Sure. Okay. Okay. is For sure. Absolutely. a little bit. >> Yeah. He does the perfect 1125 and the time is 6:30 p.m. I will now call the regular meeting of the ISD 191 board of education to order. Welcome to those of you who are who are here in the audience or those watching online. Thank you for joining us. Director Hume, will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I aliance 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. >> Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> So moved. >> Moved by Director Chester. Second. >> Second by Al. Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. I. >> Opposed? Nay. The motion carries unanimously. We will now open the truth and taxation hearing portion of the meeting. The purpose of the truth and taxation hearing is present to present the following information. The current year budget and actual revenue and expenses for the prior year. the proposed property tax levy, the percentage of of change over the prior year, specific purposes and reasons for which taxes are being increased, and to allow for public comments. Public comments will be heard after the budget and property tax presentation. We will be following the procedures outlined in board policy 207, public hearings. Anyone wishing to address the board must have signed up prior to the start of the meeting. Speakers will have up to three minutes to share their comments at which point the next speaker will begin. So again before opening up the meeting to public comment I will have Stacy Silva director of administrative services and Aaron Bushberger senior municipal adviser for elders come forward for the budget and property tax presentation. Good evening, Chair Worb, Dr. Belmont, members of the board. Tonight, we are bringing to you a presentation for our truth and taxation portion of um of our meeting. This is a required event that we do every December. Um we after we go through um our final audit after we uh certify the the levy amount in September then in December there's a small window in which all districts have to go through present to the board the information as outlined by you uh director um and and then seek your approval. Um with that I am going to turn it over to Aaron here shortly. Ellers is the a financial company that we work with that helps us with our bonds, uh, with our taxes, with levies, all the different types of things in which we're interacting with the public and helping with the funding that we need from the communities. So, with that, I am going to turn it over to Aaron. >> All right. Thank you, Stacy. Good evening, school board members. It's nice to see you all again. Um, so we just have a a presentation that we'll walk through that'll include the required information. Uh in addition to that, we've just got a little bit of background on on school uh funding in Minnesota that we find helpful to to communicate during the truth and taxation presentation. So again, just a little bit about state law requirements. So you are required to hold a public meeting as are uh our other municipal municipality friends, cities and counties. Um so there are certain requirements on that public meeting. You can see those listed there. Um and then as you mentioned uh we are required to present information regarding the current year budget and the upcoming proposed property tax levy. So just the agenda for tonight. So as I mentioned a little bit of background uh information on school funding information about your budget, the proposed uh tax levy and then that final requirement of allowing for public comment uh if anyone would like to speak. So a little bit of background about Minnesota uh school district funding. So again, the Minnesota uh legislature um according to the constitution is charged with setting funding for uh Minnesota school districts. So really uh kind of that responsibility lies there. And as a result of that uh funding for Minnesota school districts is is highly regulated. Uh so the majority of our funding comes from the state of Minnesota, which we'll we'll show you in a couple slides here. But um really the state sets those formulas uh that determine the amount of revenue which primarily is based on the number of students that you serve. Uh the state also sets tax policies for school districts. So really uh they provide the framework in which uh school districts are allowed to levy. They develop the calculations um and that's all included in state statute. So really school districts are somewhat limited in in that levy flexibility as as we're following uh uh state law and what's in statute. So um that's all regulated. Um as you uh may be aware, the state does authorize school boards to seek voter approval. So for operating referendums for capital project levies and uh for school building bonds. So so there is that capacity which applies to uh Burnsville um Egan Savage as well as uh numerous other school districts in the state. So, uh, the majority of funding does come from the state of Minnesota. The majority of that is, uh, what's known as general education revenue, and that, uh, again is based on a per pupil amount. Uh, we provide this graphic, uh, which, uh, we find useful and and kind of easy to communicate. So, this is looking at that general education formula allowance over the course of about the last 20 years. So that dotted uh orange line is the actual uh funding that the state of Minnesota has provided. Uh the blue solid line would be what that funding would be had it uh kept pace with inflation. And so you can see there uh over the course of time um you know that funding would be an additional $1,400 20 $1,420 per student uh if it would have kept pace with inflation. So again, um just some of those pressures that your district as well as all other districts in the state uh are experiencing. The kind of the second uh largest component is special education funding. Um there's a statewide cross subsidy, meaning general fund resources uh that are required to uh be paid for special education services. Um and so statewide that number is over $500 million for that cross subsidy. So again, uh creating some pressure on on district's budgets. So transitioning into uh your budget information. Um so again, our city and and uh county counterparts operate on a calendar year. School districts are unique because uh you run on a fiscal year, July through June, but your levy is based on a calendar year. So, we're going to present budget information for your current fiscal year, for your 2025-26 fiscal year. You can see the funds that are listed there. Um, and then this next slide is uh part of a required uh publication from the Department of Education that shows um each of the funds on the lefth hand column, your 202425 results uh there in the gold. And then on the far right hand side, your 202526 budget uh for each of those funds. So breaking that into a little bit more detail. Uh so from a revenue perspective, your total revenue is just under $185 million. Uh that solid blue there is your general fund. The majority of your operations again making up about 86% uh of the district's total revenue. Then moving to the right, food service program, your community education program. um debt service um and then your uh other post-employment benefit trusts with just kind of a small portion. So again, the majority of of your operations are within that general fund. Then looking specifically to the general fund revenue, as I mentioned, the majority of your funding does come from the state. Uh 70% in that um kind of purple section there. Uh up to the right is federal, which makes up a little bit over uh just over 3% of your funding. local levy is about 26% and then other uh you can see just kind of a small portion there. So that local uh funding includes your property tax levy. It includes things like interest, revenue, um fees, and other admission charges. So that's kind of a a comprehensive group there in the orange. Then shifting over to the expenditure side, um as is the case with all Minnesota school districts, the majority of your costs are uh within your staffing. So you can see salaries and wages is just over 52%. Uh in the blue and then in the orange is employee benefits of 24%. So really uh over 3/4 of your expenditures are going uh towards salary and benefit costs. And then to look at your uh expenditures a little different way within the general fund. So this is by program. Um, so kind of those upper three sections between regular instruction, vocational ed instruction, and special education instruction. Uh, you can see that's almost twothirds of all of your uh costs are going directly into the classroom into those instruction categories. And then you can see um student support services, sites and buildings, um district support services, and administration kind of uh round out the remaining remainder of your uh general fund costs. So now just talking a little bit about uh the tax levy. Um so if you recall that pie chart I just showed the uh levy including some other local parts make up about 25% of your overall re revenue budget. So um again that tax levy is based on many state determined formulas. Uh the change in the levy also does not necessarily determine a change in your overall budget. Right? The majority of your funding comes from the state. your enrollment, the number of students you serve uh is a big factor as well. So just because your levy increases or decreases doesn't mean your total budget uh is necessarily going to do that. As I mentioned, a little uh difference in the levy cycles. Again, um our fiscal years for school districts run from July through June. Uh we're city and county, their levy process coordinates exactly with uh their fiscal year, which runs on a calendar year. Part of the process is um uh proposed property tax statements are mailed by the county uh by Dakota County. So these go out to property owners in the middle of November. So if you're a property owner, you would have seen that come uh within the past few weeks. Uh and this provides information regarding uh the municipality, when their truth and taxation hearing is going to be and the proposed property tax amount. So, um, that's just kind of one step in this, uh, overall, uh, tax levy process. So, again, for school district property taxes, you have limited authority according to statute. And again, it's either defined by state law, or those three funding sources, operating referendum, technology levy, and school building bonds, which are allowable by voter approval. So, again, um, just some information regarding uh, the levy process. The levies are administered uh by Dakota County. They're based on the valuation of the property uh that you own. So, you can see really that starts with the city or county assessor that's assessing those property values. The legislature is obviously very involved in setting uh kind of those standards. County auditor um gets involved. They're the ones who manage the tax levy process on behalf of municipalities and school districts. uh Stacy and Tyler and their team work with the Department of Education on communicating that levy information and then uh we're here for your uh approval of the final levy. So again, uh as Stacy mentioned at the very beginning, you approved a preliminary levy back in September on the 25th and again the county then uses that information to mail those property tax proposed property tax statements. So then we're here tonight to hold uh the required public hearing and then uh I think subsequently have you uh approve that final levy. All of that information is due to the Department of Education in Dakota County by the end of December. So uh we'll have plenty of time to to submit that information there. So uh part of what we present in the truth and taxation hearing is a comparison to the previous levy. Um, a little bit later, we've got kind of some four-year trends uh information to show you, too, which I think is helpful. So, if you compare uh the payable 26 levy to last year, uh there's an increase of about 3.6 million uh or 7.4%. So, we'll we'll dig into that here in the next couple of slides. So, uh here's a little bit further breakdown. Um um for each of the funding categories, uh the levy is made up of three of your funds. So, general fund, community service, and debt service fund. So, you can see those different levy categories uh that are listed there. So, there's a few uh um changes that we we'd like to kind of mention