Good evening. Today is April 24th, 2025 and the time is 6:30 p.m. I will now call the regular meeting of the District 191 Board of Education to order. Welcome to those of you in the audience and those watching online. Director Saxi, will you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] Do I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Moved by Director Nichlson. Second. Second by Director Chester. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. The motion carries unanimously. Today we will start off by receiving a report about community feedback on the FY26 budget from Superintendent Dr. Teresa Battle and Executive Director of Minister of Services Stacy Sai. Thank you chair Ro and members of the board. We are still on track on our timeline for developing and presenting the fiscal year 26 um budget for your review and adoption. Uh tonight uh we will share additional feedback that we received. Um initially we had 11 responses but we've also had some um staff as well as uh parent meetings feedback and as well as a public meeting. Um, and we also opened our budget survey as well. Uh, we would like to remind the public about previous information we shared uh for the board. Um, I was hoping we would have a an update regarding legislative proposals, but they the legislature and the governor are still working through all of that. So, I will turn it over to Stacy Sovine, our uh executive director of admin services to go through the presentation. Thank you, Stacy. Thank you. Good evening, chair, Dr. Battle, members of the board. Again, much of this information now you'll have seen for about the third time and it is just a quick reminder for the public. Uh these are available online. Uh our agenda would include the timeline, current reality, our approach, value strategies and proposed adjustments. We are at the point in our process where we are providing feedback or reporting back on the feedback um that we have received um as Dr. battle had mentioned after tonight uh we will turn everything over and give the finance department the thumbs up to move ahead and they've been working on the budget all of the preliminary stuff but now they can start locking numbers in as far as yep this is what we're working with uh then in early June they will bring to you in a work session what that budget will look like I think we have been averaging now well over a 100 pages so it does take some time to review um and then before the end of June. We need to approve that per state statute which will be on June 26th. Uh we don't have any changes to report for our revenue. Uh nothing has happened at the state. Um that sounds bad, but we don't have any new updates as far as financials that will impact us and our expenses again continue as we're anticipating. Um structurally sustainable budget is kind of how we approach things. Um we want to make sure that we are maintaining our class sizes that we reflect that as our enrollment either uh increases or declines. Uh, we also want to make sure that we're balancing expenditures and revenue and making sure that we're using our restricted funds such as title compensatory ALC funding to the maximum amount that we can uh that's allowable under law. That frees up our general fund for you folks to be able to have discretion and use as you need to in other areas. also um to understand that there is an eb and flow of revenue streams because there's an eb and flow in enrollment and our enrollment really drives our revenue. Initially when we started this process we had 11 responses from the community and then also the principles and the department input as you can see the list that is here that helped guide our initial planning as far as moving forward and then after we came back to you with our initial proposal. We opened up the portals again, started meeting with uh the community and other folks and we received 12 additional responses as you see on this page here. Positives uh the community really appreciates that we do continue to maintain class sizes that we have support for addressing student behaviors and that we're also looking at support for EL students. challenges. Uh reducing the busing is a potential barrier for some and increase fees. Um we really want to make sure that we're um assuring that the activities are accessible to all students. And as we shared with you before um is even with raising fees, we still take into consideration educational benefits to make sure no one is is um kept from being able to participate if they so choose. questions that came up through the process. Uh what would it cost to offer free transportation to all students? Currently, our transportation cost is about $12 million. And that's with a 1.5 mile walking distance for secondary and elementary. If we were to increase that, it would be a multiple million increase, probably $2 to $3 million if we went to zero walking distance. Um, would that drive increased enrollment? I don't know honestly if that is a factor. Again, transportation, as we've discussed in other uh meetings, many more families are dropping students off. The families are driving kids on their own. So, is that a result because they don't want to have to do the walking distance or just the convenience of getting the students there? Don't know. Uh, how many students benefit from advanced learning specialist positions? Well, quite frankly, it's available to all students. So, it benefits all elementary students. Um, is attendance affected by accessing act by access to busing or walking distance? That again is an unknown. It's a good question. We would have to research that and try to figure out how to set up a control and what that might look like. Um, yes, I am still working. Um, and are we meeting newcomer student family needs? Uh, we have 53 um EL students or EL students, EL