okay welcome everybody I'd like to call this central school board meeting to order September 23rd 2024 with all board members present please join me in standing for the pledge of Alle to the FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God liy and justice for all we'll move on to approval of the agenda is there any changes from board members I move to approve the agenda as presented I'll second that motion made by lury second by a any other conversations all right all those in favor signify by saying I I all is opposed agenda is approved move on to the consent agenda Mr shakman is there anything you want to highlight in there yes um this past week we did receive a letter of retirement effective January 17 2025 for de stacken she's a long time par professional with our district she has been here 31 years and um she is excited and um just has lots of plans for a chair and um I'm really happy and on behalf of the district U just want to thank them for her to service and wish the best in retirement and she's trying to provide us some flexibility I by doing this now for for you know the semester break is basically what's so um wish have the best it's a lot of lives she's affected in a positive way so congratulations to her any other conversations or questions related to the S agenda move to approve the consent agenda as presented second one by lury second by CRS any other conversations all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed consent agenda is we move on to A6 um acceptance of gifts uh we have $1,500 from El laik for CRA country there's $1,500 from the Clone fire reliefs Association for greater room needs supplies and field trips and $465 from Minnesota Valley Electric trust for kyar field trips thank you to ready for their generous generous gifts any questions for board members second second by Smith any other conversations right all those in favor signify by saying I I all oppose gifts approved we move on to public Forum I see a lot of head shaking no okay then we'll move on to the monthly items studing counil just stand up say your name andoun city council uh we've been working on a lot of stuff getting ready for homecoming uh I did more of the parade organization getting fir trucks from local fire departments and we also organized a powderpuff where they had donate can food or $3 for local food shelf that's all I did at least um something that we've been working on as a student council is dress upd for homecoming um the we're going to run some trivia inator times before homecoming and the um blood drive on October 9 thanks guys homecoming week is next week correct coordination on Monday and then okay thanks guys you are more than welcome to stay but you also welcome to leave if you want don't feel like you need to S around usually everybody runs out here super fast thanks guys um stud represent we will have a new student that will begin next month be so she's a junior she will be joining us next month and then next month we'll also be on Jackson for his service last year so we'll have them little pass time between those two next month I just the boards that way I did honor him a plaque you know commemorating the service he'll be eligible for that um how um so um Mr Larsson U puts it out during his past meeting and um she was we always pick a junior a junior so that way when they're eligible for the MSP scholarship that just move on to the superintendent um so a couple things on Friday uh myself Mr Larson Miss Thor and Miss Brown went to uh law conference down in neapolis by one one of our laws that was learning um very thankful for that we did some updates on learned about some updates on title N I will what poliy to those um if you haven't been if you haven't been in the auxiliary gym um just a reminder for everyone when we were having B uh finished um there was an accident and water cooled on our gym floor ruining the gym floor um and so I I just want to be um thankful to the to the Jackson Associates which is the ring company they stepped up and they covered the entire Cass which um to be honest with you was a six toal and um we had a complete resand complete repair complete paint job and now we'll be down there and um starting next week and I know some of our volleyball folks will be thankful to have just the additional seeking that that gym provides but um that is that is all wrapped up um finally um Mr cr's joined myself and some represent today we are starting our walkthroughs for for final um final punch list for both of the buildings we got through we're at for about four hours today and we we to not finish this open on Thursday we'll be school and and finishing up here so those final TCH lists will get done can something so excited but all in all it start to the year and um yeah I that's all I have thank you next one any questions we move on to board reports does anybody have met last month Mond night so I guess big topic there is the craft coming up this year for a change it will be nothing at the elementary school it all be in the uh the gyms here so it'll be nice um maybe you know a little bit more on that flooring with trying to cover it so we we have some things for the for the cart tables and we don't discussion of how that's going to work floor all the away so yeah nice they were not full as of last Monday or spaces so there's some people that are obviously want to stay where they were in whatever no they were in elementary school they want to be back there and it's not an option anymore so it'll be nice to keep it all cized for food and everything that was big discussion I guess I think the building B only have to make one one trip I think they just um on Community deel Development um since our last meeting I just want to give a shout out to the National Honor Society and football teams for their annual helping out with the stiffens vest they NHS usually shows up at 600 in the morning on Saturday and Sunday and then football comes to follow later that morning just to clean up from the following night and then they come on Monday morning just to pack up and now it's always a they always provide plenty of help and it's much appreciated so shout out to those two organizations um Southwest Metro is um still kind of working through the transition of a new superintendent um so Jeff is I think kind of taking I mean I think I said before he's you know very enthusiastic about um being there and he's kind of just taking the opportunity um to just say you know what let's kind of like step start fresh everywhere so he's um kind of set up committees similar to what we're doing here so we've all been divided into committees um we'll be meeting virtually so we're not all having to drive so much but um just taking a look at everything like let's just start from the beginning look at all the policies look at all the stuff so we'll probably see some more changes coming um from there in the future here just kind of as we take a new Step um with with him on board and I think it's going to be really good from the superintendent contract Comm I'll just share one that Tim notified um CRS myself and Ericson about looking at another contract for 25 through 28 that right yeah so we just had our first meeting