Everyone, uh, welcome to the Lakeville Area School Board meeting this January 27th, 2026. If you'd please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [cough] All right, we'll start with roll call. To my left, >> Tony Rankenberger. >> Oh, sorry. Right. Sorry. >> Matt Swanson. >> Your other left. >> Karly Anderson, >> Amber Cameron, >> Michael Bowman, >> Kim Baker, >> Paul Carbone, >> Brian Thompson. >> Great. Thanks, everyone. I was testing you to see if you were really listening. No. Um, all right. Are there any um additions to the agenda? Okay, seeing none. Um, could I get a motion to approve the agenda? >> Uh, first by Reichenberger, a second. >> I'll second it. >> Second by Carbone. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, Superintendent Bowman, I'll turn it over to you for good news. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Good news on the 29th of January, other than the very, very cold weather. I know all you know that. Uh, but you were going by my office and I saw the cold noses, but I think everybody's warmed up. So, welcome back. Crystal Lake Education Center teacher named KS95 teacher of the week. Want to offer congratulations to Jennica Erbispore, teacher at Crystal Lake Education Center on being named the KS95 teacher of the week. She was celebrated on air Friday, December 19th. Miss Urbispore was nominated by a grateful family who shared, "She's encouraged by she's encouraged my daughter to try new things and helped with big life transitions. She's the biggest cheerleader and supporter helping kids grow and gain confidence." So, congratulations to Jennica. [applause] Stepping into your future. Middle schoolers experience careers firsthand. On January 14th, Lakeville Area Schools hosted its fourth annual Stepping into Your Future Career Exploration event, giving 8th grade students a hands-on opportunity to explore high school classes, careers, and clubs that prepare them for life after graduation. This is held at the Air Lake Airport in Lakeville. The hanger transformed into an expo space where students visited booths led by high school students, local businesses, and community organizations. The event featured interactive activities and highlighted in- demand careers in fields such as agriculture, medical services, human services, business administration, and trades. So, thank you. And thank you to uh the chamber who helps us do that. Celebrating inclusion, honoring those who make a difference. Lakeville Area Schools is proud to celebrate staff, students, and community members who go above and beyond to foster inclusion. This year, three staff members from Kenwood Trail Middle School were honored with the District 917 Inclusive Educator Awards for their dedication to supporting unique learners. In addition, the family connections special education PTO inclusion awards recognize 13 students and staff and community members for their efforts to create welcoming, safe, and supportive environments for all of our students. These awards highlight everyday actions, kindness, leadership, empathy, and advocacy advocacy that help every student feel valued and included. We're grateful to all our award recipients for showing what true inclusion looks like in our schools. And you can read the full list of award recipients at isd194.org/news. So, thank you. Uh, Lakeville area students excel at debate state tournament. Students from Lakeville North High School and Lakeville South High School are those two debate teams shine bright at the 2026 Minnesota High School League debate state tournament on January 16th and 17 over at Egan High School. Lakeville South senior Alice Ye was a semi-finalist in Lincoln Douglas debate. Visit our website to view the other state qualifiers and that is at isd194.org/news. And that's the good news. and congratulations to all. >> Great. Thank you. [applause] All right, with that, we'll move to our public comment stakeholder session. I know many of you have been here before, but um as a reminder, the board will open the floor for 30 minutes to allow the public to address the board with comments and concerns. To participate in public comment, individuals must have registered in advance using the form provided on the website by noon on the Monday before the scheduled public comment session. There will be no board response during the session. Public comments framed as complaints and/or concerns about students and or staff are not appropriate in a public forum due to data privacy laws. These comments should be addressed to the administration outside of a public meeting. Likewise, complaints about schoolboard members should be privately directed to the board chair and/or the superintendent. No formal action will be taken on a topic presented during public comment. As necessary, the administration will follow up with the appropriate personnel and any concerns that need to be individually addressed. Also, if necessary, the board will follow up during board communications at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Individual remarks will be limited to three minutes. The board will provide a signal. Thank you, clerk. When the participant has 30 seconds remaining of their time, please try to keep audience noise to a minimum to allow everyone the opportunity to speak uninterrupted. And it looks like we have six people tonight. So, everyone who signed up will have an opportunity to um speak, but I'll still draw them at random. All right, the first speaker is Deborah Leman. [applause] Good evening. