- I now call this meetingof the School Board of Independent SchoolDistrict 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Arcand?- Here. - Beloyed?- Here. - Daniels?- Here. - Ellison?- Here. - Skaar?- Here. - All right, if you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Please take off your hat if you have one. - [All] I pledgeallegiance all to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - We have before us an agenda. Could I get a motion to approve? - So moved.- Ms. Ellis. Does it have a second? - Second.- Ellison, excuse me. Miss Beloyed. So we have a second. Is there any discussion? This will be a voice vote.All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye.- Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. We also have before us a consent agenda. The consent agenda is designed to expedite the handling of routinemiscellaneous official business of the school board. This includes donations. We are truly grateful of thesupport shown every month to the staff and the students. We wanna make sure wethank those who have given their time and their moneyto the school district. Could I get a motion toaccept the consent agenda? - So moved.- Okay, Miss Beloyed. A second? - Second.- Miss Daniels. Any discussion? All right. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the secretary to call the roll. - Arcand?- Here. - I mean, oh, I got that. Aye. - Beloyed?- Aye. - Daniels?- Aye. - Ellison?- Aye. - Skaar?- Aye. - All right, now we have accepted that. We're gonna move on tothe public forum B1. This is a time for the publicportion of the meeting. There was one request to speak. The public forum allowsthree minutes per speaker with the understanding thatour speaker this evening will communicate to the board. You have three minutes. We will get cards. So when 1 minute remaining,you'll get the orange card. And then when there's 30 seconds, you'll get the yellow card. At the end of three minutes I will gavel and you will be done. So, we also wanna remindyou that when you come up, you can take one of the twoseats right up here in front. We wanna also remindyou that while speaking we will maintain theschool district policy on data privacy laws precluding personnel and student matters or databeing discussed publicly. Dr. K? - Thank you, Chair Arcand.Members of the board. Tonight we celebrate students who have represented thedistrict in cheerleading, alpine ski, gymnastics, and wrestling. Congratulations studentsand thank you to the staff and family members who supportedthe students along the way. Go Bears. (light music) - Congratulations toall the members there. We know that a lot of time and effort went in for them to get to those honors. So, moving on, I would like to move on to informational items C2, Superintendent's reportwith Dr. Kazmierczak. - All right, thank you ChairArcand. Members of the board. So brief update tonight. First of all, the summertimecommunity services catalog will arrive in communitymembers' mailboxes in mid-March. The catalog highlightsopportunities available to residents of all ages as the weather turns warmer. The publication alsoincludes the Bears Bulletin, which covers a variety of district-related news and information. While the weather hasmade a turn for the better in recent weeks, we want to make sure our community members knowthe high school field house walking track remainsopen from 6:00 to 9:00 PM Monday to Thursday through the end of May. There is no cost, but we doask those who participate to wear clean, dry shoes. And as I end my update this evening, I'd like to wish our students, families, and staff a great spring break next week. I hope everyone finds time to relax and recharge as we gear up for the final third of the school year. Came fast. Yeah? - [Arcand] I don't thinkI'll be using the walking track anytime soon. Sorry. So, all right. The next item we have isinformational item C3. Mr. Shavers, American IndianParent Advisory Committee, resolution of concurrenceor non concurrence. - [Shavers] Good evening Chair Arcand and members of the board. Every year around this time, so March 1st, is a deadline that ourAmerican Indian Education program has to, or parentcommittee has to identify if we are going to be concurrentor not for the school year. - Just a little closer,just a little closer. - So as, so every year thatvote takes place in February during their monthly meeting. This year for the firsttime since I've been with the district herefor the past two years, we've been non concurrent. This year the vote wassuccessfully concurrent for all six goal areas thatwere present, which was exciting for our department aswell as for our district. So Ms. Danielle DeLong, whichis the chair, was unable to come this evening dueto scheduling conflicts, but I just wanted toshare that with you so that you had that information. Any questions? - [Arcand] Any questions fromanyone? Yes, Ms. Ellison? - Just a comment to saythank you to Mr. Shavers and members of the APACand families for working through the non concurrence from last year and getting to the point where there's a concurrent vote this year. I know that that takesa lot of time and effort and so I'm grateful to everybodywho was involved with that. So thank you. - I would like to, I knowVincent Patton is here as well. He is our American Indian ed coordinator. I know I worked