as part of that. Uh the first is uh within the general fund, the voter operating the voter approved operating referendum uh increased by about $730,000. And the reason for that is because uh your operating referendum is um tied to inflation. So as inflation increases, so does your operating referendum authority. So um the inflationary estimates uh for this next year are increasing by about 3%. So we're going to see that uh that change come through then in the increase in your operating referendum. And again, that inflationary number is determined by the Minnesota Department of Education. So the school boards don't get to determine that inflationary number, right? We're relying um on the department to to calculate that on behalf of school districts. The second change um is kind of a a large kind of grouping of prior year adjustments. So if you think about this levy, we're levying this for next year. So we're using estimates. So all levies are based on estimates. So, as those actual numbers come through, as your actual enrollment comes through, subsequent levies are adjusted based on that information. So, uh there's a change from last year of about $500,000 in those adjustments. And again, we see those adjustments fluctuate um from year to year for all districts. So, you can't have a crystal ball and know exactly what your enrollment is going to be. So, um this is common to see uh these subsequent year adjustments. And then finally, uh, we'd just also like to mention the debt service fund, uh, an increase of about $2.2 million. And again, um, I think my colleague Matthew and I were here with you not that long ago, um, to do those refunding bonds and refinance those bonds, um, ultimately saving interest, uh, for your taxpayers. Uh, part of that structure was to pay principal off more quickly, right? So, um there's a little bit of an increase there, but again, ultimately in the big picture, um there's an overall reduced cost for from those refunding bonds. So, now just a little bit of information regarding uh how your taxes impact uh individual taxpayers. So, many factors can cause a tax bill for an individual property owner uh from year to year. So, a change in the value of the individual property, a change in all the values of properties within the district, and then any changes in uh your overall levy amounts um can factor in as well. So, our example here is um you have uh two $100,000 houses. Um they pay a $500 levy. So, each of those houses will pay $250. Now, roll that forward. um say the orange house on top increases by 10% and the blue house increases by 25%. Um that same levy now the orange house is only paying 234 where that blue house is now paying 266. So the point being that just because your property value may increase doesn't necessarily result uh in an increase in the school district portion of your property taxes. Again, we're a little different. cities and counties tax more on a tax rate where our levies are um um determined on the number of students that we serve, right? And um set debt service schedules. So, uh a little bit different than our than our city and county friends. So, the next few slides, uh again, this is kind of our four-year uh tax levy comparison. Um the examples are for uh the city of Burnsville. Um there's a fiscal disparities program that impacts uh commercial industrial property a little differently based on which city you're in. So we just have to pick a city. So we do that for for the city of Burnsville. So um this table shows a a variety of of different valued homes, but these next couple slides show it a little bit easier. So you can always use this as a reference, but um I I like this in kind of the chart form. It's a little bit easier to to read and understand. So on the left hand side is an example $250,000 uh house. So you can see um uh that first year on the graph back in 2023 that homeowner was paying $1,16 in the school district portion of their property taxes. You can see then in 2024 that decreased. In 2025 that decreased even more. And now in 2026 um that's back um an increase of about $60 from last year. But as you can see, that's um I will I'll say still it's still lower than than 2024 and 2023. So even though there's a little bit of an increase, if you look at kind of that trend, you're still lower than than what it has been in previous years. Same example, um I won't go through it in detail, but same example for a $350,000 house uh on the right hand side of the page there. And then um this next slide we're doing the same um calculations. On the left is a commercial industrial property, an example $2 million commercial industrial property. So that follows the same trends uh that I just referenced. And then on the right hand side is a $750,000 apartment. So again, uh the same trends, still lower than than where the district was a few years ago. And then this final chart um factors in uh assumed valuation growth in the in the value of the house. So on that left hand side um so for example in if it just kind of followed the average growth that you're seeing in the district um a $233,000 house uh was paying 944 in school district taxes. That house is now valued at $250,000 and they're paying $964. So overall, the value of that property increased by over 7%. The amount of school district property taxes that they're paying only increased by about 2% from that 944 to 964. So that property owner kind of that average property owner um is seeing a higher valuation growth than what they are um seeing in the increase in the the school district taxes. And again, same example on the right hand side for for a $350,000 house. Um I Yep, I went backwards. Sorry about that. Um and then just kind of uh wrapping everything up. So we like to point out that there are state property tax refund and deferral programs. So you can see there's a homestead credit refund. Um that's kind of the most widespread uh refund program. There's a special property tax refund program for um property owners that see a specific increase in their taxes. Third, there's a senior citizen property tax deferral program uh which can be helpful. We will note it's it's not a refund program, it's a deferral program. So what you're doing is is deferring those property taxes. And then finally, we like to point out there was a change um for renters. So starting with 2024, the renters can actually uh claim a refundable credit on their income tax return where previously they had to file a different return. So we like to point this out because um only um we found out from the state of Minnesota that only about 70% of qualifying uh property owners and renters uh take advantage of this program. So, we like to kind of say it whenever we can to hopefully encourage folks to look into that um and know that there's refunds available to them. Now, I'm stuck. Thank you. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Um so, next steps. Um so, again, accepting public comment on the proposed levy. Um, and then I think a little bit later on in your agenda, you'll be certifying that final property tax levy. So, with that, um, we'd be more than happy to to answer any questions you might have. >> Thank you. >> There any comments or questions? >> No. Um, having heard the presentation and we would typically open the hearing up for public comment. However, having no speakers who signed up to speak tonight, we will now conclude the truth and taxation hearing. We will now move forward to the information section of our me meeting. Tonight, we will start off with a school report about Gideon Pond Elementary. Presenting the report this evening will be Chris Belmont, assistant superintendent, Dr. Sal, principal >> and Whitney Jones, student systems leadership specialist. Welcome everyone. >> We not the window was prior to the meeting to sign up. >> So yeah, I mean that's the chair's discretion. Yes. the window was prior to the meeting to sign up and we'd be happy to connect you with our executive. >> She's saying that she's not going to allow them. >> Okay. >> I'm just here to see if I can get a reduction in my taxes. It was I thought I was meeting with a tax person. I didn't know what school. I'm sorry. >> Well, lovely. >> So, thank you, chair. Um we do have uh as you mentioned we have a school report Gideon Pond is up tonight. Um just re uh remind the board that this year our um principles and their team are are coming up and sharing um stories around datadriven decision making. So um ways that our schools are tracking data and getting really interested in certain data stories and how that's really um impacting our students on the ground level. So happy to present to you um Gideon Pond principal Dr. Sam Hussein and student systems leadership specialist Whit Whitney Jones. >> Thank you so much. Good evening 191 board. We are honored to be with you this evening. We have the privilege of being able to share a part of our Gideon Pond story. Gideon Pond is a school, a special school, a special community. We want you to know that at Gideon Pond Elementary, we work really hard to hold high expectations for all of our students and we work together to provide the support that students need. At the core of who we are is alignment, accountability, and a belief in every single student's ability to be successful. I want to share with you all who we are at Gideon Pond Elementary. We are a beautifully diverse school community. We choose Gideon Pond Elementary. We choose it because of the community, the long history of excellence. We are made up of a caring community, many parents who volunteer throughout the day. We have a consistent group of uh moms who come in each and every day and bring a warm lunch for their children. Um our parents walk into the school. Our teachers and staff receive our parents. It really is a special school. I want you all to know that we also have an incredible parent teacher organization that is volunteer-based and they go above and beyond to support our students. We would love to play our community song because at the core of who we are as a school is community. And this is a song that is sang by kiddos at each of our school assembly and it really embodies who we are as a community. So please take a listen. >> Hi friends. Let's see the community. I will start in the things that you can ripple back inside. I am a heart of beauty. Our hearts together. Just like your little de faces float upon the wind by the way. Oh my community. Our hearts together by noatter. So that's our community song. Uh and it's a beautiful song and you all are invited to come to our future school assemblies where the children sing and it's beautiful. Um and it really embodies who we are at Gideon Pond Elementary. We know that our students learn best when they feel welcomed and we work really really hard to cultivate relationships. Everything we do as a school is powered through relationships. I want you all to know that our school improvement goal truly is to ensure that every single student is learning and there is growth. Our achievement goal is that students at Gideon Pond Elementary will make typical or aggressive growth in literacy and they will grow from 57% in the spring of 2025 to 60% in the spring of 2026. And this is measured by fastbridge early reading for K1 and a reading for 25. This goal really encompasses our multi-tiered systems of support. The goal is to ensure that we are using consistent data every single day. our schools, all eight elementary schools including Gideon Pond, we have dedicated time for collaborative uh teams where teachers bring fresh data, review the data, look at what types of changes need to happen with instruction and then providing students with the support that they need. So that is very powerful and helps us continue to move towards growth and success. In these pictures, we're really big on celebrating our students. We teach our students character traits each and every month and this is a group of students who were awarded um one of the character traits of respect. So we take pride in our kiddos. The picture below is a group of kindergarteners who had the awesome opportunity of picking up leaves and of course we took the picture and put it in our weekly newsletter to parents. And then on the side is a picture of our amazing parent teacher organization who go above and beyond to raise funds for our school. And this is a recent fundraiser at McDonald's where we were able to raise over $700 to support the