today just kind of look at that and start the conversation so yeah in the finance committee uh the report is attached um to this meeting and it's still early in the school year so not much really to report from enrollment or just the financials in know themselves but just want to remind everybody that the finance team or the office of ladies um are busy with the with the audit requests and and trying to get the support our party onit firm so can I put two things on there um so in the in the attachment that you see under board reports um that is that is last year so remember we report our removement one month later and then I had budget at the end of the year because obviously not can't change so it's blank for September because we are waiting for October one Els to come in we our our budget was budgeted on 915 um plus our ecsc toal so um we'll see where we'll see where we're coming we're a little optimistic Our Moment right now but I know when we were optimistic we did have some did all staff members get to transfer out l so we have had some changes the last month so that's why wait until October one as usually the settles for transition anything else from report all right move to discussion discuss itms D1 Andrea CED curriculum and staff development is the possibility to make [Laughter] it okay hi everyone I'm glad to be here talk curriculum and professional development updates for this school year and really the big news is around math and that's because math is our next um content area in the curriculum review cycle and really um the the exciting thing and interesting thing is that we are really focusing efforts on training and learning this year and then purchasing our resources next school year and that really comes from the recommendation from mde and also the Minnesota Council of teachers and mathema and if you look at the timing wise it honestly makes really good sense because these 2022 standards are still in rul making and then they don't actually get implemented until the 2728 school year so we have some time to learn to do training and then make a really smart decision on curriculum next year and some of that training actually started over the summer teachers were trained in the data science progression that that Anor standard one in math and that really is statistics investigating data analyzing data communicating data that's a big one for our students so we had some training around that we had some teachers attend a weeklong cognitively guided instruction training and this is this is about learning to listen to our students and where they're at giving them tools to really build their number sense and problem solving and when I when I think about or when I talk to people who attended this training they said was actually something we did around 12 years ago and had a lot of success afterwards with and now we have the opportunity to have a new teachers attend as well math riger and depth of knowledge was another training that was offered this summer and I was able to attend that one to get some more tools to bring back to our school and and then the biggest one was building thinking classrooms and this is there are people a buzz about building thinking classrooms around the state and and we were fortunate to have teach who who went to the math um conference in Du last spring and come back hearing about building thinking classrooms really get excited about it and then go ahead and and attend training over the summer and these are our Middle School and High School teachers and I was able to go into classrooms and and we've all had conversations with these teachers and they are excepted and really building thinking classrooms is a framework for engaging students you can see they are standing up it's really strategic they're put in random groups of three standing up next to whiteboards and then they have a model where one person explains the other person writes and they kind of rotate through so that they are all having to be engaged in in the learning and there's sometimes when the teacher gives explicit teaching and then they practice and then they go back and take notes and um and you can read the quotes jod C wrote my students are super engaged your work time it's so fun to see all the math that happens during the hour and this next slide is from seventh grade and I was in there and I took this picture of this boy with his arms up and it was challenging content and he said I found it and it was it was just great and she wrote I can't believe all the math talk happening in my classroom students are working together struggling through difficult Concepts as a team I'm very proud of them I would like to thank Central's Administration and school board for supporting us in this endeavor I would not have known about or bought into the building thinking classroom if the math department had not attended the mctm conference last spring your question is exactly what a thinking classroom should look like and she's still grateful for the support and encouragement and then the last slide on this is from a 10th grade class um from Mrs Gus's classroom and she wrote making classrooms has changed the whole atmosphere for classes students are no longer sitting and mimicking what I write on the board they are standing up in groups of three they're working together and the amount of math talk that happens in thinking classrooms is electrifying and one of the things we know is that students learn the best when they are able to explain their thinking that's when the best learning happens and that's what they're doing every day when they um when they do this work and I was able to ask the the kids I had to ask the kids to what they thought and um I you know I didn't ask every student but every seven grader I asked said they like doing it this way the all but one 10th grader I asked said yeah they like doing it this way and watch t grade boy said he actually used this language he has a better opportunity to learn the material this way and one other student said they enjoy working with partners and it helps because I get I need to explain my thinking I hear others thinking so it's been a great way to start the year when they did this training and now they're doing this work it's it's just been a really good started and it will all of this training will help us as we continue to dive into the the standards and the resources so and then a few more additional Focus areas that I just wanted to share out for Early Childhood in preschool they're full swing into doing the Early Childhood letters that was a mandate from the state they are actually going to get a chance to um get some curriculum and assessment that goes for their Early Child and and then in elementary we've got letters training going for the for the U next group of teachers who didn't have the chance so by the end of next year everybody in elementary will be trained we have a new math intervention for special education which I don't know if has ever happened since I've been here we have generalists who are going to be doing some Visual Arts um training for part and that's part of the comprehensive Arts planning partnership work and then in the secondary we have some letters training as