a lotwith him this summer to go through the reasons for thenon concurrent last year and provide the opportunitiesfor our district staff to get involved in additional training, which was one of their requests. - [Arcand] Okay. Mr. Skaar. - Yeah, the difference between concurrence and non concurrence, what'sthe significance there that now that we're concurrent? - [Shavers] Well, a non concurrence vote, which we had the previous twoyears, we actually have a, we have to put a plan togetherin place on how we're going to address the areas thatthey felt we were deficient in and then move towards correcting that. - [Skaar] Okay, I see. Thank you. - So the concurrent vote means we do not have to submit that plan. - [Skaar] Great, thank you. How many American Indian students do we have in the district? - [Shavers] Vincent, youcan correct me if I'm wrong, but 25 at the high schoollevel, 20 at the middle school, and 30 approximately at the elementary. So, and that's an interesting one. That's one that changesyear to year as well. We really are encouraging and Vincent's doing a reallygood job with that as well, encouraging familiesto identify or register as American Indian through a 516 form. So they are identifyingthat way in documentation so that additional fundingcan come in as well. - [Skaar] Thank you. - Any other questions? Well, thank you for your time. - [Shavers] Thank you. - Okay, at this time we'd like to go on to our discussion items. We'd like to go discussion item D1, elementary specialists, Dr.Gillespie and Ms. Babiash. - [Gillespie] Good evening chair. Our community members ofthe board, Dr. Kazmierczak. Tonight. Me and Ms.Babiash are here to talk to you about our elementaryspecialist program, update you on where we've been, and then we have arecommendation that we'll ask for action later on in tonight's meeting. So I wanted to take youon a little timeline of where we've been the past few years. We actually came to the board at the end of the 22-23 school year and shared some resultsfrom a CAREI review. The Center for Applied Researchand Educational Improvement helped us with the reviewaround our specialist program. We really wanted to makesure we got staff input, family input around whatwere strengths for us, but also what were opportunities in terms of that programming. Then in 23-24, based on theresults of the CAREI review, we implemented elementary art. We had done things in thepast with our partnership with the center, help me. - [Babiash] Wiper Center for the Arts. - [Gillespie] Thank you.I was gonna get stuck. And we implemented somesort of art experience in every one of our elementary schools. And that ranged fromfull year of art as part of the specialist rotationto art experiences. And a lot of that hadto do with, you know, what we were able to do in terms of our world language program, which is what I'm gonna talk abouta little while later. We had some challenges in filling some last minute openings with world language. And so some of our schoolshave had art full time for the past couple of years. We also started that year, 23-24, orchestra moved tostarting in sixth grade. If you remember those conversations. This year, our currentreality is still that each one of our elementary schools hassome sort of art experience, but it's not consistent in termsof some having a year long. Others are having, even residents come in. Willow Lane, VadnaisHeights and Otter Lake are elementary schools that do not have elementary world language. The other ones do currently. We also, if you recall, atthe end of the 23 school year, we talked a little bitabout elementary media and how to continue tobuild up that program. And so we did this year hire an additional elementary media specialist. There was funding allocatedfor that from the state. And so we have a one to three ratio. So we have one media specialistper every three elementary schools, but they also havemedia clerks as part of that elementary media team. So when I came to present toyou at the end of May of 23, I talked about three action steps that we would have as an organization. And I want to give you anupdate of where we were there. We talked about art already, that we would start that in 23-24. Art has received overwhelming support from and praise from students, staff, families. It's been really wonderful to see and it's something thatpeople talk about often as a positive that weadded to our programs. In addition to the staffingthat I just talked about for elementary media specialists,that team of specialists and clerks support student learning by offering a lot of different things. Leading book clubs,teaching digital safety, providing training for staff and students. We're also making a concertedeffort to include more STEM, science, technology, engineering and math, in our elementary schools. And that's done through our media program. So it's been reallyexciting to see things, robotics stations for K-5 students and that's really continuing to grow. Additionally, in May, we talked about that we were gonna examineour world language models and including languageimmersion, which as you know, we will be starting attwo schools, kindergarten, elementary, Spanish dualimmersion in the fall at Matoska International and Otter Lake. These are some recentpictures of the work. We are definitely leaningin, recruiting students, supporting