work of learning. So tonight I have the opportunity to highlight some of the success happening at Gideon Pond specifically with our English language learners or multilingual students. The graph that you're looking at is showing the different levels of EEL or English language learners and those are based off of access test results. So level one is that foundational. By the time we get to level four, we're exiting out of multilingual services. And what you're seeing here is that 25% of the students at Gideon Pond receive multilingual services. However, they're not just multilingual students, they're all of our students. And this shows through quite a few ways, and we'll kind of go through this in the slides. Um, co-eing is happening with our multilingual teachers pushing into classrooms. And that's not just grade level classrooms, that's our focus programs, too. Um, you're also seeing this with the teachers and the ML teachers getting together in their CT time looking at data because we're seeing what's good for multilingual students is good for all students. And then through our SST and our STAP process when we're looking at supporting our GENED students in tier two and tier three interventions, we're taking into account our multilingual learners and then how can we double dip them working with a learning specialist or triple dip them working in small groups or with Teach for America programs um as we support. So, as we go to the next slide, we're actually seeing the growth happen to support the work we're doing. Um, so these are target scores. These are determined using the students English language proficiency level when they enter, so where they're at. And then from there, we're going to take the maximum amount of time expected for that student to achieve proficiency. Proficiency is proficiency in learning through the language of English. Um, but that does not necessarily mean completely fluent and that's okay, right? Um, that being said, these are unique to each student. I mean, they're calculated with the formula from the Minnesota Department of Education. But as you see that blue is the students who met the target and it's been growing which means in correlation the students who haven't met it has been shrinking and we hope to continue to see this growth through the programs and the models that we're using in our school. So we're seeing evidence of this further in our achievement for our English language learners. Um, our students exit services by distri by d demonstrating There we go. And English is my first language, y'all. But they're demonstrating English language proficiency. Um, they're scoring at that 4.5 or higher on the access test. The WEDA access is what we use as a state to measure that proficiency. Um and that from the previous year 23 24 to the 2425 school year is 11% jump right there um in growth and exiting. And that is because of that co-eing model that's coming into play with our support and interventions and our teamwork across the whole campus. And especially with our focus on reading through the ReadAde Act and as we've been growing as a district in this, we're going to see of course a connection to reading because again I can't stress enough what's good for our multilingual students is good for all of our students. And what we're looking at here is a cohort of our fifth graders from last year. So in 22 23 they were third graders and then as they progressed you can see their growth stacking up over time in fourth grade. And then by the time they were in fifth grade, what's amazing about this is that while 85% of our fifth graders met or exceeded proficiency levels, the state average was only 52%. So at Gideon Pond, what we're doing is shining a bright light on our practices. And that is a 33%age growth over the state's average. So this leads us back to that co-eing at Gideon Pond. >> Yes. So the co-eing there are several different models that our teachers utilize. The two most common uh models that our teachers use is one teacher teaching and the other observing or one teaching and one assisting. It's been really powerful to witness multilingual teachers in the general ed classroom teaching to the whole class. And this reaffirms that what's good for our multilingual students is good for all of our students. I also want to acknowledge that the leadership of Dr. Isis director and future Dr. Isis Buchanan has really supported the growth that we are seeing. We are having consistent staffing which then allows our teachers to collaborate and build that trust and collaboration to be able to really do co-eing effectively. So our systems are aligned. There's that commitment to keeping consistent staffing and the data is showing us that our students are benefiting from that collaboration and high alignment. We want to share with you all our vision for learning. So at Gideon Pond Elementary, we are a organization, a school committed to ensuring that every single student is future ready and community strong. We believe that every student can learn and will learn and they are learning and we expect that students will learn at very high levels along with providing the specific supports that they need. Our staff work really really hard to use fresh data to support goals to support learning to monitor how students are doing and make the instructional changes that need to be made. At Gideon Pond Elementary, we really believe that collaboration is not an invitation. It truly is an expectation. So, we collaborate and we collaborate often. Learning at Gideon Pond Elementary does not happen by accident. It's intentional. Our staff work really hard to bring parents in to involve parents and parents come to school to collaborate with staff. So there's that mutual collaboration and that accountability to ensure that all kids are learning and making progress and growth mindset. As a school community, we love growth mindset for everyone. I've shared with you all that when I first got the job, I did tell the students that as their principal, public speaking was really hard for me and it still is. And part of that growth mindset is making sure that we show students that they can with the right supports achieve and learn and learning can be hard but they can still do it. This is a quote that we want to share with you all that learning is the fundamental purpose of our school and that's true for all of our schools in 191. And therefore, as staff, we work really hard to examine all of our practices in light of the impact that it is having on our students. And what we are noticing with our multilingual learners, the successes is something that we are committed to learning to implement across all of our programs. So all of our students are able to benefit from that high alignment and high achievement. Lastly, at Gideon Pon Elementary, we know that every decision we make as a school community shapes our students future and we choose to open doors and be gateways to success. And I want you both to know that I have personal friends who both graduated from Gideon Elementary. One is an assistant principal at Hopkins uh middle school and another is a psychotherapist. So, Gideon Pon has produced many, many successful students and we are committed to continuing to produce even more. Thank you so much. We will open it up for any questions that you might have or comments. >> Are there any comments or questions from board members? >> You may not know this about me, but I might have a personal connection to Pond. Um, and you know, All of this is true. And um jeez. Um one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking is um and I know you know this story already. Uh one of the families that has recently joined the pond community maybe the last two years or so um said when they were visiting schools to see where where are we going we're moving into the area? Where do we want to live? Where do we want our kids to go? They came and visited Pond and immediately were like there's magic here. And and it was in the community. It's in the um the way every person supports um not just the students but each other. And uh and that's that's very true. Um it was hard for me to not do the hand motions that go along with that song that Miss Stad's kindergarten class a couple years ago came up with. Um just just a joy. Love y'all. >> Thank you. >> We love you, too. Thank you, chair. Um so one comment and question really appreciated um how you're shining a spotlight on co-eing in that one slide and the six different ways in which pond is um structuring co-eing into uh the students day. um I haven't seen it um displayed like this and that just was was really helpful for me because I hear about um the benefits of co-eing and and seeing it get kind of illustrated like this just really was an aha moment for me and I can only imagine the benefit that our that our students are getting. Um, a question. What is it that the one teaching and one observing brings to the students and I imagine also probably the teachers that are in the room? >> That's a really great question. Um, most of the times when the teacher is observing, they're observing for the students and making sure that the students are engaged and grasping the content. And the teacher is then able to support students immediately who need support. Um and then it creates opportunity for the teacher both teachers to connect about how that instruction gave um landed for the students. One of my favorite analogies is being able to get on the balcony. It provides the teacher that's observing the chance to be on the balcony to see how learning is happening in real time in the classroom. >> Awesome. Thank you. Um, and then um, um, kind of a it's it's more of a simplistic question and I I think I know the answer, but I'd like to hear you elaborate on it. Um, I really appreciated uh the fact that Pond has selected um a spring to spring challenge for itself with the school improvement program um with the um school improvement plan, excuse me, with um the student growth um going from the spring of 25 to spring of 26 as opposed to fall of one school year to spring of the same school year. Can you elaborate on why you chose spring to spring and what benefit the students are are gaining um from making that choice? >> Definitely. >> Yeah. So whenever we're thinking about um gaps right in vertical alignment that's really important to kind of think of a whole picture. So who the students were in the springtime and we all want to say kids are entitled to one year of academic growth. When we set a goal that's fall to spring, that's actually not a year of academic growth, right? So from spring to spring is that full year taking into account everything that happens from summer kind of fall back, right? Decline to coming back in the fall and then growing back through. And in the spring, it's also when we're starting to evaluate. We're seeing kids like where are they going to be placed next year? What are we need to look at to grow? What do we need to change in our programs? is where we're kind of vision casting or Dr. Hussein is vision casting for our school. Um and then our CTS are also thinking through that reflection is happening. So when we set it for spring to spring, it allows us to have a broader picture and it shows it's reflective in our data when you're looking at our kids because as a collaborative team when we have that larger vision to stand back and see then we can really take our kids and that trajectory forward. And it kind of feeds across Gideon Pond. It feeds when we're looking at our kids that are currently in the student success team or that tier 2 support. When we're looking at kids going to tier three, if they're qualifying for a child study, we're also thinking those broader pictures and looking at data from the previous year, too. Yeah. >> Thank you, Whitney. And Dr. Hussein, thank you for your leadership. I really It's not often that that we get to see that spring expectation. So, appreciate your leadership in in having a school looking at it like that. So, >> thank you. And I do want to give acknowledgement to director Oladel uh who leads CISA. CISA played a big role in supporting all of our schools as we worked on coming up with a um a school improvement achievement goal. So thanks to the leadership and just that intentionality of making sure that we're all aligned as well. >> Thank you. Thank you both for coming and um sharing all the um great things about Gideon Pond and the