teachers slotted for next year. Uh, that's a fairly significant number that is um apply to our EL services. Could we use more? Yes. But how do we balance our resources for the needs of all students across the district? That is always the juggling that we have to do. Again, um our initial budget adjustments is here. Um we are not making any changes to our initial list. So this remains the same and it is available for folks to download and with the adjustments that we are proposing, we are coming in with a fund balance of 18.15%. So that's what we are proposing. And if everything goes along with our revenue and our expenses projections, which we're in the ballpark, unless things change significantly, that's about the best it will change in one way or the other. So, but it should be right around 18%. Thank you. Um, do board members have any questions or comments? Director Hume. Um, this might be more of a speculation for you or Dr. Battle, but I know you said that we don't really have any updates from the state, but do we have any reading the tea leaves or inklings about things that could significantly impact us positively or negatively that aren't already in the assumptions? Uh, well, as a finance department, we are going to assume the worst. So anything that happens will be good news for us. Uh things that we are keeping an eye on really is the compensatory and the hold harmless. That would be the the best outcome for us moving forward. Anything beyond that would be additional bonus but won't have near the impact that the compensatory would for us. Thanks. Y director sexy. Thank you. Um, first, thanks Stacy for the usual succinct update. Appreciate it. Um, not a question to answer tonight. Um, but just as it relates to the increase in activity fees. Um, in the future, I'd like to kind of if we could take a picture of kind of what's been done from an athletic department and other activity standpoint for driving sponsorships in the community. um wheels have just been spinning a little bit on that recently as I professionally I've been on the receiving end of a pitch from a school district looking for athletic facility sponsorships and I've also looked into proactively looked at certain school districts and could not find any information whatsoever on how to sponsor something. So just interested in where we're at with that as an opportunity to perhaps supplement or offset some of that. Yep. Absolutely. Y thank you for that. out. Uh so we would look at policy, we'll bring that information, but also uh assistant uh superintendent Chris Belmont, he um convened a uh design team group to really look at athletics. Um so we are getting information comparing us to um our regional districts. Um we are in a different class now, so I think we're looking at those also. Um, but there are districts that do have different ways to generate income. So, we certainly can bring you that information. And I do know that many of the panels that are on the football field are available for sponsorship or advertising. Put that out there. Yes, it is. Oh, director. Um, not so much for for for Stacy, but for our community understanding compensatory is to reach out to your legislators, our legislators and the governor, and asking them to support holding harmless districts so that compensatory isn't an impact on them. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Stacey. You're welcome. Next, we will receive a report about 2025 2026 equity plan from Isis Buchanan, director of educational equity, and Keith Anderson, one of our English learner teachers. Welcome. Thank you. So, um, good evening, Chair W, Dr. Battle, and members of the board. So, we are here tonight to share, um, information about our fisc year 26 district 191 educational equity plan. Um, I also have Kefir Anderson here with me who will be sharing some examples of how some of our work from this past year has been showing up at Gideon Pond. And so as a district or this agenda just shows a little bit of what we will cover when I'm sharing information today and just always wanting to ground oursel in the definition of equity and really ensuring that all of our students have access to the resources and support and opportunities that they need to succeed academically regardless of um their background or circumstances. And then this also aligns with policy 105 um in which we focus on ensuring access and fostering academic excellence for all learners. So our vision aligns our efforts with cultural prof culturally proficient school systems and policy to ensure educational equity, access, and excellence for each learner. and we're dedicated to valuing diversity and having high academic expectations for our students. So, um, similar to last year, I just wanted to share a snapshot of our our district demographics. And so, here you can see our enrollment list. And so, the data that you see here shows that um, for district 191, about 72% of our students are um, black, indigenous, or people of color. and about 27 and a half% of our students um are white. And over the past five years, we continue to increase the number of bipok students um and multilingual students we have as the number of white students like slowly decreases. English learners make up 26.5% of our school district. Um, similar to what I shared um, with you all last year, about half of our students are multilingual students. They just all don't qualify for English learner programming or service. Um, and about 57% of our students qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Um, suggesting that we do have some levels of social economic difference within our district as well. And then this um just leads us to have a a varied approach to making sure we have educational supports to meet the broad gamut of um learners that we have. This is just a visual again of that