well Mr lon's going through the admin letters training we have new math intervention materials for the special education at the secondary level and then we have been really planning out how to be really intentional about PLC and professional development and getting those scope and sequences that I've shared in the unit pacing guides that will be able to be put out there for the fam so they can see what kids are learning and then because we the last thing is We are continuing our partnership with incubate to innovate and inviting families in to get a closer look at that this year any questions for me it's always fun having you you have just such an energy it's just infectious thank you for all your hard work um brid can you keep scrolling and you get more so Chris Gibs is the founder and owner of cobal learning and you all probably recognize him throughout the building project he's an architect by day and a a educational entrepreneur at night even an architect by day exactly um and so the three of us are going to talk to you um just about some learning work that's going to be happening um with some of our staff and families throughout the next year um and um you know the title of our presentation is for renovation Innovation I think I've talked to you multiple times about I want people talking about what's happening inside our classrooms now about the building project and um it is about our Premier and um I'm I'm excited about what be doing next um as you know at the at the onset or excuse me right post pandemic um and some of you some of you were on the strategic planning Comm we had a we had a group of 30 community members teachers administrators um and um and facilitators uh develop a strategic plan that had four key um four key directions um sorry that was me telling Rich to move the SL here um affect excuse me attract and develop quality staff Excel with facilities and Resource Management innovate towards the destination district and expand opportunities for improvement achievement you can go the next slide please um then we teased out a little bit about what those meant in the in the gray area here um and we've been working in various pockets of this of this strategic plan for four four years and this plan does end in 2025 but end or maybe needs a revision in 2025 um because some of the work um still is been continued and um we uh are basically going to be living in the in the last two columns here um the destination District column and the improved achievement column and we want to talk about what that Central experience um could look like and what steps we're going to take here moving forward to tease out what the central experience um could look like for families and I'm going to turn it over to Chris to talk about um our potential High School future so thanks it's it's great to be here and one of the beautiful parts of my role is that I get to capture the passion of people like Andrea and Tim and the frankly the minutia that goes into running the school district and making sure that students learn and that curriculum standards are met um not very often do Educators get an opportunity to kind of take a deep breath and think about what the future might look like and so one of the things if you could scroll um one of the things we're going to do over the next year is to really look at what the high schools should look like here in Central Schools and so over the next number of months starting in October we have our first communitybased group that will include students staff members community members to really sit down and think about business owners to really sit down and think about what do we really need out of our high school graduates when they come out of the doors of this great facility with the great teachers and great staff and all the administration and all the work that goes into producing graduates what does that really look like and what most importantly what does that experience look like to better affect more positive learning for every student each and every student and we know that the district is really successful we also know that the district could be more successful and we want to do everything we can to take an opportunity to think about what we want that experience to look like and how it can best meet the needs of everybody in that User Group whether it's a a younger student or a business owner or a parent or a board member or a teacher how can we change and evaluate that experience so we're going to go through a series of workshops with that community group probably three to four um starting in October through um next march and then after that process we're all from an administrative perspective going to take a big deep breath and absorb all that information we really can't think about what's beyond that yet because we don't know what we're going to hear it's not like we have a prescribed thing and we say hey we're just going to walk these people through and say this is what we're going to do now this is really a blank slate and we're really going to dive into making sure that we're evaluating every piece of the system and looking at it as best we can and then spending next summer and early fall of to really look at how we would um coales those ideas and start to brainstorm some information about what that might look like and how we might plan around that the implementation long term of what that looks like is a little up in the air because we once again we don't know the scope of that we don't know the breath that that might take but the idea is that we're going to really dive into those experiences for students and staff and make sure that we look at that and and create the best experience we can for each and every person in the district contining on to uh Middle School going um that that is the high school part and um for Middle School we have engaged with the three sixth grade teachers um Mr and I met with them last week and basically we are going to take this year for them to fully developed uh and again it can't give you details because the details don't exist right now because again like I said it's a blank blank slate but an immersive experience that is going to be for six graders um and and the sixth grade team is going to be given some time to to develop that they're going to work with give to innovate to develop what what that immersive hands-on experience um could look like if you go to the next slide uh excuse me go go two slides um and what our hope is is that whatever this IM immersive experience um becomes that the following year or excuse me 25 26 we would roll that out we would spend a year developing that roll that out in 25 26 for sixth grade um then they would have like a engineering design process an iteration where they would find that and at the same time seventh grade would be developing and then continue that process with eth grade so then um uh the hope is is at the end of three years uh excuse me at the end of four years we would have something fully hatched fully baked or what the Central Central experience is um for middle school and and we're not and we're not talking like like throwing a baby out the bath here we're we're talking about a in here it's a six to n weeks