It is 6:30. I call this regular meeting to order. Uh, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America [clears throat] and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Good evening, fellow school board members, district staff uh and community members. As a reminder to us all, our mission is to equip all students with the knowledge and skills to empower them to achieve their dreams and full potential while becoming responsible citizens in a dynamic world. Uh we have two board members not present tonight. Member West and Member Anderson. Our first item for tonight is agenda item two, adoption of the agenda. Are there any questions prior to a motion being made on the agenda before you? Seeing no questions, is there a call to motion for the September 14th, 2026 meeting agenda? So, thank you, Mr. Is there a second? >> Second. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing no discussion, all in favor signify by saying I and raising your hand. >> Motion prevails. Uh, moving on to agenda item three, consideration of visitors. I don't have any cards. Vanessa, did you have any? >> I do not. >> All right. We have no consideration of visitor for tonight. So, we will move on to agenda item four, the consent agenda. There are eight items currently on tonight's consent agenda. Are there any questions or requests to remove any items prior to a motion being made? All right. Seeing none, is there a call to motion to approve the consent agenda? So, moved. >> Thank you, Mr. Word. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion on that motion? Seeing no discussion, uh, this will be a roll call vote. Uh, so if you are in favor, say I. If you oppose, say nay. Mr. Humphrey. >> I, >> Mr. Shrock. >> Hi, >> Mr. Workman. >> Hi, >> Miss Bach Cleven. >> I >> I am I as well. Motion prevails. Thank you. All right, moving into information items and reports. Our first one for tonight is our technology update. uh to Joe Brazelle, our CESO technology representative, will update us on multiple items across the district technology department. Joe, welcome and uh thank you for being here tonight. Make sure I can see here first. Well, to start out, um, roughly this time last year, I gave you a report of a number of projects and initiatives that we had going on last year and and planned for the 2526 school year. It was quite the list. And uh, so tonight, I'd like to circle back on some of those and give you an update on the progress and then also talk through some additional things that we're going to be working on this school year. Now, so adding on to what we've already been working on. So, I've got this broken down into a couple different categories. And the first one is technology safety and security initiatives. And the first item is our multifactor authentication roll out. And if you recall last year, we were just starting the roll out. When I presented the report and our goal was to have all staff on MFA by the 31st, 2025. And we accomplished that goal. we were able to get all our staff moved over to MFA which greatly increased the security of staff accounts and also is a cyber security insurance requirement and so we're compliant with that requirement for cyber security insurance. It was a big feat and uh it went pretty smoothly but you know there's always some issues with that type of thing and we are learning from that roll out and taking some feedback from staff on some different things that we can do to tweak MFA. So that's something we're going to be working on this year actually starting now is we're kind of adjusting and tweaking uh some of the user experience around MFA. So, keeping it just as secure by doing some things in the background to make it a little bit easier for the end user to the next item on the list is something called manage detection and response and endpoint management. Now, if you're not familiar with this, what this is, which a lot of people aren't familiar with, uh it's something that we've implemented this year. And what it is is it's a layer of security that we put across our entire network. And it monitors the entire network, uh all the connectivity, all the devices, servers, systems, and it looks for anomalies and what they call indicators of compromise. And so, it's constantly watching for something that could become a security incident. And the goal is to get ahead of anything that could become an incident and kind of squash it as soon as we start to see something. And the product that we're using is from a vendor called Artic Wolf and they're a local Minnesota vendor. And they are really a forerunner in uh managed security operations and they really support I couldn't say the total number but it's quite a bit of school districts and at least the metro area and they're starting to support some schools outside of the metro area. And what it is is along with the monitoring we get what's called a security operations center. So we have a whole team that works with us and because we're a small tech team and we don't have you know 247 support we get this extra layer of support with the security operations center. Uh so it really elevates our security posture along with the other initiatives that we're doing. And then along with that with the manage detection and response we implemented endpoint management that goes along with the pool solution. And what this is is it's a a tool or a piece of software that sits on everybody's computer and our servers. And what it does is it uses some advanced analytics to see if things look out of