- I now call this meeting of School Board IndependentSchool District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the role? - Thompson?- Here. - Arcand?- Here. - Beloyed?- Here. - Daniels here. Ellison?- Here. - Skaar?- Here. - All right. Our first item tonight. Discussion on B1, AreaLearning Center Update. Dr. Gillespie? - Chair Arcand, members of the board, I'd like to introduce twoguests that we have today. Jenni Sjosten, who'sthe Assistant Principal of the Area Learning Center, and Russ Reetz, Principalat our high school. Jenni's gonna start for us as we update you on ourArea Learning Center. - Awesome, thank you. I apologize. I know I sound like a frog. Just we're on the struggle bus in terms of health at my house, so. But I'm on antibiotics,so, I'm not contagious. (board laughing) Well, first of all, thankyou so much for having me. It's been an awesomefirst year of learning for me at the AreaLearning Center this year, so I'm really excited topresent with you today. (mumbling) Awesome. Super. So, when I really think about a mission, for us at the ALC, it really defines thework that we do every day. It grounds us and it alsoserves as a challenge. And so when I really look at our mission, the words that stand out are the words that I underlined there. Is it safe for our students? Are we collaborative with our students and our families and each other? Are we flexible in our grouping? Are we flexible in ourcredit earning opportunities? Are we flexible in the way that we address their needs and each other? Do we show up for each other in ways that show that flexibility? And so really our missionis how we show up every day, is in the relationships thatwe have with each other, with families. Are we respectful and nurturing? And do we offer restorativeopportunities whenever we can? Are we having an individualized approach whenever we are able to do that? Is it supportive and is it unique? It's an area learning center. We have to do things differently. And so for me, it's always thinking about, is there another way to approach this? Can we look at it from a different way? I think I'm really good at stepping back and I think the whole teamat the ALC is really good at stepping back and, again,looking at that whole student. One thing that I think is kindof a hallmark that I've seen, I've been in alternativeed for almost 20 years. And so one thing thatI think is a hallmark is that when a student comes to the ALC, they'll say, "I'm notgonna stay here very long. I wanna be out of here ASAP. I'm gonna be gone beforeyou even know my name." And then within a short amountof time, they're saying, "I'm gonna stay here. I no longer wanna goback to my home school," whether that's the high school or if they're open enrolled, that they don't want to go back to their home school anymore. And so that's something thatI hear time and time again in the short time thatI've been at the ALC, that that's been a reality thatI've seen also come to life. And so for me, I think that we are living and breathing this mission. And so that's one of theways that I can really see that we're living the visionand mission every day. So, just to talk a little bitabout the enrollment trends, you can see the lastfive years of data here. Last year was really anoutlier in terms of enrollment. That was, of course,prior to me being here, so, but really if you look at this year, we started a little bit higherthan the previous four years if you take out lastyear being that outlier. And then we're landingright now at about 182, which is pretty similar to two years past. So, I would say ourenrollment is pretty similar to what we've experienced in years past as we start lower at thebeginning of the year and kind of have anywherefrom like a 30 to 40% increase throughout the school year, which is common as we getstudents from the high school or from other schools. All right, so there's alot for us to celebrate at the Area Learning Center. First, of course, thegraduation rates just came out and we do have 77.5% graduation rate. As you can see also, this was an increase of 26 percentage points since 2021. It's a lot to be proud of here. And as we know, students cometo the Area Learning Center, most are behind in credits. And so for us, that's a really, you know, it might be lower than yousee at the main high school, obviously, but when we havesome students that come to us, you know, significantly behind in credit. So, the fact that they'reable to recover credits and graduate is a huge accomplishment. So, while it might not beas high as the high school, we're still really proud tohave that high graduation rate. We also have here informationabout the honor roll. Our honor roll looksa little bit different than what you traditionally see. So, ours is based on howmuch credit students earn. And so they have an opportunity to earn 3.25 credits every quarter. And so if they earn 2.5credits in the quarter, then they're on the honorroll for that quarter. So, you can see these arethe number of students that were on the honor roll each quarter. And then 50% of studentsthroughout the school year this year have been on the honor roll. So, that's a pretty excitingcelebration for us to see. And many students, this is the first time they've ever been on the honor roll. And the way that we celebrate that is we have a donutbreakfast for the students and they get a certificate. This year, the studentshated on the certificate that I designed. (board laughing) And so in the future, the students are gonna bedesigning the certificate, but I thought it was a really nice one. They did not like it. (board laughing) That's all right. They are high schoolersand they're always honest. So, there you go. They did not like it whatsoever, but I thought it was pretty awesome. And then the other one Ijust wanted to highlight is we had the RotarySTRIVE Scholarship Banquet a couple weeks ago, and I don't know if you're familiar with the Rotary STRIVE scholarships, but it's a really amazing scholarship for students that, really, it highlights and gives an opportunity for students to get a scholarship that are not like atraditional scholarship winner because they're in the bottomthird in terms of their GPA. The thing that I thoughtwas really wonderful when I sat in on the interviews, these students have stories really of triumph over adversity. They have persevered throughsome really difficult things and it was really wonderful to hear and see them be honoredfor their, excuse me, their accomplishments for reallyturning around their lives. And we had two full ridescholarships awarded and then two $3,000scholarships awarded this year. And we actually only had fourstudents apply this year, and all four students wereawarded a scholarship. So that was a really, reallyfun awards banquet this year that all students were, which isn't typical thateverybody gets a scholarship, but it was really fun to be there and see all the studentsreceive something, so. And I was a Rotary Exchange student. Tim always hears me talk about this, but for me it's fun to see the Rotary do so many wonderful things in our schools and really wonderful to have them engaged in that way with the ALC. And they often come to visit us throughout the year just tosay hi, which is really great. So, fun to have that. - Can I give one plug on theRotary STRIVE scholarship? Rotary's offered thisscholarship for decades and it's now an internationalscholarship program for Rotary. And it started righthere in White Bear Lake. And Rotary STRIVE scholarships happen all over the country, indifferent areas of the world. And it started locallyhere in White Bear Lake and White Bear Lake High School. - Yeah, it's great.