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Thalman, school board, community members for the opportunity to share at the meeting here. As you know, my name is Deborah Lerman. At the last meeting, we had shared some some concerns we had with Small Wonders not being a part of the EML and we had some heard some community feedback regarding us not um we accepted our position knowing what our rate of pay was at that time which is true. Um that was 25 years ago for me and that was good pay at that time for early childhood. Early childhood has progressed now and we are helping children learn to be a part of the group outside of their family. There many small things which we do. Um we help them follow rules from other adults other than their parent. How to sit at group time, listen to their teacher when know when it's appropriate to share their ideas, how to handle frustrations with friends, how to handle their ability to do an activity as well as their peers or understand that they're not able to do it as well. Um, we teach self-help skills such as putting on their coat, their shoes, responsibilities for their own items. Um, it's just part of the building the future so that they're able to learn. Without that foundation, they do struggle more in kindergarten. Our district policy or proudly added pre-K to grade 12. With that, our responsibilities have increased with incorporation of more curriculum from teaching and learning, which is wonderful. We love that we are being included in the district in so many ways that show we are valued. We're asking to now be compensated as a part of the district. Like the rest of the teachers, our peers in early childhood special education and early childhood family education are compensated financially as they are part of EML. We work in the same building with many of the same students. We are the team of teachers that often first identifies if a student would benefit from extra services. We help new families adjust to that school expectations. And we've been part of a school district here in Lakeville for over 30 years. Now, back to the point that we could just leave and find another position that pays more. That fact is very true. Surrounding districts do pay their early childhood educators in the master teacher contract. The question should be why is Lakeville behind in this aspect. I've been holding on waiting for Lakeville to become a prek grade 12 school district. So proud that we have done that and you guys have been a part of that. So, thank you. We're now waiting for the financial compensation to go with this title. I'd like to thank the Lakeville teachers, parents, and community that support our efforts to be added to EML. We appreciate your kind words and the encouragement from the from the community. As you know, Small Wonders is one of the first teachers that our students have. Our school building is bursting up the seams. We already have a wait list for several sections for next year. When I was at a building committee meeting, it was either last year or the year before, and it was acknowledged that Earl Child has outgrown our space. I believe you know that the need is there in our community. Now, in order to maintain the quality of hiring new teachers, there will need to be a change in salary. This past summer, a manager was hiring for a couple of new positions. Multiple times she had to hire because people had accepted and then declined the position because they found a better paying job in a neighboring district. Thank you. [applause] Okay, our next speaker is Matt Little. >> [applause] [clears throat] >> Uh, thank you, chair. Thank you, uh, Mr. Superintendent. Thank you to all the board members. Um, it's been my belief for some time that being on the school board is probably the one of the toughest jobs out there. um we know you don't get paid enough and it's mostly volunteer and anytime you help one program it takes uh away from another program. That is a tough spot um that you're in. Um I've held uh a few titles in this town. I've been a council member. I was mayor and was also state senator. Uh but these days the only title I truly care about is dad. That's the most important thing for me. And part of being a dad, as many of you know, the hardest thing we do is in the morning when we put our kid on that bus. I wish I could spend every single second with her 24/7 and she'd never go anywhere else and we'd hang out all day. So that's the toughest thing I do is for eight hours I've got almost no idea what she's up to. And so I have to rely on all these people behind me every single day of the week. And so I love these people behind me cuz I know they're looking out for her. And so I just came here tonight to say, let's get a contract done so that everybody behind me can focus on what's in front of them and