the ordinary on your computer. So it can tell if you're something's happening on your computer that could be an indicator that somebody else is using your computer like it's compromised or your account has been compromised. And so that together with the um sock solution, it'll report to us if they think a system is compromised and we can take some automatic actions on that. We can take a a system that's potentially compromised and we can isolate from the network. So uh the malicious actor can't spread across the network. So again, we're trying to get ahead of any potential security incidents with these tools. On top of that, uh I think last year I mentioned that we were going to start creating a formalized security program. And so we've been working through that and it's a formalized process uh to move the security program forward in alignment with uh security framework. So it's not just randomly picking tools, randomly doing things in the environment. It's following an industry standard framework to make sure that we're we're following best practices when we implement security solutions. And so this year what we did is we completed an initial assessment against everything that we're we had been doing in the past looking at all our systems accounts processes and from that assessment we identified gaps. We start making plans on how we can remediate those gaps. Along with that, we created a whole suite of security standards. And these standards have become a rule book for us. And these standards are in alignment with that security framework. And so we're moving forward with all of our operational processes and procedures following those standards to make sure that we're doing everything as secure as possible. And then finally, the next step beyond that is we're going to try to move to what's considered an active risk management security process. And that's where we're going to do these continual uh risk assessments and understand continual gaps and continually make plans to remediate those gaps going forward. So trying not to get behind the eightball, staying ahead of things is what we're what the plan is. The next section is infrastructure and equip equipment modernization. And if you recall last year, we talked about a network overhaul that we were doing. And I can say we successfully completed what we our goals were for the network overhaul. We completely changed out the entire internal networking system, all the wireless, all the connectivity between buildings. We redesigned and uh increased our internet structure and our internet connectivity. We built in more resiliency between uh all the sites and the internet. Uh building up capac higher capacity, higher coverage. Um, and if you recall, we went to a service model for that. So, instead of buying spending a lot of capital and buying a lot of equipment, uh, we went with a service model where all the equipment comes with the model. All the support, all the configuration, all the troubleshooting, all the monitoring, it's all part of that one big bundle. And it also includes expansion. So if we start seeing a certain area in a school that maybe the wireless coverage is weak, uh we can request that we have additional access points put in that we have additional configurations put in place and it comes at no additional cost. It's all part of a whole solution. So it's a very um nice way to budget year after year. So we know what the cost is going to be every year. We're not doing huge capital purchases, you know, every three or five years. So that was a very successful implementation. Along with that, we implemented a new phone system. The old phone system was somewhat antiquated and was out of date and not supported anymore. And so we went with uh a different type of solution. It was virtualized solution instead of hardware. And so what that does is it gives us a lot of resiliency and a lot of flexibility. Instead of relying on one piece of hardware, we've got a virtualized environment that has virtualized servers. Uh again it makes it more flexible and it also gives us some modern features like a soft phone texting capabilities and then like I mentioned some improved reliability so minimize outages. Another project that we worked through was uh changing our server hosting environment. Uh this one came with a very beneficial uh positive budget impact. Uh so what we did is we moved all of our hosted servers from a very expensive hosting environment to a hosting environment from ECME who is education collaborative. I think you're familiar with ECME. Um and in doing so we reduced our hosting cost which was a variable cost. So again it wasn't a fixed cost. It was something that changed based on usage. Uh so that cost per year was anywhere between $120 and $150,000. We're now at a fixed cost of $32,000. And I would say the fixed cost of $32,000 is giving us more for our money as well. We're getting better support. Uh we're getting uh quicker uh connectivity. We also get some features such as uh they're managing backups and restores for us which we had to do separately in the other system. So I think we get a lot of benefit out of this along with the huge budgetary uh positive impact. Uh the next thing on the list is something that we've started but we're still in the process of doing and that's a full print and copy management evaluation. And so we've we've got two pieces to that. The first piece we started is evaluating copyrint at the site level or each building level. So looking at all printers and copiers at each