families in enrollment. And then our staff is workingreally hard on the curriculum for our kindergartners next year. So I wanted to review just briefly what the CAREI surveysaid because we use that to guide decisions throughoutthe past few years. Strengths from that surveywere that there's a high level of student engagement inour specialist classes. And then really familiesvery much appreciate the specialist offerings that we had. Areas for improvement or things that we really leaned into was there was an absoluteoverwhelming desire to add art into our programming. A need to organize our specialist schedules across buildings. It can be really complexas you look at people who travel between buildings. Our elementary principals work really hard around making sure that wemeet the needs of our students. But it also is a schedulethat's manageable for our staff and we continue to look at that each year. And then really most staff and families echoed thatthey want our students to have even more movementthroughout the day. So we've added things likemore flex time at each one of our elementaryschools, really looking at how we're creatingmovement in other areas, but knowing that PE is valuedextensively by our community. Another thing that we asked was what is best practice inspecialist scheduling? When I reached out to ourneighboring districts at the time, we were the first to embarkon this for quite some time. And so how to really, thecomplexities around this, how to make sure we'remaking the best decisions. And really what came outoverwhelmingly from research was that we really listened to student and family input in termsof the types of offerings, but also know that we have state statute and standards that we need to implement into ourelementary programming. Our survey, we did an online survey, we received really greatresponse that was representative of all our schools, all our grade levels. 873 is a large response in terms of, as CAREI was looking at, is this something that we can really lean into and be confident that it represents voices across our district. We also were very happy thatit was representative in terms of racial and ethnic identity and students and families who qualifyfor supports in terms of special education. So again, 84% agree, 84% of parents agreed that their child enjoysgoing to specialists. They really wanted avariety of opportunities for their students andfamilies were satisfied with the schedule and rotation. Areas for us, we're addingart, increasing movement, increasing communicationbetween specialist teachers and families, which we reallytalk about across the board. And then increasing inclusion for students in special education. This is, if you rememberthe, we asked families beyond required musicand physical education, which areas of content would you like? And art, physical education, STEAM, music. But art came out really assomething that people wanted and it was number one in terms of the area to add into our specialist rotation. So our recommendationmoving forward will be, and as I worked with a team and I'd like to thank ourelementary principals, it's been really complexto really dive into this, was I needed us to haveconsistent offering of art at each elementary school. I understand why we startedwith some inconsistencies, but it seems like based onthe response from our survey and the experience thatour students are having, that we need to make surethat there's consistency across our schools and that we utilize theCAREI survey in terms of highlighting andreally amplifying family and staff voice in ourprogramming decision. So the recommendation that I'll be asking for action on later on today is that beginning in the 25-26 school year will have physicaleducation, music, and art at each one of our elementary schools. Then at MatoskaInternational and Otter Lake, the schools that we're adding immersion to that they will havephysical education, music and a rotation between art and Spanish. The why behind that is art was identified as I've already mentioned, asa top choice of our families. We really looked atcould it, is it feasible to offer a four rotation,meaning having world language, art, PE, and music ateach one of our schools. And it isn't, in terms of ourcurrent budgetary parameters, that would add at leastadditional five FTEs, which is not what our budget can have right now. And we also would be concernedabout the decrease in physical educationbecause you add, you know, it's like you add one moreday into the rotation, that limits the physicalmovement for students. And that would be contrary to what our families have asked for. We still obviously are reallycommitted to world language as we are adding aSpanish immersion program and we remain dedicated to our world language educationin middle and high school. And then Spanish being an integral part of the programming atMatoska and Otter Lake, we talked a lot about one, what does that look like for aconsistent unifying experience for all students at that those schools, even families who maybedon't choose immersion and providing a second languageexperience is also a key requirement for IB,International Baccalaureate, which is ano another programthat we have at Matoska. So it seemed like having thosetwo schools set up similarly and then the rest of ourseven elementaries with PE, music and art made