we do a lot of thingsto promote our district to include new students. - Well, some of us havereached that senior status, and I'm not fully behindon moving out of my house, but I do have a fewgrandchildren on the way that would be filling our schools. So, I'm doing my part that way. - That's perfect.- Yeah. - Other questions? I just wanna ask this because I don't know if you can answer it. We built these buildings. Do we have rooms that aresitting empty not being used? Do we have rooms thatare only half-filled? We're using all the facilities? - [Wald] Yeah, we'reusing all the facilities. - So it's not like we'vegot a wing over there at the high school just sitting empty. - Correct.- Okay. - But we do have more capacity. - [Arcand] Yeah. And the one thing we doknow is that enrollment has ebbed and flowed year to year. So, one year can be up,the next year can be down. I think we talked about,was it sixth grade up? And then they moved on and now it's down. So it just depends on the year, too? - Correct.- Okay. Yes. Mr. Skaar. - I would just caution theboard as well as the staff not to get too comfortablewith rationalizing this. Because I think it's abigger issue with this miss, because you've got two types of costs, well, really three, but you have fixed costs, variable costs, and semi-variable costs. So, we have a large fixed cost now that we are not leveragingwith 11,000 students. We have a fixed cost that we're leveraging across a smaller population. So, you know, we can feel good, and we can, you know, people are good at rationalizing things, but I think we need tokeep an eye on the future to make sure that we'retracking this and we're ready. - Yeah, I agree.- Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, I just wanna repeat again, you adjust the enrollmentmultiple times a year, correct? - [Johnson] Correct. - We have a lot of homes being built. We have a marketing campaign and program. I just wanna reiteratethat we start with this and then we hear things andthen we come back to the same. Let's try and insinuate that folks aren't doing their job. I know how hard those inthe district are working. I appreciate it. And then to come each week, it's hard to watch peopletry and insinuate that. So, I have apologized before in the past. I apologize now. Thank you for your work.- Thank you, Chris. - Scott?- Yes, sir. I wasn't insinuating anything like that. So, I'm not insinuatingpeople aren't doing their job, but you know, if you keep doing one thing and you keep gettingthe same result, I mean, you know, maybe we should lookat doing things differently and just brainstorm. - I hear what you're sayingand I have a question about, we're talking the boarddoing a marketing plan, I'm not sure how that falls, you kind of talked about that. I don't if that falls under governance. Do you have one more thingor are we good to call it? - Call it, please.- Okay. Thank you. We're gonna move on. Okay, we're gonna moveon to discussion item D2, first reading of school board policies 101, 101.1, 103, 203.6. The policies listed willbe on the March 2nd, 2026 following agenda for the second reading. If there's a question, please reference the page and policy number. We usually take these as an entire group and so we're gonna openit up for questions. Any questions about these policies? - [Skaar] Chair? Well, you already heard my view on this. Policy 203.6.- Do you have a page on here? - [Skaar] Yeah, I can get the page. - 96.- What is it? - 96.- All right, thank you. 96. And the changes that aremade really are draconian when you look at thepurpose of Robert's Rules, which is to make surethat everybody gets heard. And I won't reiterate my pointfrom my opening comments, but I've never seen this. I don't think there's any districts in the State of Minnesota, and I would wager in the Midwest, that have something this draconian. So, I would suggest thatwhoever, the policy committee, the policy committee that presented this, go back to the drawing boardand really think about, you know, maybe you'reusing a legal framework, not an ethical framework tomake decisions like that. Maybe we should do an ethical framework to make decisions onpolicy changes like that. - But it looks to me likea motion could be made to remove it. Is that correct? - That's what I see.- Yes. - You can make a motion- I'd make a motion. - A motion to remove mustbe made and seconded. And a majority vote to remove it. And so there is to say that you can't pull somethingoff the consent agenda is not totally true, you can, I think I'm just gonnasay from where I'm sitting. Also, the fact is thatif you do have questions, you can always contact the Superintendent and ask your questions to getyour information that way. So, you're not barred fromfinding the information. When you get information, you can always contact the Superintendent and ask those questions, and then they can getthat information to you. So there are other ways, too. But this, it doesn't preventthings from being pulled. It just puts in aprocedure to work through. Any other discussion? Yes. - It's a much higher thresholdthat I've never seen. - Okay. Yes, Ms. Streiff Oji. - So, agenda items areplaced on the agenda by working with you, is that correct? - Yes.