not be looking over their shoulder for what should already be done. So I want I want to make two requests as you're working through this contract. The first is we is stability. We are in very difficult times and our students are internalizing that. And so the more stability we can provide to these students the better. And so I'd ask that you let our teachers stay in the schools they love because their students love them too. The second thing I'd ask is you provide support. We've got some students that are learning English and that's a difficult language. And so let's provide that support. Let's also provide support to the students that need a little extra help navigating what is a very complex world. Supporting those students not only pays dividends in this life but also in the next. So, thank you for your time this evening. Um, let's get this done. It's time. Thank you. [applause] Okay, [applause] our next speaker, The next speaker is Tiffany Arnc. Did I say that right? Arnc. Okay. All right. Hello, my name is Tiffany Arnavik and this is my first year teaching at Small Wonders. I'm here tonight to ask that Small Wonders teachers be included on the master teacher pay scale and in the tenure process just as other teachers in our district already are. Currently, Small Wonders teachers are excluded from the tenure process despite the fact that tenure provides job security, increases retention, and promotes long-term stability for educators. When teachers have job security, districts are better able to attract and retain highquality educators, creating consistent consistency and a positive learning environment for students. Like other teachers in the district, we are professionally trained, highly educated, and deeply passionate about educating the next generation of learners. Preschool is not child care. We are not babysitters. We are the foundation of education. We prepare students not only for kindergarten, but for lifelong success. Every day we design and implement developmentally appropriate lesson plans aligned to early learning standards. We implement three district-wide curricula in our classrooms. Character strong, scholastic, academic, and hegrity. We assess student progress, collect and analyze data, differentiate instruction, and communicate regularly with regularly with families. Our responsibilities mirror those of K through2 teachers. Small Wonders teachers participate in PLC meetings, follow district policies, hold conferences twice a year, participate in IEP meetings, and uphold the same educational standards and expect expectations as other educators in the district. Yet, despite performing the same work, we are compensated differently. This disparity sends a message not only that early childhood educators are valued less, but that our district's youngest learners are not worth the same investment. By 2028, Minnesota school districts will be required to staff preschool classrooms with licensed teachers. Without changes, our district will be unable to compete with neighboring districts. Many nearby districts, including Farmington, Prior Lake Savage, Shakapei, ISD 196, and Burnsville already include preschool teachers on their master teacher pay scale. Based on the financial information available available to us, including Small Wonders teachers on the master pay scale would cost the district less than $200,000 per year. This cost cannot be absorbed within the Small Wonders budget alone, which is why we are bringing this request forward. I am proud to serve the school district and its youngest learners. Tonight, I ask you to recognize Small Wonders teachers as the educators we are by placing us on the MR master teacher pay scale and including us on the tenure process. Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your continued commitment to providing highquality education for all students. When we value early educators, we value early learners. And that decision echoes throughout a child's entire educational journey. It is time for Lakeville to show that we are not just a K through 12 district, but a preK through 12 district. Thank [applause] you. Okay. The next speaker is Sydney Moore. >> Good evening, school board and superintendent Bowman. Uh my name is Sydney Moore and I am a teacher here within the district at Meguire Middle School. Not only am I a teacher here, I am a thirdgeneration teacher within the Lakeville Area School District. Both my parents are proud educators with a combined 70 plus years of service as well as two of my grandparents. I come from a legacy of amazing educators who have impacted countless student lives within our district. Hilariously enough, one of my earliest memories about teaching and education when it was when I was 8 years old, my mother sat me and my siblings down at the kitchen table and told us, "Do not under any circumstances become a teacher." Uh despite her warnings, I was the only one of three kids who did. Uh my dream was to return the district that I not only grew up and graduated from, uh but watched my parents changed the lives of both students and families over and over again. After a year and a half and starting my career in another district, I