the most sense for us as we really looked atfeasibility in terms of financial and then the feedback from our families. What questions might youhave for me and or Jen? - Thank you, do we haveany questions? Mr. Skaar? - Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Is world language, isthat a state mandate? - [Gillespie] It's notin terms of elementary and it really, it isn't across the board. What it is, is it's often a requirement for students when they'reapplying for four year colleges. And so we offer thoseexperiences for sure in the middle school and high school. But it's not a state required. - So when you're talkingabout world language, you're just talking aboutwe offer students different, you know, different ways tolearn different languages. French, German, Spanish. Is there any other onesbesides those three? - Yeah, we have AmericanSign Language, French and Spanish as the three that we offer. And they're elective choices for students. So they can choose in eighthgrade if they wanna take that. Otherwise they choose anywherebut from ninth through 12th. - Do we think that having that, having this world languagepriority helps the K through five and reading in general toget our reading scores up or there's not much of a connection? - That's a good question. Idon't know the answer to that. I would have to talk with,it's perhaps prior when we were able to have a moreconsistent programming. But it has been difficult tomaintain the staffing in terms of when we have last minuteopenings, world language, which is a hard one to find people to. - Okay, thank you. Thanks. - Any other questions? Well thank you, we'll see you back when we bring it back to a vote on it. Alright, we're going onto discussion item D2. This will be the first readingof school board policies 420, 427, 508, 533, 701, 704, 721. Normally we look at these together, so if you have a question on one, if you can let us know the page number that you have the question on. Just so you know thatthese policies will be brought back on April14th for us to make a vote to approve this. So do we have any questionson those policies? Mr. Skaar? - I had one on the, itwas the federal grant one and I'm sorry I can't get the page because it had to do with cybersecurity. You guys know where that page,what that page number is? I just had it, but anyways, when I read the cybersecurity part, I thought, well this isreally more like a date of privacy rather than cybersecurity. So I would ask staff togo back and look at that and you know, reconcile it. Oh, thank you. Sorry, Ididn't have my mic on. I'm still learning inthis, in our new digs here. But anyways, it didn't seem like it was a cybersecurity requirementor a cybersecurity policy. It was more like data privacy. So I would go back and maybekind of take a look at that to get it focused more on cybersecurity, which is protecting oursystems from, you know, people that want to do oursystems harm, steal our money, steal our information, things like that. - [Ellison] It's policy, it's policy 721. - 721. Right. - [Ellison] Starting page88 of the board packet. - Right, 721-8. I just found it. Right. I would just recommend going back and looking at that,squaring it up with actual, with cybersecurity policies or protocols, those types of things asopposed to just data privacy. - I'm looking for the... Yeah, but I'm looking for the-- There you go. - So follow up, chair.So follow up on that. So that, that sectionthen that's highlighted. I'm looking at page 96 inthe board packet, section C. My guess is that that comesfrom changes in statute. - Your statute or MSBA recommended change. Yep. Yeah, but we can look at that. Okay. - Any other questions? - I would just add, do we havea cybersecurity policy here? - We do, yeah, we do.- Okay. - By policy you mean insurance policy or do you mean policy, policy? - No, policy. Policy. We can talk about that. - Okay, and then, and once again, if there's any other further questions? This will come back on April14th and so we can look at that and then have that readyto go when we vote on it. That brings us to operational item E1, action on a bid for centralmiddle school security package. Mr. Wald. - Good evening Chair Arcand,members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. Tonight I have the phase two bid package for central middleschool security upgrade. Phase one was completed in2022 by Allstate Communications and at that point we knew we would have additional renovations and new space brought online renovated spaces in that we would do a phase two. This is a pretty small percentage of the security packageat Central Middle School. It's the final package. We had a bid opening on February 25th. We had two bidders for the project. One was ECSI, they were the high bid, and Allstate Communicationswho did the first phase of the project was the low bid. The recommendation is toaccept the overall bid for the central middleschool security package as presented in the amount of $323,700 to Allstate Communications Incorporated. - So the recommendedaction in front of us is to accept the overall bid for Central middle school security package as presented in the amount of 323,700 to Allstate Communication Incorporated. Do I have a motion to accept the bid? - So moved.- Ms. Ellison. Do I have a second? - Second.- Second by Ms. Daniels. Do we have any discussion? - I have some questions.