- Little fun fact. - [Sjosten] So, credit, so this is a little bit of just like the academic accomplishment. So, at the ALC, because we have an increase in enrollment throughout the year, it's really hard to look at, like, what's a really good datapoint for us to look at in terms of how thestudents are performing. So, we look at credit earnedversus credit attempted. So, that's what you see here because we have this huge increase, if you think about a 30% increase throughout the schoolyear of our enrollment, like, how can we reallylook at what's happening in terms of credit earning? So, we started kind of in the low 50s and we're up gettinginto about 61% right now in terms of what the credit earned versus what was attempted by students. This is quite typical foralternative populations. Again, like I said, this is, I've been in alt ed for about 20 years. I would like it to be much higher. So, this year is gonna beour kind of baseline data. They haven't looked at this data point in the past at the ALC. So, this is gonna bekind of our baseline year for looking at future forward, how we can really work inour kind of collaboration to increase that for the future. So, it's not atypical, but it's also a good baselinefor us to know future forward how we can work to improve that. It also shows us some ways to when our attendance data might not always be representative, it also shows us another vantage point about engagement interms of credit earnings. So, it just helps us to know what we wanna work on in terms of that. And obviously there's adirect connection there with credit earning andworking towards graduation and striving towards that. So, that's kind of our main data point that we're really working on. All right, so next year, we'll be working totransition to trimesters, just like the high school. We found that we did a lotof data collection this year and I surveyed the staff and talked a lot withAlison and Jen and Russ to discuss if we weregonna also transition to trimesters with the high school. I think because we're a feederschool from the high school, most of our students do come from there. It's important that wealign our programming in terms of aligning our calendars. So, we will be also moving to trimesters. It's a large lift for the ALC. But one really significant difference is that we will be having whatI've coined the mini-mester, I'm very excited about this term. Way more excited than everyone else. But hey, this is how we become, like, history-makers is we make new words. So, what the mini-mester is,it is a smaller trimester. And so what it will be isa six-week grading period and it provides opportunities for students to earn credit at an increased frequency. This is really, really important for students in alternativeeducation settings. If we have these longer trimesters, it actually gives them more opportunity to lose their credit that they're earning. And so by having thesekind of shorter pit stops, if you will, for them to earn credit, they will actually earn more credit. And that's a proven strategy for students that are at risk fornot graduating on time. Actually, in Minneapolis whenI was there back in the day, we actually did three-weekgrading periods. I do not recommend that, we're not doing three-weekgrading periods. So, six weeks is a nicekind of middle ground for students and forteachers to be able to, like, get in, get some momentum,have that pit stop. And so there'll be twomini-mester in every trimester. And teachers will be working, this summer, they'll have some curriculum writing hours to continue to work ongetting their curriculum ready for this trimester shift. And we've been working onthat second semester also with some guidance with Jento really get everyone ready. And we've been working everyother Tuesday morning as a team to get everyone ready to align their curriculumand their scope and sequence. All right, so, anotherreally important hallmark of alternative programming is really having an experiential learning. So, we do a lot ofopportunities for students to kind of expand the learningoutside of the classroom. So, you can see here someexamples of field trips that we've gone on, science museums, theState Capitol, the MIA, we just went to Cedar Creek in the rain and students of coursewere very ill-dressed and were wearing shorts. So, we actually, you know, had makeshift ponchos that wemade out of our garbage bags. So, thank you to Facilities for giving us very long garbage bagsthat could be ponchos. We've gone to Memorial BloodCenters three times this year. Also trying to do lots of ways that we can do community service as well, Feed My Starving Children. We actually took a group of students to Festival Foods andhelp them learn about how, like, with our changingeconomy, how to like budget. And it's interesting because you think, like, kids go grocery shopping all the time, but they don't. They don't know how to, like, do a budget, go grocery shopping, and then actually, like, cook the food. We have a kitchen, youknow, also at the ALC. So, we've done lots ofcollege visits also. And then we've had more guestspeakers than I can count. They're always finding ways to bring community into the ALC. So, that's really exciting to see just so many ways that theteachers are innovative to bring the students eitheroutside into the community or bring the community inside to the ALC. So, it's really somethingthat I think is a hallmark of alternative programming. But specifically the ALC is a strength that I would say theydo really, really well. So, first for the ALC thisyear, we had two family nights, which they haven't done before. We had a bingo night. You do not outgrow bingo. Bingo is good for all people. And so we had an awesomebingo night in the fall and we brought tons of families in and they were reallyhappy just to be invited. They were like, "We haven'tdone something like this at the high school level." And it was just a reallygreat kickoff in the fall. Normally, you know, there'salways like the open house idea, which is a really great thing, too. But we just really wanted to do something that would be interactive and fun and the ALC's a lot smaller. And so really having families, like, walk around just didn't feellike it would be that engaging. And so we thought wewould do something else. And Cup and Cone donatedice cream sandwiches. We got lots of prizes donated. And then we had some delicious food from a local Mexican restaurant. It was delicious and it just was a greatkickoff to the year. And so we'll definitely behoping to replicate that. And then a few weeks ago we had an ISI, which is an internal, what is it? Intentional social interaction, thank you. And it started at 5:30, and at like 5:24 I was like, oh my gosh, nobody's coming. And then all of a sudden it just, like, our whole school erupted and there was all these people there and it was amazing. There was a great turnout, and I just looked aroundand saw so many families, and staff interacting andchatting with the families. And actually the, the numberone thing that families wrote and talked about was their gratitude for the school being agood fit for their child. I think when, you know, we have this awesome flagship high school, which is amazing and it's justnot a good fit for some kids. And I think just to haveanother option for some students is really, it's astrength of our district, and I'm really proud thatwe have that offering. And then additionally, they said they justwant more family nights, which I was like, that's great feedback. I was really a little bitsurprised to hear that. I have my own children, and to be honest, sometimes the last thing I want is another activity toattend in their school. And I'm an educator and I like activities, but I'm just like, I don'twant more activities. So, I just was really pleased to hear that they were happy to beextended that opportunity to come and be welcomed into the school. And they just wanna come more often. So, another way that weengage really intentionally with families is our advisor system, which students work with the same advisor throughout their entire time at the ALC. That's their main point of contact. If a family wants to knowlike, how is my child doing, they always hear it from the advisor and they give them up to date information on how they're doing. And they also give themall the information about their progress towards graduation. So, normally at the high school that would come mostly fromtheir actual guidance counselor, but at the ALC thatcomes from their advisor. And so that person reallyworks closely with each family and I think that's areally strong connection and system that we have at the ALC where families grow really connected to the advisor, as do the students. So, I think it's a really strong way that we connect well with families. - All right, thanks, Jenni. So, we are embarking onan ALC program review. We're partnering withDistrict 916 to help us as we really think aboutand build upon the successes we've had this year at our high school. And then, what Jenni's mentioned, the success that she's seen, but also opportunities that we have around what pathways are we offering our students to graduation. Some students, the ALC is the absolute appropriate landing spot for them for the remainder oftheir high school career, and other students might wannaget back to the high school. And so really partneringwith Jenni and Russ around those pathways that we offer. 