um percent and just to have it in comparison to our total student population. And so you can see it's about 26.5%. Um, some of the things I wanted to highlight on this slide though is to let you know that um, the most common birth countries for our students after the United States are Ecuador, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and Venezuela. And then our students represent 106 languages with the top 10 after English being Spanish, Somali, Amharic, Amharic, Kair, Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Afen, O Romo, and um Kis Swahili. And so those are the languages that we have the most students who speak those. And so 53% of our English learners um are in that level one and two which is which are those early stages of um English language development and then 47% of them are in that level three to four which is developing and um reaching those academic language outcomes you know to exit. Um, our district continues to focus on this whole sense of collective efficacy where we have such a multilingual district that it's important that all staff are doing things to support the different students that we have. Um, because a lot of the strategies support all learners. So, now to just take a look at our staff demographics. A few of these numbers are kind of similar to last year. Um about 80% of our district 191 staff identify as white while 20% identify as black, indigenous or people of color. Um the demographic distribution highlights, you know, the misalignment that we have with our staff and our student um population. However, our district remains committed to advancing equity in our hiring practices and continuing to prioritize recruiting um advertising, connecting with a lot of different organizations to make sure people know about um open positions in our district. And so now I'm going to shift into our plan to give you some of our um equity plan isn't changing much from last year. a lot of big um rocks to lift. Um and so here you can see that we're going to continue to work on our sitebased equity team strategies and trying to advance equity and inclusion in district 191. Um in this spring right now, I think the window just ended, but staff completed the equric survey, which will give us another snapshot into how our staff members feel about um the equity pieces of our work as a district. Um, and this helps, you know, it's as a metric for us as we're looking at our progress, um, as it aligns with our culturally proficient school system framework. [Applause] This next slide shows a couple of our areas um that focus on embedding professional development across our school district and then making sure that we have inclusive schools that are responding effective and that we're responding effectively to incidents of racism, bias, and harm. And progress is monitored through meeting with our teams. um making sure that our professional development aligns with the needs um that are that are going on at the time and then implementation of gender inclusive and and non-exclusionary discipline practices. Our professional development, participation and content um representative of our student population as well as ensuring that we're using those um inclusive practices are some of the metrics and evidence that we look for. So our next slide um focuses on some of our indicators to um increase the number of students who are um recruiting and having diverse representations on our um different advisory groups with staff. Um and we continue to work to diversify our district teams and our parent groups. Um, and then really learning about indigenous heritage and culture and creating those inclusive learning spaces to ensure that all students feel represented, valued, um, in their learning experiences. And finally, um, reviewing like our time in our school buildings and the equrics and or metrics survey data and trying to align all those things to our comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. um formerly World's Best Workforce um and achievement and integration plans ensures that we're um having initiatives that are aligned to a broader achievement um in those in the goals that we have. We're excited to use the data we collect to further improve um staff satisfaction with the work that we're doing as well as contributing to a positive um school and district environment. So now I'm just going to share this slide just shows a few of the um some of the things that we do for staff recruitment and retention and just knowing that a lot of these things really are real and practical. My daughter goes to Harriet Bishop. There's a teacher she had as a student teacher who is now a teacher at her school like this year. So, um, I just think that there are a lot of ways that we can see how our grow your own program and our initiatives to try to get those connections with college students is really making a difference. Um, and then we also continue to look at ways to not just look for local candidates here, but also keeping our lens open for international candidates as well who may want to join our district. um some programming highlights about our grow your own program. Um and Dr. Funston was able to share some of these with me and so tonight I know you all at the academic excellence award ceremony. There was someone on the stage who's in our grow your own program. Um but this just gives you a snapshot of the number employees that we have um and that we still have space for about six additional employees um who may want to go into the field of education. Um a lot of our grow your own program is focused on those studentf facing roles. And so you can see that it lists the degrees that um people can earn based on um if they're studying the K12 English as a second language, special education, social studies and English and then the different