- I now call this meeting of the School Board ofIndependent School District. Sorry. I now call this meetingof the School Board of Independent SchoolDistrict 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Ellison?- Here. - Skaar.- Here. - Streiff Oji.- Here. - Thompson.- Here. - Arcand.- Here. - Daniels is here. - Okay. Can you please stand forthe Pledge 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 an agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved.- Okay, Thompson. Is there a second?- Second. - Second by Ellison. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none. This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. We also have before us a consent agenda. This contains various business items that come to us monthly,including donations. We are truly grateful for the support that the community shows us each month to our staff and students. They wanna thank everybodywho has contributed. Can I get a motion toapprove the consent agenda? - So moved. - So moved. And a second.- Second. - Second. So was moved by Ellison, seconded by you. Okay. All right, do we have any discussion? Mr. Skaar, I believeyou had some questions. - Right. I have questions. Thank you. I have questions on thepayment of invoice report. So I'm assuming thatthis report is designed around public transparencyand for the board's benefit. Is that correct? This report? - [Representative] Yes, this is a list of all of the payments that we've made as a school district sincethe last board meeting. - So it's designed to, it's designed to betransparent to the public? - Yes.- And for the board. Okay, thanks. So on that report you have, it's organized in a way, just so that I know, bycheck numbers, right? So then it's- - [Representative] Check numbersare payment numbers, yes. - Payment. And you have differentchecks for different things. - [Representative] Uh-huh. - So for a V check, the checktype B, what is that for? - [Representative] That would be a void. - Pardon me?- a void. - So that's a voided check.- Mm-hm. - So an R is- - [Representative] A regular check. - I would not have guessed some of these. A C? - [Representative] SoCs are kind of strange. They're were if we havemultiple invoices to an entity, it prepares a remittanceadvice to indicate like exactly which invoices are paid. So like Amazon would be a common one where we pay many invoices and it takes up manycheck stubs, essentially. So it's like, kind of like acanceled check essentially, I think maybe is what the C stands for. Because it has many invoice numbers on it. - I see. That one I kind of figuredbecause you had all those zeros and then at the end you have a number. And then what is it paid for? - [Representative] ACH checks. - Oh. - [Representative] Or ACH payments. - And there's a unique checknumber sequence that you, so the check numbers,like if you go down to, let me see here. So the 999 series of checks. Why are those different? - [Representative] So those are- - [Dan] Thank you. Appreciate it. - [Representative] Those areset up like in our system, like as a wire payment essentially, or like ACH transaction that's automaticallypulled from our accounts. So we initiate all of the top checks where it's like starting with a 147. Those are paper checks that get issued. The 999 checks are amountsthat are automatically pulled. So like we might go outto the IRS, for example, and we initiate the payment on that way and then it pulls it from a bank account versus us pushing it out. And then if you go tolike the '25, '26 checks, those are ACH payments that we push out. So we got a paper invoice, we're cutting a check, an ACH payment, that we're pushing out versus the entity pullingit from our account. - I see. I understand. Thank you. So how would I understand, like, capital expenditure checks versus other checks orconsultant and legal fee checks versus capital checks orother transportation checks, things like that? How can I tell by looking at this report? - [Representative] Thisreport won't show you that. So this report is justthe listing of checks that needs to get approvedby the school board. That would be a different type of report that we'd have to create. - Okay. It would seem to me thatthat would be more helpful at least for the board, for the public if we had it categorized by expenses categories. I also saw that therewere several solar leasing and solar expenses. And I know that we have aturnkey project with iDEAL Solar. However, we had expenses to solar winds, green to solar, leasing and anchor solar. What are those for? - So those are all relatedto our solar projects. The iDEAL Energies isthe vendor that we use. The way that those solar projects work is they have like a separateentity with a separate tax ID based on the year of the solar lease. And so some of the early, I believe some of theearly ones were actually, like, their name to the IRS was anchor. So it really is ideal. It's just we have to paywhat the IRS is expecting. - Yeah, that makes sense. We had fees to District 916. One was 87,448, another one was 43,056. And then I saw a creditfor that same amount, 43,056 and 101,414. Are those like annual feesthat we pay to District 916? - [Representative] Yeah, we work with 916 on a variety of items. And I can't speak specificto this particular, you know, invoice. I'd have to go and pull it. But we contract with them fordifferent staffing services, largely related to special services. - I understand.- Yep. - Okay. There was a check toWatson Consulting Group. Does that ring a bell? - Mm-hm.- Do you know what that's- - [Representative] That's who we used, that was assisting our transportation RFP. So for our bus services. - So when I looked upWatson Consulting Group, it looks like they did consulting around diversity, equity inclusion. - [Representative] No. Nope. Nope. - That's not the right one.- No. - So I looked up the wrong one? - Correct. Yep.- Okay. - [Representative] I wouldimagine you can't really, this is just kind of a one man show, so I imagine he doesn'teven really have a website. - Oh, I see. Thank you. - [Representative] Yep. - I also noticed that there was cost to or invoices from Bright Stone Care. Does that ring a bell? - [Representative] No, not Bright Stone. - Yeah, I think it was Bright Stone. - [Representative] It's notcoming up if I search it. - BrightStar. - BrightStar. Sorry. Thank you. - I don't know-- It looked like it was like medical care, medical related cost. And I was just thinking- - Is it yours?