916, as you know, have a lotof wonderful options as well. And so we're exploring threethings and we will be back. So, I'm really giving you apreview of what we're doing, but we will have some things that we'll either wantyou action from you on and/or just to provide updates. But our districtlogistics, program review, and technical assistance. And so really it's lookingat how do they help us think about what is the best designation for us to have as a district. Right now, we're designated as an ALC, which means that we, you have to be designated as an ALC to offer targeted servicesto our elementary students. You think after schoolactivities and summer school. Additionally, you also need to have some sort of middle schoolprogram when you're an ALC. And then your high schoolcomponent has to be open for 9-12 and accept studentsfrom other districts. We're examining whetherwe would shift to an ALP, which is an area learning program. And what that allows youto do is really focus what we're offering at the high school. So, maybe we decide 10-12is what we'd wanna offer. And Russ really looking at, okay, what supports do we have so that students canstay at the high school? And really these are ideasthat we're tossing around. We would still need tohave an ALC designation because we want to offer targetedservices to our families. And there are districts, member districts, at 916 that then partner with 916 and utilize their ALC designation. That would also allow us to truly look at our middle school programming and say, is this really what we need to do for our middle school students or is there something different? And so that's one aspect. The other two are, as Jenni mentioned, how can we really make surethat what we're doing at the ALC and build on the success that we've had is the most innovativeprogramming that we can do. And ALC's are constantlyreinventing themselves. So, everything we say now, or you know, when we make decisions, that is when Jenni talks about being part of ALCs for 20 years, people that have been there a long time are really used to creatingdifferent schedules and different programs. And so we would do what we believe is best knowing thatwe continue to improve. And then finally theone that I think will be what we first lead withis how do we make sure that we're really reportingeverything we need to in the best way in termsof earning as much revenue as we can based on student attendance. I mentioned last week when I presented at the school board meeting, really making sure we'rerecording attendance accurately. It feels to me thatmaybe there's some things we could do better around that. And not that anything they'redoing in the day to day, it's really our accountingof what we're doing. And so then having 916, because they run so many ALCs, they're able to reallyhelp us and look at it, and say these are the ways that we should beputting things in synergy and all of those things thathappen behind the scenes, but they matter a lot, so that we can make surethat we're receiving the fiscal support that we need to from, you know, the state funding. And then looking atthat across our system. So, it's three buckets. We have already started working with 916. Jenni and I will continuepartnering with them and really getting things off the ground. What I'm most excited about isJenni as a new administrator getting to really workwith the staff and say, what are our beliefs,where are we aligned? This is an opportunity toreally build on our success to say this is what webelieve we need to be. And then partnering with the high school and Russ's team around, these are all the opportunities we have for kids to earn credit. We have opportunities atour high school as well. So then what ways can we helpour students be successful? Did I miss anything? Okay. All right. So, really we're ready forany questions you might have. - Thank you. Do we have any questions? Ms. Daniels? - Can you explain, I sort ofam familiar with some of it, but how a student would, are they self-referred,parent-referred, staff-referred? How did they get there? - Yeah, it can come ina multitude of ways. I think the first way is usually a staff referral or a parent referral. But we have a referral processthat usually is generated through their guidancecounselor at the high school. But sometimes it's word of mouth where they have a friend there. So, then if a parent requests it, that's another way. The student often will tell their parent that they want to go there, too, and then it can come that way. They do have to have one of 17 ways, so they can't just comebecause they wanna come. But 17 ways you have toqualify through one of those, which is pretty easy to do. Things like behind in credits, mental health concerns,an English learner, they're a parent, youknow, things like that. Yeah. - [Daniels] And then another question, with the mini-mester... - Mini-mester. Yep. - Will they have an opportunity then to earn more credits ina shorter amount of time? Because they'll have moresix weeks in a semester, or in a trimester. So, potentially they couldearn twice as many credits? - So it'll be the same amount of credits. But we will offer oneadditional class per day than the high school has because the high schoolwill have a five-period day, we'll have a six period day. And then we have other, like, other ways that students canmake up credit recovery also through some different meanslike credit by assessment. Some of our field tripopportunities do offer credit also. So, we do have other ways for them to augment their credit-earning that way. But in terms of, like, that they're able to do it faster, no. - [Daniels] Yeah. Okay,one very short question. One more. Do you have any open-enrolled students? - Yes, we do. Yeah. We do.- Thank you. - All right. Other questions? Yes, Ms. Beloyed? - [Beloyed] What otherdistricts are currently using the ALC through 916? - [Sjosten] Excuse me, using our ALC, or just the ALC in general? Our member districts?- The 916. - I don't know all the member districts off the top of my head, but Kathleen- - There's 13.- At most. - [Daniels] Yeah, and I wasgonna say I think we may be, well, there might be onemore that has an ALC. Otherwise, most of those districts are using the 916 district. - I think Roseville mightbe the only other district that carries their own ALC designation. - Yeah, I'm not sure about Miesville. - Oh, okay. Yep.