was able to make my dream come true. This is my fourth year at Magguire Middle School. My second year, I watched my co-workers and fellow educ educators fight tooth and nail for nearly 300 days without a contract to get a fair negotiation to keep us competitive with the districts around us. I saw hundreds of teachers stand in windchills of 20 below on the side of the road, showing we would not back down and we were in solidarity. I also watched after countless months of fighting and showing up that we were offered less than the districts around us. We accepted, but we knew it was not enough. But maybe next time would be better, right? It has in fact not been better. We are now in January once again without a contract. And we are tired. I have watched the light leave my co-workers eyes. I have watched as my older co-workers have given up the fight because this district will never give into their promises. A friend of mine who has been in the district since 1989 said, "They told us in 2001 that this contract would be lower due to cuts, but they promised they would make it up to us. The district never did." I fear that's true. I am in my fifth year teaching with a master's degree, and I cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in my own town with my salary. I could be making nearly 10 grand more than what I am making if I was in a neighboring district. But this district, this was my dream. I wanted to make a be in the district where numerous teachers who are sitting behind me have made an impact on me, where my parents made an impact on countless student lives, where my grandparents did the same. All I am asking is come to the table. Come prepared. I can't justify staying in a district that refuses to support the same teachers that are trying every day to make a difference. We need you to show up for us, for all of the hardworking teachers in this district. Thank you. [applause and cheering] Okay, the next speaker is [applause] Bob Ericson. Good evening, uh, Chair Cameron. Thank you, board members. Superintendent Bowman, I'm Bob Ericson, Lakeville resident, um, current member of the district finance advisory committee with uh, with Tony, serving as a board leazison. Uh, two things I want to bring forward this evening. First of all, I'm proud to be surrounded by these educators. um as a parent and the and the tremendous additional contributions they make beyond the classroom in the community. And I just want to just acknowledge that. I want to recognize something that I learned at the recent finance advisory committee meeting and that was that we learned as as members of the committee about a significant unanticipated uh insurance claim uh low total that occurred in 2005. We learned that from reviewing the audit uh that evening at our meeting. What was con of concern to me was the reducing of the audited fund balance in the self- insurance fund um from a balance of $7 million to just more than 1 million in one year. So we had $5 million plus dollars in claims and that's unprecedented but it also raises challenges going forward. In addition, uh there's bids being received for renewing uh a very top quality health insurance plan provided for many years to our employees. Uh and I would point that we have one of the top uh health insurance programs provided to our employees of any of of very few districts could speak of anything of higher quality than what is being provided. and the bids are going to be open soon and that could represent another 15% increase. We share the cost of that between the employees paying half and the district paying half and that's part of the current uh negotiations that are underway and I'm confident that that'll continue to be approved and maintained at the quality that our employees have appreciated and deserve. And the other thing I want to talk about very quickly is that the district um contract has a provision in it referred to as EML maintenance activities. In 2009 when I became a member of the school board, I was asked by residents to ask how we're funding the EML president. At that time I learned that there was an understanding reached that the then president would be funded entirely by the district by the taxpayers and that that former educator coach and then long term long-standing president was funded in that manner. But there was one provision that still remains in the contract and when the uh outgoing um EML president retired in 2022 um that all provisions Mr. Eric >> were supposed to end. Um I just want to point out that I welcome the opportunity for that provision to be removed uh to follow the good faith efforts that led to that agreement originally. Thank you. >> Thanks. Thank you all. [applause] >> And our final speaker tonight is Jamie Mohler. >> Hello, my name is Jamie Mohler. I'm the art teacher at Cherry View and one of the art teachers at Orchard Lake. Um, you may remember me last year talking to you about the value of art education in Lakeville schools. And first, I just want to say thank you for passing that levy last spring. It's greatly appreciated. Um, second, I would like to revisit the value of art education by now turning the focus to