programs that you have there. They are very successful um from the data. I was just curious about the um the students who met target score um in the graph. I was just looking at the from 23 23 to 24 to 24 to 25. Um it was a very significant improvement. So, I was just wondering like if you could speak more to like what you attributed that to because it I mean cuz the prior year it seemed like it dipped us a little but then it just it really increased quite a bit. So, >> consistent staffing. Okay, >> that's the we were able to 23 24 we were able to hire um two amazing multilingual teachers and they director B Canid had a big hand in supporting that and they were able to learn our students collaborate with the teachers really provide targeted uh supports for students so they know how what to expect on the best and that co-eing got stronger that second year which was last year and through their collaboration and co-eing and intentionality they were able to exit 20 students from the multilingual program and another thing I want you all to know too is parents there has been stigma around multilingual services and the students are now asking their parents students that may have exited in the past are asking their parents please Um, I want to return to ML because I want to learn from Mr. Anderson or Miss Cavoni or Miss Harold. Um, just the reputation is is there and kids are finding joy and pride in being multilingual which which is powerful and shows in the data. >> May I add to that? >> Of course. >> Yeah. So, we're not just doing co-eing. Our ML teachers are also still pulling small groups. >> And then whenever we do have a student who we might be looking at for a tier 2 like level instruction, our ML teachers will come in with our SST and our stat teams and talk with what they're doing. And when we identify gaps for those students, whether that's a multilingual or something that a learning specialist might be looking at, it's all hands on deck. And so all of the teachers are like, "Okay, what do we need to do?" So I've seen our ML teachers say, "I have a little extra time. I can meet with a student in the morning." And they're doing it to run a six week intervention, right? So just kind of seeing that collaboration too where we're looking at our schedules, where can I fit in another kid, where could I pull because the case loads are high um and yet the expectation that our kids will succeed is also high. So therefore, there's no other option and we move forward. Um, so I see that a lot in my role as I'm working with our team and we're looking at our gened students specifically um with what I do. But yeah, it's pretty it is magical. Yes. >> Well, it's very great to hear all the the successes that are happening at Gideon Pond. So appreciate you coming again. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Our next report is about the Birdsville High School course catalog. Here to present the report will be Jesus Sandival, principal, Sarah Noble, assistant principal, and Colleen Coleman, secondary curriculum coordinator. Welcome everyone. >> Good evening, board chair, Dr. Belmont, directors of the board. We are here to talk about the course catalog. Um and here we are in December. Uh but very soon we're going to be planning and preparing for the 2627 school year. And so we're going to go ahead and share that. Our work started in the summer and um AP Noble will be able to share a little bit more about the collaboration that we had with our teachers and what we continue to to do at Burnsville High School. Uh and Miss Coleman will share about a particular course that's coming up uh in the 2627 school year. So Miss Noble. >> Great. All right. Thanks for having us tonight. We started off this summer with our BLT, our building leadership team, and we implemented a new way to look through our course catalog. We used our 191 equity language and also our CPSS um language to create a real a third point, another way to look at each of our courses through that lens. And so we led our BLT through a process where they were able to do that with us. And then that enabled them to be able to go back to their departments and do that same process with all the teachers. And so through that, they were able to look at each course that we currently offer or maybe potentially want to offer and look at and make sure it's what we want. It's focused on our students, there's access for our students, and that the language makes sense. Like sometimes there's just words that we don't need anymore. So it's it's all those things. So it was really great. And now we have a another internal process for us to be able to look at and a some historical documentation as we move forward. So that led us to being able to have a document that our team could look through and then bring back to the BLT so that they could comment and also be able to look through other departments feedback. So there's a lot of um a lot of loops of feedback in this our new production of the course catalog. So we're very excited to do that. And that led us to the document that you have before you tonight, which looks probably pretty similar if you've seen our document before. We did add one section in. We added a hold section because we started as we were processing with with different departments realizing that if we just delete something, sometimes there's more to the story and sometimes we need more data before we go to that deletion. So I think it actually works better for our process, but it's it's an addition that we don't normally hadn't normally done. And then we've realized we wish we had held that and rather than deleted something. So we're looking through that way so we can have that time to gather data, really consider it or make sure it's not something that maybe our associate of arts program needed down the line or something changes. So, it's just a little different way that we can continue to offer those courses potentially in the future, but maybe they're not at their forefront in 2627. So, and then we have a new course we're very excited about. >> Yes. Thank you. Hi. Um, Colleen Coleman and probably as you all are aware in the 2023 legislative session, um, the state legislature passed a requirement that all students have to take personal finance. And so it is the class of 2028. So it's our sophomores this year that will have that be the additional requirement. I think for us this really aligns well with the profile of learn work that we've done and having students be financially ready. But it was a little bit of a shift. We had an elective called money management. And so I had the opportunity throughout the course of last year and now this year to work with a team of teachers to say what changes do we need to make to our existing money management course to really make it align with the personal framework or the personal finance framework from MDE. I think the one kind of significant thing that we've been looking at at and adding is MDE had language in that said I'm going to just read it directly um students will be able to evaluate the relationship of familiar patterns cultural traditions and historical influences on financial practices and so if we think of like our community that's extremely powerful right that you know what what your culture your family how does that impact the personal finance for you and so what I've been able to do is work with our community. And so we've partnered with cultural liaison, the specialist of American Indian culture to say, you know, could you help us develop case studies? Could we organize bringing guest speakers? Can we really allocate dedicated time in this personal finance course so that our students can see themsel in this course and we can really acknowledge, right, all the different um things that go into personal finance. And so that's what we've been working to do. And so we're kind of shifting that money management course over to this personal finance course. And we'll be um it's been an intentional process bringing in student voice and student perspective. And so that will be a change in the course catalog kind of that shift. And we'll be offering it um for really targeting next year's juniors and seniors because it's those juniors that will need it to graduate. So thank you. >> Are there any comments or questions from board members? Dr. Alton, >> I always have questions. >> We know. >> Surprise, surprise. Um, thank you for the explanation on the the financial course that really um sounds like it's going to be a very interesting class. >> I'm It's been really great. You know, just kind of connecting with what they were saying. We have such I think our community is such a strong resource for us and it's a way really to take advantage right of of all the resources and perspectives and everything that our kids bring to school with them every day. Absolutely. Absolutely. >> Um so let's see. I had a couple of questions. Um >> so the AP and CIS classes um understanding that um the students earn the CIS credits automatically. Um how are we handling the fact that they can also earn AP, you know, they can take the AP test as well? Um, I know in the past there have been, you know, families that have said, you know, you get the CIS credit, but you can also get the AP credit if you take the test. >> Yeah, that's a great question. And in fact, we've actually talked about that same topic in our administrative team meetings. And so, one of the things that we're constantly looking at and analyzing is data. And one of the data points is that we're noticing is the um AP um and so we're looking at how can we provide an opportunity for students whether they take the AP course or not uh to have um opportunities to take the AP test themselves. And so I'm glad you brought that up. That certainly has been a topic in our administrative team. Um and so hopefully we can have some additional students having that as an option to to take that and potentially gain college credit. >> Yeah, exactly. Um let's see. Um curious about the rationale behind removing the detailed list of internship options from pathway internship A. >> Yeah, that's that's been a work in progress. We've gone back and forth on that. Some of it's an organizational piece of each of those courses are separate and so some of it's organizational for for our workbased learning teachers. Um and some of it was it just we weren't getting the same amount of signing up that was just was just different. So it's it's in some ways it's how we want to market it. Um I could honestly see us looking at it again in another year. It's we're just in um we've but one full year of work-based learning. We're learning so much from our partners. our partners in our consortium are doing some things like a little different and some things that are similar. So I actually on this one wonder like should like is will this look like a hold in the future? Like will we look at it differently to maybe hold off on something? But um I think it's a great question because we are continually trying to figure out how to do work-based learning the best way. And so this is this is another step in that process and TBD. We're not sure >> how to make sure because I guess my my concern is >> making sure that the students know what's available to them >> and at the same time, you know, you don't want to bombard them with too much information, right? >> Yeah. and they and they can still um look for our our workbased learning teacher works looks for whatever they want. So it is still completely open. So she is she does everything. So there's they're still open to everything. It's just the way we're going to code it is a little different. That's probably the biggest. >> So it might look different next year. >> You never know. This one's changed almost every year. So I will just say potentially yes. Um, onh hold means it maybe it could be going one way, could be going the other way, could could be deleted, could be coming back. Yeah. Um, I didn't I had the printer and I had a disagreement so I don't have it in front of me, but I know like AP business was one of them and the AP board hasn't released certain things. They just are, you know, we're not to that place with those AP courses. So there are courses that we had said we wanted to do because we wanted to add in rigorous coursework in that business pathway. So we are um trying to figure out if we don't do the AP that might be lead us to something else because we do want