it couldn't and that that raise the eyebrows of the teachers when I pitched it it it could be four weeks it's an experience and like it's it's something it's doing something differently than what we're doing right now currently looking at a multi-disciplinary approach um to secondary education um like a full Middle School um a full Middle School type experience from those teachers so the next slide is multi curricular pilot projects and the main thing about this the the the word to hold on to is the application we have we have kids who learn all these things we want to have them be able to apply it and to have them apply it in a way that connects their learning and so integrating multi multiple subjects and including you know that view of this is this is critical thinking at its finest um you know we in the elementary we this happens just more naturally they the teachers teach multiple contar they can connect think we have our steam teacher who's been doing projects starting last year already with you know there's so many examples ccla with with the some of the units that steam teacher was able to create I think in first grade there was a fairy tale unit and then they were making chariots for pumpkins in in the steam lab and and you know when kids do that when they when they see it in this classroom and connected to here it just sticks so much more and that was the whole concept with some of the i2i training that we've done so when you look at the secondary it's it's definitely more departmentalized so it just takes more intentionality it can be done but it just we need to be more intentional about it and then the next slide we we've had lots of conversations about this because we know how important it is to make sure that we're looking at data to make sure that we are still assessing the standards to make sure that we can make sure that our student performance is going to be impacted from our work here and so you know we will be setting goals we will be using assessments we will be taking feedback and again applying the learning from eye to ey which every single staff member has had and that's honestly that's been a beautiful thing that we've been able to to do the last few years so um I know that was a lot I think it's ambitious um but I think it's needed and and maybe you have a lot of questions I don't have a lot of answers right now because we have to do work and and I think that's a key thing um like honestly when I was meeting when I was meeting with some of the teams of teachers they were like well what do you have in mind and what I said that like I really do not have like you know the end I mean I think the end is in view meaning meaning we want increased student achievement we want a Hands-On immersive experience we want teachers and students collaborating together thinking critically using our uh using our technology and and whatever resources we have but but that's that's very broad you know that doesn't get down to the of what is actually going to be done in the classroom with the team so that's the work that the teachers have and and what I know and I sent this to them is when they develop it they become champion of it um if it's if it's my idea or Chris's idea or Rich's idea or andia's idea it it it's it's something that's done to them um which is which is not the outcome that we're looking for so the only thing that I would add is it's it's meant to stretch the boundaries right the process of of giving professionals the opportunity to think broadly is to make things better it's not the world of education has a an ability almost um in its DNA to slide back to what we were and what we have been and that's great it's worked for a long long time there's lots of changes in our world that provide us an opportunity to say okay what could we do what should we do and how without some of those barriers that um all those things that come with running the school system we want to give those staff members an opportunity to really engage in this and really in and say if we could how would we and to kind of take away those barriers and and to loosen up those strings and it's not something that you walk into a teacher who's been teaching for 10 years and say okay you have an hour let's figure this out that this is something that we have to give them lots of time and we may have and and part of my role is to push and it's not to push to say you're not doing a good job it's to push because we don't get this opportunity very often and so the opportunity is there and um it's really exciting I think um that we hope that the staff engage in such a level that it creates a level of of momentum within the district that it just continues and that um that's the hope and obviously these two or three initiatives that we've talked about are are starting spots but the hope is that we're doing it strategically enough that the whole Community rallies around and creates a much better experience for both staff and students throughout the whole District a question for you so with the Middle School are we doing anything with high school like a group there or Elementary so there's so right now we are start so the high school the fa phase one and phase two of high school and I'll put a little bit more we have identified um some fifth grade students some 11th grade students some teachers some parents and some community members that that we are going to invite it's not going to be among group of small group but basically talking about what's working well in high school and what could be because why fifth graders because they have no schema or background of what high school should look like and our Juniors have been around long enough that they know they know the drill they they they know I I bet they could pick aart of what's wrong a little bit Junior um so sorry yeah and the other thing in the once again not having a prescribed notion in in the perfect world whatever comes out of that High School piece would be implemented in a few years when those sixth graders in the 25 26 school year get that first level immersion when they're ninth graders there's a varing experience for them to have an option and it may or may not be the old high school experience it may be a portion of students or a piece of the students but we know that we can't just come up with an idea and then say all right we came up with an idea in 9 months Implement because there's we anticipate an significant amount of work f in that Gap to make sure that curriculum standards are met and all the all the boxes are checked that these two need to check um and so the idea is that we would build towards that point where at that 28 29 school year that would be the opportunity to have a varing high school experience more developed and implementable so then two point middle school that's where immersive experience has being developed this year those teachers and and I mean this was maybe a little bit of a throw throwaway line that Andrea said it is part and this is coming from an elementary school teacher interdisciplinary an interdisciplinary way of thinking is natural for an elementary school teacher because they have those kids all day they teach all four subjects five eight subjects sorry