cultivating consistency for all 8,700 elementary students in Lakeville. We have nine elementary schools and have eight art teachers. Three of us teach at Orchard Lake. Three of us teach at High View. One of us teaches at three schools during a 5-day period. Because of this rotation, we have continued to have significant turnover in our department each year. We would like you to consider the possibility of having one full-time art teacher at each elementary school. As of this school year, the art department is lacking 2.2 FTEEs in order to be full-time in our respective buildings. Based on the data from the 2025 levy information, that would be a cost of roughly $8 per household. But what you get from that is a much higher value. The retention of highly qualified candidates, consistency for all elementary students, and a chance to continue cultivating creativity in a more impactful way. Strong art programs do more than teach creative skills. They help build the culture of the school. When an art teacher is consistently present in one building, we become part of the daily life of that school. We know the students, the families, and the traditions that matter to that community. Students engage more deeply when they see their work displayed in the hallways and at school events. When we travel, we're not seen as part of that school community. Students who don't get the opportunity to see us outside the art room view us as subs. And other staff members don't know who we are since we're never able to be at the staff meetings. One of my favorite parts of the day is greeting students when I see them in the hallway. Just giving them a high five or fist bump or even a smile. It's like a quick check-in during their day. Building relationships that way creates a bond and more importantly trust. This kind of engagement strengthens the school climate and that impact is only possible when teachers are rooted not rotating. >> 30 seconds. Thank you for your time. [applause] Okay. [applause] Thank you uh for all the um speakers tonight. With that, we'll move to um consideration of approval of our consent agenda. Uh the consent agenda um for the board and and the community here includes board minutes from our January 13th meeting, employment recommendations including leave requests and resignations, payment of bills and claims, wire transfers and investments, a resolution regarding acceptance of gift donations, an extended field trip, early graduation requests, a uh JPA for school wellness, which is a statewide health improvement program grant update gets to the 2026 27 school calendars. Uh uh look at policy 502 which is search of student lockers, desks, personal possessions and students person and policy 526 hazing uh prohibition. Are there any items um in that list A through J that board members would like to remove? >> Yep. Director Thompson. Uh, I'd like to move remove uh, letter G, the GP u, the JPA for school wellness. I'd like to remove letter I, policy 502, search of student lockers. And I'd like to remove letter J, policy 526, hazing prohibition. >> Okay, I'll move those. Um, is it okay to remove those under recommended actions as those will be needed to be voted on tonight? >> Okay, >> great. Wait, you want to move it to the end >> or do it right after this? >> I would. >> It depends if you're wanting a full discussion on the items or if you just have clarifications, questions. >> Okay. I'd like to move them then under um recommended actions. Is that's okay. >> Any other items to remove? >> Okay. Um, with that, um, removing items G, the, um, statewide health improvement program grant, and I, policy 502, and J, policy 529. Um, I'd like, uh, to consider a motion uh, to approve the remaining items. >> So, moved. >> Uh, first by Reichenberger. Is there a second? >> A second. >> Uh, second by Swanson. All in favor? >> Is there discussion? >> Um, >> yep. There can be discussion as well. >> Yeah. Uh just just two two comments I just want to share. Uh number one uh just a quick congratulations to those that are graduating early uh uh and and choosing to move on uh beyond uh our awesome Lakeville education. Congratulations and uh lots of good success for you uh in the future. Um uh the second thing I do have questions on is the school calendar updates uh the 2026 and 2027. Um I do want to just just double check in the November of 2026. We've got a couple days off and I apologize. I know you probably sent me an email and I didn't get a chance to read that. Could you provide some clarity because I know um the minor change was that we've got Tuesday off which is uh November 3rd um and then we've got Monday off which is November 9th and just wondering if there's an opportunity to move the 9th to the 2nd so that kids just have two days off so that there's somewhat sort of consistency. So just looking to understand more on that. >> Thank you so much. um in executive director's brool absence. I am happy to respond to um your questions regarding the calendar. So um initially in the initial calendar uh those two days were side by side. So they were November 9th and 10th as you probably know. um in the discussion um with the administrators