I'm requesting to add an item to the agenda for discussion. Based on what I brought to the board last time, which was a resolution for special education, the board asked me to do some work on that and I did that. So I want to bring the resolution back with an attached plan for special education.

I noticed in this agreement in section three it says additional expenditures both parties agree that no custodial or facility attendant wages or overtime will be charged. So is that something where are we are we will be staffing and then we will be absorbing those costs or are we not staffing anyone or like how how does it or or does this not apply?

It mostly does not apply unless there actually were in some issues per se and so we have good open lines of communication with the city about the rules and they've been fantastic for using our facilities. Hopefully we've done the same. Um we have our normal operations for supervision, custodial and like building supervision. Those would stay in place and that's what we are not charging for.

I do like that you took out most of section 7 um which seemed to kind of give our buildings to the city after a certain time. Yeah, seemed odd.

An audit provides reasonable, not absolute assurance as to the numbers that you're going to see in your financial statements. The reason we say reasonable and not absolute, absolute would mean that we audited 100% of your transactions. That's just not feasible both on time constraints and just a monetary constraint.

In this case, it went from around like 6 million to 18 million. Um, but the number that is large enough matter. It just changes year to year based on how your assets and revenues by each column shake out.

And the other larger school districts we have in the metro that we work with also had a very similar increase. So it's not unique to your district and it only shows through the governmental activities.

Can we just make sure we we clarify, you do not have a final version because of why? Because of the compliance supplement not being issued by the federal government. And then why is it not issued by the federal government? They're behind in the process.

It it is the last time that the the federal government issued a um compliance supplement this late would have been back in 2020 when the when COVID happened. And that year when they finally did eventually issue the compliance supplement, they automatically extended the deadline for submitting your single audit, I think, all the way till typically it's 9 months. I think they gave you 18 months or something crazy like that.

You have very few um findings in terms of like internal control items. A lot of districts would usually have an item or two. Uh so that's a very good thing. That means you guys have good controls. We're not seeing big adjustments. Uh and the procurement item you have for single audits is probably the most common thing we have.

Is this an unusual circumstance? Okay. Thank you.

I think the highlight here would really be of course you spent 4.7 million under uh what you'd budgeted and the big chunk of that is really from salaries and benefits from having some open positions that ideally would have been filled and paid.

I think the three-year increase you can see from 2023 to 2025 is very good. Um I think if you look at that as a percentage of your overall uh um fund balance you basically have about a month and a half I think of operations or about 12.8% of your expenditures and fund balance. Um that's a huge improvement of course over the last few years.

An unassigned fund balance at 10% is a great place to be for a school district and wouldn't wouldn't push back on that. That's not the deciding factor on Moody's. In fact, in the time I've been in the district, we were able to get our rating um increased with a 5% standard on an assigned fund balance.

And I think also being at a growing school district, it's also very different than one that is kind of matured and dealing with a um not a growing student body because you don't have the projection of increased revenues to deal with. So it's way more important you keep contingency funds than if you know you're in a growing area.

I'm just looking at our 2013 2014 budget. We had about 10,170 students at that time. Uh we our our annual budget was 102 million. Uh and we are in our savings account we had 5.5 million.

We're not going to we're not going to see a 3% change in our fund balance going um through 26. There's been a lot of changes into this year um with new staffing and so forth. Um, so we will not we I'm I'm expecting that fund balance to increase but it will not increase by 3%.

We're also watching that very closely. Um again, we're only one month in. Um as of um last month and we still are down another couple hundred,000. Um but we're meeting with them regularly.

So, so the 7.3 number doesn't look super favorable when I look at the past two years that we would be able to make enhance uh adjustments from 0 to three, 3 to six, and then like 0.5.

I know um districts kind of take different approaches based on their size and like you said different factors. So, I guess I'm wondering last time um I know the Mooney score has been right. It's Mooney. That score gets kind of like what drives if we're going out for a bond or something like that.

I would expect about a 1% increase. And I would expect that to be about the same going forward unless we make some type of change.

