(gavel strikes) - I'd like to call to orderthis school board meeting of the school board ofIndependent School District 624. I would ask the clerkto please call the roll. - Ellison?- Here. - Newmaster?- Here. - Streiff Oji?- Here. - Thompson?- Here. - Arcand, here. Beloyed?- Here. - All right, thank you. I would ask everyone to please stand for thePledge of Allegiance. - [All] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - We have before us tonight an agenda. I would ask for a motion to approve. - So moved. - A motion by Ms. Streiff Oji. And a second?- Second. - Second by Ms. Daniels. Any questions or comments? All in favor of approval, please say aye. - [All] Aye. Opposed, same sign. And we have an agenda. We also have before us a consent agenda, which are the regular monthly things that come before us, including donations. And as always, our communityis incredibly generous to support our studentsand teachers and community. So we thank you for that. Could I get a motion toapprove the consent agenda? - So moved. - A motion by Dr. Newmaster. And a second?- Second. - A second by Ms. Beloyed. Any questions or comments? This will require a roll call vote. I would ask the clerkto please call the roll. - Ellison?- Aye. - Newmaster?- Aye. - Streiff Oji?- Aye. - Thompson?- Aye. - Arcand, aye. Beloyed?- Aye. - Daniels?- Aye. - And the motion passes. Thank you. It is now time for the publicforum portion of the meeting. There were no requests submitted to speak. So we will move right intoour first informational item, C1, student recognition. So tonight we celebrate students who have earned awards as AP Scholars, AP Scholars with Honor, and AP Scholars with Distinction. Congratulations to students and thank you to thestaff and family members who supported the students along the way. (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) (light upbeat music) Thank you and congratulationsto all of our students. We'll move into our secondinformational item, C2, activities and athletics update. Mr. Peloquin? - Good evening, Chair Ellisonand members of the board. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunityto speak just briefly about how the start ofthe school year has gone specific to the Athletics& Activities office and our happenings. Excited to see many of you out and about at the events that we are having. And I apologize if I get long-winded. It's been an exciting start. So we began our year with ourtheme for our first 60 days of, do I belong here? And as many of you know, our athletics and activities are things that many of our kids use to connect to the building. And it is our goal to make sure that most, if not all of our kids, are tied to the buildingoutside of the school day doing something other thantheir regular classes. We obviously have our values of relationships, ownership,awareness, and respect. And our Activities Officeis doing everything we can to follow those values and to help our students tofeel like they belong here. Things we have done in co-curriculars to help get our kids involved. We're doing everything we can to make a big school feel small. It is a large school bothin size and population, and what our activities, hopefully, one of the many thingsthat allows them to do is to be a part of a smaller family. Whether it's a team, a partof a performance, in a group, getting together with somethingthat they're interested in with others who are alsointerested in those things hopefully helps make theschool feel smaller than it is. We did have a freshman orientationday where our Link Crew, our juniors and senior leaders, helped them get adjusted to high school and became a person thatthey could connect to that is a leader in the school. It's an outstanding day, and it ends with an activities fair that we offered at the end of the day. We furthered that with various activities during the Homecomingweek that we just had, which I will talk about in a little bit. We do have a school-wide goal of getting 85% of our student body to be able to identifya sport, an activity, a fine art, a school program, or a student interest-basedclub that they belong to, that they have joinedby the end of the year. And I can tell you that,in this fall alone, we have 1,100 students plus who are currently involvedin a sport, a fine art, an activity, or a school program. That is not even countingour student clubs which are just getting started. And so we are well on our wayto reaching that goal of 85%, and 1,100 students is as big as it's been in my eight years here. We did have Homecoming. It was an absolutely fantastic week. First time under oneroof in many, many years. And you could feel it, youcould see it, you could hear it. I've got all sorts of pictures in the next couple ofslides to talk about. It got kicked off last Sundaywith our medallion hunt, which was a fun adventure