- You create the agenda items. So, if we want agenda items, a board member would work with you? - Yeah, they could askif I could put them in. We can look and see. Or if they don't get them in, and then you can also make that motion to- - So, when we have boardmembers that are trying to pull things off the consent agenda, it appears from my perspective that people are trying to createtheir own agenda items. And that's not our role. Our role is not, I mean, withoutworking through you, right? So, we can put theseagenda items on there, but pulling them off inthe middle of the meeting for the sake of disrupting the meeting, it feels like, when I hear it's not ethicalor these are draconian ways, this is, we are trying to remain, keep order in ourmeetings and be efficient. Questions can be answered,things can be pulled off and on, agenda items can be added. But one board member, sinceI've been on this board, does not add agenda items each week. - Yep, and it's important, the question is, is the information, does the board member want information? Because there, again, I'm gonna go back, you can contact the Superintendent and they can get you the information. Mr. Skaar. - Well, I've been, I lost track, but I was keeping track, I'm probably 0 for 20on making any motions and not getting a second. I have requested numerous times through informal means to get things through emails to say I'd like to talk about this on the agenda. That, I've probably made adozen requests like that. None of them ever honored, ever. So, none of my motions. So, I have a publicresponsibility for the folks that voted for me totalk about these items. And I will. And I'll find a way to talk about them. Thank you.- Ms. Daniels. - I think you mentioned earlier, and this is what I dowhen I have questions and I have, whether it'sfinancial or a policy or agenda, I do contact people in thedistrict prior to the meeting to get my questions answered. So, and in the past, when I've found something in the agenda that either wasn't corrector I had a question about, things were revised ifthey weren't correct. Whether it was through theChair or the Superintendent. Most of the time it was more like I was just seeking informationand clarification for myself. And what was on the agenda was fine. And I agree with Chris, taking things off andhaving your own agenda item, it just doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem like it'sa good use of our time. There are ways to getthings on the agenda, and perhaps some of thethings you've introduced haven't been agreed on by, you know, maybe they just weren'tappropriate agenda items. I don't know how many times, who you've emailed ortried to do those things. I don't know. - Mr. Chair?- Yes. - So, and I said thisat a previous meeting, this is my ninth year on the board. And I think I agree with Ms. Streiff Oji, there's a lot of ways to get information, and sometimes it's talkingto the Superintendent, sometimes it's reachingout to cabinet members. It's also building relationships with your fellow board members and reaching out to fellow board members. If I have questions about thingsthat are happening in 916, I can reach out to Ms. Daniels because she's been on the 916 board. If I have questions, I canreach out to Dr. Arcand about things happening fromthe Chair's perspective. Our responsibility is not just to the people who voted for us, but to every singleperson in this district and to every singlestudent in this district. So, I do take exception to focusing on thepeople that voted for us. And I do believe that there are ways that we can work together. We have a board trainingcoming up in a couple of weeks, which is really important. But I think that there is a level of trust that we need to build here and we need to do our own internal work. We have not always agreed. And I have had some really difficult and painful conversationswith board members in the past and I have been on the losing side of votes a number of times. But ultimately our job is to run an efficient and orderly meeting and to be beholden to everyperson in this district. So, I think that we canfind a way as a board to work together and to support one another. As long as we're notgathering four people or more, we don't have a quorum. But we can learn from one another. - Thank you, Jessica. (audience applauding)- We can't. Sorry. (gavel knocking)- Please. All right. Yes, Ms. Thompson. - I would just like toadd the point that we are in a role of governance, which board member Ellison clearly stated at our board meeting inJanuary what our roles are. And I would just state that if something- (Ellison whispering) No, we can actually, I learned that. - Sorry.