- So, most do, though. Most use the 916. - I knew it was, I know five or six of themoff the top of my head. But I know we've lookedat the ALC a couple times over the past seven years that I know of. What's the reasoning now totake a look at maybe switching to the program versus the center approach? - It really is aligning our programs to the different specifications for ALC. And so we've looked at it in a sense of really looking atfocusing at the high school, but we have not donea comprehensive review since I've been in the district, which would be eight years at least. And so it's aligning to,the ALC has specifications, and so if we chose to lean into the ALC, we would have to do some enhancements for our middle school programming, and middle school programmingmight not be the way that we see best meetingthe needs of our students. The other piece is really looking at, what's our ninth grade program, what's our partner district? So, there's just some reallyclear designations around ALCs that we would have toenhance as a district. Whereas partnering with 916, you still have those opportunities but you don't have to carrythose things yourself. And so, we really arein the beginning stages, but it's weighing whatdo we think as a system is better for us? - So, did something change?- No. - I guess I'm confused. - [Gillespie] So, itis just program review. So, nothing, the programhas been the same. The designations that they have at MDE, we would need to do thingsto enhance middle school, which is not abnormal. Throughout COVID things felloff the wayside a little bit, and then having a full blown ALC program, you have to have a fullblown middle school program, which we do not have right now. And so we would need to decide that that's something that we would wanna do. And that has been the casefor, since I've been here. - But that's always beenrequired for the designation? - [Gillespie] It hasalways been required, yes. - So, how did we get the designation? - I have no idea, and I've been, we've had the designationfor quite some years and I'm not sure what it looked like then. I've done some diving intolooking at our audits and things, but it's inconclusiveon what we used to do and how that part of it fell off, and really wanting to focus forward in terms of how can wedive into, whether we need, we wanna have this middle school ALC, and if we don't, thenthis is another option for us to make sure that we meet. Because we need targeted services for our elementary studentsand middle school students for summer school. - [Beloyed] Okay. All right, thank you. - All right, thanks. Other questions? Mr. Skaar? - Thank you. Well, thanks for beinghere and the presentation. What's our capacity atthe ALC for students? How many, can we take 300, 200? What's kind of a sweetspot? What's our capacity? - That's a good question. Well, all students are not built the same. So, one student can can feel like 10, and you know, so, I think interms of an actual number, I would say a closer to 200, to 225 in terms of theregular school year. Now, in summer school, we do run a larger program in the summer in that we also haveadditional staff in the summer. So, we have about 300 studentsthat come in the summer. - [Skaar] So, is is thebuilding pretty full then? - Yes.- Okay. - Yeah, in terms of physicallike space capacity, 300 maxes us out in terms of like the physical space capacity. - So, you mentioned that we have students from open enrollment from other districts. Like, do you have any idea how many? - I just looked it up. It's 25%. - 25%?- Yep. For last year. - Thank you. Is the funding any different if you're an ALC versus an ALP, or is the funding the same? - Funding is the same. Students can generate up to 1.2 ADM, and so students who areenrolled in ALPs or ALCs can generate 20% more, which is how you do withthat credit recovery or summer school. So, you get additional funding that way. - Okay. Thank you. Thanks. I hope you feel better. - Oh, thank you, thank you. This is actually improved, so. - Okay, Ms. Ellison? - How do the students at the ALC, how do you ensure that students at the ALC have the opportunities to participate in events at the high school? I mean, sports and music and theater, how does that work? - So, the nice thing is that, like Russ and I meet often, I also attend the adminmeetings at the high school. So, I think the collaborationbetween our buildings is really strong and Ithink that's a strength that we've really worked on this year. Students, Russ, I will say, I just wanna give you a shout-out. - Okay.- Yeah. (board laughing) So, again, since I'veworked in alternative ed for a long time, the relationship betweenthe high school and the ALC that I'm experiencinghere is very different. And I would say it's mostly because Russ really has a really singular, and when I say singular, I mean it in a positive way, attitude towards our students. Because we both have the belief that all our kids are all our kids. And I really feel that from him and I really appreciate that. And so that is our approach, that all our kids are all our kids. And so our kids arewelcome at the high school for sporting events, for thepep fest, for all those things. And when it was timefor the pep fest that, you know, joined the high schools, the first one in the fall, and I was like, "Russ, my kids wanna be there." Russ was like, "Yep. We don't have space for ourcurrent kids but bring them on." You know? And that has not been an attitude that I've always experienced. I've been in otherdistricts where, you know, we had to like bring themin and basically had to, you know, escort themin and escort them out, and they were not very welcomedand it felt really terrible. And that's just not Russ's approach. And so I think like us meeting and really having this beliefthat our White Bear kids at the ALC are White Bear kids. And I think if you havethat fundamental belief, which he does and we do, then there isn't a needfor us to worry about it because it kind of works itself out. So, students participate in sports, students participate in the things that they want to at the high school. And so anyone who wants to is welcome, and we've extended all of that. And I also get to be at the events, too, just like the rest of the other APs. And so, you know, homecoming we bonded, and you know, I'm therejust like everyone else, and the kids see me there also. So, prom, I was there with my breathalyzer just like the other APs, you know? So, yeah. - [Ellison] Thank you, andI also just wanted to note, I appreciate the presentation, and just a note to Dr.Kazmierczak and Dr. Gillespie, I've really enjoyed havingall of the buildings come and present to us this year. This is the first timewe've done it like this since I've been on the board and it's really given us a close look at what happens at the school from your lens of beingthere every single day. And I think that givesus a lot of good context and helps us make decisions. So, I'd love it if we continued this. - [Kazmierczak] Yeah, that'sthe plan. We're back on track. If you recall we started this pre-COVID and then several things got derailed. That was one of them. But we're back. This will be a regular- - [Ellison] Yeah, it'stremendously helpful and just really good for us to know what's going onin all the buildings. - [Gillespie] Yeah, the principals have really enjoyed it as well. They very much enjoy time tocelebrate what they're doing and share some of their challenges. But getting face time with all of you has been a help to them, so thank you. - Thank you. Ms. Thompson? - I guess I just wanna circleback to the ALC/ALP piece because I'm also a littleconfused and I just wanna, my understanding isthat if we have an ALC, we should have an ALC that also serves our elementary and ourmiddle school students? - [Gillespie] Middleschool, not elementary. - Not, okay, becauseyou said that we needed to have an elementary piece. - So, elementary is targeted services, and so you have to as adistrict have an ALC designation to be able to offer targetedservices at the elementary. And that is when you thinkof the after school programs and summer school that we offer to kids who are getting extrahelp based on academics. And so that really is theelementary part of it. But in order to be able to offer that, you as a district have tohave the ALC designation, so, pause right there. The ALC designation means thatyou have a partner district that you specifically work with. Which, my guess is at one point, we had Mahtomedi as our partner district. That partnership isn't as strong anymore. And so in order to do a program review, that's one of the thingswe'll have to decide. Do