- Wayne, when I asked you about that, about the clinic, you mentioned that that was pretty much, we had no cost associated with that. That was something thatwas reimbursed to us. Does that ring a bell? - It could be somethingwith our senior center. It was- - Oh, okay.- You know, at $2,000, I don't get that granularin a lot of our invoices. - Okay. There there was one that I couldn't find, which was local LLC for $7,500. It's on page 15. - [Representative] Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to, I'd have to look. - I could not find that one on the, I couldn't find that one.- Like if you just Google it, you mean? - Pardon me?- Like you just Googled that term, Local LLC. - Yeah, I couldn't find them at all. - [Representative] Yeah, but you know, we have to pay the name that'sregistered with the IRS. And so very often a businesswill be doing business as White Bear Lake Area Schools but then if you would payus, you pay us as ISC 624. You know what I mean? And so it doesn't surpriseme that some of these names, if you Google them, you'renot gonna find anything because that's simply theirlike registered IRS name. - So for this one, we don'tknow exactly what that was for. - I mean, yes, we certainly do, but it doesn't surprise me that if you Google the vendor name that you won't necessarily get a hit. - [Mr Skaar] So what was thatone for? Do you know offhand? - Well, I don't knowoff the top of my head, but I can tell you.- Okay. Well, I don't wanna, you know what, I don't want to blindside youon some of these smaller ones. It's more of some of these larger ones. There was also one for91,998 to Renaissance, which I couldn't find anywhere. Does that ring a bell?- That's a curriculum. That's a curriculum company.- Okay. And then Live Nation Worldwide. Do you know what that one was? - [Representative] Isthat her Facebook ads? - It looked like something forticketing or entertainment. - Yeah, well, it certainly wouldn't... Live Nation is used by alot of different companies. So it could be, you know,somebody attended a conference and they register through Live Nation. That would, I mean,that would be my guess. We're not like in the, we're probably not going toa concert, would be my guess. But without a, you know,I'd have to look it. - Okay. Well, thank you. - Oh, no, you know what itis? I can tell you what it is. It's the entity that, that we're doing prom through, they own the rental center.- Oh, I see. I figured it was event related. I was just, I wanted to figureout what exactly it was for. Also, I noticed that we write, this is kind of nitpicky, so we write, but you have to realize, you know, once you're an auditor,you're always an auditor. So we write checks to the IRS. And you know, with all thechanges going with the IRS, should we standardize when we write somethingto the US government, like Department of Treasury? - Those are the items that are automaticallypulled from our account. So they're set up as that in our system. - So that's how it's set up.- But it's a, yeah, an ACH that pulls out,so it doesn't matter. - Okay. I didn't have any other ones. Thank you for answering the questions. And I would like them, I would like you guysto consider, you know, making it easier to readfrom a board perspective and from a public perspective to give more context into what these are, maybe provide, you know, whetherit's a capital expenditure, whether it's an expense, whether it's legal fees, consulting fees. I would ask you to consider that 'cause it'd be super helpfulwhen I'm reviewing these. And I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but you did really well. Thank you very much foranswering my questions. - All right. Thank you. We still have the motion on the table. I also wanna mention thatif you look over this, you can always, you know, send her an email or send Wayne something if you have questions too. If we want answers, you can always ask beforethe meeting if you'd like. - I've done that. Thank you.- Okay. Just trying to make iteasier for everybody. - Yeah, I know.- Okay. So before us we have a agenda. We have a motion toapprove the consent agenda. Any further discussion? 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. - Okay. Motion carried. Now we have our consent agenda. We had nobody sign upfor public forum tonight, so we have no public forum. So we're gonna go right on toC1: Superintendents report. Dr. Kazmierczak. - Right, thank you, ChairArcand, members of the board. We are excited to welcome students back for the '25-'26 school year. Very soon. Families can find school supply lists, beginning of the school year events and district calendars onthe back to school page of the district's website. As we prepare for the new school year, we ask families to take amoment to log into Parent View and complete the annual family update. This is essential to provide schools with accurate and up-to-dateinformation for every student. And please complete the application for educational benefitslinked on the back to school and nutrition servicespages of our website for the opportunity to qualifyfor discounts on sports and activity fees, advancedplacement test registration, college applications, and more. Paper applications can be requested by contacting the NutritionServices Department. When we begin school in September, family, staff and communitymembers are invited to share back to schoolpictures on Facebook using #BackToSchoolBearsfor a chance to be featured in a September community enewsletter. Photos may be emailed tocommunications@isd624.org. And today is the start ofthe fall sports seasons, which I was able to kick offat midnight as a spectator at the football team'sMidnight Madness Practice. District community membersage 65 and older are invited to request a lifetimesenior activity pass, which allows us free entryinto home athletic contests. Find a news post on thedistrict website to apply for a free pass or just callthe superintendent's office and we'll get you set up. And the high school is pleased to announce that Taylor Tvedt has been chosen to serve as the new Assistant Activities