and it's just it's just a natural way to make those connections because secondary is departmentalized it just needs and and I think that is our it's a it's a lot to it's can be giving permission to sta to dream and be creative and yeah how are we weaving in social emotional like well some of those like tapping into some of those resources and building a hands-on experience with all senses basically sorry um when we talk about um Chris facilitating and pushing people all aspects of learning going and there's going to be a certain point when a concept comes out of this of what that experience should look like there's going to have to be an awful lot of time and energy that's making that real and a lot of those social emotional check marks and a lot of those personalization and all those things will have to be filled in in the details in regards to how's the best way and the reality of it is it's probably different for students and we have to think about staff as well and so there's a lot that goes into it obviously this is a as you all know this is a really complicated system and biting off pieces that are manageable even the smallest pieces are going to take some effort and some resources to make them implementable and um and it may not be right the first time right there's there's a there's a little bit of risk here right because you can always look back and say it's it's it's working may not be working as great as it could but it's working and there may be some things that really challenge some of that um at least from a conversation perspective we would hope that there would be some challenges to some of the things that we all know as school and if that were to continue on you can imagine the complications and and the work that'll have to go into sorting that out um but it's a as I said before it's a great opportunity and we're hoping um the community and the staff are as energetic as we are about possibilities of what what could become it's a fun and unique time and sometimes tripping up is one of the biggest things are most things are learned so this isn't being done anywhere else this is like our own I was going to ask again any other schools been trying to do this they've been trying to do it for 30 years I don't think anybody has gotten to this level of of planning for black a better word of a of a a plan that I think with a little thought and a and a little foresight almost anybody can look at this and say okay we're setting the groundwork for what our community our Collective Community wants out of our school system and here are some implementable ways to evolve it and we as I said before it's not to say that every 9th through 12th grade student at the end of the day in 10 years is going to go through whatever's created that's not but at least we're going to have the opportunity to explore how to make that better and we may determine that there's multiple ways to for that High School experience to work which adds complications to Andrea's and Jim's job but it makes it even all the more important because you're hearing it from your community and your students you know I will say there are articles you can find that support the need for it there you know that I feel like I come across once in a while the need for changing things I think like when you went to a there were there were definitely model classrooms that were doing Innovative things I mean it's just I don't know that there's a perfect model yet I would add to that I would say the key just said is classro not necessarily we'll see [Laughter] I was wondering when you get public exced thank you D2 Joe play Central activities update um just had a couple things to uh kind of update you guys on um in the Athletics realm um so for those of you that kind remember the presentation from last year we were going through the official end of the Minnesota River Minnesota River conference and we were going through the placement process with the State High School league we were applying to conferences and we didn't really know what was going to happen and where we were going to land um last December we were officially placed in the right County conference for the start of this school year so we are off and running in the right County era um for those of you that don't really know what the right County conference is um it offers 27 total sports or and activities it includes things like academic challenge or what we call our knowledge Bowl um all the way to swimming and Diving tennis volleyball um football is its own entity so that's really not in this uh activity but um Central will have teams competing in 17 of those 27 activities so the ones that we don't are swim dive boys and girls tennis boys and girls lacrosse Boys Hockey are skiing and dance so we were placed into the right County West which makes nine teams um I listed them on the dock um but they are anandale Dao poo FCO Sil Lake how the Lichfield New London Spicer Rockford Watertown mayor and us the other side of the conference um is bigger schools it's not necessarily an East and the West geographical uh the West is two-way schools the East has a few 3A schools and then um buly family and Southwest Christian are the private parochial schools in there so Delano Holy Family Hutchinson Jordan non West TKA Southwest Christian make up the East um our fall schedule is a little rocky this year we did not get into the rotation for this year so my job last year was just kind of piece apart where everybody had Buys so if you're wondering kind of why the volleyball schedule this year happens to be a lot of Mondays and Tuesday games that's not how the conference schedules them out um we just got in in December didn't want to have to go back so um for soccer volleyball we just kind of pieced our way through there um we do have new banners uh that came in last week so we have the old ones taken down and the new ones will be going up as we go through uh we are the smallest enrollment in the conference um but that doesn't mean that we necessarily haven't been able to compete in there um one of the benefits of going to the right County conference is we're getting a lot more lower level games um so for example junior high volleyball they have all schools right now have two seventh grade teams and two eighth grade teams so they've been playing in a level and a B level or in the past we've struggled where some have had a one combined seventh and grade team we've had to decide which one of our groups is going to go playw um almost all of them have had ninth grade levels and actually in the volleyball scene we've actually been able to add a fourth level this year which we hadn't had the option of so right now with certain schools we're playing a varsity a junior varsity a b Squad and a c Squad level so that's been a really really good thing for our groups um with more games more officials sometimes becomes an issue uh really the tough one that we've had this year has been soccer but we we've been able to go through um the scheduling for it can change depending on the sport um not every activity is divided into an East and a West uh for example girls soccer there's 10 teams total so we're all in one big group so we play everybody we play the