we wanna, you know, doubledown on that partnership, or does it make more sense for us to have the partnership with 916? The other piece you have to offer is a comprehensive middleschool program that's an ALC. Meaning, offering all of the subject areas and being able to be offeredto 6th through 8th grade. What we do right nowmeets what I would call the basic requirements ofcompliance and it's not, we would wanna doubledown on that and say, okay, really what are weoffering for middle school? Is this really meetingthe needs of our students? Middle school, we have other ways as well. We have a access funding which helps with intervention staffingat the middle school. So, when you think about supporting kids who might struggle at middle school, we might not through this process decide it's best to double down our resources to have a comprehensive, kind of either school within a school, or literally to have someof our middle school kids go to our current area learning center. Those two things have to be in place for you to truly be in compliance to have the ALC designation. Then that's when you canoffer targeted services. So, we can't lose thetargeted services piece. We also very much are committed to the high school program that we offer. So, one way many districts do this, and I too have been apart of ALCs for 20 years, and both of my previous ALCs, one in Richfield andin Wayzata transitioned from ALC to ALP, because they have partnerdistricts who can help that. And really it's themiddle school component that's the most challenging to figure out. And so then what we can do is still offer all of thesethings for our students, but we do it in a way thatwe're partnering with 916, but it gives us more flexibility to say, this is who our ALC is andwe actually aren't gonna try to be everything to everyone. We're meeting the needs that we have immediately in our program, but it is, you know, constantly growing. So, that really, I hopeI'm explaining it well, but there's pieces that right now I would not say we'recompletely out of compliance, but they're not to the level that I feel comfortablewith for us to double. And so we have to decideto double down on, either we're gonna increase that ALC or another way to do itis to look at the ALP. - And so 916 would be able to support all of those needs? - Yep, so, what they do is, it really doesn't change a lot for what we're doing right now besides free us a little bit up from not, we would not have to doanything in the middle school and would still be able tooffer targeted services. Our ALC, it really doesn't change much of what we're doing right now. And 916 would actuallybe our partner district. And so then I don't know yet, I will, the logistics of how, youknow, students get coded, but the funding would still come to us. It's much like we have partnerships for other things with 916and they're very used to it. It was not a hard, you know, initial conversation withit even being a possibility. - So, then the middle school students who need those services would get them but they would get them through 916? - They could, yeah. But it's really uncommonfor middle school kids to be transferred toarea learning centers. Like, I have yet to doit since I've been here, and I can't think of in my previous life. They're just really uncommonto have those programs, and when they do it'sreally specific needs. But most school districts, you're really trying to figureout through intervention, other supportive programs, how can we keep our middle school students in the middle schools, and when you need themto have a smaller school, you can almost always doit a little bit easier in terms of, you know, slowing down, 6th grades in a hallway as opposed to being all at the high school. So, it's rare. But we would, just like wedo with other situations, we can partner with 916 fora specific student's needs. - Okay, thank you.- Ms. Beloyed? - I was wondering, regarding,jumping back to sports, is the eligibility requirements, are they different forthe ALC for participation or how does that work? - So, sometimes, like, I'll work with Mr. Peloquin to see, because sometimes if ourstudents are not necessarily on track for graduation in the same way, but they're making progresstowards it, you know, then we have a conversation. But no, all the otherrequirements are the same. But sometimes we do have aconversation in terms of, like if they're on track for graduation, we do have conversations about that. And if they're progressing at a rate that makes sense for that student, then sometimes thatparticular one is looked at a little bit differently. - [Beloyed] Okay, thank you. - All right, I just havea couple of questions. When we're talking about the mini-mesters, I'm assuming that the studentsaren't earning full credit. What it does it allowsthem to get partial credit in those six weeks andif something happens, sometimes a student is gone for a while, then they come back, they don't lose that, they can continue to build on that credit. Is that how it's working? - So, basically cutting thetrimester amount in half, and so if they have, youknow, a bad six weeks, then that's kind of in the past and they start over with the new one. We do do partial credits, whichI think is another strength of the ALC, which is, you know, not obviously offered at the high school because it's just not manageable. So, in that case wherelike a student is able to earn partial credit, youknow, we always do that. But it's just, again, like, a little bit of a shorter time for them to be able to earn credit and if they, you know, getoff track for a little bit, and they do earn some partial credit, then they would earn that part of it. - But can they earn thefull credit of the course in the six weeks or- - Not, it's only the trimesterdivided in half. Yep. - That's what I was wondering. Okay. And then my last question is when are you expectingto wrap up your study? - My timelines, chair, are often faster than oursystem is willing to go. So, I will tell you my goal is to have it completely wrapped up next year. I want it to be a little bit further along than we are right now. And so that is for sure thatwe'd have recommendations but I don't know thatwe'll be as far along to start the fall as we want to. Because obviously we need to have, we have many conversationsto have internally, but that is what I'm shooting for. - And absolutely a timeline is a timeline and you adjust it as you go, so. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate the time you've put in in coming to visit with us. We're wishing you a lot of success these last few weeks of school, too. - [Sjosten] I'll also be sending out an invitation to our graduation, so, it will be the day beforethe high school's graduation on the 4th. So, just be looking for that. We'll be sending that out this week. - Thank you.