Director. Taylor comes to WhiteBear from St. Paul Academy and Summit School programs where she has mostrecently held the positions of associate athletic director and sports information coordinator. We continue to hire forthe '25-'26 school year. We need substitute teachers,bus drivers, para educators, extended day and nutritionservices staff members and more. We offer competitivewages, flexible work hours, and a chance to make a differencefor kids in our community. Find job postings on thewebsite under employment. And as we prepare forthe '25-'26 school year, we wanna remind families that we are currentlyaccepting enrollment. Please get your child enrolled today so we can welcome them intothe White Bear community and get them prepared fora terrific school year. Find information on thedistrict website under enroll. - Thank you, Dr. Kazmierczak. Anybody have any questions? All right, thank you very much. We're gonna move on tosomething very exciting. It really is. The summer construction updates. Mr. Wall and Mr. Fernandez. - Page is here. It's drone footage. - I know. We're gonna get somefacts here in a minute. (Jessica laughing) - Good evening, Chair Arcand, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. We've had a busy summerconstruction schedule as we have for quite a few summers now. And so we like to review the projects that we've been working on this summer. And Kevin Fernandez is ourDirector of Building Operations, who's been really workingclosely with all the projects. And then with us also is AJLillesve from Kraus-Anderson, who is representing all the work that Kraus-Anderson doesfor the school district. So AJ will walk us through the work that Kraus-Anderson's beenoverseeing for us this summer. - All right. So we've had three primary summer projects this go around here. Central Middle School, Phase 2 renovation; the Mariner Middle SchoolLTFM HVAC improvements. - There we go. Turn that on. There you go. - There we go. And then third, the SunrisePark Phase 2 renovations. So it's Central Middle School. Do a quick high level summary recap here. But the total bid dayconstruction hard costs were just under $24 million. So through June of this year, that's an average of $844,438 a month. So that's a lot of scopegoing into one shot there. But the Phase 1 summer 2024, that included the gym edition completion, which is what that picture there is, also included some industrialtech areas, locker rooms, multipurpose band and choir,and then science as well. So if you can't rememberwhat the phasing of that was, but little green square was the gymnasium storm shelter edition. And then all of the pink areason level one and two there were that Phase 1 area is. The blue portions, which ison level one, two, and three is what we're currentlygot going on right now. So in that blue area, it includes the kitchenand cafeteria renovation, renovating the old district offices, art, fitness, counseling,and learning commons. So we got a couple pictures here. But some of the additional things that we got going on over there right now, inside the media center, they got ceiling gridinstallation underway and soffits being drywalledoutside of that space. Inside the kitchen and cafeteria, they got equipmentinstallation in progress, kitchen hood complete. Ansul system, which is thefire suppression system is installing this week. The tile work is wrapping up, coiling doors are being installed, and the cafeteria flooring has begun. In the unlikely event that you needed to store a bunch of lunchtrays in that cafeteria, (panel laughing) you could store 5,703 of them, just in case you needed to know. (panel chuckling) So for the flooring on thirdfloor and second floor, they've got that going down right now, as well as moisture mitigationongoing in the fitness room with flooring to follow. Inside the bathrooms, they also got the fixtureinstallation in progress. So this picture is from the cafeteria, so you can see the colorfulcolumns and the wavy soffits and fancy lighting. And then this is in area G level 2, one of the science rooms coming together. And then a likely familiar room, but yet unfamiliar in hell, the old boardroom.- Is that the boardroom? - [AJ] Yeah, the fitness room. So you can see they got thefloor leveling product down and moisture mitigation and the flooring comingup right after that. Second project we got going on this summer is Mariner Middle SchoolHVAC improvements. So the phase one, well, I'mgetting ahead of myself here. The high level recap. So the total bid day construction costs for that were 12 and ahalf million dollars. So through July of this year, that's an average of $588,235 a month. So this being what we call a summer slam, may heard me say that a couple times. This work, while it's12 months to summers. Technically all that workis actually happening in three month chunks. So at our peak at this project, we hit $2,650,711 in a month, work going into place. So in construction, typically what we would considerlight speed is 2 million. So it was a lot of folksputting in a lot of hours to make that project cometogether the last two summers. So part of that phase one wasthe structural reinforcements for the HVAC piping, as well as some of thesnow load requirements and then new ceilings and lights where we were goingthrough with that piping. The Phase 2 portion of that work is the remainingstructural reinforcements for the HVAC piping and the ducting along with the ceilings and lights, and then toilet and ADA renovations. Some of the other work that we've got goingon right now actively. The ceilings and the classroomsare getting completed. Grid and lights are beinginstalled in the cafeteria, in the kitchen. Flooring and wall finishes. They got the slipresistant flooring and FRP in the a la carte room all done. Tile is done in the bathrooms as well as wrapping up in the kitchen. Inside the kitchen, they got the coiling doors installed, the kitchen hood installed, and the Ansul systems ongoing this week. And then walls andceilings, they're framing, drywalling and tapings all done. Hard lid ceilings underwayin the locker rooms. In the mechanical systems, they got four of five airhandlers set in the penthouse. So there are 67 plus fans in the buildings as a part of this project, excluding the existing, that's