- Sorry. Because we're a medium-sized board. I'm learning and I'm still learning, also. I would just like to say that, had a board member broughtsomething out of a consent agenda that showed a reason forus to be discussing it as if there was a need for it because the districtwasn't doing their job or was mismanaging funds or was doing any of the thingsthat have been questioned so far by board member Skaar, I would be very supportive of having those conversationsup here as a board. So far that has not happened. There has been no presented information that has validated any of the things that we're continuallypulling and discussing. And Amazon purchases, combiningthem all together in one, I don't want the Amazonpurchases combined together as one Amazon purchase becausethat's not how they're made. So, they need to be broken down in the way that they're broken down. Does it add an extensive amount of pages to our board packet? Yes. To me that's transparency andthat's what I like to see. I will say that I am very happy there is a little descriptionnext to those purchases now, Mr. Skaar, so I am thankful for that. It gives me a littlemore information about what those purchases are entailing. But there has been no reasonto continually do that other than to cause us tonot run an efficient meeting. And our job is to run an efficient meeting so that the district can do their job to educate our studentsand to pay our staff and to make sure that our community has amazing buildings fortheir students to learn in, for our community members to participate in other activities in. And I just haven't, I mean, I'm sorry, but to me this helps us ensure that you still have the ability to pull an item off of the consent agenda, but it needs to havesupport of other members who agree that what we're talking about is needed to be discussedin a school board meeting. - Okay, well, I would just, thank you, respond to that by saying there is a reason to pull off those items off the consent agenda. We've had 14 material weaknesses and violations of state or federal laws. That's a high number. Even our auditor said that. We enrolled a 22-year-old and it was found out by a student. That's an oversight problem. We have a safety record that is 20% worse thana similarly situated- - [Daniels] Point of order. I just think we're way offtopic here and grandstanding- - [Skaar] No, no, no, we're not off topic. You said I don't havethe justification to it. I'm looking at the internalcontrols compliance environment. - You're dragging in things that are not even pertinent to internal- - They're absolutelypertinent to oversight. Sorry. Absolutely pertinent. - Okay, are we through? All right, well, these will come back at our next meeting for approval. I would like to move on now to operational item E1,action on annual resolution directing the administrationto make recommendations for reduction in programs,positions, and reasons. Mr. Mons, welcome. - Thank you very much. Good evening, members ofthe board, Dr. Kazmierczak. This is an annualresolution that allows us to go about the work that we need to do in the case that we need tomake budgetary reductions that will impactpositions in the district. Regardless of the district'sfinancial position, this is something that we bring every year because even items or even concepts, just like student choice, for instance, in the classes they wish to take, can result in positions getting reduced. So, this is something, like I said, that we bring every year. This is part of our standard procedure. And so with that I ask for approval. - [Arcand] Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved.- Streiff Oji. Second? - Second.- Second by Thompson. Any discussion? This will be a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Okay. Motion passes.- Thank you. - All right. Next wehave operational item E2, action on the bid for theSunrise roof replacement project. Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair Arcand,members of the board. In your board materials tonight is the recommendationletter and bid summary for the Sunrise Parkroof replacement project. This project was includedin the LTFM plan approved by the board this past July. The project includes replacement of 66,400 square feet of total roof area. You can see in the images here the areas that'll be targeted for,or that will be replaced. There's actually additionalareas that need to be replaced, but that's the maximum amount of roofing that can be completed duringthe summer construction season. So, a few other areaswill be in the future. The areas that are outlined in red are the 33 to 35-year-old roof. And so it's time for them to be replaced. The bid Roof Spec Inc.serves as the engineers for the project and theyrecommend we award the bid to the low bidder, McPhillipsBrothers Roofing Company in North St. Paul withthe bid of $1,181,000. Includes a 20-year warranty and construction will beginas soon as weather permits and will be targetingcompletion by August 21st. The recommendation is that theboard accept the overall bid for the Sunrise Park roofreplacement project as presented to McPhillips Brothers Roofing Company in the amount of $1,181,000. - [Arcand] Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved.- By Daniels. A second? - Second.- Second by Ellison. Discussion? Mr. Skaar. - Tim, were these ever includedin the construction budget, the large construction budget? The referendum? - No, no, this is part of the LTF, part of the deferredmaintenance plan that, you know, that we'recontinuing to chip away at. - Got it. Thanks.- Yeah. - [Arcand] Mr. Wald, how does the bid fall with what we expected to get, the budget? - The bid was exceptionalfrom what we expected. We expected it to be inthe $2 million range. And bidding has become very competitive, at least in the short-term. So, we've benefited from areally low bid on this project. - [Arcand] Other questions? - In fact, we were $99,000lower than the next lowest bid, and $454,600 lower than thehighest bid on the project. - [Arcand] Okay. Do you havea question, Ms. Thompson? - Well, not a question, but just a comment on how old the sectionsare that they're replacing. I mean, 33 to 35 years of, that's, hopefully we'll get the same amount before we have to replace them again, but. - Yeah, you can see thedark areas on there. It's looking pretty worn in. - Okay. Okay. Do we have a motionto approve the contract? Any other questions? Yes? Do you want me to read or something? - No, I'm-- Okay. All right, so this isgonna be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. All right, next we have on operations E3, action on the bid for Mariner Middle Schoolroof replacement project. Once again, Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair Arcand. In your board materials today is the recommendationletter and bid summary for the Mariner Middle Schoolroof replacement project. This project was also includedin the LTFM plan approved by the board this past July. This is a little bit smaller project, includes 38,900 square feet of roofing, as well as replacement of the fascia along a portion of the east andnorth sides of the building. Again, Roof Spec Inc. is serving as the engineer for the project. They've reviewed each of the four bids. It's their recommendationthat we accept the low bid from Central Roofing inthe amount of $1,447,370. Here, the next lowestbid was $107,350 higher, and the highest bid was $197,630 higher. - [Arcand] All right. CanI get a motion to approve? - So moved.- By Thompson. Second? - Second.- Second by Ellison. Discussion? I assume we did well on this bid, also? - Yeah, not as well. This was a little morecomplicated project. It's noted on the slide that they have to bring thisone down to the concrete. At Sunrise, there's ametal roof that they can, they don't have to takean entire roof off. At Mariner, they have totake the entire roof off. So, it's a much more labor intensive job. - [Arcand] Is this the firsttime they've redone that roof or that portion? It was built in '72. - It might be thatportion of the building. - Okay.- '72? - Mr. Scott?- I don't think so. - Tim, is there asbestosrisk on these at all? Do we have any asbestosrisk in the district or has it been pretty much encapsulated? - Yeah, we've pretty well handled all of the asbestos issues. But we always test before,as part of our process, always test for asbestosbefore we do renovation or removal projects tomake sure that we're- - In all of our contracts, we take responsibility for the asbestos and then we have a removalcompany that can come out, remove it, encapsulate it, or whatever? - Yeah, that's correct.