to have those rigorous courses like that's is an area that we've been really working hard in. So it's it's on hold because we don't want to disregard it. We want it to continue. I just we don't know if it can be AP business because AP doesn't know if it should be business. So >> how do the students know? They would know if we had it, it would be in our it would be in registration. >> So next year >> if unless we can find another course AP the AP board has not released some of their coursework pieces which is unfortunate. It's like a partnership that's not working in some ways. >> Um so um we may look towards our other partners at our at our colleges to find a a suitable option. So the hold is like we're not we don't want this to go away. It just may not be able to be AP business. >> Gotcha. The content, >> which is where we were like, we don't want to delete something that we're don't we don't want to go away. We just don't know if that's going to be the right package. >> Got it. >> Yeah. Um, and then kind of a bridge question between middle school and high school and kind of thinking in terms of, you know, Dr. Daniel's element of build. um as I was looking through um the offerings and specifically at programming and app development and then also with the introduction of uh healthc care um at the nth grade level the EMR class. What are staff doing to um let students know at the middle school? Like identify students at the middle school that might be introduced interested in those classes, >> kind of bridge that, you know, that gap for them and say, "Hey, these classes are available to you before they even get to the ninth grade and make sure that we that we're plugging those students in and building a you know that pathway." >> Yeah, let me go ahead and start. Um great question. I'll start and then I'll ask Miss Noble to step in specifically on some of those uh classes. So, in terms of the middle school and high school uh transition, so we need to ensure that our students in middle school understand the offerings within the high school. So, we've actually been collaborating uh for the number of years um probably even before I've been here, but uh certainly we have a couple opportunities for um our link crew members, our counselors uh to push into uh the middle schools. um they have provided we provided an opportunity for them to come to us um here this fall and now is our time to go um on site and through the registration process uh that will help uh students not only understand a little bit more about their options but we also work with um families and so we'll provide a couple um of our staff providing uh the um information to the parents of the middle school students both on middle school campus and at the high school. And so we have a really uh what I would say robust way to inform our middle school students and families about the offerings um at the high school. In regards to the course catalog, I also want to share we've we've adjusted the way that we are um registering our students for the 26 27 school year. And so normally we've taken kind of a full month uh starting at the beginning of January through advisory classes which meet once a week and we kind of have almost have like a drip throughout the month. And one of the things that our building leadership team has mentioned is that we really want to have a more focused attention on registering. And so we've actually um recently adopted uh and changed or changed our advisory schedule to be able to say for one solid week, four days actually. So for four days consecutively, we're going to have an advisory schedule. So there's more intention within one week versus once a week over a series of a month. And so we're looking forward to uh seeing how that goes and I'm I'm excited to be able to have more opportunities and conversations that are synchronized. We'll obviously do communication to our families. And so um we want students to be able to choose the classes that they're going to take and potentially a pathway uh for them. So with that being said, Miss Noble, you want to share a little bit about the the piece? >> Well, I can add a couple other ways where I think there's some connections. Um during our vertical alignment this year, we've been able to have our middle school and our high school teachers working together. So they've been able to do some of that alignment, but also just that collaboration and share their ideas, which is we we just love that. We want as much of that as possible. So I think that's another way that our middle school teachers are able to understand better what we're doing and then be able to share that information with the kids they currently have um and their teammates. And then during when Eagle Ridge and Nicollet come to the high school, our CTE teachers, our career and tech ad teachers, all do a display if they're available, they'll do a little a little a song and a dance and and show them how much fun it is. Um otherwise, there'll be a display with some tangibles often for our kids. So like um healthcare would have something that they could visually see. Manufacturing has some fidgets and things that the kids have made and so there's signage and the kids tour those areas. And so we do that multiple times. We'll do that on on either visit on both visits from for both the middle schools which I think is nice because if you can come see the high school and you can see our areas and you see you know once you see things it's exciting. So that's why we want to draw them in and have a table and have visuals. So I think that's really helpful. I hear kids say like I didn't even know that was over there. So that's one way we do it. A couple different ways we do it I'm thinking of. Okay. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. Uh, >> yeah. I kind of want to expand on what you guys were talking about with link crew. Um, so as a link crew member, we have two opportunities to go to either Eagle Ridge and uh, Nicollet. So the first time, which we'll be going in a few weeks, uh, we'll just talk them through registration, but then in January, we'll actually do the registration with them. So us link group leaders which are juniors and seniors who have taken so many classes can really talk to students about the classes. So that really gives them questions or rather answers to whether which pathway they want to do or which first class especially as freshmen to take. So I think that's really helpful. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Is there any other question? Okay. Uh thank you for sharing and thank you for your heart. >> All right. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Next on the agenda, we will receive a report on the 2026 2027 budget initial planning and the FY27 preliminary current reality. Presenting the report this evening will be St. Stacy Sine, executive director of administrative services. Even good evening again, Chair Worb, Dr. Belmont, members of the board. Uh tonight, just bringing to you some uh preliminary information as to our current reality as we start moving into our budget season, our budget planning season. Again, a lot of this is pretty high level. Uh may be subject to change with uh legislative action later on in the year. um a little bit refinement with enrollment as we continue to monitor that and other factors that may be outside of our influence from both the state and the federal levels. So tonight just kind of walk you through what our timeline is for our overall budgeting process, what affects our pro uh budget for 2627, current realities and our approach values and strategies as we move forward. Just kind of giving you a a quick graphic view here in December and January. We'll be providing you with a revised budget based upon the audited results as well as um if we certify our levy tonight, how that information will roll into this. Also, just some discussion around our enrollment. We will also during that time period uh begin uh seeking input from the community and from our staff as to ideas if we are going to make budget reductions, what some of those reductions might be. February and March will be when we bring to you the initial budget from the superintendent recommendations. Then in April and May again we look for our community engagement based upon those initial recommendations plus um make any adjustments as we see and as we need to to address. Finally then in June you'll have two meetings. one will be a workshop in which um the financial team will bring to you the the the budget the budget book and then finally the second meeting in June where we will bring the final draft for your approval as we move forward for next year. Again, same this is probably the timeline that you're more familiar with. We use this in all of our PowerPoints going forward. Same information just uh not a graphic format. You already saw this chart once tonight. I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on this, but this is one of our current realities. As the inflation continues to rise and the funding does not keep pace, that does have an impact on schools throughout the state. Um, our revenue is really based upon the number of students in which we serve. It's just that simple. Um, if we have fewer students, we have less revenue. More students we have, we have more revenue. We have more expenses. But it it's all related to the number of students in which we're serving. That then translates based upon state and local tax dollars per student served. And that is the total revenue in which we have to operate our services. You can see our enrollment projections uh our enrollment trends over the past uh few years um as well as our projection for next year. Right now we're we're estimating 6,965 students K12. Um this would be about 115 students less than what our current enrollment is at this point in time. Okay. Um, also the December numbers, you're you're seeing a a slightly outdated slide here as far as the enrollment. December, when I say 115, right now our December numbers are 115 less than what they were this time last year. Okay. Again, we kind of went through this through our truth and taxation hearing. Uh our local lev fee, the referendum levy for operations is just over $18 million. We do expect an increase of over $700,000 for inflationary purposes. Our capital projects referendum levy, otherwise we commonly say our tech levy um is steady at just uh just under 4.7 million and we will have that for roughly the next 10 years as that was approved in 2024. EL aid is going up roughly about $1.1 million for us. That is based upon an increase in the formula for um EL services. We do serve right now about 113 more students uh than what we had the previous year. Special ed funding is also expected to increase by about uh $1 million. Um our special ed population grew just under 40. So you take the numbers in one one area here. 1.1 for our ML, 1.0 for a million uh million for special ed, $850,000 from the state that is also based upon an inflationary increase driven by 2.5% for per pupil for funding. And then our referendum levy. Um the levy itself did not change. It is flat. However, the inflationary increase is what's driving the $700 plus,000. So, if you're looking at the little arrows as to why some things are going up, those are actually increased. The levy itself stay flat, but the inflationary money will bring in more with that. So, restricted revenue, so that would include our things such as our capital projects, our tech levy, title funds, long-term facility maintenance. There are a number of different funding areas that are restricted that we can only use for certain things as mandated either by the federal or the state level government. Okay. And so we have to be very um careful to make sure that those that revenue is um expended in those specific areas. And but that doesn't mean that we can't um look for different things that we're providing in the district that would qualify under those areas as well. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. Revenue change. Uh currently we receive just under $15 million in compensatory aid. Um that number is uncertain going forward. There is a state task force trying to figure out how to balance the adjustments that were made. A couple of years ago with this uh there were many districts throughout the state that saw a positive gain which was great for our partners but there were a number of districts such as ourselves which will this will impact um negatively which is not so good for us. Federal title title funding we're looking at that decreasing a little bit by about 175,000 as well as our achievement and integration u decreasing by about 21,000. So our expenses again we've kind of seen this chart already and uh through our truth and taxation uh roughly 80% of our costs falls under salaries and benefits for our employees to provide the services for our students and families and 20% then falls to everything else to keep the lights on the buses running and um feeding our our children. So 2425 the the ending fund balance was at 59 mil mill million and uh FI26 as we're kind of projecting and rolling forward based upon our audited results we are looking at roughly about 10 million or 11 million in uh deficit spending. Now just so you're aware we've been in deficit spending now for the past few years. So incrementally every year we've adjusted anywhere from about 2.3 to$2.83 million somewhere in that area. And as you have seen over time, yep, we're spending down our fund balance over an extended period of time, but we're also doing it with um maintaining our programming as well as our class sizes. And we're still sitting at a 19.6% 6% fund balance which again as you remind you our board policy has a floor of 8%. So we're we're we're we're in good shape. We need to continue to monitor that and watch that and make adjustments um as prudently as we can. This is our balance sheet for the last uh three years. Um so in 24 you can kind of see where we were as far as our unassigned fund balance. we were roughly just under 25% or $37 million. Then our audited results for 25 that bumped up uh to about 41.5 million or 26.32%. Our adopted budget which didn't have our actual results at the time that it was adopted for FY25 was projecting a decrease in our fund balance, our unassigned fund balance to 17.84%. But with the audit, you'll see that it bounced back up to about 19.59%. So, um, so our unassigned fund balance is currently sitting at, um, roughly at the end of the year, we're projecting right around $33 million. Okay. Driving uh, the drivers for our uh, uh, structurally sustainable budget overall. I'm not going to read these to you, but we do have a driving question on how do we uh make sure that we're managing our resources to um optimize our student learning um our services and our mission and also the different budgeting goals that we look at as we we make our decisions and and plan for the future. Again, um maintaining our current class sizes is one of the things that we become really good at over the years. uh that's we'll you'll often often hear that as right sizing whether that's based upon enrollment or our funding sources. So sometimes it's a little bit of both. If our title goes down, some of our title services would need to be right sized accordingly. If our enrollment goes down, um, we m we will maintain class sizes, but if we're going to have 115 fewer students next year, uh, probably have fewer teachers to meet those needs, but it won't increase the class sizes. We want to maintain balance in expenditures and revenue for our restricted funds. Um, again, those are those specific areas. It's really kind of the cash in, cash out. Some of the different areas you can't leave money on the table specifically. Compensatory would be one of those and you only can do like 15% for title one carryover. So there are a number of things that when you bring it in, you have to spend it to make sure you're using that cash in cash out. We also want to try to make sure we're using our restricted funds before our general and designated funds. You'll see within our current budget that we spent down are restricted by about $2 million last year or where we currently are. And again, they're very targeted as to what they can be used for, but that doesn't mean that we can't look throughout the system to say, okay, based upon the rules, we could code something a little bit differently and free up some of our undesated fund for that. And we have been looking for every quarter and every couch. So we we've been doing that over and over again. >> And then also just to understand that um revenue streams and expenses do have an eb and flow over time. >> That's what I have. >> Are there any comments or questions from board members? >> Thank you. Next on our agenda, we have our student representative uh report from Favven Test 5. Welcome. Thank you. On Monday, around 300 students from Burnsville High School participated in a walk out. The action was organized to pres pro protest the presence of ICE enforcement in Minnesota, particularly in the Burnsville community. Two weeks ago, during Burnsville's annual lighting ceremony, there were many friendly faces as Burnsville High School's freestyle choir and swing team performed to packed crowds. Winter sports have begun, from hockey to basketball to Nordic skiing, who has finally seen consistent competition after several years of limited snow. Burnsville Strong in coordination with Brain Power in a Backpack hosted a food drive on November 29th where families across District 191 and the Burnsville community came together to combat food insecurity by donating over 100 non-p perishable food items. Burnsville High School's new studentr run social media team created this year in partnership with District 191 Communication has been posting student Q&A videos on Instagram, most recently asking students what they're thankful for. If you haven't watched it already, I highly recommend. As students enter the final stretch before winter break, there's growing excitement throughout the school, which has only grown with wintertime events taking place, such as National Honor Society's first ever winter social this past Tuesday, where more than 30 students gathered to decompress from their busy schedules, make snowflakes, all while eating some cookies. Speaking of cookies, students in the culinary arts and hospitality management pathway submitted their cookie creations to the annual Star Tribune cookie contest with guidance from BHS teachers and chefs Carter and Deutsch. Cheerfulness will only grow as we approach the final day before winter break where freshmen are expected to have a mini carnival as well as student council hosting an ugly sweater challenge where participants will receive hot chocolate during their lunches. On a final note, students are making sure they're closing the year strong as they are finally accustomed to their school schedules. And as a senior myself, it's been very heartwarming seeing all the growth of the students, especially freshmen who seem like practical adults. This now concludes my report. >> I love it. >> Thank you. >> Uh we will now hear a superintendent's report which will be shared by Dr. Chris Belmont, assistant superintendent, sitting in for Dr. Daniels this evening who was unable to be here tonight. >> Thank you, chair. Um, members of the board, on behalf of On behalf of Dr. Daniels, I'm happy to share this superintendent report with you this evening. The last two weeks have been exceptionally challenging. Our school community and our larger community are navigating a period we have never experienced before. Times like these test our hearts and our resolve. And they also reveal who we are at our best. Even in this difficult climate, we remain united by a simple powerful truth. We are 191. Being a caring community is one of our core values. This means that when one of us hurts, we all hurt. We are one body, connected, responsible for one another and committed to seeing and valuing every person who walks through our doors. Over the course of the school year, I have spoken about belonging, believing, belonging, building, and becoming. As a district, we will continue to believe in the humanity and dignity of every student and staff member. We will continue to ensure everyone feels valued and that they belong. We will continue to build a culture that constructs bridges, not walls, so we can truly see and understand one another. And we will become a stronger we will become a stronger and more resilient 191 because of it. So as we conclude 2025, let us recommmit to ending strong. Strong in compassion, strong in presence, and strong in unity. Now is the time to stand together, to look out for one another, and to make care the measure of our success. Let us end this year as one. 191. Thank you. And this this concludes my report. >> Thank you for your report. Since we only have one meeting in December, we will now receive reports about board committees, appointments, and school assignments. Do board members have any reports they wish to share? >> Um, I can go. Um, indep um ISD 917 had its board meeting on Tuesday in the mix of all the winter weather. That was fun. Um um but at the meeting um kind of similar here with TR truth and taxation indep uh intermediate districts don't have a truth and taxation hearing but we went and reviewed the audit and approved that at the meeting. Um and then Dr. favor shared how much he appreciated being able to present at our meeting um in November and how much he um values being able to do that in the other member districts as well as a way to really get to know each of our unique districts. And that concludes 917's report. And then legislative committee meeting um is not meeting this month, but we'll be meeting next month. Yes, thank you. So, last weekend, um, Director Anderson and I had the opportunity to attend the Minnesota School Board Association delegate assembly, which happens each year in early December. Um, we were the delegates from 191. Um they changed the election process a little bit this year where they kind of reallocated the representation. So the south metro was a little more heavily represented than it has been for a while. I think we were told that last year the districts and our director district at the state level had eight representatives and this year there were 11. So we had a little more representation as the voting was happening. So that was that was great. Um the delegate assembly helps to inform the priorities and work of the school Minnesota schoolboard association legislative action staff for the coming year. Um school boards across the state have the opportunity to submit resolutions which are then voted on by the delegates at the assembly. While we were at the delegate assembly last week, 22 of the 36 resolutions were approved. Um many of which were focused on not surprising given two of our topics already this evening, state funding priorities. um which give districts and school boards as school boards as much flexibility and local control as possible, including giving great districts greater flexibility in moving restricted funds from one fund to another. Asking the legislature for sufficient time for transitions and implementation when new mandates are put in place by the state. Greater transparency from the state regarding the financial impacts of new mandates and laws. the request to fully fund or repeal the unemployment insurance for hourly school workers during summer break, increased VPK funding, allowing board candidate personal mailing addresses to be redacted from public finance reports and from campaign filing documents, and a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would update the formula for distributing the proceeds from the permanent school fund that all districts receive um to what was described as a more modern and robust way of getting additional funding for the states from that from that school fund which I think is currently about I think it said $61 for each student in the state and so the hope is that if they change the formula that can be a little more a little more than that moving forward so um that concludes my report director Anderson you were there also I don't know if you have anything you wanted to add but >> I don't have anything to add but >> thought it was great yeah >> there was some very robust conversations and >> yeah it was policy. >> No policy, but I have a board member report. >> Okay. Still not working. Okay. Um All right. So, this P and policy hasn't met since November. It will be meeting in January. Um this past Friday, uh I had the pleasure to attend the attend the Tinsel and Treats. um event hosted by community ed here at Diamond Head. Um as an event that is co-sponsored by the city and 191 with sizable support uh from the Lions Club, the evening was a resounding