as well as with um some representatives um across the district, uh we what we wanted to do was to move that 10th, so the 9th is a Monday, the 10th is a Tuesday, to the previous Tuesday, so we would have no students on site during the elections. Um we have historically not had students in the buildings on a general election. Um but we've heard from the community uh frequently enough that uh we are trying to move um non- studentent contact days away from any type of election day um because it does impact some of our buildings um and some of them just aren't set up very well from a safety and security standpoint. So that was why that initial movement was made. In terms of your second question related to well why can't we just move the 9th to the previous week? The 9th is currently aligned with the end of the quarter. If we move the part of the parameters of the calendar committee that they work with is to try to make sure that every that the quarters are as equal as they possibly can be in terms of the number of days. So generally for a quarter we're looking at 40ome odd days um during that quarter. If we move that a whole week earlier, then we'd be looking at a quarter of 50 some days and a quarter of 30 some days. Um, and just from a teaching and learning standpoint, it's better if we can keep them consistent. So, what it does is essentially does disrupt two weeks. Um, we acknowledge that because that first week they would have the Tuesday off during the elections um which I think uh we have uh community parent guardian support for as well as teachers support for. Um and then the teachers would get their assessment day after the end of the quarter. So the quarter would end Friday, they would have Monday. Um we try not to do that and in fact that was one of the rationale initially for doing those two days the second week of November. Um but after much discussion and some feedback uh we decided to move that to have that election day off. So that's why the calendar is the way that it's it is in terms of setup. >> Go ahead Dr. Thompson. >> Yeah. And and that makes sense. I I appreciate that. I looked at it like it looked it looked clunky and I get that you know the day after school. Uh but you know then maybe with Tuesday being off folks can study for finals on the fourth, fifth and sixth as they come up. Um second question that I have is uh in the notes above it said the total number of teacher work days remain unchanged and the number of student contact days will still continue to be 168. Can you just provide a bit more clarity around um information like have we always been at 168? For some reason, I recall we've been like in the low 170s or is this new or not? >> So, we have um so currently teachers work 186 days um contract based on contract. That does not change. So, regardless of whether students are present or not, they always work the same number of days. That's contractual. Um in terms of student days, what we try to do is we try to shoot between around 170. that sort of aligns with um the number of student contact days in the districts surrounding us. Some of them have that identified in the contract, others don't. Um we have some flexibility. So we really try when we start to get into 172 student contact days. It becomes really difficult to get any time in the calendar for teachers to have professional development and to be able to do some of the other work that they need to do um outside of teaching kids. So um so we are very comfortable in right around the 168 that gives us 3 days built in in case we have to call a day for weather or water main break or you never know um that we wouldn't have to make up um because we have to have by state statute 165 days minimum. So the state says you have to have 165. We always try to go one we try to shoot for 170 and then have a balance of uh professional development and time for our teachers as well. >> Director Thompson >> and apologies. Let's just last question. This is is this a and I see as I read this the total number of teacher work days remains unchanged. While we always shoot for 170, have we have we ever been at 170? Is this the first time we're going? was one year because of the way Yeah. because part of part of it depends on how late Labor Day is and how many days we can actually get in and where the holidays fall. So, um so it does vary in terms of how many days we can actually get into a like a normal school year and try to be done, you know, early enough in June and not be going into the second week like we did last year or the year before. Um, so, so it part of it is dependent on that. One year I think we had 172 days, but if I recall correctly, Director Thompson, that was prior to the ReadAct requirement where teachers needed to have those five days for professional development. There's no way with that requirement that we could get to 172 days unless we want to go into the third week in June, which I don't think is palatable for anyone, including the students. Okay. All right. Any other questions about the calendar or other items in the consent agenda? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Thanks, uh, Superintendent McDonald or Assistant Superintendent. Okay. With that, um, is there a motion to approve, um, the consent agenda? What? >> We already did that. >> Okay. You got the you got it recorded or Kim, we got it recorded. Okay. Right. All in favor? >> I >> I Any opposed? All right. Great. Um we will move to reports and discussion. The first item on our agenda um for this section is the first reading of wellness policy 533. Um just uh as um uh Brenda um and Superintendent Bowman move to the podium. Um just a couple um uh of notes about this policy. So, um the policy before you um has been brought forward um by the uh district wellness policy committee which is one of um our district's advisory councils that includes parents, community members, and district representatives. Uh this policy was um present or this this draft of the policy was presented to the school board in spring of 2024 and no action has been taken uh yet on this policy. Um and so um we are currently out of compliance because we have not approved this policy after um the trienal assessment which you'll see also is in this policy. And so this is being for uh brought forward as a a first reading um from the the advisory council um for us to consider. A second reading would be had at our next meeting uh to for consideration for approval. So with that, Brenda, I'll turn it over to you for further context. Does that work? Okay. >> Yes. Thanks. Yes. Uh thank you, Madam Chair, uh Superintendent Bowman, and members of the school board. Um you summed that up really well for me, so thank you. >> [laughter] >> You have before you this evening a first reading of policy 533 which is our wellness policy. Extensive updates have been recommended by the district wellness committee uh to meet requirements under statute. It is a first reading of the policy, so no action is necessary tonight, but um uh updates are recommended by administration. And we do have uh director Razak on uh site in case you have any questions regarding changes to that policy. >> Um before we launch into discussion, I'm sure there's questions. I think I I helped prepare um the redline copy after our policy committee had met about it and a lot of what's in here um was either moved to a different section in some cases. Um, and so if you if you you might notice that if you read our current the current policy and this revised policy. And then also um I think um Brenda you articulated this, but to both meet um state statute and then also our goal with our policy reviews is to align with um the MSBA audit that our district um underwent this summer. And so this policy aligns with that and also the USDA wellness policy guidelines. So kind of all three of those things are infor and the in our advisory council are informing um the the draft that we have uh before us tonight. So with that, are there questions um about this draft or or um conversation? Um Director Thompson, >> I I I've got a few questions and just comments uh and and less to less less for you, but more just to the board around the intent of how you want this policy uh and what it uh and what you wanted to convey. uh you know it does state like 533 wellness and that is the title of the policy. Um this policy is really geared meant for physical health uh and um uh healthy eating and physical activity. And so I just want to be mindful that uh different interpretations of what the word wellness might be. And so this is not from my understanding a something that's going to uh uh that is promoting behavioral mental health or any other uh components like that is it's just physical and nutrition. Uh and and so I think I'd like to have at least the title to include you know if you want to use the word wellness that's fine but also include that this is nutrition and physical activity uh focus. Um, I do have a couple concerns in some of these polic in in the content of this policy, especially in the purpose where it says, you know, the purpose of this policy is to set forth methods that prevent I'm sorry, promote, I think it's student wellness, prevent and reduce childhood obesity, uh, and and um, assure that school meals and other foods dot dot dot. Um, I I I think I'm hesitant on having the word childhood obesity in there where I I get the intent of nutrition and physical activity, but I don't know if it's in the scope of our of our responsibilities to to um you know, [snorts] manage you know childhood obesity of students. It's it's about promoting good food. It's about ensuring there's good food there. Uh it's ensuring that kids are active uh and so forth. So that that's one part part. The the second thing that I that I noticed that that I'm not so sure about is in uh section two, the general statement of the policy, letter D, maybe it's letter F, uh qualified uh nutrition personnel will provide students with access to a variety of affordable, nutritious, and appealing foods uh that meet the health and uh and nutrition needs of students. Uh and then we've got a comment here or a section that says to and we would try to accommodate the religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity of the student body in meal planning. Uh I don't again I'm not sure