universities that some of our participants are in from Metro State, the University of Minnesota, Concordia, and Auxburg. So now this is the fun part where um Kefir can share a little snapshot to you about how some of the things in our equity plan show up in our building. Yeah. Hello chair. Hello board. My name is Kefir Anderson. Uh my colleague Avery Lester and I are the two multilingual teachers at Gideon Pond. We believe wholeheartedly in the efficacy and power in co-eing in the classroom. We're going to talk about that tonight. Um, we have been trained to fill the literacy gaps that multilingual students experience on a daily basis. We both know the value of scaffolding content with language support to make learning accessible to our multilingual students. Both Avery and I utilize different forms of co-eing. One teach one observe, team teaching, station teaching, one teach, one assist. These are different models for co-eing. We also pull our multilingual students for small groups during our when or what I need time. I also have the privilege of teaching some of the board members children's here too at pond which wouldn't be possible if I wasn't going into their classrooms and teaching the class as a whole. We have some videos um just to get a little snapshot of what's happening in our classrooms at Gideon Pond. Um this first video I'll introduce it will show myself and a wonderful teacher Mr. Gallas who has been at Pond for many years taking a parallel teaching stance where we are both at the front of the classroom responsible for the teaching of the lessons. The students are currently in an expository non-fiction unit where we are learning about different countries. Charlie question. I see my multi multilingual students as huge assets and experts of their language and culture. So, as we were learning about the country of Mexico, I had the pleasure of having four of our Mexican-American students share and make connections and give them an opportunity to to speak up in a class where maybe they don't always feel super comfortable speaking up into. And so, this next video will show uh me calling on some of our Mexican-American students to make some connections specifically to uh a common household dish named pole. They got really excited when I mentioned it in the book so they can share their recipes. Um the students voices are a little hard to hear. Um but basically they're just sharing about like the different things that they their family puts in their [Music] pizzole. Heat. Heat. And so they were just sharing things. They're very soft-spoken students that, you know, I've been teaching in class all year and and, you know, can r will rarely raise their hand and there they were the first ones to raise their hand to share and it was just really cool to see. Um, this is an equitable equitable practice that we believe in to provide our our students who sometimes are very softspoken and quiet and unwilling to share to give them ample opportunities in class to to really be proud of who they are and where they come from. Mhm. And that first student was talking about I think it being the food being hot. Yeah. And so the way to eat it so you know was using a tortilla. So, I like that was cute. Yeah. This next video highlights my colleague uh Avery Lester who works with our younger kids at Gideon Pond where she is going in and co-eing math which there is a lot of literacy within math. And so to be able to go into a subject that typically multilingual teachers aren't uh co-eing a lot of the times she is really seeing the value of being someone who's there for the multilingual students to teach them concepts like they're learning about clocks right [Music] now. Heat. Heat. So again, these are uh it's a smaller group of multilingual students that she's co-eing alongside um the multilingual students peers. Um, and we see the value of her being able to go into the classroom instead of pulling them out and teaching them in small groups. We we really try to meet the students where they're at in the classrooms um and and teach the whole class. This last video will show my work that I do um in our focus programs. We have currently 15 students in our focus programs at Gideon Pond. And of those 15, seven of them are identified as multilingual. And so I have been able to work with both of our focused uh focus educa special education teachers and go into the classroom and work on building rich language with them. And this last video is an example of when you give the right tools and you give the opportunities to students to produce language, it's really incredible and beautiful when it happens. Yeah. And he shows high expectations because the student has to speak to get the So, it's a nice one, too. Oops. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. And so as a multilingual teacher at Gideon Pond, I I fullheartedly believe that we need to be serving all of our students, especially our dual identified students who are building their language and literacy skills at a young age. Um, I really love being a multilingual teacher and I think that multilingual students are huge assets to our school and our district. And I just want to thank you for inviting me here to speak tonight. And so that is the end of my report. Do you have any questions? Director Anderson. Anderson. Okay. Um, first of all, um, I can attest to, um, the first video, Keeper's comments on it. Um, I know those students, um, and one in particular, like never, she will not talk to me. She's so quiet and watching her um, volunteer some information to you uh, in class is like, love. Uh, so thank you. Thank you for everything you do. You're a joy. Um I do have a question for you Isis. Um so mentioning PD um made me think uh so what kinds of PD are we doing with staff that um encourages that like internal work of