other side we play the delos the mountains the big schools wrestling is two sides of six um wrestling has a lot of co-ops to it so like anandale and Maple Lake are combined dasel COC and Litchfield are combined um Scott West is Jordan and Bell Plane they're combined um Hutch Buffalo and Hector are combin um so for our Central wrestling team to compete against a lot of those um co-ops will be the true test for them uh the junior high schedules tend to be based off of travel considerations they're they're more in pod than they are East and West um we kind of have some agreements with like New London's viscer who's an hour and 20 minutes away uh we're going to try to limit the amount of times that we play them especially at the junior high level just for busing reasons um and especially when we're still on good speaking terms with like Bell playing L trica United those kinds of things it's much easier to pick up a game with them is anything else so one of the cool things we got to take part in already with the Reg accting conference was they had a leadership conference uh they invited 10 students from every school uh that were in 10th Grade to go to Hutchinson uh we sat in the auditorium uh we listened to Craig Hillier speak about uh different leadership styles opportunities um he really challenged them and push them to kind of bring things back to their teams um so we split it up with five girls five boys um I took nominees from coaches um so we kind of had representation from a good number of our sports that went through there there so uh the next thing uh the van code ticketing apps um we are off to a good start with year two we've seen a lot more success with it um every team in the right County conference has an online ticketing platform it might not be vanco it might be Gan it might be Hometown ticketing it might be something but other schools are very used to them having to purchase online so as long as we're getting those out ahead of time and posting them on the sites um has been SE seamless so far this fall adding the card readers was a great help um we do get those couple people who at the door who are like I didn't know if I was bringing all my kids or Grandpa and Grandma last minute came on so they didn't want to buy six tickets online and only use two or vice versa um the one thing that I'm interested in trying to find a way around or a workr um is I'd like to see if there's a way that we could track our student attendance um with bco we really can only track the amount of people who check in or check out so when we look back through ticketing sales you know it's going to be lower than the actual attendance at those games um especially with board approval putting 7 through 12 students in for free um we've had a really great response with our student section so far this year they are they're fun to listen to they're fun to watch um they do make for a great environment but I just numbers wise will love to see if there's a way that we could track them a little bit differently um I did put on there at looking at a Wi-Fi option for outside at the ticket Stadium uh would be an interesting idea uh we've been running them off hotpots they can come and go sometimes so I know Steve and I are kind of looking at what it would be to put some outside Wi-Fi routers out there just to get those computers and iPads and things up and running up there um for those of you that aren't used to huddle Huddle's our live stream um we currently have six teams that live stream our activities um we are looking at possibly a way to to invite our spring Sports into that uh baseball softball get a little tricky with those because they aren't necessarily hosted on campus um the other part to it is we often use City Fields and there isn't Internet run down to the sports complexes so it gets a little bit tricky to bring cameras and things down there if we're trying to run up spots kind of things um it's been nice that we now have our outside camera set up as well so we can run our football games we can run our soccer matches and those kinds of things out there so um we'll be able to to get lots of opportunities for people to see our teams even if they can't get here so uh the last one I put on there is just today I was at a Minnesota State High School league fall area meeting um so they they kind of go g graphical um and give you an opportunity to talk to the directors um and kind of get an Insight scoop on what they're looking at probably the biggest thing going through Minnesota State High School league right now um is they're talking about adding all ninth grade Sports as a govern Minnesota State High School league activity up until now Minnesota State High School league has only covered 10 through 12 events so if we had a ninth grade baseball game versus another team who an only ninth grade baseball game that isn't necessarily counted as a Minnesota State High School league support so it gets a little tricky with insurance and if you need sanctioned officials and how many games that actually counts um as do they have to follow the number of innings rules those kinds of things um whereas cross country has always been encompassed because you could be a seventh grader you hack around Varsity so they're trying to kind of clean up some of the language with how it's all being presented um all in all it's going to be a good thing um their initial kind of a drawback was the cost of catastrophic insurance for all ninth graders they've done a bigger data dive and kind of realized that it's not as big as they had once assumed and the State High School league has a nice little Surplus right now so they're looking at ways that they can benefit that um member schools are going to get one vote on adding ninth grade into the Minnesota State High School league um there's going to be two questions on the ballot it's from October 4th to October 13th so the first question is yes or no should we add ninth grade into the Min State High School league and then second would be if it's a yes updating all of their language to reflect that ninth grade is included in those so another piece for you uh this is a reclassification year um so for those of you who don't know every two years the Minnesota State High School league looks at what class you participate in and what playoff section you have to go and play we are pretty unique in the fact that for some sports we go to section two two for other sports we go to section four for another sport we go to section five and then for yet another sport we go to section six so we kind of get placed all over um and honestly they look at size of schools and geographic location so we're always the furthest North the furthest south the furthest East or the furthest west uh depending on which group we we get uh section two tends to be South Southwest it's like Manish area um section five tends to be a little bit further out west uh it's a lot of right County teams section six gets into the cities so uh it really just kind of depends so the Miss St he League should have our new section alignments uh in April for us and then they go and look at football football is its own entity uh when you're looking at trying to schedule N9 Man 1 a 2A 3A 