When I look at this um I know Director Nicholson and I have talked about it quite extensively over the last like week or so, but um one of the things that that we had discussed was that there's not a whole lot that we can do at the when the federal government makes these changes, we just kind of sit here and wait for it to impact our district and then try to pick up the pieces of what's left. Um, and while I I agree that there's not a lot I can do, I'm still going to advocate myself um for some of those changes in the things that I can do, but what can we do in our district to make people feel um to let people know that we're going to continue business as usual and that this is a priority for us.

The fiscal year 26 federal uh um allocation to the state of Minnesota has already occurred. Um and for for our special ed programs, I don't see that as an issue. Um now, if the government were to I'm sorry, there's no budget impact. There's no budget impact as of right now. No. Um and my only caveat for fiscal year 26 and my only caveat is the government stays shut let's just say till April that might be a different response.

The issue with that is that um nothing is moving like we're nothing's happening on on any of those those issues. Um there's no nobody to call to ask for support in that office and that happens a lot like you there's a lot of gray areas with special education. Um so we're left without support and we're left without enforcement of that law.

There are 43 out of 50 states that have non-compliance issues with special education, even though there is federal oversight with that law. Um, so those are the things that we worry about, especially as a parent um of a child with a disability. It's it's scary because I know how much it costs to to educate and I know that my child needs more support and more specialists than a typical student.

One in four people in the United States will experience a disability at some time in their life. That's 25%. You never know when that's going to happen to you. Might be a car accident, might be a stroke, might be a heart attack. You never know what can cause disability to happen, but it can happen to anyone.

Without this district and the paras and the speech pathologists and the teachers, I can name every teacher he's ever had. Um, every parah, everything. Without those people, I really don't know where my son would be today. He went from a diagnosis at 15 months old that Kim, I just don't think he's ever going to be able to go to a school. Um, you probably will never hear him talk. And I remember exactly what the doctor said. He said, 'You'll be like a picture on the wall to him. There will be no interaction whatsoever. Don't even count on that.' Got a second opinion, a third opinion. They all said the same thing. He graduated from Lakeville Area Schools. He graduated. He got accepted into college. Granted, he's doing a trade school. Doesn't matter. He's successful. He's independent. He's doing what he wants. He's a healthy, happy individual who can contribute. um life-changing.

I think what what you said and I think um, Superintendent BA what you're alluding to is I I'm excited about supporting work at the local level the best we can. Um, it seems like something that we have control over. Um, and so I appreciate especially the the district plan for special ed that you put together. I think there are elements of it that um we could we could discuss and implement um as a school district in collaboration obviously with um Director Humphrey's department.

I wouldn't be too too quick to judge as as I do have two children that have learning disabilities. Okay. And I would have to say that the staff that we've had to work with uh at a fantastic elementary school has helped both my children get to where they are today academically.

If we are the district who is sitting by and letting these things happen, we will not attract and retain our special educate education staff. Um, so I think part of it is advocacy and part of it is um, becoming a district where special education staff want to come and work. Um, and so part of it to me is culture. How do we create a more supportive culture?

Lakeville schools, what started the participation in that. We were the ones that brought it here. It's a national organization. Um we had done that for at least a decade. Um as part of inclusive schools week, we did the inclusion awards. Um and we did a proclamation every year as the school board um to declare it inclusive schools week, which is the first week in December every year. Um that's a simple advocacy thing, right? Um we used to do that, stopped three years ago. um haven't done the inclusive proclamation or inclusive schools week since then.

I mean, I I hate to see something go away um that we started, right? Like that was that was us. Like that was a lot of work we put into that.

The reason that I bring that up is that, um, Lakeville schools, what started the participation in that. We were the ones that brought it here. It's a national organization. Um we had done that for at least a decade. Um as part of inclusive schools week, we did the inclusion awards. Um and we did a proclamation every year as the school board um to declare it inclusive schools week, which is the first week in December every year. Um that's a simple advocacy thing, right? Um we used to do that, stopped three years ago. um haven't done the inclusive proclamation or inclusive schools week since then. Um but what's what I want to bring to light here is that Lakeville started that and all of the districts around started doing it because we did it and then the governor caught on and he started doing a proclamation for that and then all of a sudden we stopped and everybody else is still doing it and more people are more districts are are gathering.