that I actually got tobe a part of finding both the student and thestaff medallion on Wednesday after several days of clues. Thankfully, our two Homecoming advisors, our English teachers, they wereoutstanding with the clues. Did much better than I could have with the creativity of them. We also had our bubble soccer tournament, which I will have a pictureof in a coming slide. And then we had a carnival, which was very connecting for, not only our high school, we wanted Homecoming to bebigger than just the high school. And so we kicked off ourHomecoming week with our carnival where we had food trucks. We had many inflatables there, and we had several families come out. I got a good picture from thethird floor of our building. Thankfully, we've got lots of glass. It's easy to take pictures out of. Going through the week, we had various themes throughout the day. My specific excitement wasanything but a backpack day. It was interesting seeingwhat the kids came up with, from rolling around theirbooks in a spare tire to an old lawnmowerwith the engine removed in a compartment on top of it, to little kid doll shopping carts that they drug aroundthe school with them. So it was very exciting. And then obviously Friday was a big day with our Pep Fest in the morning, the parade followed by thefootball game at night. And then Saturday we hada good fundraising event followed by our school dance. Making sure I don't miss anything here. Different pictures from the week. Just gonna go throughthe pictures that I had, the events throughout the week. The upper left-handcorner is a musical group that performed at our talent show, which was Tuesday nightwhich was well attended. It was our first year doing a talent show as a part of our Homecoming. It took place here in the theater because our fall musical was having rehearsal in our theater. So we did it here in the theater. I had a pretty decent crowd and had a dozen acts that performed. That was one of the acts. The middle top picture is a picture from bubble socceron Saturday, or on Sunday. Their Homecoming kids got these huge, they're about five feet in diameter, big balloons that you get yourself into and you wear it like a backpack almost. And you go play soccer. We've got 'em sticking around. So if you want to use them for any reason, feel happy to come get 'em. It's kind of entertaining. Upper right-hand corner isactually our talent show winner who also performed at our Pep Fest. And then in the lower left-handcorner is that picture that I was talking about of the carnival from the third floor window going up into the learning studios that shows the inflatablesand all of the families. Sunday night, we endedthat night with coronation. And so that is a picture from coronation. And then the lower right is our pep band practicing to march in the parade, which, unfortunately, Idon't get the chance to be at 'cause I'm preparingfor the football game. But that is them preparing for it. Talk briefly about my twofavorite moments from this week that just really hit home for me as somebody who was blessed tobe a part of this transition and going from two schoollocations to one unified school that we wouldn't have beenable to do in the past that really were just powerful events showing school spirit and pride. And the first one inthe left is our pep band playing on the learning stairsFriday morning before school. Was just an awesome thing to be a part of as you walked into the building. And it was exciting tosee the kids perform and the kids listeningto the kids perform. It was a great way to startthe School Spirit Day. And then the Pep Fest. And that might be the bestpicture I've ever seen in my time here is vast majority of ourstudent body at one Pep Fest. As somebody who spent my first seven years doing Pep Fest at two buildings and trying to help freshmen and sophomore understand what a Pep Fest looks like and juniors and seniors not necessarily involved in a Pep Fest, to see that happen underone roof was very powerful and really showed our school spirit and our pride in White Bear Lake. It was outstanding to be a part of. A couple of athletichighlights from the fall. Our boys soccer team finishedthird in the Suburban East and actually unfortunately just got eliminated from section play. But had a very successfulseason from a win-loss under new head coach Taelynn Gittins. They ended up havingas many wins this year as we've had in thelast two years combined. And so it was a really successful year. A lot of growth, a lot of change, and I believe our program isgoing in the right direction. Our girls soccer team finishedthe season undefeated, won the SEC championship, got the one seed in the sections, is currently the number oneranked team in the state, and is in our sectionfinal championship game tomorrow night at WhiteBear Lake in our stadium if you