- Thank you. All right, we're gonna moveon to discussion item B2, FY2025-26 Preliminary Budget Overview. Mr. Wald and Ms. Johnson? - Thank you Chair Arcand,members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. Today we're looking atour preliminary budget for the next FY2025-26. And we'll also look atwhat we're projecting to be a budget for the following year. We usually start our budget presentations just reminding of the budget cycle. We're always juggling two budgets. So, as we end this school year, we'll start our audit process. So we'll keep a foot inthis current school year while we're still working toward or working in next school year's budget. So, we're starting with theaudit process in the summer, start working on the tax levy in the fall, present the audit reportto the school board, the truth and taxation hearing in December is when the board sets the final levy. And then mid-year wedo budget adjustments, knowing that we're, you know, we're assuming certain thingswhen we build a budget. Like any budget, it'sbuilt upon assumptions, and so mid-year we makesome adjustments to it because we have betternumbers to work with. And then that brings usto where we're at now, where we're presentingthe preliminary budget and we'll be bringing it toyou in June 9th for approval. You've seen this chart before, I believe. This follows the generaleducation formula allowance. And this is our primary funding mechanism for public schools in Minnesota. And if we go back to 2003 and we use that as the starting point and then track what theper pupil formula was, the general funding formula, over those years you cansee in the orange line in the bottom what that fundingformula amount has been. And then you can seethe blue line tells you what the inflation rate was or what it would be if itwere adjusted for inflation. Really, our buying power. And you can see that our buying power has significantly lost groundover these last 23 years. In fact, had it justkept pace with inflation, our per pupil formulawould be $1,470 more, or $13,365,000 impact on our budget. Last year when we had this conversation, the number was $11,206,000. So, each year is a significant, that just continues tomove the wrong direction. Five years ago thatdifference wasn't $1,470, it was $632. So, it's really gottensignificantly different. Recall that in the last biennium, the legislators passed abill that school funding would keep pace with therate of inflation up to 3%. And so if rate inflation's above 3, the increase would cap at 3. So, that leads us into assumptions for next year's budget. Like I said, all budgetsare built upon assumptions and these are the key assumptions that our budget was built with. So, from an enrollmentperspective at that 8,300 number, we're in a pretty stableperiod now for enrollment. And so we see thatremaining pretty stable. The formula allowance fornext year will be adjusted, we believe, at a 2.74% increase. So, we're in pretty good shape there. The following year, we'reusing the number of 2.5%. It could be a little bit higher, it could be a little bit lower, but we think we're probablygonna be pretty close at 2.5%. Summer term unemployment, that was a bill or aprogram that was passed in the last legislative session and it provides summerunemployment benefits to nine-month employees. And so the state funded itfor the first few years, but their estimates ofthe number of employees who would claim the summer unemployment was significantly lower than the number that's actually been claiming it. And so we're not sure how that'sgonna play out now in this, as they bring this bill together with the Senate and the House, when they bring it to committee. So, for this summer of, well, for next summer '26, it looks like the House and the Senate both are proposing funding that. And then as we go aheadto the next fiscal year, the House is recommending thatschool districts fund that and the Senate might be in the same place. We'll know soon, but hopefully by the time webring the budget to June 9th, we'll have a betterunderstanding of what will happen for FY2026-27. But we've built $650,000 of expenditures into this budget tocover that if we need to. The House bill recommendssunsetting that program in FY2028. And I think the Senate hasa different opinion on that. So, they've got a lot to work out. For paid medical family leaveor paid family medical leave, that also is a new mandatefrom the previous biennium that starts on January 1st. We've budgeted in $226,000 and $376,000 over the next two years for that. That is funded throughpayroll taxes, 0.88%, and the employer pays half of that and the employee pays half of it. And so that 0.44% isreflected in the assumptions. Special ed transportation, wethink that will probably be what it is up there at 95% proration. And so that's a significantbudget expense for us as well. So, those are our keyassumptions going into next year. And Andi will walk usthrough our budget summary. - [Johnson] So, knowingall of those assumptions that Tim just went through,what's the impact then for the numbers for next school year? So, focusing on the shaded column, the preliminary 2025-26 column, for revenues for next school year, we're projecting justshort of $147 million and then expenses just over $147 million. So, looking at a deficiencyof revenues under expenses of about $500,000. And there's three main potsthat that deficit rolls into. Our operating capital,our capital projects, and then the unassigned. And if you recall theunassigned is the fund balance that we typically really focus on. We have a school boardpolicy that requires that we maintain aminimum of 8% fund balance in our unassigned fund balance. So, that $500,000 deficit, $313,000 of it is gonna reduce our operating capital fund balance. We're gonna increase ourcapital projects fund balance a little bit based on someneed of about $250,000. And so our unassigned,we're projecting a deficit of about $454,000 for next year. So, if we look then at thebottom in the blue line, the ending fund balance forour unassigned fund balance for next school year, thatthese assumptions put us at about $11.4 million, which hits right at that8% target fund balance. So, it feels pretty goodcoming into next school year. Really what this showsis that we've made a lot of budget adjustments inthe past several years and they're really coming,you know, they're working out, they're doing what we needed them to do. And so that feels pretty goodthat we've done that hard work and it's done what we needed it to do. If we look forward to whatwe're projecting for 26-27, I'll just focus on theunassigned fund balance, looking at just shy of $11 million for that year in our fund balance, that does put us down to about 7.5%. So, based on what thelegislature actually approves, we will fine-tooth combthis and change that. So, we're just under for 26-27. So if that's really wherewe end up coming out, then we'll have to be makingsome budget adjustments next year to get back to that 8%. Then looking at the other threefunds that we need to bring to the school board for approval, our nutrition servicesfund, if you recall, we have free meals for all and we're just in our second year. And so we're still havinga hard time knowing exactly where everything is gonna come in. And so as we've been working with our nutrition services director, we feel that we have aconservative budget here just because we don't havethe full year of data yet for this school year. COVID was pretty nice inthe nutrition services fund. So, we've had a very healthy fund balance. So having these conservative numbers for the next couple of years are okay. If you look at the preliminarybudget for next school year, we're projecting adeficit of about $800,000, which would put us at about $1.4 million or 18% fund balance. We know we can't continue tomaintain a deficit fund balance and so we're working really closely with the nutrition services director to make sure we're monitoring that and we'll make adjustments coming forward in the revised budget, and then again in the 26-27 school year. - Part of what comes into play when you have a fund balancein nutritional services, you don't need to carrythat large of a fund balance in nutritional services. We have some capital expenditures that qualify fornutritional services funds that we can bite off when we're dealing with some excess thingslike delivery trucks. We had a delivery truck go down this year. So, those types of thingscome in to fit that, so it looks like she's running maybe at more of a negative balance, negative operationally,than we really are. It's just there's somecapital expenditures in there that spend that down a little bit. - Yep. Then in the community services fund, COVID was not so friendly tothe community services folks. When you have revenue verydependent on participation, it was really tricky for them. And so we're working ourway out of that deficit that we realized in the 23-24 school year. So, this upcoming schoolyear we're projecting about $8.5 million of revenueand about $8.3 of expenses. So, we're really lookingto cut that deficit in half for next school year. So, coming in at about$115,000 of excess revenue, bringing the deficit in that fund balance to $115,000 as