capable of movingenough air for 100,000 people to breathe for one minute, (everyone chuckling) or fill one and a half Goodyear blimps. (everyone chuckling) And that's based on the average person breathing in two cubic feet per minute. So we did the math. Electrically, they got 10 ofthe electrical rooms complete and then they're working onwrapping up the penthouse right now along with all the AHU wearing, which you'll see in a little bit. And then they're working onfinal cleaning and carpet. So it's hard to reallysee, but the grid is in. And above that grid isthousands and thousands and thousands of hours of work with the structuralreinforcements that had to go in. And there was, I stopped counting, but it was well over 788lineal feet of piping. And that was only in the four inch size. So there was a lot, animmense amount of work that went into these projects that you will never see. (laughs) So this picture also does no justice. I don't know if anybody'sbeen in that penthouse before, but what you can't tell from the picture is those are like 22 foot tall ceilings. So that air handler inthat return air duct is fascinatingly largewhen you walk in there. And then another shot of the corridors. So again, a lot of workgonna be getting covered up, never to be seen again. But another fun fact here too, at this project we hadalmost 85,000 square feet of open ceiling so typically on a lightto medium renovation, we would try not toexceed 35,000 square feet in any given summer. So again, coupling that withthe two and a half million, we tackled almost doublewhat you would try to do in a single summer. So they have been working lots of hours, working very hard to keepthat thing moving forward. The third project, SunrisePark where we're sitting, so high level again, total bid day construction costshere was about $29 million. So through June of this year, that's an average of $1,395,081 a month. So part of that phase one wasobviously the district offices in the boardroom thatwe're sitting in now. Phase 2, portions ofthe work was included, the senior center, gymnasticsroom, well, gymnasium, kitchen and cafeteria, and the courtyard as well. So that's a picture of the community room. We'll have a couplemore pictures going up. But as a part of thecurrent updates right now, we've got Area A in the senior center, move in, obviously underwayand punch list is ongoing. Area B in the gym, in the locker rooms. Gym's basically complete, if you've seen it, I'msure you probably have. But just got a few moregymnastics equipment pieces to work through. And then the locker roomsare just awaiting benches and plumbing fixtures. Inside the kitchen, they'vegot the equipment going in and the existing hood andabove ceiling MEP is ongoing. And then with regards to the Phase 3, which will be turningover in the spring of '26, they got mechanical and plumbing rough-ins just about wrapped up throughout both above ceiling in wall and tunnels. Speaking of tunnels, there are over 3,863 lineal feet of tunnel below this building, which is long enough tostretch from Sunrise Park to Mariner in a straight line, which is 3,487 feet from corner to corner. So approximately three quartersof a mile worth of tunnel. Also working on electricalrough-ins and then drywall. They're closing up thewalls right behind them. So this is the circulation area outside of the reception there. And then the gymnasium. Fun little foam pit in there now too. that may or may not have been tried out. (board member laughing) So then a part of that phasethree turning over spring '26, we've got the early childhood area in the transitioneducation center as well. So more updates to followas we get through that. And then this is a picture inside Phase 3, just kind of roughstages of where we're at. What you're looking at rightnow is the future maker space. So if you see kind of wherethe casework is sitting in the middle below that isolated soffit, that's where that maker space is gonna be. And then all the, a coupleof the office spaces with the drywall mudding,sanding ready for paint. - [Representative] And these, I have it. - [AJ] Oh. - You don't know about these. We had two playgroundprojects this summer too that, are just being completed now. This is an inclusive playgroundat Birch Lake Elementary. And that project both,well, both Birch Lake and the Otter Lake playgroundsare inclusive playgrounds and as opposed to ourprevious playgrounds, this creates more spacewithin the playground that are students withdisabilities can access. Rather than just being able toaccess a small portion of it, this allows them to access themajority of the playground. So that is at Birch Lake. We encourage you to take a look at that. If you get over to Birch Lake, go look at the new playground. And then the next one, hit it again, is the Otter Lake playground. And both of those are justwrapping up this week. Kevin, they're, I think maybe just, it's just the chips that we'reneeding to put in, right? - [Kevin] Yep, yeah, 72 hoursto cure, put it in place, and now the chips (speaking off-mic) - [Board Member] Mic. - [Representative] Yep. So thanks to... Oh yeah, your microphone. Thanks to Kevin Fernandez and his team for the work that they've done. Kraus-Anderson does an outstanding job. And AJ's team is full ofoutstanding professionals, but a really heavy liftgoes with Kevin Fernandez, who's on top of all of these projects. Doesn't miss details. He's right there on all of 'em, so. Thank you, Kevin, forthe work you do on these. Kevin had a head ofhair like Elvis Presley before this summer slam started. (everyone laughing) Any questions? - [Mr. Arcand] Anybody have any questions? Yes. Tell us. - Just a comment. You know, it's been really exciting to watch this progress overthe last number of years and to see some of the really big projects like the high school and exciting things like new gymnasiums. But I really like to seethe structural and the HVAC because I have a kid at Mariner, you know, and I want my kid and all the other kids to be in a building that is safe. And I think a lot ofstudents all over the state in the country are in buildings that they're breathing in mold, or there's leaks or things are unsafe. And so I'm grateful to our community for not only supporting thenew construction projects, but