anti-racism um versus just what we're supposed to do in the classroom. Yeah. And so our culturally proficient school systems framework is really about that inside out approach, but it also connects to the instructional look fors um that we've been working with to align those. So it merges the two things together where we're keeping our mindsets open to the assets that students bring into the classroom with them. And some of our work around that is learning about the different cultures um of our students to just better understand interactions and behaviors and not just you know staying true to one narrative or what you know students should be like but really working to for example in our um student support teams or um student teacher assistance teams. If there's a student where there's a concern, being able to have that filter of some of our work with culturally proficient school systems and to think about the things that are showing up for that student in a way where we're looking at a lot of the different ways students can be different from, you know, neurodeivergent students to culture to, you know, homelessness. Like there are a lot of things that may impact how students are showing up. And so we're um right now it this kind of goes with our dream catcher work. and then also director Petroski with um the student services team. But we really are excited about having our um special ed team work with our ML team. Having both of those teams work with GenEd teachers. They learn from GenEd teachers. Gened teachers learn from teachers like Kefir and then they start to use those practices within their classroom. And so it takes a lot of effort and work to have co-eing really um work solidly where both teachers see the value that they're bringing to the learners. um and that it doesn't always have to be one way of doing that. It can look a lot of different ways depending on what the students are learning. Thank you. Thank you, Chair W. Thank you both for presenting um really rich report. Um just a comment and a couple of questions. Um, I really appreciated Kefir, your comment about um, keeping kids in class and you pushing in. Um, because that got me thinking about, you know, when my kids were in elementary school and, you know, it's far more efficient. The children get more time, more learning time when it's the adults that are doing the movement. Um in addition to honoring the fact that we want all our kids to be together and uh how wonderful it is, you know, looking at the statistics, 30% 30% 30% and 30%, you know, in terms of demographics, in terms of the multilingual students, um we've really grown as a district and um I just appreciate everything that that you both are doing um to to honor the that that that growth of our students and um of our families. Um so thank you for that. Um one very specific question about SAS cuz I know this has always been a challenge trying trying to make sure that we have um solid representation of our families. What are we doing differently to try to change the um the members of Sasiaak? And have we considered meeting location as an option? Like changing the meeting location as an option? And so Sassiaak is not one of the parent advisory groups that I oversee, but part of what we talk about when we work together is um like getting recommendations from other staff members who may know families who are in that um space where they want to be more involved in school and give back in a different way. Um right now I know for I can speak for our um multilingual parent advisory group. We're trying to get more parents on that and so I work with um Aaron Tinklingberg to get a form on our district website where if a parent is interested it'll kick an email to me so that we're always just looking sharing it with our liaison so that people are hearing it in multiple ways. Also our um the Somali speaking and Spanish speaking parent meetings I think we often times will share those specific needs with some of our um parents that way. But it's really about trying to make that human connection where you know people see the value that their perspective will bring. And so it's trying to help um it's almost like what Kefir was showing with the students in the classroom when we start to show our families that we value the perspective they can bring to us, you know, and and like when they start to do that and they feel accepted and heard and you know, a part of the process that it just helps us build on that momentum to get more and more people. um engaged and connected and it's easier for them to feel comfortable. Yes. And try to make space for that. Yes. For that participation. Yeah. Um slide 10. Uh we mention you mentioned measuring um metrics. Can you explain how we're measuring metrics? Slide 10. I'm trying to look for the numbers here. And so the metrics for our um like district equity team representation. So some of the metrics listed here are looking at our actual action plan and then looking for the systemwide um things that have you know been developed as part of that work. And so starting to see those things when we make visits into our different school sites. Um at the same time also making sure that some of the work we do around CPSS and creating welcoming school environments that when we're in the schools um we can look at the things on the wall and how you know people know students names. there's a lot of um walls of all the staff people so that you know their name you know with the face and so to me a lot of those are the kinds of things that we're really looking at as well as the other survey technical you know um data pieces as well and so and then the other piece for the equity based site teams well teams like right now I share the this equity plan with principles so their sites build teams and so when their leadership teams are