well. And we've been workingreally closely with Tim and the other community services folks and we feel good aboutsome of the budget changes that we've put into placefor the upcoming school year. So, I feel like this is probablya little bit conservative, but appropriate for budgetingpurposes for that fund. And then the debt servicefund, this is the fund where we essentially payour mortgage payments. So, as we have referendumbonds that we issue or facility maintenance bonds, all of the tax proceeds thatcome in to pay off that debt flows through the debt service fund. So, our revenues are set by the state, we tell them what are ouranticipated debt payments are based on our debt payment schedules, and they set a levy equal to 105% so that we always have alittle bit of extra cash to cover those needs. And then the expendituresare really just based on our debt payment schedule and the Department ofEducation monitors, then, our ending fund balance, and as that kind of inches up because we get that extra 5%, eventually, then theyhave a negative adjustment to kind of get thatfund balance back down. So for next school year, we'relooking at about $6.7 million of ending fund balance, or about 19.6%. So, that's what we have. As we talked about, weanticipate the legislature is gonna have some news for us, you know, in the very near future. And so I do anticipate thatwhat we bring forward to you for approval in June is gonna be a little bit different than this and we'll talk about that at that time. So, any questions? - Thank you. Questions? Mr. Skaar? - I've got some questions. Within your budget assumptions, do you have, like, headcount numbers? Employee numbers? - Yep. For salaries and benefits. - Okay, so that wouldbe like a key assumption that would be, maybe, we should see, you know, as well as the enrollment number. The other thing is, I'm looking at the expenses and I'm wondering howyou budget your expenses. Do you go out to eachprincipal department head. and they come up, theybuild up their cost, kind of like a zero-base budgeting process where they say, they build their, then they give it to you andthen you summarize everything? Can you- - Yeah, I can speak toour budgeting process. We have a more centralizedbudgeting process. So, really the assumptionsin the building of the budget really lies within the finance office. Certainly, as the building principals or a program manager might have needs, they'll come to us and say, "I really have thisneed for X, Y, Z program and here's what the cost is." And then as administration,we'll talk about that and see if we can workthat into the budget. But really it's a 20,000 linedocument that we comb through and make our assumptions and build that budget in that way. It generally builds off of last year's. We don't, so there are, certain programs may have a more zero-base where you start at zero andyou identify every single need and build that. That's not the process thatwe've used in the past year. - I see. So, one of the things, when I look at the enrollment numbers, and that generates a largepiece of the revenue, and we had the bond referendum, which was $326 million, which is gonna be, the construction's gonna becomplete in December, right? We base that referendum on 10,000 students and we're about 20% off. So, that's a miss of $65 million, if you've multiply the20% times $326 million. So, and I know I've askedTim this question before, but that to me is a little bit scary. A little bit scary to havethat 20% out that we should, where we should be at10,000, we're at 8,300, and what kind of repercussionsis that gonna have, especially when I seeour costs are going up, our enrollments go flat, to go declining. Why are expenses going up? That would be the questionthat I would have. Why are expenses going up in relation to declining enrollment? - Well, what I would say is we did see decline inenrollment, you know, particularly during the COVID years. As we've been looking at ourprojections going forward, we actually feel prettypositive about enrollment. We've really looked really closely at our monthly enrollmentthis school year, and that's actuallyoutperforming what we've done month-to-month over thelast couple of years. So I think we're gonna outperform our enrollment projections for this year. And as we look forward, I mean, the kindergarten numbers are super difficult to predict, right? It's all dependent onhow many babies were born or families moved in. But our enrollment going forward as well, even out a couple of more years, is preliminarily looking positive and that we'll actuallystart seeing some growth. So, certainly it's not the level of growth that was anticipated by thedemographers prior to COVID. That kind of threw everything, you know, threw everything for a loop. But the increases that we're seeing really are more like cost of living increases. They're not very large, like, anticipated programmatic growth. It's really more, what do we think the salarysettlements are gonna look like? What do we think ourutilities are gonna go up by? It's not really drastic program growth. - So, maybe at the nextmeeting we can kind of get a picture of, like, theaverage increase in, like, for example, your salary infringes, that type of thing. What are we, you know, maybe we can get, maybe you can present that. That I think would be helpful. I think the other thing is, and you know, I'm a rookie on this, so, I'm asking questionsfrom a different viewfinder than maybe you're used to. But when I look at, likeyour support services, one of the things, youknow, across the country, what we've seen is indirectsupport services increase. I looked, I read a statacross the country, 81% of the increase in K-12 education was in indirect or support services, administrative services. And when I look at ourbudget, we have about, I don't know if I calculated it right, $26.1 million in supportservices if you add them all up. I mean, I don't know,how does that compare to, is there benchmarks where we can say, yeah, this looks right,we're better than, you know, we're actually runningsupport services leaner, and we're getting more valueout of it, more productivity? Is there something thatwe can look at for that to get an idea where we're at? - Yep, so the way thatwe lay out our expenses in the budget documents, the same way that weprepare them in our audit, are in broad categories that are required by the Minnesota Department of Education. And so every school district has all of these differentcategories in their reporting. So, yes, there's publicinformation that we can certainly pull off of theDepartment of Education's website and we can put together comparisons. One thing that I always cautionwhen looking at comparisons is the data is only as goodas the person who's giving it. And it's really easy to code something as instructional in one districtand as support in another. Right?- I've heard that, right. And I've noticed that evenjust in my different districts, like, "Oh, huh, you know, I would've coded this asinstructional support, and we've been codingit as non-instructional or more just as support services." And so comparisons, wecan certainly do them, but they're just notalways apples to apples. - There's comparabledata in the audit report. In the management letter, there's a comparison for metro districts and then the whole statecompared to individual districts. - Right.