also just the projects that make our buildingssafer for our kids. And so even though we'll never see it, it makes me feel betterthat it's being done. So hats off. Thank you. - [Mr. Arcand] Are therequestions or discussions? Yes, Mr. Skaar. - This is facilities related, but I noticed somebodyput a clock in the back, so I just want to recognize that person and thank him for that,'cause I asked for that. I owe you a cup ofcoffee, whoever that was. Thank you. And, you know, maybeKraus-Anderson did a great job, but let's not give himtoo big of a head, right? So, oh, by the way, I did take a tour andthank you for arranging it with Matt on the high school HVAC, 'cause I come from a HVAC background, so. And it was beautiful. It was really well done. Spent a lot of time in boring areas so it looked really good. One question that I had is, you know, I think the district did a great job of being transparent in the planning and where the budget is. But now that the chickenshave come back to roost, the actuals landing where the budget is, I think it would be helpful. I mean, the pictures are great, but I think seeing where thebudget is on these projects and then the actualswould be super helpful 'cause I read an article that the amount that we spent on the highschool was 226 million, which is about 57% of the 400 million. Which sounds like a lot, but I mean, if you go throughthe high school there, there's a lot, there's a lot there. I mean, it's a beautiful high school. So I think somehow ifstaff could reconcile whatever we had planned on thebudget and then the actuals by facility I think would be helpful. If you could consider doing that, I think it would be helpful. - Yep. Appreciate that. And there is a combinationof bond and LTFM and all of these projects. And so that's a big portionof that is flushing that out so that people see whatbond investment was versus bond and LTFM aretwo very different numbers. - [Mr. Skaar] Right.Thank you. Thanks guys. - [Dr. Kazmierczak] All right.Skaar, and I have one thing. - [Mr. Arcand] Yes, go ahead. - I was just gonna mention the Central Middle Schoolcommunity open house will be held on Wednesday,September 24th at 4:30. It'll last for a coupleof hours that evening. That's homecoming week,so there's a lot going on. So that's being run inconjunction with the, is that the talent show thatnight at the high school? So if you get a tour ofCentral Middle School, including the renovatedold district center, the original White Bear High, well, not quite the originalWhite Bear High School, but there was one before that, correct? I mean, you are-- It was the first- - I wasn't teaching it, but. - Yeah. So anyway. - [Representative] It wasthe first school built as a high school for White Bear. - Yeah, built in 1918. So it's back to a school now. So it'd be really neat to see that. So again, that's onWednesday, September 24th, starting at 4:30 and lastingtill about 6:30, okay. - And that's Dr. Kazmierczak strategy for putting subtlepressure on Kraus-Anderson to continue to get all the work done, so. - [Mr. Arcand] Ms. Thompson. - I don't have a, this is silly,but I gotta say it anyways, 'cause you said the workwas done at light speed, but maybe faster. So would that be warp speed? - I think it would be. Yeah, definitely. - I just always, it's fun to, it's amazing work that we're doing. I'm so thankful for thecommunity supporting this. But you always bringfun to this part of it, and I think that's great. And I appreciate all the extrawork you do to bring those, 'cause you know that we like 'em. So I think you kind of tryto find them every time and I appreciate that. So thank you.- Okay. - [Kathleen] Just a couple comments. I love the umbrellas on the playground. It makes so much sensewith the sun and the kids and all of that.- Kathleen. (Kathleen continues speaking off-mic) - [Mr. Arcand] Your microphone's not on. - [Kathleen] Oh, okay. I likethe umbrellas. (chuckles) You didn't hear. They're really nice for the kids and to protect themfrom the sun and so on. What about, I'm just curious about what is actually in the tunnels under Sunrise. I mean, why do we have tunnels? You were saying how many we, they're not under every school, right? Or are they? Yeah? - They're under most. - [Kathleen] Oh, okay. All right. - So sometimes we'll reuse the tunnels for the mechanical plumbing systems. Basically it's just a wayto hide all the things that might be aboveceiling or in the slab, but do it inside a tunnel. - Got it.- But then also provide like some form of accessibility so that way when hopefullyyou don't have to maintain it, but at some point you will, that there's a clean way to get to it, so. - Okay.- Yeah. - [Kathleen] Okay, so most schools do. Well, thanks. Learn something new. - And I just wanna say thank you. Having spent three years in this building without any real airconditioning or cooling, and then three years overat Mariner with the windows that don't open and no cooling. This is awesome, 'cause nowstudents can get in there and can actually focus on learning because they're not worriedabout how warm they are in that. So thank you very much. - I'll add one thing on the tunnel. My father-in-law taught here for 35 years or something like that. And there were a few occasions where he'd be teaching inthe middle of the class and a panel would come and astudent's head would pop up out of the floor. He'd be like, you know,"How'd you get in there?" "I went through the tunnelsystem," you know, so. It was kind of funny. He's got more stories than that. But that's another thing the tunnels were used for.- Here at Sunrise? - Yeah. - I just wanna say it wasn't me. (everyone laughing) - Wasn't you.- Okay. All right, anything else? - Thank you.