wanted to come over and watch the sectionfinal game to go to state. Our girls tennis made itto the section semi-finals and had one of their bestrecords in many years. We also had an individualand a doubles team that was playing todayactually when I left trying to get to state as individuals. Our girls swim and dive team has new facility improvements at the YMCA, so the bond money also helpinggo towards those things and help to improve those things. They've got new starting blocks, they've got a new scoring system, and they won their firsthome meet in a few years. So that was an exciting night for them. Our football team isplaying in the new stadium. They currently are in atwo-game winning streak, winning on the road twoweeks ago at Stillwater, which is an extremely tough opponent. And then winning Fridaynight at Homecoming in front of over 4,000 community members. So if you were a part ofthat, it was a big crowd. It was fun to be a partof and very exciting. Our volleyball team is 16-11. It's their first seasonover .500 in many years, and they start their sectionsnext week after the MEA break. Our boys and girls cross country teams are having a successful year, like usual, finishing in the top 10 in a couple of large championship races. They have their conference race tomorrow up at TannersBrook starting at 3:30, and then sections are the following week. And then, lastly, our adapted soccer team beat Robbinsdale 4-2 at home. And actually I just came from them beating Wayzata 4-1 at halftime to come to this presentation. So we've had a wildly successful fall from a sports standpoint. Fine arts events. We've got "Legally Blonde"as our fall musical coming up in a couple of weeks. Tickets are on sale right now. So please feel free to get those tickets before they sell out. They will be in the theater, as the PAC is not quite ready yet. But we are looking forward to having our choir, band,and orchestra concerts in the performing artscenter once it is completed late November, early December. But that is our concert schedule. A couple of things. We do love having our communitycome out to our events. We do offer season ticketpasses for our adults. I would like to make one note of mention that I appreciate that you andthe district work together. Was it a year or two? I think this is our second yearof providing free admission to all of our homeevents for our students. We have what's called the BearPass for our students 9-12. And as of this morning, we had almost 1,600 passes that were purchased by our students. So we've got 1,600 kids that have gone in and gotten a pass. Which is outstanding. So thank you for that. We do have our Community Member Pass, which grants lifetime activity pass to all of our senior citizens. There are currently 1,000of those passes out there, which is also anoutstanding thing to have, to have our senior citizenscome into our events. And then, lastly, we partnered with theCommunity Ed and Rec department to offer our community to come in and use our athletic spaceswhen we aren't using them. And starting up here in a couple of weeks, our community will be able togo walk on the walking track upstairs every night, Monday through Thursdayfrom 6:00 until 9:00. That is all I have. Thank you for the time, and I am open for anyquestions or comments about athletics and activities. - [Jessica] Wonderful,thank you, Mr. Peloquin. Any questions?- I have a comment. - Dr. Arcand? - I just wanna say thank you. One of my fondest memories is when I was at Lincoln Elementary and we would have the Homecoming parade and how special it was whenwe would get out of school, we'd come downtown hereand go to the parade. And it really felt like that on Friday. The whole community was there. I like the fact that the elementary schoolswere marching in it, and so it felt special for them. And just walking around that parade and seeing the community come together. I felt like we were back like we were in the '70stogether as one community. So thank you for doing that. I really appreciated that. - [Brian] Thank you. - Comments? Ms. Thompson? - I had a question. 'Cause I haven't remembered when we've won our Homecoming game. So when was the last time we won our Homecoming football game? - [Brian] It's been a few years. - Been a few years? - [Brian] 2019 right before COVID. - Okay, yeah. What a great way to likecelebrate the unified high school and for them to get that win. And I took my daughterto the Stillwater game. And when they came outof there, we ran errands, and when they came out theywere like, "Oh, they're losing." But then when they came out and said that they had won, I mean, to have thosetwo wins back to back and to have the second one be Homecoming and to watch the students runout on the field afterwards at our new stadium there. It was just really,really a wonderful evening and a special moment for our students and the whole community to witness that. - It's amazing and scaryall at the same time. - [Angela] And everythingseemed to go well, so yeah. - Good, thank you. - [Jessica] Ms. Streiff Oji? - You spoke to this a little bit, Scott, seeing all the elementary schoolsparticipate in the parade. And I was talking with theformer principal over the weekend who said they used to notbe able to participate because of the schooltime ending too late. So it was fun to see the schools that could participate in that and all of the kids that joined in. Thank you, it was a lovely night. - I also wanna thank everybody, all the students and staff who worked on putting Homecoming together. 