- Thank you. - Safely remove it, yeah. - Okay, good? Any other questions? Okay, we have the motionto accept this bid. This will be a roll call vote. Will the court please call the roll? - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. Okay, we're now down to operation item E4, action on trail and parking lot easement with the city of Vadnais Heights. - Yeah. Thank you, Chair Arcand. So this project, or this item, is related to a proposal fromthe City of Vadnais Heights for a property exchange agreement at Vadnais Heights Elementary School site. In the board packettonight is the resolution that the board's asked to approve. The proposed agreement involvesthe school district granting the city a pathway or a trail easement from which they canaccess their sewer line. And you can see on theimage, the blue part north or to the west of the school is the easement that theyneed from the school district. But you can see it's partof a bigger trail system that they're able to utilize or they're looking tobuild in Vadnais Heights. It will create access to the utilities that they're looking for. And it also create somewalkability in that neighborhood. It's not an area that isof particular use to us. You can see it butts up to thewest side of the ball field, but there's ample spacethere for the ball field and related activities. In exchange, the city would like to grant the Outlot A Bonsell Additionto the school district that's on the south sideof Vadnais Elementary. It's kind of an awkward areathat the city has owned. At one point, the schooldistrict was looking to modify that parking lot tocreate a safer bus pickup for special education busingand additional parking. You can see by that image that people park on the grass quite a lot there. So, that will, by acquiring that addition, it'll allow us to makesome safety improvements and additional parking to thatparking lot in the future. So this is a win-win, I think, for the school district and for the city. And our recommendation isthat the school board approve the resolution for an easement exchange between the city of Vadnais Heights and the White Bear LakeArea Schools as presented. - [Arcand] All right. Wehave that in front of us. Can we get a motion? - So moved.- By Ellison. Second? - Second.- Second by Thompson. Any further discussion? Yes. - Mr. Wald, there's nomoney changing hands? - No.- It's just an even swap? - Even swap.- Okay, thanks. - Any further discussion? - Just have a quick question.did somebody have to do, if it's a like kind exchange, I'm assuming this is kindof a like kind exchange. So, is there any valuation done between the two properties,like a market valuation? - No, there's reallynot a market value issue because none of it is taxed. - Yeah. Okay.- Yeah. - Got it. Thank you.- It was a complicated legal maneuvering to make it happen. So, our attorneys havebeen working on this with the attorney for thecity for several months to get the process through. - So, hopefully they can'tcome back and sue us, right? You're telling us that- - We should have it pretty tight. - Okay.- Yeah. - All right. Any other questions? Okay, before us, we have amotion to approve the resolution for the easement exchange between the City of Vadnais Heights and the White Bear Lake Area Schools. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion passes. All right, now we're on to E5, action out of official depositories for school district fundsand authorized banks. Mr. Wald. - Yeah. Thank you, Chair Arcand. In January, you approved thelist of authorized signers. We've had a position filled since then, so we need to approve an updated list. If you look near the bottom of your list, you'll see Seth Mader is added to the list and Seth was a controllerfor the school district up until a few years ago, and we were able toconvince him to come back and work for the school district again. So, we're thrilled to havehim back starting tomorrow. And he will handle a lotof money transfers for us. So, we need him as an approved signer. - Okay, so the motion is to resolve the School Board ofIndependent School District 624 White Bear Lake. The following bank accounts are designated as official depositories. And we've added that person to this. Can I get a motion? - So moved.- By Thompson. A second? - Second.- Second by Daniels. Is there any other further discussion? I'm just gonna say thatwe're happy to have him back. All right. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. We're on to E6, action onrevised fiscal year 25-26 budget. Mr. Wald. - Thank you, Chair. Earlier this evening, we presented on the fiscal year 2025-26 revised budget, and we recommend that the board approve the fiscal year 2025-26revised budget as presented. - [Arcand] Okay, wehave the recommendation. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved.- By Ellison. Second? - Second.- Second by Streiff Oji. Discussion? Any further discussion? Mr. Skaar. - Tim, can you kind ofwalk me through if there's, I'm trying to read this thing. I tried to read it beforehand and I can't get my screen to get bigger, but what's the gist of the deltas on this, on your projected budget? I mean, are there any drivers or is it pretty much just minor items? - Yeah, the revenue issignificantly impacted by expenses this year, so that will come into play next year. You know, we will recover, we'll make progress in the fundbalance recovery next year, but we will also reduce ourexpenses by a million dollars. - [Skaar] Okay. Where'sthat reduction coming from? - Well, that will be determined. We're looking at operations first. We think within the transportation world we're targeting some reductions. So, we'll look at transportation first and then move through other areas. - Okay. Thank you.