- Thank you very much for everything. We're gonna go on now to D2. It's the White Bear Lake Area High School radon testing report. Mr. Wald and Mr. Fernandez? - Yes. Thank you, Chair Arcand. This was actually a really good segue from Ms. Ellison's comments earlier about the safety of her school buildings. And so we're gonna provide an update on radon testing report. And with us tonight is Kevin Clicker, our emergency and safety supervisor. So I'll turn it over toKevin to walk us through it. - All right, hopefully, I'm not as entertaining. I don't have fun pictures and stories to share with you guys. But good evening, ChairArcand, members of the board, and Superintendent Kazmierczak. Thanks for having me today. I'm going to be presenting a few slides just talking about some radon testing that we just recently completed, so. Is important to knowradon testing in schools is a very important thing wedo for our student safety. Radon, it's a colorless, it's odorless, it seeps in through the ground, right? So it's something that canhappen like carbon monoxide where it's happening and you don't even know what's happening. And especially the little kids that like to crawl on the ground wherethat radon would seep in it, you know, it's a risk. So we do test regularly for that. Long-term exposure is actuallythe second leading cause of lung cancer. So we don't want ourkids to experience that and we don't want ourstaff to experience that, or even the families thatare in our buildings, especially 'cause childrenare actually more susceptible to that just due to theirsystems growing and developing and being well closer to the ground, so. So radon testing is partof our district's health and safety programsamongst other programs. We do lead and water testing. We do indoor air quality testing amongst a lot of other things as well. But it is something we do ona five-year rotating basis. So we hit every schoolwithin those five years. We do adjust it with construction. So the high schools actuallydo the previous year, but because it was under construction, it wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have been effective to test it during that process. 'Cause they had a lot of ceilings open, a part of the building tornup and under construction. So we did adjust that last year. And then next year wehave the four buildings that are currently under construction slotted to be tested for radon. So that would be Central,Mariner, North Star and Sunrise. North Star hadn't beendone since it was opened, so they're due for it as well. So this is something thatcomes as a recommendation from the Minnesota Departmentof Health and the EPA if they highly, highly recommend that you do completeregular testing for radon in our buildings as well as in our houses and all the other places we are. But it is a voluntary plan that's highly encouraged and recommended. So that's why we do it ona five-year rotating basis instead of annually orsomething like that. Because it doesn't change that frequently if there's not construction, so. There's a statute that saysif we do test for radon, that we do need to report it to the board. And that's why I'm here tonightsharing it with you guys. So we'll go through the results briefly. But first I wanted to talk about our, safety partner is IEA, that's the Institute forEnvironmental Assessment. They're Minnesota-based organization. They've been very supportive of our health and safety programs. They help us do a lot oftesting and problem solving when we do come across things. They do specialize in school. So if you talk to other school districts, I would say at least half of them or maybe even more are partnering with IEA on some of these different projects. Then they send those test samples into an accredited third partylab for independent testing. So at the high school we did send in, so this process is very laid out, how we test for radon and how we have to alerteverybody in the building. So we post things on the doors, we send out informationto families and staff letting them know this is happening. And we do that for acouple different reasons. The most important is thatthese little test packets, the little pouches, they'regonna be all around the building and if they're tamperedwith, we have to retest. So you'll see we'd have 331 test kits placed in the building in 273 locations because there arerequirements for redundancies. Just to check to make sure those tests are coming back accurately. So this is short term three day test. And then anything overfour picoCuries per liter would be an actionable amount. So we would have to lookinto either a passive or an active grade on mitigation system. So we did include it in theinformation provided, right. We do have the results foreach individual's space. But in summary, it wasa very positive results. We did not, nothing achieved anywhereover 1.9 picoCuries per liter. So of the 266 tests that wereleft in place and measured, everything was under that 1.9. So it was very low. Most of them are actually under, or a lot of them are under .03. So very, very low results. So at this point with thehigh school, we are, you know, we don't have any activeconcerns with radon and we'll continue testing next year with those four buildingsI listed on the last slide. And then I just have some links going to the EPA recommendations,the MDH guidelines and then the statute thatrequires us to report this to you guys here at the board. - Great.- Good. Thank you. Do we have any questions? Mr. Skaar. - [Dan] So thanks for thereport. Appreciate it. So have we ever had a radon, a reportable radon issue in the past? - Not since I've been,like part of the process. I'm sure we've had some- - [Dan] So how long is that since, how long have you been here testing? - So I've been here since 2018. I did not take over kindof managing the health and safety programs untiljust a few years ago. - Okay. Do we know if we've had any? Probably not.