'Cause I know it takes a lot of effort to get all of those moving parts together, and it just, it was really joyful. - [Brian] Yeah, our two advisors, Cassidy Wegwerth and Kate Peck, were rockstars this week. They absolutely crushed it. So it was fun. - It was great, thank you. - [Brian] Awesome, thank you very much. - All right, thank you.- Thank you. - All right, we will move into our first discussion item, D1, first reading of school board policies. So the way that this works for folks who are notfamiliar with the process is that we, the board, will read policies for a first read and then they will come back to us for approval at asubsequent board meeting. And the first readingallows the board members to make comments and suggestions. So tonight we are readingthe school board policies for the first time, 404... Excuse me, 404, 405, 541, and 599. Board members, if you havecomments or questions, please note the policy number and the page in the board packet. Any comments or questions? Dr. Newmaster? - I just have one question. And I apologize, I don'thave the the page up. But it's the very first one. And it's a general question. - 404. - The portion where ittalks about everyone, you know, running an ID check. And it talked about you pay the fee when you sign up or whatever. And I just wondered, what was the fee? - We're talking aboutthe background checks? - Yeah, for volunteers aswell as, you know, employees, anyone working orvolunteering in the school. - Mr. Mons, could you address that? - Absolutely. So just a couple of points on that front is they are somewhat variable, but for our volunteers that's $20. We also offer a lot of assistance there, and a number of our programs come through with free background checks too, depending on what that looks like. And we do heavily subsidize that cost for both our volunteersand also our employees. Because we have background checks that can actually run intothe hundreds of dollars, and we make sure thatthose remain consistent for the folks that are utilizing them. - That makes me understand it. And I'm just wondering, what about the... I was involved with thePTO at Otter for many years and was a volunteer occasionally for their bingo or whatever. And are they includedin that sort of thing? - They're not necessarily. So really the test thatwe operate under is, is there any foreseeable circumstance under which that individual is going to be responsible for a student without staff supervision? And so the moment that wesay that even may happen. So on a field trip, for instance, if there's going to be a chaperone that may assist studentsgoing to use the restrooms, you know, there's absolutelygoing to be a background check. If it's a volunteer position, like a PTO role wherethey're not going to have that kind of supervisoryresponsibility with students, then, no, it's not mandatoryin those situations. - Thanks for clarifying. I figured that was probably the case. Wandering around the gym checking people's bingocards really wasn't a risk. But, okay, thank you.- [Matt] You bet. - Any other comments orquestions about first reading? Dr. Arcand? - 599, academic recognition. It's the second page, 599-2. We had that discussion,kind of talked earlier. I like the fact that we've added thepost-secondary enrollment options to the grade weighting so that it's there. It wasn't there before. I think that was an important change. - Yep, I agree. Any other? Okay, so these policieswill come before us for the November 12th subsequent agenda for a second reading and approval. We'll move into our firstoperational item, E1, action on the 2025 medicaland dental insurance rates. Mr. Mons? - I shouldn't have takenthe tour of the room there. So we've got threedifferent recommendations from the district'sinsurance committee here, one on our health insurance premiums, another on our dental insurance premiums, and then a recommended switchfor our long-term disability and our life insurance carrier. I'll take the health insurance first. We're recommending a 6.25% increase to our health insurance premiums effective January 1, 2025. And just a couple of notes on this. Number one, that