- Yep. - [Arcand] Mr. Wald, is it correct that the last resortwould be the classroom? - Yeah, you know, like Mr. Mons mentioned earlier, when we staff our elementaryand secondary classrooms, we staff it, we're planning, we're moving forward withthe same staffing level we have this year. That may mean at elementary or secondary, you could have a few lessteachers at one of those areas because of just based on enrollment. But we're using the same staffing formulas that we currently use. So, you might see some changes there. - [Arcand] Any other questions? Hearing none, this willbe a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison.- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, we are now onto the board forums, the opportunity for board membersto update the school board and the public on committee work, and engage in official capacity as a board member and create awareness of upcoming district partnership events. Are there any board membersthat'd like to share something? Ms. Ellison. - Just wanna confirm themusic events coming up. The event this Friday, thestudents were really excited to be able to compete in this opportunity, and the fact that it was canceled, I hope we can get a bigcrowd there at the PAC at the high school this Fridayto support our musicians. And then the jazz night, I don't know if Dr.Kazmierczak mentioned this, but there's also dance lessons. So, you can go and listento jazz and eat good food and take swing dance lessons. So it's really a wonderful opportunity. And I also just wanted to give a shout out to just this community in general. I'm so glad to be a part of it. Thank you for all thatyou're doing for each other. - [Arcand] Thank you. Anybody else? Yes, Ms. Thompson. - I had the great pleasureof being appointed to the 916 board, and I'm very gratefulfor that opportunity. My grandmother was a social worker there, so it's been something Ihave wanted to be a part of ever since I've been on the board. So, very grateful to be a part of that. And they have a bingo night coming up that's gonna be a fundraiser, and I've been to some bingonights when I was a PTA member and people love bingo. So, if you're into bingo, it's $20 a card you get, or $20 for five cards. It's gonna be on Thursday, February 26th. Doors open at 5:30, bingo starts at 6:00, and it's at the Quora Education Center. If you need that information, I have an email, youcould reach out to me, and I can share that with you, or I'm sure someone elsein the district could, too. (mumbling) - [Daniels] It's Rice and B2. County Road. - And then also just wanted to bring up, I'm also the liaison for our American IndianParent Advisory Committee and just wanted to sharethat this year our students actually got to take partin a buffalo harvest, and they had a field tripwhere they went to South Dakota and they had a successful hunt. They learned how to offer tobacco for the buffalo for the sacrifice. It makes for them to be able to share in all of the gifts thatthe buffalo gives to them. And then it also helpsto just guide the hunters appropriately as they'rehunting for the buffalo. And just wanted to share that. It's been a long time coming,so I was very happy to hear that our students finallygot to partake in that. - [Arcand] All right. Yes, go ahead. - I just wanna thankstaff and administration and community members,similar to what Jessica said, for wrapping themselves aroundour neighbors and friends and people in our community at this time. So, I've seen a lot ofwonderful things happening in this community and I really am grateful to each one of you. - All right. Mr. Skaar? - Yeah, I just wantedto give a brief overview on something that I attendedat the MSBA Leadership week. On January 14th, I attended a workshop called From Conflicts to Conversations. The presenter, Matt Lehrman, does these workshops all over the country. He specializes working with school boards and local governments to help them be moreeffective in their role. And some of the takeawaysfrom the workshops were recognizing thatdisagreements isn't failure, it's evidence that people care. And that task leadershipis to turn that energy into connection, learning and progress. Boards are problem solvers. Boards find ways to createcommunity engagement. So, then I thought about this, and I don't know if you'veheard of the Lighthouse Project, has anybody heard of that? But I thought that was pretty interesting. And what they did withthe Lighthouse Project is they tried to connect boardengagement on student success with actual classroom success. And so they asked two questions, are boards in