Um I know they're gearing up for that again. Um I know it's something that they've been discussing um that specific uh PTO, the family connections uh board and PTO. Um, and I would love to see district um, participation in that. Again, like I said, that's the only time-sensitive one because I'm looking I mean, it's almost November. So, just for planning purposes, I I would like at least some discussion on that.

I'd like to learn more about inclusive schools week. I don't or inclusive schools network. I don't know a ton um about it, but it seems that if it's something that the superintendent and um others are interested in it, it would make sense to join. Do you know is there like a fee to join it or Okay. Um that's was my biggest question.

It's it's a national it's a nationwide um it's just inclusiveschoolsetwork.org. Um Prior Lake does it, 196 does it, Burnsville does it. Like all of the districts around us in the area are doing it. Um, and really all it is is it's a proclamation that comes before the board saying we are um declaring the first week of December inclusive schools week because within that week they choose that week because it's National Disability Day on I think it's the Tuesday of that week which is December 5th I think um this year.

I'd rather have us focus more locally in the things that we can control. Uh the resolution uh states to that we you know affirms it's our our unwavering commitment to federal laws which I'm assuming we're already doing. Uh commitment to protecting special education staffing and supports within the district budget. We allocate $40 million out of our budget to it right now and and and cross subsidize it with the general fund.

I don't I don't know if a resolution is is the path that we should go. So, I would recommend that if this is something that wants to move forward, uh have it on the agenda and the next packet so that folks can see what is being requested and then making sure that we or if you want to make modifications to it or at the next meeting if we just get an update from uh director Michelle Humphrey's around uh the metrics, inclusion week overview, any recommendations and then we kind of go from there.

I did request to have it added to the agenda previous previously um before the agenda went out um and it wasn't added, which is why it's not included in the board packet for the community, which is one of those reasons why I tried to get it added previously so that it would be included. Um I feel like that's one of the downfalls that if we don't do that and then we add at the meeting, then community members are not aware. it creates mistrust because there's no transparency there.

Do we know how short and this might be a question for Superintendent Bowman. Um, do we know how short we are on on special education and staff right now? And if we are I I don't think we're necessarily unique, but is it are we similar to other districts or

I I was going to say I don't have an exact number right now. I would say we are in a much better place than we were last year at this particular time in having to use less contracted services. Um we definitely have more pair professionals positions open than our licensed staff, but we have [clears throat] um off the top of my head like a handful of speech FTE um I think maybe four or five FTE open for speech. Um, we have an open OT position and then um a a couple of centerbased positions K to 12, but by no means are we fully fully staffed with um special education right now, but I can give those exact numbers to you for

I'd like to make a motion that the uh, Superintendent Bowman with um, consultation from cabinet, especially director Humphre makes a determination on um, rejoining inclusive schools network including the celebration of inclusive schools week um for uh, a recommendation at the November board meeting whether or not the school district should should join it or not and what would be um, the rationale for doing so.

One of the things that came up in this meeting for just to um raise the awareness on this, it sounds like there might be a policy sitting somewhere for the policy committee on the wellness policy. Um so that is something that we probably need to kind of um bring front and center hopefully sometime soon.

Yeah. Um, Kim and I were able to tour High View on Friday and um, it was great to meet the new principal. She's doing a great job. Um, excited to have her in the district. And yeah, I mean we saw overcrowding, right, that we all have heard um in discussion and from um other conversations. So, I think the important thing to to for the community and for the board to know is um rooms that were designed for certain functions like the STEM room um is now turned into a classroom. And so STEM is mobile um in the K in in the um facility.

And then policy committee will meet um this Friday on Halloween um at noon from noon to 1. And just to update the board quickly, um uh Matt Brian and I will meet, but uh one of the things we'll go over is um an audit that uh MSBA did for all of our policies and they have a a recommendation on how we might proceed with um policy updates.

First thing I'll tell everybody who's listening, skip the line by voting early on the capital projects levy renewal. District residents can vote at their convenience here at the district office, right on the other side of that wall. Um, and you can do that through November 3rd.