success. Uh there were estimates of about uh 1,250 people um in attendance. Yeah, it was really well attended. Um participants enjoyed um music, face painting, crafts, a light meal, as well as food pantry and gifts for the little ones. Um Duke, one of the city's social emotional support dogs attended, and he was a real crowd favorite. Um it was a pleasure to see Dr. Belmont, um, Caitlyn Canola, in addition to multiple other staff and volunteers from 191, as well as city manager Lindberg, Fire Chief Jungman, Police Sergeant Murray, and a host of other city staff in attendance supporting the event as well. Um, this event was a timely reminder that 191 is blessed by the gifts and talents of many souls within our boundaries. um from families and students to EAs, principals, custodians, teachers, nurses, psychologists, liaison, and more. Whether you speak Ukrainian, Spanish, Honduran, Somali, Filipino, or English, uh from down south, from right here on the land of Dakota or Ajiway, um or from whichever land your heritage hails, you belong here. We believe in you and in your contributions to this wonderful school community. Keen wit, analytical approach, academic prowess in science, math, literature, quiet fortitude, resilience, endless energy and generosity, and so much more. Our schools and our community are enriched by the school by the skills and talents that each of you shares with us. Together and thanks to the daily guidance of Dr. Daniel's leadership, we are transforming our hidden gem of a district into a shining star. To do this, we all work hard and we also need to recharge our batteries. To that end, I would like to send wishes of safety and peace to our school community now through winter break and into the new year. Be safe and may you and your family have peace. This ends my Thank you, Director Al. Um, it's now time to move to the business portion of the board meeting, starting with the consent agenda. Although board action is required, it is generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items. In the event a board member wishes to discuss an item, that item will be moved for separate consideration. Do board members wish to remove any items from the consent items. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Moved by Director Anderson. >> Second. >> Seconded by Director Chester. All those in favor say I. >> Oppose. Nay. The motion carries unanimously. On to new business. Up first on our agenda this evening, we are being asked to approve the final certification of the property tax levy payable in 2026. Presenting the recommendation this evening will be Stacy Soine, executive director of administrative. >> Thank you, chair. Um, based upon the information that you were provided earlier tonight, um, I am making the recommendation that the board of education certify the final property tax levy for taxes payable in 2026 of 52,433,8311 as presented in the following areas. The final levy recommended for approval this evening is in that amount um represents the district's maximum levy authority and reflects a 7.41% increase from the payable 2025 property tax levy. Uh this certified levy funds the fiscal year of 2026 2027. >> Is there a motion to approve the tax levy payable in 2026? >> So moved. Moved by director Hume. >> Second. >> Second by director Chester. Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Oppose. Nay. The motion carries unanimously. Next item on our agenda is to approve on a first reading basis changes to policies 417 chemical use and abuse 709 student transportation safety policy 712 video surveillance other than on buses. 722 public data requests and 410 family and medical leave policy. Presenting the recommendation for these policies will be Stacy Sovine, executive director of administrative services. Thank you. The above listed policies were reviewed during our November 18, 2025 policy review committee. Uh the changes to all of the listed policies was fairly minor in nature. Uh you see the recap uh going through all of them. Uh just want to really point out 410 uh that for our annual review was for FMLA. We are identifying what our intermittent leave is. This will apply also to the upcoming paid family leave act so that if an individual is approved for intermittent leave for the state, it will be in full day increments. And the purpose of that is um as much as possible to allow consistency in our programming for our students. It's very difficult to get subs. It's even more difficult to get subs only for a couple of hours at a time. So that's why we're doing it in full day increments. >> Is there a motion to approve these policies? >> So moved. >> Moved by Director Alt. >> Second. >> Second by director. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? Nay. The motion carries unanimously. >> Up next, we are being asked to approve on a first reading basis changes to policies 515, Protection and Privacy of Public Records, 519, Interview of Students by Outside Agencies, and 306, Administrator Code of Ethics. Presenting this recommendation will be Dr. Chris Belmont, assistant superintendent. Thank you, Chair Worb. Um, these three policies were reviewed uh during our November 18th, 2025 policy review committee. They also consist of relatively minor changes. Um, 515 was an update to the definition of directory information providing increased clarity um around what constitutes directory information. 519 was um putting forward some recommendations that occurred in the most recent uh Minnesota State Legislative session that were um codified and put forward by MSBA, Minnesota School Board Association that mostly constituteed some minor changes in how interviews of students by outside agencies occur. Policy 306 was also um Minnesota School Board Association recommendations um that included inserting Minnesota code of ethics for school administrators and removing an NES NESP statement around the ethics. >> Is there a motion to approve the policies just presented? >> So moved. >> Moved by Director Hume. >> Second. >> Second by Director Anderson. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. >> Opposed? Nay. The motion carries unanimously. >> Thank you. >> Up next on the agenda is to approve on a first reading basis changes to regulation 602R organization of the school calendar. Presenting this recommendation will be once again Dr. Chris Galmont, assistant superintendent. >> Thank you chair word members of the board. This um regulation attached to policy 602, organization of the school calendar, was also reviewed during the November 18th policy review committee. Um also a minor change, uh the the committee, the task force recommended adding some language around um the looking at um predictable attendance rates in designing school calendars to bring forward to the board. So this was um a practice that they were looking to codify in the regulation and um I think that was the only change that was recommended. >> Is there a motion to approve regulation 602R? >> So moved. >> Moved by director Alt. >> Second. >> Second by director Hume. Is there any discussion? >> All those in favor say I. I. >> Oppose. Nay. >> The motion carries unanimously. Up next, we're being asked to approve on a first reading basis changes to policies 513, student promotion, retention, and program design, and 606, textbooks, instructional resources, and library materials. Presenting this recommendation tonight will be Amina Oftd, director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Welcome, Director Opadall. >> Thank you very much, Chair Worb, members of the board. Um, policy 513 was reviewed at the November uh, policy review committee meeting. Uh, it includes just the changes in a legal reference. Uh, and policy 606 textbooks, instructional resources, and library materials. The change in that was a clarification that uh, included supplemental materials as part of the um, materials that uh, parents have uh, the opportunity to review in the cases of how those things were being used. So just the clarification there, small changes. I recommend approval. >> Okay. Is there a motion to approve the policies as presented? >> So moved. >> Moved by director Anderson. >> Second. >> Second by director Al. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All All those say nay. >> The motion carries unanimously. >> Thank you. The final item on our agenda is a work session. Prior to starting the work session, I move that we take a brief recess. Is there a second? >> Second. >> U moved by myself, seconded by Director Hume. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed? Nay. The motion carries unanimously. Please return to the dis at >> What time is it? >> It's 8:05. >> Uh at 8:15 p.m. to begin the work session. Six. Welcome back everyone. We will now begin our work session. Earlier this evening we heard director so cherry budget initial planning and FY27 preliminary current reality presentation. I would like to invite him back to the dis now as we begin our initial budget discussion around enrollment projections. Please note that his earlier presentation has been loaded in the board book to serve as a reference for all of us during this discussion. Stacy, do you have anything additional you would like to share before we dig into the work the work session? >> No, I don't. Do we have a not goal but like focus? like like what are we doing tonight? >> Yeah. >> Is there an expectation? >> What's the outcome? >> Outcome. There we go. That we need tonight. >> Teacher expected outcome. >> Learning outcome. >> Any questions that I might be able to answer or clarification or I just are there. >> So you have the in terms of unknowns and potential revenue changes. >> Y >> is there anything else that we need to know about at the legislative level? >> Not yet. Not that they've even gone in session. I mean, one of the things that they ankled the last go around was that um last last year is the budget shortfall for the state. There are going to be significant reductions at the state level around education. Now, that number will move. They've already adjusted their state budget to some degree >> with revenue that they've weren't anticipating that increased. Um, we could expect um some impact to special ed programming um compensatory. We don't know what the resolution will be for that. >> Right. >> And um the the inflationary increase that's built in currently at the moment. We don't know if that will stay >> right >> for last go around there was conversations around um possibly terminating propay. I mean there's any number of things in which they may uh go after to try to resolve their budget issues um and how that may impact us in the long run. It it kind of depends on where it falls. The the one thing I will say is again we've said this now for the past few years um the the the board's prudence and our budgeting as we move forward has put us into a position that we can weather some things for a while regardless of any of the unknowns because we are at the cap already with the state funding for our local levy. >> Right. Just so you're aware of that. >> Yep. Yep. >> I guess one other legislative thing that I think you were mostly talking about the state as far as potential legislative changes and who knows what's going to happen at the federal level also as far as funding. Yeah. at this point. So, that's another potential thing that obviously could impact us, although it's only 3.4% of our revenue according to the truth and taxation thing >> and and some of that falls within title, some of that falls within food service, >> right? >> As far as offsetting our our meals and such. >> So, that's a a couple of different areas in which that could impact us. Honestly, I the the outside of the whole political arena of everything else that's going on I I don't know what the the long-term play is if the federal department of education is removed. Will the savings of that be offset and pushed to the the states which ultimately comes to the districts? I don't know. I mean, there's a number of there's upside, there's downside. I don't know. I just I don't have that crystal ball on that. And and you had also said so EL funding went up by 1.1 mil, special ed went up by about a million, but that was just for one year. >> Yeah. The the EL funding, this was built in in 2023, so they had the the major increase later. >> Yep. >> So that's the big bump that we're seeing. We do know that as we're also going forward, we offset a lot of