- I'm not aware. - Okay. - I'm not aware that we'vehad any since I've been in this position justone year longer than he. And do you recall any before that? - Typically I did look backat the previous results. So because of how the pandemic happened, we didn't test for a fewyears and then we went back and tested almost every buildingto get us back caught up. And I looked through those results. We didn't have any above the action level at that point either. You know, typically ourbuildings are above grade. You know, we have the fewinstances like Venice Heights and the lower level thatare slightly below grade, or even at Mariner Middle School where it's partially below grade. And that's typically underground is where you would see the high levels. Typically when you're abovegrade it's not as frequent that you would see issues. - So just just to commenton how important it is for staff teachers fortheir indoor air quality because they're typicallymore than students are of, this is just a personal story. A friend of mine's wife workedat Cleveland Public Schools and she ended up dying oflung cancer, never smoked, but it was because of the school. So I think, you know, whatyou're doing monitoring this, it's a requirement, but I think keeping our airclean is really important. Not just to the students,but also to the staff. So I just wanna make that comment. - [Kevin] Appreciate that. - [Scott] Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? - I just wanna recognizeMr. Skaar saying that, 'cause that was one thingI wanted to recognize too, is that we have a lot of other, our students are obviously, but staff and other peoplethat are in their buildings and just making sure everyone'ssafe is really important. So thank you. - And and aside from the annual testing, I will mention, you know,when we have concerns brought to us, we will do spot testing as needed. If the staff are concerned about things, we frequently will go andpartner with a testing company and check in it, whetherit's lead or air quality or mold, any of thoseitems that could affect us on a daily basis. - Scott, just one other quick. Just a curious, do we have a industrial hygienist on staff or do we sub that out? - We do not. - Okay.- That is IEA. Our main partner is acertified industrial hygienist. - [Dan] All right. Thank you. - Yep. - [Scott] All right,well, thank you very much. - Thank you. - We are gonna move onto discussion item D3: summary of thesuperintendent's evaluation. The school board did meet with superintendent Dr.Kazmierczak on July 14th to conduct his annualperformance evaluation. Dr. Kazmierczak continues tomeet the board's expectations in key areas, including leadership for continuous improvementof student achievement, communications, stakeholder engagement, fiscal responsibility, school facilities, and the implementation anddevelopment of district policies. Together, Superintendent Kazmierczak and the school board have identified the following prioritiesfor the '25-'26 school year. Create and sustain a safe, equitable and nurturing environment; promote and support students'personal learning experience and aspirations; ensure the organization continuously evolvesto fulfill its mission; establish healthy and vital engagement with our entire community; maintain strong fiscalmanagement and implement of the district facility plan. The school board extends itsappreciation to Dr. Kazmierczak and his cabinet for theircontinued leadership and dedication during thisexciting time for our district. Okay. And so we're gonna move on now to D4: first reading of the schoolboard policies 414 and 516.5. These policies have beenreviewed by the policy committee and they will come backto us on September 8th or another meeting for a second reading. If you have any questions,please gimme the page number so we can follow along. - Mr. Chair?- Yes, Mr. Skaar. - Were we supposed toapprove agenda item D2? - [Scott] This is discussion. So no, there was no approval on those. This is just discussion. - Okay. So we're, okay. Thank you. - Okay, so any other questionsfor the first reading? If not, we will bringthose back next month. And between there and now, if any board member has a question, please feel free to reachout to Dr. Kazmierczak with your question. Okay, we're gonna move onto the operational items. We're gonna move on to E1: action on proposed substituteteaching rate change. Mr. Mons. - Good evening. Tonight I'm asking for the board to approve the recommendation that we move our teacher substitute rates from $185 per day to 190, along with the correspondinghalf day rate change. And for our retiredteachers who are coming back to sub for us, moving thatfrom 195 to $200 per day. Every year we reach out and we look at neighboring districts to see where we're atrelative to their pay rates. And this will keep us ina competitive position with our neighboring districts. - [Scott] Any questions? Yes, Mr. Skaar. - What does keeping itin a competitive mean? - [Matt] This will keepus in about the top third. - The top third? - Of the districts around us, yes. We don't wanna be right at the average and certainly not below. It's a really competitive market and they're very difficult to fill, right? So we wanna be, you know,near the top of that. - Do we have any issuesrecruiting at that rate? - We, you know, we're constantlyadding to our sub list. I've been looking at our fill rates. They've actuallycontinued to improve here. We made a switch in our paradigm, we're working with withanother company that's helping with those recruitment effortsand that has been successful. So we're feeling good about where we'll be with this adjustment. - Right. Thank you.- Yep. - [Scott] Yes, Ms- - Do you happen to know offhand what the fill rates are for the- - Yes, at the moment herewe've gotten up to 87% for our fill rate, whichactually we've been seeing almost a 10% increase per year for the last three years here. So we're looking to keep moving that in a positive direction. - [Chris] One more, Scott? - [Scott] Yeah, go ahead. - Do you have building substitutes? - We do, yes. Yep, so we maintain building substitute at each of our buildings, the high school and the ALCshare three between them there. And we also make surethat if there's not a need for a building substituteon a particular day in a particular building thatthere're going to another site because there's really never a day that we're not using allof our building substitutes and then some. - [Chris] Thank you. - Any other questions? So before us we have theproposal to increase our sub pay. Can I get a motion? - So moved. - And a second? - Second. - Second by Thompson. Any further discussion? - [Matt] Thank you. - This will be a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Ellison?- Aye. - Skaar?- Aye. - Strife Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Okay, motion carried.Thank you very much. - [Matt] Thank you. - All right, we're gonna move on to operational item E2. It's a superintendent contract. We have the opportunity tonight to approve a three-yearcontract from July 1st, 2026 to June 31st, 2029 withSuperintendent Kazmierczak, Dr. Kazmierczak. And so per Minnesota statute 123 B.143, we could enter into negotiations now, and we have come to a tentative agreement, and I knew I did send that out to you. So the recommendation is toapprove the three-year contract. Can I get a motion to do that? - So moved. - By Ellison. Is there a second? - [Streiff Oji] Second. - Second. Any discussion? - Can I just-- Yes. - Dr. Arcand.