- Mr. Skaar. - A couple of questions. This was not included inthe construction budget with Krauss Anderson, something separate? - [Wald] No, this is includedin the construction budget. - Oh it is?- [Wald] Yeah. - Okay. - [Wald] It's just weinstalled some of it early on and then the parts that needed to wait, we waited until it happened this summer, when we're doing thefinal phase of renovation. - Did we have someone do arisk assessment of the security prior so did that fedinto the bid process? - [Wald] Yeah, that's a good question. We had True North work withus on evaluating our buildings and then they put togethersecurity recommendations and those are implementedacross our buildings. So what we're gonna installat Central is consistent with what we've done at allof our other buildings. - Do we use just, I wasjust thinking about this. Do we use like the law enforcement to review the plan or not necessary? - [Wald] Not to review the plan. We work with what thestandards for school security and meet or exceed those standards. And then our policedepartment has worked with us on our sites walking throughthe sites and evaluating. So they have a plan on ifwe're called into this site, what are, you know, whatthings do we need to know? We have boxes on theoutside of our building so the police have securityto all of our sites. - Thank you. - Any further questions? Okay, we have a motion in front of us to accept the overall bidfor Central Middle School for 323,700 to Allstate Communications. I'll ask the clerk to call the role. - Arcand?- Aye. - Beloyed?- Aye. - Daniels, aye. Ellison?- Aye. - Skaar.- Aye. Motion carries. Thank you.- [Wald] Thank you. - Next on operating item is E2, action on the elementary specialists. Welcome back Dr. Gillespie. - Chair Arcand, members of the board. Earlier this evening, Ipresented a recommendation on our elementary specialist program. So the recommendation would be that you approve therecommendation as presented. - [Arcand] Okay, so wehave a recommended action. Do we have a motion?- [Ellison] So moved. - [Arcand] Ms. Ellison. A second? - [Skaar] Second. - [Arcand] Second by Mr. Skaar. Any discussion? Yes, Ms. Daniels? - I just wanna say I have people, little people in the district that are gonna be very excited about this. They're very much art families and something that they,I know that they've really enjoyed theunits they've had so far and want more of it. So, and their school didn'thave, you know, before. So I'm really excitedabout it for families. - Other questions? The one thing that goes off in my mind is as we continue to talkabout student engagement, and there's nothing, whenyou go into that art class, you can see a lot ofstudent engagement a lot of the times as the kidsuse their creativity to create and dream. And I think that's somethingthat helps in all the classes that they do, that theylearn to start even to problem solve for doing that. So I feel it's important. So thank you. - [Gillespie] Thank you. - [Arcand] Any furtherquestions or comments? Okay. This will be a voice vote. So, all in favor ofrecommended the approving the elementary Specialist programadjustments as presented, say aye.- [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same side. Motion carried. Thank you very much. And then on operation item E3, we're bringing back the actionon school board policies 505, 599, 610, 999 for approval. We usually do those again. So can we get a motion to approve these? - So moved.- Okay, Ms. Daniels, a second? - Second,- Second by Ms. Beloyed. Discussion? Hearing none, this againwill be a voice vote. All in favor say aye.- [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. We are now on to our board forum. This is a time for boardmembers to share anything that's going on and thatthey've been involved with in the community. Anybody wanna shareanything for board forum? - Nothing.- What's that? - I said not today. - I do wanna share one thing is, as we're sitting in this room,I have to thank the members of our community through their agreeing for this construction. We're able to create this board room and we're hoping thatit's a more friendly place where people can come in andcome to the board meeting. This could not have been done without the members of our community. So on behalf of everyone,I want to thank everybody who supported this and got that in there. And so that we have this toshare with the community. The only other thing I wannasay is I just am very feeling very blessed with allthe support as I have. If you haven't noticed,if you see me try to walk, I have my third ankle surgeryand I've got a lot of support and a lot of people, youknow, volunteering to push me or push me off my scooter. I'm not sure.(all chuckling) But that, yeah, it's justnice that people care. And that's been, I'm very thankful as, and this is why I havelived in White Bear my life and this is why I stay in White Bear because this is a great place to live and get educated, work and play. So thank you for that. Anybody else? With that, we are ready for,I can go to the adjournment. Can I make a motion to adjourn? - Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Okay. Is there a second?- Second. - Second by Beloyed. All infavor of adjournment, say aye. - [All] Aye.- Opposed? Same sign. Now adjourned. Thank you everyone.