building, looking at the age of the copers, looking at if they're still supported, looking at use, looking at how can we more efficiently place printers around buildings, and we work with building leaders to identify the ones we can just pull that we don't need anymore, and then identify ones that we may need to replace. And the next step in that process is we're going to build out a refresh cycle for anything that we need to replace. We're going to look at, you know, what's the cost of those devices? uh how many years can we put together a refresh cycle for? You know, is it three year? Can we do it two years? Um and then looking at the total cost and seeing can we make some more reductions if it looks like it's still pretty costly to do those refreshes. And then the second piece to the print copy management evaluation is our centralized print center. And so we're coming up on the end of our lease cycle for our big print center machines. And so this is a great opportunity for us to look at some different options out there. And so we're going to start looking at costing different models, which could include outsourcing uh the print center to a service provider. So that would be no more leasing of equipment locally, no more having a centralized print center uh but having a service provider manage all large print for us. We still have the building print uh for smaller numbers of prints, but then for large print projects will be outsourced. And you know, again, we're just starting to collect numbers on that, so we don't know exactly how this is going to play out, but it could end up being costefficient to do the outsourcing model. So, we'll work on a recommendation hopefully in the next few months. Uh the next section here is effective and efficient technology operations. And so, along with some of the other um consolidations we've been doing, we've been looking at system consolidation in general. And what that means is we're looking at all the different uh systems and software uh that the district has and we're looking for redundancies and for systems that maybe aren't utilized to their full capacity anymore. And we're starting to cut systems that are no longer needed and we're starting to combine systems where it makes sense for some other cost reduction. Uh, one great example of that is we had a separate IT help desk system, inventory system, a maintenance request system, and a transportation process. They were all different, and we've now combined that into one system. And so, not only is it combining cost, we're also allowing, you know, one interface, one pane of glass for stakeholders to use, so they're not jumping system to system. they can go into one one avenue and and get all their needs met there. So, we're looking at other opportunities like that. The next piece uh which really feeds into a lot of what I've been talking about is budget optimization. Uh so, we are looking at again system consolidation, looking at where service models make make sense, but we're also doing uh some other targeted reductions. Uh, one example of that is we worked with the middle school leadership team and we changed the model of how they use student devices there. And with changing that model, we're able to reduce the total number of devices that we need at the middle school. And so it makes our refresh cycle less of an impact year after year as we replace machines, student devices year after year. And so we're looking at other opportunities like that uh to further cut costs. The next piece we've been looking at this year is AI evaluation and adoption. And as everyone knows, AI is kind of the topic of the day. Everyone's talking about AI. It's moving pretty fast. We don't know exactly what direction it's going in. So we decided we should get ahead of it and start understanding it a little bit more. and from a district standpoint, you know, make some decisions on the direction that we want to explore. And part of that was we standardize on Google Gemini as the district's generative AI platform. And the some of the reasons we did that is Google Gemini is part of our education licensing suite. So, not only does it not cost any more money, but it also falls under some very specific licensing and data privacy for K12. And so, that is very important to us uh keeping our our children safe. And so, the special licensing and the special data privacy has uh very granular controls that we can help manage the students, the ages that they access AI. we can manage how our staff ma uh manage or use AI. Uh we have some different reporting capabilities around it. So it's a very controlled environment and so that's the the direction we want to go in is let's start with a controlled environment and see how that works and then start moving forward from there. And right now we have uh AI just in place for staff and teaching staff are act actively testing uh trying AI out looking for how they can use it in their instruction using it for operational use and we also have district leadership piloting some advanced features of AI looking for you know what are some broader applications and what are some potential for future adoption and then finally uh within the IT department uh we are looking at some oper operational and personnel efficiencies. And one of the big things we're looking at, we're going to push forward quite heavily this year is looking at staff redundancy and cross trainining. And so really understanding what are some some gaps that we have in knowledge where maybe one person holds