- Yeah. - Can I just amend to say that it should be through June 30th, 2029? 'Cause there's no June 31st. - We just added a day I guess. (Chris and Jessica laughing) Yes, June 30th. We'll makesure it's in there correctly. - Thank you. - Any other questions or discussion? Okay, this will be a roll call Vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison.- Aye. - [Clerk] Skaar. - [Dan] I'm gonna abstainbecause I wasn't at that meeting when you did the review. - Streiff Oji.- Aye. - Thompson.- Aye. - Arcand.- Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carried. (gavel thuds) All right, we're gonna moveon to operational item E3, which is action on theschool board policies 418, 501, 503, 515, 516, 534, 621, 707, 709, 802 and 806. Now normally is to remind you, we do this in one swoop together. Can I get a motion toapprove the policies? - [Angela] So moved. - [Scott] By Thompson. A second? - [Jessica] Second. - Second by Ellison. Any discussion? I just wanna say once again, thank you to the Policy Committee for continually looking and reviewing. I know there's a lot ofwork that gets into it. Thank you for that. So this will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. All right, we are on to board forum. This is an opportunity for board members to talk about thingscoming up in the district or things that we're doing. Does anybody have any forum? - Oh, Ms. Daniels.- Oh, Ms. Daniels. Sorry, I didn't see you. - Oh, that's okay. I attended the familyevent up at the high school on Saturday, this lastSaturday, August 9th, where there was a backpackgiveaway to families in need. And the closet, the school, the educational foundationcloset provided clothing for people to pick up if they wanted to. There was a free mealprovided by a private person. There were registration for classes, there was the Bear Care, Bear Care was there givingvaccinations or physicals. So we just had lots of things going on. It was well attendedby many, many families. And I wanna thank everybodywho volunteered there. And also thank, in particularthe Community of Grace Church who provided 350 backpacks that they filled and brought, delivered, and families picked up. So I just wanna give a shout out to them for their generosity. I know there were other people too and there are other individualsthat also contributed, so I wanna thank them too. But that was a quite a big contribution by Community of Grace. So it was a great event for families and I just think it's a wonderful thing that the community does to help neighbors. - [Scott] Thank you. Yes, Ms. Ellison, - I just wanted to say thankyou to the Community Services. Mr. Mar isn't even hereto hear my accolades. It's so much work to puttogether summer programs for students and adults. And I think it's really a tremendous gift to the community to haveopportunities for students to go out and play sportsand do other various things. And so I just wanted tosay thank you for everybody who was involved in community service. And then I also wanted to thank everybody who's getting ready for the school year, 'cause I think if you'venever been in education, you don't quite know how much it takes to get a school year started. And so thank you to all the coaches, like Dr. Kazmierczak said,sports started today. And then, you know, thecabinet and the staff and the teachers who are all getting readyfor the school year. It's a ton of work and so I mean, thank you, 'cause I will be ready in three weeks to send my children off to school, so. So thank you, everybody. - [Scott] All right. Anybody else? - I just was gonna say, Ialways felt as a educator and as a parent that Augustwas like a big Sunday night. The whole month was like gettingready for the school year. So it's like a month ofjust the preparedness, the anxiety, the wondering,the getting things, purchasing things and all the things that go into getting a family launch, a classroom launch a community launch, a district launch, so. - That's a lot.- I agree with your comments. - Yeah. Mr. Skaar. - Well, I just wanna thank you, Scott, on that Ramsey CountyLeague of Elected Officials- - Ramsey County Leagueof Local Governments. - Okay, well, I was close. - Yeah.- Okay. I got about 80% of it right, which usually for me is good enough. But, you know, Scott's hosted that. He's done a great job of hosting. He's a legend there.People are gonna miss him. I'm gonna take over. It's not gonna be easyfor me to take over. So I just wanna thank you. He's done a really nicejob of setting that up and making sure that weconnect with our other folks in Roseville, RamseyCounty, things like that. So thank you very much.- Thank you. - And then I just wantedto ask about this. You know, we live in aworld of complexity, right? We're systems of systems. So we have this cyber incident that happened in the City of St. Paul. The City of St. Paul systemsare connected to Ramsey County. We probably have handshakesto Ramsey County. So I would just, did we do anything to raiseawareness around this? Did we do any assessments?Those types of things? You don't have to answer that now, but maybe at the next meetingwe can talk about that, if we had any issues with that or what actions we took related to that. - And we could take thatoff to a different time. - Sure.- It doesn't really fit in form of the forum, so we canmake sure that we note that. And then if you haveright further questions, Dr. Kazmierczak- - Yeah, I may not fit intothe forum all the time. Yeah, so I realize that. - School's gonna be starting soon and I wanna say this is why we're here. This is the businesswe're in of our children and it's exciting time, and another year, and I'm excited for it. - Go Bears.- Go Bears. - All right.- Go bears. - All right. So right nowI am at the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - Motion.- Mr. Skaar. - Can I get a second? - Second.- Ellison. All right. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you. We are now adjourned.(gavel thuds)