high-achievingdistricts different from those in low-achieving districts? If so, how can all school boards become more like districtswith high achievements? In other words, thesetwo are tied together, so, they're directly correlated. And this study was done in two phases. The second phase was looking for linkages between student successgovernance policies and board relationshipswith the superintendent. So, I'll just give you a description. I didn't write this, so don't shoot, you know, don't take it out on me. But they talked about an engaged culture around student success states, board and superintendent team-assumed leadership responsibilities with a focus on systematic improvement. The board members in thepilot school districts were not passive rubber stamps of the superintendent's recommendations, but they were also not acting as if they were professionaleducators either. At the same time, superintendentsdid not view their boards as a necessary evil that must be tolerated or merely managed in order tokeep them from causing harm. Board and superintendents relied upon positive, trustingrelationships to enable them to play strong, interdependentleadership roles to examine and challenge each other's views, to study data, confrontexisting realities, and to ask probing questions and to scrutinize each other's performance in ways that strengthenedand mobilize the team. So I was thinking, you know, does our board have those relationships? And if not, why not? And then if we can, we ought to figure out a way to find it, and plot a path towards that. And I think boards canbe much more effective without constraints, you know, on governance policiesthat reduce free speech and other things. And I won't belabor that. So, I would ask the fellow board members, what kind of board do you want to be? We want to be problem solvers. I think we all would agree on that. And boards can't solveproblems without dialogue. And you know, democracy runs on dialogue. So, I think we should find ways that we can talk to each other more and we can talk to the public more. Thank you.- Okay. - [Thompson] Sorry, I know,I just thought of one more. - [Arcand] No. - It's an important event.- Okay, go ahead. - Okay, I'm sorry. I just, I'm not on thecommittee and I forgot the date, but I wanted to mention the White Bear LakeArea Educators Breakfast is coming up Fridaymorning at the high school. It's a great event. They raise money. They do wonderful things for our school and just wanted to mention that. - Thank you. Okay.- Sorry. - No, I just have a few things. So, I'm gonna go through them. First off, last week was National School Counselor Week, I believe it was last week. And I just wanna give a shout out to all our school counselors as they help our studentsnavigate the educational system from kindergarten all the wayup through 12th grade and on. Our counselors do a fantasticjob supporting our students and helping them with so many needs. We could not run our buildings without our school counselors. So, that was last week. I also wanna mention thatFebruary is also CTE Month. So, I gonna give a shout out to all our valuable CTE teachers. That would be our business teachers, our family consumer science teachers, and our trades and industry,our tech ed teachers, they all provide skillsthat our students can use in the marketplace when they go out. So, when you see your CTE teachers, give them a high fivein tell them thank you. Also want to talk about this Thursday, the Ramsey County Leagueof Local Government is having their legislatordiscussion from 5:00 to 7:00. It's actually gonna be a meet and greet. It'll be in Maplewood PublicLibrary this Thursday. If you're interested, I can let you know how you can register,but it's a good chance to sit down with some local legislatures. And they come tell you whattheir plans are for the year and you can start making that connection. I have that, and the onlyother thing I'm gonna say is, for this Friday, for the music at 7:00, I told my wife I'd take her out on a date and I told her I'd take her to a show, and so we're going there. I think she'll really enjoy it. So, please, you know, you'vegot Valentine's Day coming. Take your significantother, take them to dinner, and take them to the music. So, that would be great.- Did you tell her you paid? - I told her I paid the admission. It's free, right?- It's free. - Thank you. Any other things? All right, we've come to theportion of the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - [Ellison] Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Ellison. Do we get a second?- Second. - Second by Thompson.This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Board] Aye. Opposed, same sign. We are now adjourned. I'd like to thank everybodyfor coming tonight. We appreciate you coming to our meetings.