um continuing to build with the work of CPSS as well, then they can kind of see where some of the district-wide goals are and how it may align to some of the work they're doing because the goals that that I'm trying to help work with all of them to develop, you know, are the things that I feel like they're asking and and showing that they would like more support with. Gotcha. And the surveys that you mentioned, are those family, students, and staff? Yep. So we have the annual family, student and staff surveys and then we also have the orometrics and equrics right now. Okay. And so I think those will be coming up in May I want to say going out to families. Great. Thank you. Uh director Chester um a few of us may be acronym challenged and so was wondering cesak. Oh yeah it's it's the parent. It's It's real quick. You go ahead. I'm not going to be able to do it justice. It's the curriculum committee. Yeah. Student advisory. Yeah. The parent I know it's the parent curriculum advisory. It's the teaching and learning kind of parent group where they help to help them know about the different curriculum um and content that's covered in different courses and things like that. That was that was something I was on as a parent and that's the only reason I'm doing there are a lot of um uh thank you both. Um it was a really great presentation. Um I I think it's great for the community to see how that learning happens in the classroom cuz I mean for myself I think um you know that was something I've often kind of wondered like how do you incorporate um teaching with English learners in the classroom to where everybody's being you know um taught and and including those students. And I like the word connection because that is key, I think. Um, and also inclusive be, you know, making th those students feel included when you're in a classroom and talking about things in their culture. Um, and having them share. I just I I feel like that that then, you know, draws them in and then they want to learn, you know, they want to learn more and and especially then um make them feel like the other students in the classroom are interested in hearing about what they have to say. I think that creates a really um like welcoming um atmosphere in the classroom um that you know just encourages their learning. So um just overall just you know really and I guess um I like to see I like it you know to see what's happening in the elementary school. So, I guess I kind of see like to see um that same thing with like what does it look like in the middle schools? What does it look like in the high schools? Um cuz obviously it's going to be different. Mhm. Um so I you know I'm just curious to see as they get older how how is that experience different? So yeah. And some of those things are the same like the co-eing models. It's really helping us know like like sometimes they're station teaching like Kefir mentioned. I don't know if you want to explain what that is a little a little bit a synopsis. Yeah. So, station teaching would be just um there would be just multiple different places in a classroom where just different learning is happening from different adults. Um I know that at the elementary school, you know, we're able to go into the different classrooms and all the kids are in one class. They know that, you know, it presents logistical challenges at the middle school and high school where there's a period schedule or a bell schedule. Um, but yeah, so like it's it's it's uh putting kids into groups based on, you know, it could be based on what they need to be working on, a specific skill, a specific thing that has to do with the unit. Um but the idea is that it's it's taught by different students and then going even further then those students can become the experts of that specific station and then show their uh learning by teaching it to other students as well. So then we get to some really cool activities where students are then able to prove their their learning and be the teacher to to other students which is really cool. Yeah. And that works in the high school. So this year we used a video with our administrators when we were um doing professional development about giving um effective feedback to teachers. And so one of the math teachers at the high school had a similar thing where he had students in groups and you know they were in groups for certain reasons to do certain tasks and and so just un helping our staff as a whole understand that there are a lot of ways that we can um support each other and really um chair going to what you were saying. It's about making sure students have access to the grade level content and the rigor because um students know a lot of things. They just they're learning English. And so it's getting to that spot where like Kefir said, they're able to be comfortable and start to, you know, speak English about things that they know in front of other people. And it takes a lot, you know, of work to do that. But once you start to get that practice going, the students feel that momentum of the support of other people around them and their teachers and even though they're feeling so different, they realize, you know, that there's a lot that they know that they can bring and share with other students. Great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Up next, we will receive a report about the early childhood special education stretch calendar from Christy Christy Wanzac, special education supervisor. Good evening, Chair Worb, Dr. Battle, and members of the board. I am pleased to present the 202526 stretch calendars on behalf of our birth to3 early intervention program. Following referral for our youngest learners ages birth to three, our early intervention team is required to complete an evaluation, set up a family service plan for those learners within 