- So, that data's in there. - I saw some of that, yes. Thank you. - Yeah, and I think as you look at it, our budget compared toothers across the state, you find that those categoriesare all pretty similar. Little bit of this, but not off by a lot. Districts are all in very similar places. We're all required to providethe same services, right? And so that drives asignificant amount of it. - And I would just add one more thing that's very obviously gonnathrow a comparison related to our long-term facilitymaintenance funding. And so that's really driven by what needs have we identified within our facilities and that we feel like we're able to tackle in this school year. And we know we have a very focused budget on our facilities right now, whereas some of our neighboring districts, maybe they've been keepingup on their facilities in a different way. And so our buildings and grounds expense is very likely higher than what a lot of school districts are just because we have thatreally focus on LTFM projects. And so I would suspect that we would have a really wonky graph if Iwere to put up, you know, our neighboring districtsin that particular area, so. - When you have fixed assets, like we've got a lot of fixed assets, we've got a lot of buildings, what's the granularity on the district recording those assets? Do you classify them bybuilding and then subcategories, like the HVAC equipment or furniture, or is that how it's organized? - I would say it all depends on the scope of the project at the time. So, like North Star for example, that's, like, on our fixed asset schedule, that's pretty much one asset because it was all done at one time, the construction was all done at one time. And so on our fixed assetschedule, that's one, or maybe just a few. As we have, like, projectswithin a building, then we certainly may capitalize that based on what that project was. Our fixed asset policy requires that we capitalize anythingover $10,000 individually. So, like, most likely my laptop would never end up beingcapitalized, right? Because that's gonna be morethan $10,000 individually. And so we comb throughall of our expenses. Any line item that's over $10,000 we take a look at to see, at audit time, okay, is this somethingthat we need to capitalize, or is it just an expense? It's a tedious process, but we do it. - Do you have a asset management system where you key in majorcomponents of equipment? So, then you know what, you have a maintenance schedule for that, so that folks know, hey, this needs to be looked at every year, every five years, that type of thing? - Yeah, our fixed assets are, there's kind of two, well, there's probably threekind of broad categories. We would have like our building assets that would fall under ourbuildings and grounds department. We'd have like things thatwe might have purchased at a building level. And then we have technology. So, technology right nowis actually looking at, they're in the process of implementing a management software. We've done it kind of on Google Sheets basically in the past. And so we've acknowledged that that's not the right solution. And so we're implementing that for sure at the technology level. At the building level, no, really it's, you know,when they have the needs, they come up and we justdeal with them then. And on the buildings and ground side, it's not a system really, but it is a spreadsheet that we track, kind of, what do we know is coming up. And, you know, our custodial department, they have an awarenessof what the needs are immediately and down the road. - Thank you.- Yeah. - Thanks.- All right. Ms Beloyed? - Can you say what allgoes into support services? - Well, I can, no. I would wanna see what Danwas looking at specifically and then I could tell you, like, which ones I wouldqualify as instructional. If I'm thinking about instructional and I'm looking at themore detailed document that went to the school board, I would think of the elementary and secondary instruction, certainly. I would also include vocational education because that's definitely instruction. It's in the-- So when you say instruction, that means-- Yep, that means instruction. I would also include special ed, like, that's certainly instructional, and you know, some of theinstructional support services, some of those are, youknow, they're touching kids, it's just that MDE requires us to report it in this category. And the same with thepupil support services. I think a lot of that is also I would categorize as instructional. So, I'd wanna take thetime to sit down with Dan and kind of comb through it and see, this is what I considerreally instructional, just like multiple itemscategorized under that. - So, in terms of when we firststarted budgeting for the, we had a demographic, thebond referendum went through, and we did all that based offof whatever the number was, 90 something or whatever,high nine thousands. How many times have werightsized the budget since then because of COVID? - So very many, right? I think I've been here almost five years and I think we've made some type of budgetadjustments every year. This is the first yearwhere we've been able to kind of feel okay about where we're at. - But all of thatrightsizing is dependent on the pupils we have in those seats. So when we're rightsizing, it's not necessarily basedon the building size, it's based off of how many kids we have in each of those buildings. So, that's what we'rebuilding the budget off of, so that we can eventually getback up to 9,000 some, right? - [Johnson] That's whatwe're hoping for. Yep. Hopefully sooner than later. Yeah. - Okay. I just wanted to makesure we got that point out. All right. Thank you. - Ms. Thompson? - I don't have a question. I'm just gonna do my same comment that I do every time youcome and present to us and we see the per pupil funding formula. And I looked at it this time and I right away was like, that much more since the last time you guys have all presented to us. And so, once again, just if you're listening in the community, call your representatives,call your people, and tell them to fund public schools. Because we're in this situation because we're not properly funded. And you two do everything you do and your whole team tocome up with the numbers and you always do amazing work with your guesstimations based on what has happened over the last few years and I really appreciate that. But we need that funding and there's only so many, there's only one area we can get it from. So, call your legislature,call your senators, tell them to fund our schools. - Amen.- Thank you. - All right, seems like that, hey, it's good to beexcited to see what happens when you come back. We're waiting for the legislature, so, I hope it comes back sooner than later so you can get all the numbers crunched. - [Wald] I hope we know by then. - [Johnson] We're maybenot holding our breath. - Thank you for coming in and presenting. We always love hearing from you. All right, we're gonna moveon to operational item C1, Action on Tentative Agreement, for 2025-27 Fiscal Yearsfor International Union of Operating Engineers LocalNo. 70 Transportation Unit. Mr. Mons? - All right, thank you very much. There we go. Thank you very much. So, as we've discussed in closed session, we went a little out of order here because as we went through the process of reviewing our contractsfor transportation, we realized that, you know, the market continues toreally advance rapidly in terms of compensationfor our bus drivers. And so because of that, we went off-cycle and we started an early round of bargainingwith our transportation folks. We had a really good conversation, a collaborative dialogue there, and we were able to reacha tentative agreement. So, we really appreciated thefolks that came to the table. I wanna say thank you ofcourse to our team as well, Tim Wald, Andi Johnson,and Cynthia Gustafson for their work in putting that together and moving through the process. And with that I will ask for a vote. - Okay, so the motion, we have an action onthe tentative agreement to approve the 2025-27 FiscalYears for International Union of Operating Engineers Local No. 70. Do I have a motion? - So moved. - Thompson, do I have a second? - Second.- Second by Ellison. Questions? Okay, hearing none, I'll goahead and bring this to a vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Thompson?- Aye. - Arcand?- Aye. - Daniels, aye. Ellison?- Aye. - Skaar?- Aye. - Okay, the motion carries. Thank you. All right, well, can I geta motion for an adjournment? - So moved.(panel laughing) - And a second. - Aw, she took you out.- Second. - All right, this will be a vote. All in favor, say aye. - Aye.- Opposed, same sign? We are now adjourned.