increase will ensure that we're able to maintainour reserve balance goal. That's always what drivesthe discussions that we have about what kind of a premium increase that we need to look at. Another note that I'd like to make is just a huge thank youto our insurance committee. I think we have one ofthe most collaborative and highly functioninginsurance committees of any school district in the state. There's not a year that I've been in White Bear Lake Area Schools where we've not maderecommended changes to our plans in order to see that wecontinue to have increases that aren't hitting double-digitnumbers on an annual basis. And so continually lookingat different levers to pull to try to keep those numbers low. I know 6.25 doesn't feel all that low, but when you look around us, that puts us in a very good place. But again this year we hadto make very tough decisions around plan design in order to look atthat kind of an increase instead of an increase that would've put usinto the double digits. So a huge thank you to the team that we work with from OneDigital that helps us look at what kind of opportunities are out there, and then to our insurance committee for being really committed tolooking at every opportunity to keep our prices asaffordable as possible. - So I would recommend to Mr. Mons, let me know if you agree, that we do all three of these separately. - [Matt] Sounds good.- Okay. So the recommended action is to approve the district'shealth premium rates and plan design changes effective January 1, 2025 as presented. Could I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - A motion by Ms. Daniels. And a second? - Second.- A second by Dr. Newmaster. Any questions or comments? Ms. Streiff Oji? - Are these rates what staff pay? - [Matt] No, that's the monthly premium before district contribution. - And that depends on the contract? - [Matt] The negotiated, yes. So we currently have a situation in which all of our employees have thesame district contribution aside from our educators. Our educators have chosen toprioritize a little differently during collective bargaining. And so we have two groupsmoving through that. - Thank you. - Any further questions? This will require a roll call vote. I would ask the clerkto please call the roll. - Ellison?- Aye. - Newmaster?- Aye. - Streiff Oji?- Aye. - Thompson?- Aye. - Arcand, aye. Beloyed?- Aye. - Daniels?- Aye. - And the motion passes. Thank you. Move into the next, which is dental. - And with the dental, this is, you know, a much smaller pot of dollarsthat we're talking about here. What I would say again is this 6% increase that we're recommending here will keep our reserve balance where we feel that we need to be operating to be financially responsible. - So the recommended action is to move to approve the district'sdental insurance premium rates effective January 1, 2025 as presented. Could I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - A motion by Ms. Thompson. And a second? - Second.- Second by Ms. Streiff Oji. Any questions or concerns? Seeing none, this willrequire a roll call vote. I'd ask the clerk to please call the roll. - Ellison?- Aye. - Newmaster?- Aye. - Streiff Oji?- Aye. - Thompson?- Aye. - Arcand, aye. Beloyed?- Aye. - Daniels?- Aye. - And the motion passes, thank you. And the final is the life and long-termdisability insurance. - And so here, whenever we make a change, it causes disruption. So we never do that lightly. We have a significant opportunityin terms of savings here to move from The Standardto Lincoln Financial. And so because of that, we are making the recommendationto make that change for both of those programs. - The recommended action is to switch long-term disabilityand life insurance carrier from The Standard to Lincoln Financial effective January 1, 2025 as presented. Could I get a motion to approve? - So moved.- A motion by Ms. Beloyed. And a second?- Second. - A second by Ms. Daniels. Any questions or comments? Just a real quick question, Mr. Mons. So when the district makes a choice to make these changes, is it strictly a financial decision or? - We look at both service and the finances when we look at that. So it's not purely financial. However, in this case, there was a significantfinancial opportunity in making this move. - [Jessica] Thank you. Ms. Streiff Oji? - What is the impact of makingthat switch on the employee? - The impact of making this switch will really just be, you know, it could mean an additionalsystem login change. For the most part with thiskind of a switch, though, that's really all that anemployee is going to experience. If we currently have somebodythat's experiencing claims through long-termdisability, for instance, typically, they're goingto remain where they were as that runs its course. And so there's not significantchange in that regard. - Great. Seeing none, no othercomments or questions, I would ask the clerkto please call the roll. - Ellison?