4 a 5A 6A football uh putting schools geographically and enrollment wise in seven different classes takes a long time so they're telling us we should know our new football schedule by June 3 the last time around it was like May 30th so it gets a little tricky I know people always ask when is homecoming when we want to start planning for the fall we want to start looking at all of those types of things and um just honestly like the timeline says may at the earliest but by June 3D they would start to look at that so enrollments uh Minnesota State High School looks at your enrollment uh our numbers that we report to mte so they'll start to pull that data here in October um it's your 9th through 12th grade count and then they let you take away 40% of your free introduced launch people so there is a way that we continue to push those because they can help us out with that enrollment number um there is an option to either opt up if we would like to play a class above where we get it put um and there also is an appeals process if you are within a certain number of that class determination excuse me to be able to go down so those all take a while to go through before they release the official numbers so really the only sport where that kind of comes into place football um last year we were 25 kids below the 2-way football Mark uh and I want to say the time before that we were 20 kids above so we were able to go through the appeals process and they moved us back down so that's one I'll kind of be keeping as questions for me otherwise that's a super fast the nth grade deal they just up money bying um not necessarily um so actually they do take fees per School per Sport and then they also add in per player in those Sports um with that Surplus that they have this year um we used to pay around $170 per activity this year we're only going to be charged about $50 in activity um and so that catastrophic insurance as well because a lot of those kids were already in their accounts they just didn't realize it they were kind of talking about 15 to 20,000 extra dollars on a budget of 1.8 million somewhere in there so uh Eric the director of Miss high school was kind of saying like there's they're going to be able to find some ways to shuffle that money around on their ends to not come back to us and say you need to pay with one thank you it a surplus but two years ago now we need that $170 50 that yeah so those are those are some questions where we start looking at you know our activity fees and how it goes from there so I mean part of it is is one way or another a lot of times our school has Insurance on those athletes it just becomes as the State High School e going to provide an extra layer for us or is it going to fall back completely on us I just said want to thing on that vanco events is that are we in agreement like long term with those guys we'll start a contract look though that I am honestly unaware of I don't believe we have a year to year contract with them it is a year contract with them I want to switch you it be great to go ATT trct the gold agent students but what other program you know the said would one of them be a better fit maybe to look at for next year when we have to have that decided by so I I I'll answer that the answer is yes and uh um I mean well we have our we have our right conference admin meeting Thursday THS in the next and the last time we were in last they were talking the name like mandating something in the confence by law where everyone's using the same because like what Jo just said we've got a little smattering of everything um I think the ads like bound and I think like bone I don't Finance people like bone um you know there's there's there's going to be a little negotiation so but I would I would recommend pausing until we get a firmer grasp of what our conference is going to do because what I know want to do is have three different systems how do seventh through 12th grades kind of get into activities now that they're do they show their IDs or yeah yeah so we've asked to show IDs um show IDs um a lot of our ticket takers know who they are or a lot of times they'll ask them to just pull up their phone and log into their Infinite Campus portal to prove that they're Central student so I know there's a way for bco to actually have that pass on your phone just like a season pass and you just show you just show them the they scan it is there any way we can do that with students obviously not charging yeah it sits in their wallet basically it's on their phone yeah so that's an idea I've talked with Amy and and K Crown a little bit about is is um and we haven't do too deep into it yet to figure out if we need to have um a unique QR code for each of our students where we would just have to bulk upload all 7 through 12 um or if we could have one QR code that they all get and it just scans as a an extra tiet every time they go through so there are some different programs that have some different options um just using the bound system like one of the things that they talked about is they have a complimentary ticket button that has students come through you can just click click click click which could be use for the Golden Age passes as well so we can track how many of those are coming through the door on each time as well be really nice for the future we're talking about pricing see and I have shared Jo um like a question that we asked when we were talking about fees last year is how many students and so we are Joe's trying to find a way to that just also on passes our Our Life Touch does develop a student pass for us so when we get photographs and and pictures school pictures there is an ID that every student will get in there now back to the when I was during college when we got student idas it's kind of had a barcode to swipe for stuff I don't know if that's an option too if life touched has that if you get a swipe like a credit card swipe to get into the cafeteria or something like that but the issue is we're talking with four different companies that don't necessarily talk to each other got it so yeah it would be nice to eventually track it how you do it did mshsl change their formula on and reduced lunch numbers no they have not looked at changing that number um it's always been 40% it's always been 40% um and and actually they're saying that those numbers are becoming a little more accurate with all the free lunch programs through they're seeing a lot more of an accurate reflection of how many do qualify for that as schools are pushing to get those numbers up in systems so just going to ask that question I didn't know if you're getting as many people to put in for that benefit because there is spring red lunch and so many programs are based off of that number for like Title One Stu I didn't know if that looks a lot different now that they are implementing are you seeing as many families we are seeing more direct what they call Direct certification which is not necessarily laun through our numbers are still Hing thank you nice items E1 consideration of the fiscal year 25 Levy certification this does require action tonight um and this is probably going to be the best news of the night guarantee it all right mr's