45 calendar days from the referral date. These learners may also need a PartB special education evaluation if the team determines there are still concerns with an IEP in place prior to their third birthday. These calendars provide the flexibility for the team to meet those federal and state mandates. So, the recommendation is for the board to approve the stretch calendars. Any questions? Uh, do any board members have any questions or comments? Uh yeah, Director Alt. Thank you, Chair Worb. Um can you elaborate on what impact, if any, this change would have on um students in their learning time? Um impact on staff, you know, just trying to understand the ripple effect. Yes. So the staff work on this stretch calendar through the summer so that students aren't um without services that because of their young age. So they do have that service during the summertime and so that's what allows for that to happen. Gotcha. Thank [Music] you. Any other just real quick clarification and if I'm this is not the first time that we like this has been a while we're just kind of approving it for the next school year. Yeah. We did do a few changes to this calendar um with input from the staff um so that we don't have as much of a gap cuz there were some weeks that were a little some where there were four weeks a break and I said well let's make it a little bit less so that we can meet those needs. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh before we move to board committee reports, I wanted to share an update on the superintendent search. The application deadline for our superintendent search closed at midnight on April 20th. We received a total of 23 applicants. Last night, the ISD 191 Board of Education met for a special meeting to conduct conduct superintendent search interview training. Board members are currently reviewing applicants and will be presented with MSBA's recommendations during a special meeting on Monday, April 28th at 5:30 p.m. where final finalists will be determined at that time. Uh that ends my report. Um, do board members have any reports about board committees, appointments or school [Applause] assignments? Um, that would be legisl legislative policy review negotiations. Negotiations hasn't met report. Okay. Okay. Policy. I can give a policy report. Um we met um on Tuesday the 15th. Uh and many of the um policies are coming forward. Uh we will also the next time we meet will be um the 20th of May here at Diamond Head at 5:00. Yeah. Um leg legislative committee also met at 6 o'clock on uh the 15th. Uh we uh basically uh reviewed and and approved a letter thanking uh the various uh um representatives and senators uh at the uh state capital uh for their time um when we were there for day on the capital and also uh a list of the different uh legislation that uh we were wanted them to focus on and uh you know some of the uh specifics around the impact to uh 191 uh for the different legislative uh bills that are uh out there. Um so we are ready to keep uh pushing that and uh as was already mentioned earlier tonight, anyone in the public that you know wants to uh contact their representatives uh at the state capital to be able to further uh those goals of uh being able to have our our funding maintained. We appreciate it. Um all right thank you. This conduct con concludes the information portion of our meeting. We will now move to the business portion of our meeting. We will we will start by approving the consent agenda. Although board action is required, it is generally unnecessary to hold a discussion on these items. In the event a board member wishes to discuss an item, that item will be moved to for separate consideration. Do board members wish to remove any items from the consent [Music] items? Is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? So moved. Moved by Director Hume. Second. Go ahead. Second. Seconded by Director Anderson. All those in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. The motion carries unanimously. In the first item under new business, we are being asked to approve a lease agreement for copier equipment and services. Presenting the resolution this evening will be Stacy Zelvine, executive director of administrative services. Welcome. Thank you. I'm bringing to you tonight a recommendation to approve a new lease agreement for the next 5 years with Advanced Imaging Solutions. At our last meeting, uh, Director Gorton from, uh, technology, uh, presented to you the the reason how this lease would be implemented, um, and the type of devices that we would be using throughout the district. Uh, it is approximately $150,000 a year for this lease. Uh, photocopying machines are not what they used to be. So, it is a it is expensive, but we rely heavily on on that uh, medium. So it is my recommendation that the board of education approves a new lease for copers, printers and associate and an associated support agreement for a term of 16 months with advanced imaging solutions or otherwise the Is there a motion to approve the lease agreement for copier equipment and services? So moved. Moved by director Al. Second seconded by director Saxi. Is there any dis is there any I'm sorry. Is there any discussion? I just have one thing. Okay. I brought this up when we had the presentation a couple weeks ago. You nodding your head? You don't know what I'm going to ask? I do. I don't have an answer. That's okay. I'll just say that I would still curious to know at some point in the future how our copying compares to the time before we had Chromebooks for all our students and staff. So at some point if possible to figure that out one of it is just through uh actually through the finance department as far as purchasing of papering 30% less or more paper than we were 10 years ago then we have our answer I think. Yeah. and then subtract inflation. So, it it's we'll see what we can do for you on that, but we are looking. Thank you. Um, okay. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed? Nay. The motion carries unanimously. Next, we are being asked to adopt a resolution terminating non-licensed staff hours at the end of the 202425 school year. Presenting the resolution will once again be Stacy Sine, executive director of administrative services. Thank you. Um again, we we each spring we go through a two-step process. Uh usually the first meeting in April, we do the release for all of our licensed staff. Um probationary releases, long-term subs, uh partial FTEES above their base assignment or 1.0. Uh at the second meeting uh it is our pattern to bring to you our non-licensed staff. The first uh resolution I'm bringing to you is for a reduction in hours. Um we are reducing by 3.2 hours uh for this position. It is my recommendation that the board of education adopt the following resolution. Be it resolved by the board of education of school district 191 that the non-licensed personnel in Independent School District 191 be terminated at the end of the 202425 school year for the amount of hours listed. Is there a motion to adopt the resolution terminating non-licensed staff hours at the end of this school year? So moved. Moved by Director Hume. Seconded. Seconded by Director Mickelson. Is there any discussion? Having been moved and seconded, this resolution will require a roll call vote. So, in just a second, I will ask Carrie to call the role. And when she calls your name, please respond with either an I if you are in favor of the resolution or nay if you are opposed. Carrie, will you please make the roll call? Director Hume, I. Director Mickelson, I. Director Al I. Chair Worerb I. Director Chester I. Director Anderson I. Director Saki I. This this resolution was declared dually passed and adopted. Continuing on, we are being asked to adopt a resolution terminating non-licensed staff at the end of the 202425 school year. Stacy Sovine will be presenting this resolution as well. Okay. Again, this is for our non-licensed staff. Uh, this is for full releases, not partial. So, whatever, however many hours that they are working, they will go down to zero at the end of the school year. Um, it is my recommendation that the board of education adopt the following resolution. Be it resolved by the board of education of school district 191 that the non-licensed personnel in independent school district 191 be terminated at the end of 2024 2025 school year. Be it further resolved that written notice is sent to set non-licensed staff regarding termination of their assignment for the 24-25 school year as provided by law. Is there a motion to adopt a resolution terminating non-licensed staff at the end of this school year? So moved. Moved by Director Alt. Second. Second by Director Hume. Is there any discussion? Having approved and seconded resolution will also require a roll call vote. Carrie, will you please make the roll call? Director Saxi, I. Director Anderson, I. Director Chester, I. Chair W. I. Director Al I. Dr. Mkelson. Hi. Director H. I. This resolution was declared duly passed and adopted. Having heard a report about the early childhood special education ECSSE stretch calendar earlier this evening, I now invite Christy Wanzac, special education supervisor, back to present a recommendation to approve the ECS stretch calendar. Good evening. Um, the recommendation is for the board to approve the 202526 birthfree stretch calendars. Is there a motion to approve and adopt the ES ECE stretch calendar for the 202526 school year? So moved. Moved by Director Mickelson. Second. Second by Director Chester. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Up next, Stacy Sovine will be returning to present her recommendation to approve on a first reading basis changes to policy 413, harassment and violence. Welcome back. Thank you. On April 15th at our policy review committee, uh 413 was reviewed uh by the recommendations of MSBA. We are adding to the definition of disability uh to reflect amended Minnesota law. Uh with that, it is my recommendation that the board of education approve on a first reading basis changes to policy 413, harassment and violence. Is there a motion to approve policy 413? So moved. Moved by director Saxi. Second. Second by director Hume. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. The motion carries unanimously. Our last item under new business is to approve on a first reading basis adding a regulation to policy 601 school district curriculum and instruction goals. Presenting the recommendation this evening is vice chair Abigail Alt. Thank you chair Worb. Uh I'd like to start by thanking Dr. Battle and her team for developing these regulations for board consideration with final review conducted by MSBA. Uh some context uh at board request these regulations are coming forward for review to and to be formally attached to policy 601 school district curriculum and instruction goals. Uh looking at the policy itself under section two general statement of policy as well as in section 4 A2 we see the alignment between policy language and the content of these regulations. Um I am recommending that we um add these regulations to policy. Recommendation is that the board of education approve on a first reading basis adding uh a regulation to policies to policy 601R school district curriculum and instruction [Music] goals. Is there a motion to approve this new regulation for policy 601? So moved. Moved by Director Anderson. Second. Second by Director Chester. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. The motion carries unanimously. The time is 7:29. And having no further agenda items, I now call to adjourn this regular meeting of the board of education. [Music]