our EL services with compensatory. Y >> but the state does have a program um that if you don't use your compensatory towards EL services, uh they will um reimburse a certain portion. Uh if you use it out of your your unassigned your general fund, they'll reimburse a certain portion. Now, that's not this year. that would impact our FY27. So, we are already um looking for ways to recode which could free up well anywhere between 500 and $750,000. So, that would be one of the line items that we would work on. Again, like I said, when we're looking for quarters in the couch and how to recode things and um we're really working hard at trying to look for ways to recode things to maximize and and reduce any impact to our programming. So, is there anything other than obviously continued I mean, we've been we've been prudent over the past I don't know how long. We continue to be prudent. >> As long as I've been on the board. >> Yeah. And as long as I've been on the board. Anything specific you're looking for from us >> at this point in time until we come back in January with the revised budget. The revised budget will reflect the audited results. So with the presentation that I showed, it's like okay, we had our adopted budget for FY26 which didn't take into the actual numbers for FY25, the audited results. So those will get adjusted. That'll roll into our future planning as well as taking um settlements uh if we can get those all calculated. Recent settlements, vacancies, expenses as as they're coming in, >> how will that you know, we just try to tighten it up at the midway point. >> Sure. >> Which will then give you a little bit better idea of where we think we're standing at this point in time. As we look forward, we will bring you again. It it they're not options. They're just benchmarks. You know, we we'll kind of if you don't want to make any reductions and you just want to spend down your fund balance, this is what it'll look like. If you want to do all cuts, this is what it'll look like. And then the gauge somewhere in between. Again, you you we have built into the system where right now you have at least 2 years of flex. And what I mean by that is if you did nothing and we just spent down our fund balance by about that $11 million, you'll end up somewhere between 12 and 14%. Still 4% above our floor. And um now following year gets a little tricky but you've got again metered approaches to how we handle our reserve. A little bit of spend down a little bit of reduction and buy another year and see where we are at that point in time has so far been fairly successful for us as we move forward. I have two thoughts. >> Okay. >> A thank you for that because I think that's an important point that we need to keep making for ourselves and for our community is that yes, we've done okay so far, but that fund balance isn't going to last forever. And I think that's something that we need to continue to keep in mind as planning for next year and the year after and the year after happens because I don't think we would want to leave any future board a mess where we've hit the wall and suddenly we're having to cut 8 10 $15 million from the budget because we no longer have a fund balance. So continuing to manage that as we have been is is going to continue to be important. Um, and then also you had I think you said this one of the three times you've been up here tonight. Um, that it's it's kind of a moving target that you know the finances change from year to year. You know revenue is more than expected, less than expected, laws change, things change. So just because >> you know if nothing changes, this is what the situation may be three years from now. We all know things are always changing. And so I think that's another important piece to keep in mind. We need to, you know, plan for the worst, hope for the best, and, you know, whatever. Kind of keep working through the best we can with with the information we have when it's time to make that decision. So, >> and I think also we've we've s well, we successfully weathered the COVID storm. >> Yes. >> Um where um sadly other districts did not. I mean, I think we we did a we should feel very fortunate that um that our um administrative team helped us manage financially through that successfully. And you know, we continue to be in that you know, it's kind of a guessing game, >> right? um with with revenues and you know we can manage our own expend we can manage our expenditures so much >> um the revenues kind of are the the question mark >> right >> um and I think continuing to be creative right like >> looking for quarters in the couches is one way to do it and also okay what What are some what's something that we haven't I I don't I don't know. What are some things that we haven't considered? I'm sure that you know there are all kinds of post-it notes that you guys have put up on the wall that you know okay well what are things that we haven't haven't considered maybe could consider. um you know, if that's going to help us get into next year in a better position, then, you know, it couldn't hurt to to cons to to think about it and and bring it forward as as an option. Um because it's it's our kids that were that we're thinking about. >> Yeah. And and again, it it has always been our commitment to be as creative as we can. um use our restricted funds where we are able to uh provide flexibility through our discretionary funding within unassigned and and again do a very measured approach as as far as building the budget for each year. you know, again, a little bit of potentially a little bit of spin down, a little bit of uh right sizing, uh maintaining class sizes and programming. And then also, um making investments for the future while we have the ability to do so. And so that may look um and feel a number of different ways, especially as we have a new superintendent with Dr. Daniels. Um identifying new priorities, new visions, um new pri uh new needs. Um well, now would be the time to make those investments to kind of um make those come to a reality and see the fruit of that going forward. So you you you don't do your upgrades when you have no money. You do the upgrades when you have flexibility. And that can look a number of different ways, but we do want to um you do you really do have the flexibility to invest and plan for the future as well at this point in time. >> And I think also looking at, you know, we are the the school district as a whole. It's not just us, the board with leadership. It's staff as well. We're all in this together. or what else might we do as a district differently that might help um not necessarily cut but extend what we're already doing and you know just you know pulling this out of thin air. you know, insurance, for example, you know, what might we do differently with with health insurance that that might make a difference for everyone and help with with the district's bottom line? >> Yep. >> And yes, yes, I I will the more things that we can pull under our control, the better, >> right? So insurance with it being under self-funded that was kind of step one from going out and using another company fully full fully insured as it's listed but you know so that allows us to manage our resources carefully internally um but yes plan design um looking at uh future trends in different areas how might we anticipate and and avert that I will keep in I'm putting things out to you uh for you there is um as long as we stay around that 80% mark for salary and benefits of our total budget that's a good spot to be. However that looks that's okay. >> Yep. Mhm. >> So if suddenly we're creeping up to 85% or 83 or 82%, 82, you know, if we start creeping in the wrong direction, then it's like, okay, where do we need to get back into alignment with things? But um yes uh we do have a healthy insurance package but at the same time it's offset with some of our salaries and other benefits >> that that's what keeps it in that 80% uh frame. I wonder if you could talk a little more about how you came up with the student enrollment estimate for next year. I'm sure there's a lot that goes into that and >> yeah well we have had a long history of projecting um two different types of models one that is direct uh driven from finance one that's driven from HR and then we bring the two together and kind of say okay where are we balancing or where are we not uh Tyler's methodology uh uses weighted ratios and you know trends over the last do we use a threeyear trend a sevenyear trend a 5year whatever different types of things, all sorts of buttons and levers. And I just look at the average over the years and say, "Okay, if we have 490 students in kindergarten right now, on average every year, we probably lose somewhere, well, it used to be a lot higher, but right now we're down to about 10 students a year per grade level." >> Mhm. >> And so I'll just kind of do a a roll up of we have 490 kindergarteners right now. Next year we'll have 480 first graders and we'll probably bring in another 470 465 kindergarteners. And you just start rolling all of your grades up and you you lose your 12th grade off the end and it's like okay well this gives me this number. Oh look we're within about 10 of each other from the two different areas. And so we balance those out and that's what we move forward with. That doesn't mean um well as you have seen there have been a number of years now recently where we've had surprises like all of a sudden we had the same enrollment. Oh my gosh for 20ome years we never had the same enrollment. Now suddenly the brakes were put on. Following year we lost 200 kids. Then again we had another flat year. This year we're downund and some students. Not as much as we were projecting. But our middle school enrollment is the only our middle schools are the only reason why our enrollment right now is higher than what was projected. All of the other buildings are plus or minus pretty much right where we anticipated them to be. Our middle schools fantastically have a higher enrollment. So that's a good sign. >> Very good sign. >> Thank you. >> Yep. thing to add is that I appreciate our approach that we've had to maintain class size, maintain our programming and right sizing as needed because of enrollment being the first cursor of having to address anything you'd have to with the budget. So if we're faced with cost and so I think I think having doing that I think helps us you know in terms of then what other decisions they would need to make after we hold true to that frame or value that we want to keep. Um yeah and then I think right now it's hard to make any kind of thoughts until you actually kind of see what's being projected and how big the gap is. Uh so um not knowing what that gap is and I you know and I'm you know I also understand that you know we might have enrollment decline. We also have smaller kindergarteners coming groups of kindergarters coming in because of our age and population. So I don't know in terms of the condom >> I get a little a little worried. I like I like knowing that you have some money to work with if you need to in your pocket, not going, "Oh my gosh, we have no money. We need it." >> Right. >> I feel like that trend is going to start like rolling out now. Like >> new families are starting to come into the neighborhoods. Um, I feel like in the last 5 years it's it's very slowly, but I've I've been seeing younger families in my neighborhood, especially when I we were the only young family when I moved in uh 10 years ago, 11 years ago. So, um, yeah, I feel like they've hit the we've hit that threshold, right? They can't they can't hang anything. Got to roll it. And and one thing I will say about enrollment projections, it's better to be a little bit more conservative than aggressive on your numbers. As you saw part of our levy presentation, there was a $500,000 adjustment. What that meant was that we were anticipating a lower enrollment over the past few years and it came in a little bit higher. Well, I'd rather have $500,000 to the plus side than that be subtracted from our budget. >> You know, it's because you'll end up paying for it one way or the other. You know, you just get an advancement on if you had a deficit and I'd rather not have deficits in that fashion. All right. Um, everyone's good. Okay. Um, the time is now 8:36. And having no further agenda items, I now call to adjourn this meeting of the District 191 Board of Education. Thank you.