up so so just just a reminder um this is an overview of the the proposed preliminary preliminary property taxes P for year 25 I'm going to review significant changes for um moving on to the key messages here preliminary certification is a component of the overall Levy process um adjustments to the levy can be made um at a later time um my recommendation to you always in September is to certify the maximum because we actually certify the levy in December at the truth and Taxation which this year on December 16 if you do not certify the maximum tonight you cannot undo that so is it's recommended to certify the maximum and make adjustments on the max if you need to so uh what are factors that Implement any taxes and change at this level so one of them could be issues driven by state level decisions so maybe a formula changed at uh you know through leg the legislative process um maybe there is a change in the sales ratio impacting the um uh anticipated net tax capacity which basically is the overall property wealth of our entire School District um maybe there's a laws that you know mandated Cod compliance which you know which would change on the tax rate of some properties um things that have been directly impacting our taxes in the past few years of the next approved Bond refs approved L approved capital projects L we've had all three of those since 2019 and then local factors which um don't um which we sometimes hear about at the school board level or at the city level but really we don't have any any impact on these last four um so for example if there's if if um and we saw this at the in the last tax well the last couple tax season where property values are increasing at an exorbitant rate um where it's an unrealized gain and then they R re the county reshuffles the DECA of what portion of the overall property tax you're you're pain based on a on a potentially inflated property value um some of our some of our um properties um request abatement which is property tax relief like they a whole abatement process that they go to a hearing at the county and say you know come and look at my basement I didn't finish my Bas that and on the back and on the back side of that um you know maybe there's you know possibly property improvements that somebody finished their basement and the you know the tax man came and said we're going to start taxing you on that now um and some changes in classification could uh impact your Tax rating for example um we homestead exemption if you go to if you turn property into a rental you're paying at a 2% tax break rather than rather than a tax exemption so um moving on to the levy process here um just a reminder you are certifying this Levy to be paid in 2025 for the 2026 year I know this it's it it it that's just how the process works so um you've see that you see this every single month here's our here's Central's budget process right now we are in September initial preliminary tax levy calculated by mve and um you know like Kyle said our audit is getting done in December we have TR taxation we and then make the new budget DEC adjustments in January February and then we required by law to have a preliminary budget in June get you the whole over so where's the good news um uh it's right here so I'm showing you three years of of revenue for the district and um so it's broken down into three categories our general fund our community service fund and our debt service so if you if you the the actual um is an increase decrease amount so um we are our Lev is actually decreasing um in our community service and general fund by do $4,000 our debt service which is our voter approved Fe is increasing but there's an overall net increase of 999,000 mostly The Debt Service and that's an overall tax increase of 1.64% which I'm guessing our um property owners are going to love now this doesn't mean that we only had a that we're only that we're getting less money per se what is happening is a shift in the in the formula we are getting more Revenue in the form of state aid which that which so I want to say our overall increase in revenue year-over-year is $300,000 in the general area but that's coming in in in in aid but just given to us from E rather than H Tax so this honestly is the best case scenario for us right now just here actually so um again my recommendation after any discussion they have is to um certify the maximum this is the maximum um then uh director Smith has to sign his for i s it into and then we talk about it again Happ to answer any questions have now no it's it's really this isly probably the best any questions from board members hearing none I'll make the motion second I'll move to approve the maximum proposed 2025 property tax levy as proposed second by second by ER any other conversations right all those in favor signify by saying I I all opposed it's approved me too me too second reading of policies yeah do you want sorry do you want to you're on the policy committee you want to just talk it or go for you were there yeah okay so these are all Minnesota school board recommended and required um um policies that our our policy committee which is sh Sarah and Josh have already reviewed the only one that is a little bit different like the acceptable new cell phone policy that was developed at the local level by by Mr Larson and his ilt and just just to cover that because um a reminder that in the last legislative session school districts are required to have a cell phone policy um and really you can do whatever it is you want to at the level they just are re to have one so we are putting in place the policy that we had um last year which is p through five there are no cell phones allowed um those cell phones are distored in their backpack um you know there's really no reason to have those out in sixth through 12th grade during classroom time um You probably heard about it if you have kids in school we have a little cell phone jail um what's it called Mr arson cell phone Locker tree what the cell phone tree is tree okay well it's so in and so the kids it's just part of the procedure they put them in and they can take them all during passing time lunch time things like that students are welcome and encouraged to to St with their friends and have fun with that but we are prioritizing thank you we are prioritizing um learning time during the classroom which um is what our mission is that is the only one that's yeah are all like statute since I'm part of the policy committee I'll make a motion to approve the second reading of the policies as pres all the do you need to list policy the policies as presented Mo by I second by CRS any other conversation right all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed policies are approved oh oops sorry see next boarding board meeting will be October here oh I didn't I'm sorry this is the second time in the that I haven't done this October 28th at 6 o'clock here in the room or we ad journ or anything else from board members 28 ready yeah hearing I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second second second you haven't had one yet important yes you did last last timeone all right all those in favor signify by saying I I also we are a jined thank you