all the knowledge and you know we want we want to be in a place where somebody's gone for a period of time, we're covered. And so we're going to be working on some of that cross trainining. uh you know make sure we have some good continuity of operations and then we're also going to start developing a good centralized knowledge management system. We have a lot of good documentation but it's kind of scattered a little bit. So we want to make sure that we're putting it all together and do that in conjunction with building that cross training. And so that's kind of the whole update right now. So, I'm open to questions if you have any. Any questions for Joe? Joe, it sounds like you have a lot of free time. There's not a lot going on in technology. So, Carson, we can maybe work some things over. Um, I'm joking by the way, but can you just in simple terms, um, so those that might be online listening and maybe some of our our staff and our community members, uh, what benefit do we have to the district for doing the multifactor authentification? So, we understand security piece, but what other benefits uh, help the district because we've implemented that program and we're continuing to tweak it like you said. >> Yeah. Well, I did mention uh the impact on cyber security insurance and so that's, you know, a monetary impact that a lot of cyber security insurance carriers won't even cover you if you don't have multiffactor in place. And then the ones that do cover you, they come at pretty steep premiums. And so that's one benefit right there to have that. And it's pretty important these days to have cyber security insurance. You know, if you do have an incident, it can be quite costly. Um, so then on top of that, like you mentioned, there's the security protections, but it's really protecting data. So it's it's protecting the data that you might have access or staff might have access to with their accounts. And it can even protect personal data. And so I'm sure most people are familiar with having to do multifactor for banking accounts and things like that. And so it's the same type of thing. You're protecting what's behind the account. And so that's what multiffactor is doing because if somebody gets a hold of your password, if they have multiffactor in place, that's one more hurdle that they have to try to get around. And in general, it's very difficult difficult to get around multiffactor. It's not 100%. But it makes it extra difficult to get around it. And so we're just putting that extra layer to protect our staff, our students, our data. Um, and again, it can be protecting personal personal data. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Uh and then my I think my last one is you talked a little bit about the the print copy management. Um when do you expect to have a proposal um for any changes if required or if needed and does that will that come to the school board uh in your do you think that'll come to the school board for approval? >> Good question on school board approval. I don't know the process for that. We'll have to discuss uh the process on that. Uh but we are hoping to have that probably this winter have a recommendation ready. So right now we're like I said there's two pieces to it. So one piece is the building level copy and print and so we're pretty deep into that one. We've done a lot of analysis on that one. So we're we're pretty close to moving forward with that piece and the other one is the centralized uh print center and that one we need to collect some real numbers. Right now, we've modeled out what it might look like using some estimates. And so, now we're going to start. We're going to put an RFP together to gather some real numbers on what it might look like to outsource. And then we'll put those numbers together and put together a recommendation. >> Thank you. I say as a computer guy, can you you me um can I ask your like enthusiasm for AI in education and your concerns, please? I would say as my personal viewpoint on AI is cautious optimism. >> So I think it has a lot of great benefits but I do think that we need to take it slow and we need to understand how we want to use it and not let it get away from us. >> And I think with a lot of technology we do need to put some guard rails on it and really need to understand it first. And so I like our current approach that we're we're taking it slow and we're reviewing it and we're understanding it and understanding some of the benefits, promoting those benefits, but then also if we start seeing some issues, you know, maybe start reeling back a few things. But um there are a lot of good benefits especially in the gener generative AI space. you know, it does really create a lot of efficiencies. And I'm not an instructor myself, but I can see where on the instructional side that it could create a lot of efficiencies so instructors can focus on some more important things and maybe get away from some of the time consuming tasks. Thank you. I also appreciate your approach to I had that little meeting with you and a couple other people that where you told all of us what was going on and I really appreciate you and Hannah and knocking it down the middle the right level. Thank you. >> Yeah, Joe. Last time you we had full plate obviously still do. Um, I just want to commend you and your team for what you guys do and how much you have already gotten positive feedback from staff on how things went and are going currently. And I especially appreciate all the fiscally responsible stuff that you've proven and shown with the upgrade. So, thank you very much. >> Thank you, >> Joe. Thank you. Thanks for the detailed report. >> Thank you. >> All right, moving on to our next agenda item 5.2, two, superintendent evaluation summary. Um, bear with me. I'm going to read just a couple things out of it. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but just so we have it with the public here. So, during a closed session, the school board completed the annual appraisal for Superintendent Anderson. Uh, this assessment reviewed the performance metrics set forth by the board for the 257 26 academic year structure around MSBA guidelines. Uh key areas that we evaluated encompassed instructional excellence, student services, operations and fiscal responsibility, professional ethics, public and personal outreach, as well as governance team relationships. Uh Superintendent Anderson demonstrated effective and professional leadership during the 2526 school year. The board recognizes his continued focus on operational stability, uh, financial stewardship, organizational improvement, and the development of systems designed to support student success. Uh, significant progress was made in strengthening district operation systems, including facilities planning, transportation efficiency, uh, staffing and retention, uh, financial controls, asset management, and long-term planning. The district also continued to develop more systematic approaches to assessments, school improvement, discipline, professional development, and responsible AI implementation. The board recognizes Superintendent Anderson's steady leadership, professionalism, and willingness to use data, external expertise, and stakeholder feedback to inform district decisions, continued attention to student achievement, discipline outcomes, staff and community engagement, long-term strategic planning, and implementation accountability will further strengthen his leadership impact. Overall, Superintendent Anderson's performance during the 2526 school year has been strong. His leadership and commitment to continuous improvement have positioned the district to continue addressing both its immediate needs and longer term challenges. Uh so that is the summary of the evaluation in the closed session. There are more details in the board packet if you want to look at those further or if anyone has questions. Uh any questions or comments about that from any board member? Okay, superintendent. No, thank you for the uh chance to uh discuss um what's happening in the school district and things that are going well, the things that can further be improved. I appreciate, you know, the conversation and the feedback very much actually. >> Okay. Thank you. And just so the board's tracking, we will have some goal setting uh items that we'll be doing here in the future as well for this school year. Uh, next item is administrative reports. Super Anderson, you have a few updates for us. >> I'll keep it short. Uh, first week of school has been fantastic. Um, I can say that every school and department reported a strong start to the school year. Not a perfect start, but a strong start. So, you see a couple of the issues that that did arise. Um, but I we are very pleased with how things are unfolding. Special note, we are looking for special education assistance. So, please, if you know somebody who wants a great career choice, uh to apply online. They're they're really good options for um a variety of programs. Uh the state high school league did announce their fees for the 2627 school year. They are just under $4,800 uh for the full year. This is under the $10,000 threshold that the school board set a couple of months ago. Student discipline task force had its second meeting recently. Uh at the most recent one, uh we did review student discipline data and uh for the district and for school sites. Melissa Kibby did a great or encapsulated a lot of that data in these really great PowerPoint slides that we'll be sharing with the board and others uh in time. Uh that was really impactful. Uh we also presented a draft list of planned work uh for this year. Uh was presented but really not discussed yet. So that'll be the third meeting coming up soon. Chris Linquist can probably give a much better update about facility issues, but I can say that the tennis courts are well underway. I was hoping to see the parking on the athletic fields. I wasn't able to see that today, but Chris reported that um there's some significant changes there. So, we're we're moving things along and we're hoping for a a mild winter so we can get it all done. And then really good news on the athletic trainer update. We haven't had one consistent athletic trainer for a long time. And uh we or thanks to Chris and Joan, uh we did contract with Select Urgent Care, you know, which is right across from the high school to um for athletic training services. And so we'll have up to 50 hours per week during the school year uh for those services. And obviously our student athletes need that support during practice, at games, and and at other times as well. So appreciate that contract very much. That's all I have. >> Any questions or comments, Mr. Sher? >> I guess I can comment on that athletic trainer. Um, just as a coach, it's just nice having a trainer and not being relied upon to know the trainers duties. So, thank you to Mr. Chris and Joe for finding an alternative option or different option than what we've had. >> It's also nice to have an affiliation with a local provider as well, right? It just it's a really good fit. So, we're extremely enthused. >> Okay. Thank you, Superintendent. All right. Moving on to our action items for tonight. Uh again, uh with all action items, we'll give you the opportunity to speak once and then before you rebuttal, everyone else gets to have a a talk. I don't think tonight will be that controversial. Uh 61, approval of policies. There's 10 of them there. You can read them yourself. Uh, are there any questions prior to a motion being made? We had the first reading on these in our last meeting. Okay, see no questions. Is there a call to motion to approve the 10 listed policy updates? So move working. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. 11. Any discussion on that motion? All right. See no discussion. All in favor signify by saying I and raising your hand. I I >> I motion for >> moving on to the next agenda item. Uh action item 6.2 approval of the MSBA 2026 proposed legislative resolution submission. Uh we asked for this at our last board meeting if you remember that discussion. This resolution proposes that the school board support an amendment to Minnesota state unemployment laws to prevent hourly non-instructional staff from delaying their resignations or retirements until the end of summer just to maintain benefit eligibility. Now, by fixing this loophole, the district aims to receive earlier notice of vac of vacancies, not vaccines, vacancies, so schools can uh fully be staffed by the start of the school year. So, we talked through that with all of those late resations coming in and trying to scra positions. Uh, first off, Brandon, thank you for helping us um develop that resolution. Uh, [clears throat] it will um I believe this is a roll call vote because it's a resolution from us to MSBA. Uh, so we will do a roll call vote on this. Are there any questions prior to us making the motion on this? Mr. Sha, I just want to second to thank Brandon for putting this together. I think it's need and hopefully will be passed. I'll push as hard as I can in December. And again, these are due to the MSBA, I believe, next week, maybe the week after, but it's in between our next board meeting. So that's why it's an action item for tonight. Any other questions or comments? >> Okay. All right. Are there is there a motion to approval of the resolution? >> Thank you, Mr. >> Is there a second? >> Thank you, Mr. Take a second. >> Any discussion on that motion? >> All right. See no discussion. Again, a roll call vote. I if you [clears throat and cough] approve, oppose if you do not. Mr. Humphrey, >> I. >> Mr. Shrock, >> I. >> Mr. Wings, I miss Cleven. >> I am I as well. Motion prevails. Thank you. Uh, next agenda item is upcoming meetings and planning topics. Any questions or comments on what we see in the work? Mr. Sh, we talked about it before. Can we get uh what you want to call supper or lunch on the on the calendar before we lose end of December? Yes, we can. Even just a meal before the meeting. I'll provide the meal. You just got to let me know. >> We provide the location, too. >> Sure. Nice. >> Right over there. [clears throat] >> The district will provide the chat. >> Okay. I will get that added to our list. I know we've talked about it before. We'll get it added for future ones. So you guys will see a couple emails with some options to make sure everyone's available and then we'll go from there on the spot. I know you any questions. All right, see more questions on that. Moving on to schoolboard member reports, Mr. Sha. >> Um, just glad to see the kids back in school and just the smooth start so far. That's all I got. >> Perfect. Mr. Robert, >> uh, yeah, the buzz of the new year. Glad to hear things are going well. I need to mention um in American Indian education we lost a titan of a great person. Uh I'm better off for having known Lisa Sicha. Uh she was wonderful. She means everything to those kids. Um thankfully uh Abby is stepping up to take her position among the elementary schools and then the added work with Haley as well. So, uh, just man, my best to our family and like I said, uh, little bit of transition here for people to get back on their feet after that loss. So, thanks. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Um, like Mr. Shrock said, it's great to see everybody back. Uh, I was able to represent the school board at the staff kickoff event. Uh, really good to see all the smiley faces. I don't know if everyone was happy to be there, but it felt like everyone was happy to be there. Uh, and it was really cool to see how our entire staff has wrapped their arms around the new members of the district staff this year, hearing a lot of good things from that. And like everyone said, it's great to see everyone back in and seeing the the district bustling once again. That's all I have. No other committee meetings during that superintendent any >> the only thing I'll add to Jake's comments is that we do have the funeral arrangements for Lisa. Um have you received those yet? Okay. Um we'll we'll forward them to you as uh we we send them to staff and we'll include board members. So it's in early October. >> Thank you. All right. Moving on to agenda item nine, adjournment. Are there any questions prior to the motion being made? [clears throat] No questions there. Call a motion to adjourn this meeting. And is there a second? >> Any discussion on that motion? See, no discussion. All in favor signify by saying I raising your hand. I motion prevails. >> Bam. >> 36 minutes. >> You're off. What?