- Aye. - Newmaster?- Aye. - Streiff Oji?- Aye. - Thompson?- Aye. - Arcand, aye. Beloyed?- Aye. - Daniels?- Aye. - And the motion passes. Thank you.- [Matt] Thank you. - And then we'll move into our second operational item, E2. And so this is action onthe school board policies. The first reading of thesepolicies was in September. We are looking at approving policies 507, 507.5, 532, 608, 616, 620, and 806. We usually approve theseall in one fell swoop. So if I could pleaseget a motion to approve. - [Scott] So moved. - Motion by Dr. Arcand. And a second?- Second. - A second by Ms. Streiff Oji. Any comments or questionsabout any of these policies? Ms. Daniels? - I just wanna thankagain the policy committee for working on these sosignificantly, I guess. Because it takes a lot of time and the wording and everything, all the changes that have comeover the last, I'd say year, has meant that there'sa lot of long meetings. Administrative assistant who, you know, goes over them with a fine-tooth comb and adds every comma and period and makes it easier for us then to read and knowwhere the changes are. - Dr. Newmaster? - And I would second that and also say I love the fact that we keep in alignmentwith state requirements as well as our goals. And I think it's more readableevery time you go through it as the language changes. And it's not always easy to read policies, but these make sense, and I do like the way weenvision and say things. It's pretty clear. Thank you to all who work on it. - Any other comments or questions? All right. - Yeah, he's gonna.- Okay, sorry. All right, so we alreadyhave a motion and a second. So all in favor of approving the school board policies, please say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. And the motion passes. Thank you. And then this is thefinal item on our agenda is Board Forum. Board Forum is anopportunity for board members to share things that aregoing on in the district as relates to theirroles as board members. Anything that the boardwould like to share? Ms. Daniels? - Wanna say Happy Indigenous People Day to all our community and citizens. Peace on this day, thank you. - Thank you. Ms. Thompson? - And with that, I wouldlike to just read something that I wrote today in honorof Indigenous Peoples' Day. As an ancestor of severalIndigenous peoples, including the Dakota, Sioux, Sisseton, Anishnaabe, and Ojibwe peoples, I would like to acknowledge that the unceded lands of ourschools district communities are the lands of my ancestors,the Mdewakanton Sioux. Treaties were used to steal the lands with promises of paymentthat were never received. The genocidal state policies resulted in the violent and forced removal of Dakota people in Minnesota. A quote, "Be exterminatedor be driven forever "beyond the borders of Minnesota." Bounties were offered for the killing of Dakotamen, women, and children. Colonel Richard Henry Pratt established one of the manyIndian boarding schools, and a famous quote of his, one that is famous, as you will hear, for the atrocities thathe asked people to commit, is one that I am reminded of today and every day in my jobas a guardian ad litem for the state of Minnesota. And that quote is one that I find is really powerful in some of the horrific acts that were committed against my ancestors. And he said, "Kill theIndian, save the man." Some new archeological data that the White BearLake Historical Society was part of discovering shows that the lands of ourcommunity were inhabited by my ancestors sinceat least the 1600 AD. And they are still here today, proud and rich in culture and protection for theirland and their people. And I would ask our community to find a way to learn moreabout the Indigenous peoples who continue to enrich thisarea with their teachings. There are many ways one can learn more about their native community members. A quick research online willgarner a great many results, and I hope you will come awaywith a greater understanding of the horrific crimes that were committed againstour ancestors in the past and that are stilloccurring in the present day and find a way to helpchange for the future. Thank you. - Thank you. Any other comments for Board Forum? Well, thank you all so much for all the work thatwas put into Homecoming and just making theunification of the high school just such a joyful experience. It's been just a really wonderfulstart to the school year. And happy MEA. I hope everybody takes a nap. With that, I would like tocall for a motion to adjourn. - Chair Ellison, I movefor an adjournment. - A motion by Dr. Arcand. And a second?- Second. - A second by Ms. Daniels. All in favor ofadjournment, please say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. And we are adjourned.(gavel strikes)