if this is something that we should include in the policy or or not. And and it gives us a little bit more flexibility and latitude. Uh but the guidelines and what we offer I feel like should be tied to the USDA dietary guidelines. like this is what that they should they recommend that we offer. Um I I don't know if that's something that uh that we we want to include because then I I don't know where you draw the line between, you know, what's offered, what's not offered, and then it does it become just a custom meal for everybody. Now, that might just be much larger in scope that I'm thinking and and maybe that's not the intent of that respective policy sentence, but that that is kind of what I was uh that I was thinking. Um, and then the last thing that I'll share that there's a couple other more in here, but in general, uh, there's a section here in the physical activity piece, uh, section B, the school district encourages parents to pack healthy lunches and snacks and refrain, uh, refrain from including beverages and foods without nutritional value. That seems very like that seems outside of our scope. Uh it it's I don't want it I don't think it's a policy thing to tell parents um what they want to feed their child. Uh I think the policy ought to be geared uh with a lens of what are we going to do as a district? What are we going to provide to our students and ensure that there's ample physical activity in play uh in place for to to meet the um the requirements of this policy. Those are so those are just conceptually what I'm thinking. So, we'll pause here for feedback from others if I'm way off. >> Um, one one minute, Director Baker. Um, I don't know, Kristen, if you have any feedback from what you oversee with any of those questions. Um, but feel free to chime in here or from the the comm you're on the wellness committee. Correct, Director Anderson? Is there anything from that committee that would respond to what Brian's asking? What what our community council wanted? >> Can I >> Sorry. Yeah, I don't mean to. I'm just saying if there's responses from like an official perspective here before other board members >> to some of those first because I I feel like >> if we don't like I have things that I want to comment on what he said because I agree with some of that and I I think it's important context based on before we get a response from that so that she has all the information. >> Go ahead Dr. Ber. So, first of all, I thank you for bringing up the healthy lunches thing, and I just want to add an aspect to that that many don't understand is that children on the autism spectrum generally have a very limited diet. Um, this is something that I ran into with my own student. Um, he has what we call like a sensory aversion to food. It actually makes him vomit. So, a lot of the times he's on a a liquid dietary supplement. He would bring things in his lunch. He would bring the supplement and then he would have something like cookies. Um, and I actually had uh people within the lunchroom um reach out and question me about that that I wasn't packing a healthy lunch for my child. I would love to pack a healthy lunch for my child, but there are only limited things that he can eat. And I know that there are a lot of parents and students within the district that um have that same issue. So, I would hate for um students to feel shamed based on what's in their lunchbox because we're going through food therapy and we're trying to work on increasing his diet, but even as an adult, he is 22, he has five foods that he likes. So, that's how limited some of those are. So, just thank you for bringing that out, but just know that there's other context behind that. And if it's in our policy, I don't want parents to feel like shamed for what they have in their child's lunchbox. So, thank you, Director Thompson, on that. Um then um I also want to bring some context to the offering of cultural foods. Um a lot of times those are brought in as items that kids can try. Um they're different things that may not be at their table or be at their lunchroom. And um the feedback that I've been receiving from kids at the middle school and kids at the high school um and even kids at the elementary level too has been like I didn't know that I wanted to try that but I saw my friend eating it so then I thought I would try it too. and they end up liking those foods and and appreciating the option to have an that to try it. Um, so I I I agree with what you're saying as far as like we want to make sure that everything that we're offering is in the USDA standards, but those cultural foods are within those standards and it's just providing another opportunity for kids to try them with their friends and have that experience so that it's something we can try. Maybe at a restaurant, we don't want to try it because things are really expensive, but at the school when we're with our peers, like I everything that I've heard from student feedback has been positive on those experience. So, I just wanted to bring the student voice to that conversation. Um, and then my last point was going to be on D2 and I just have questions about it that I would like student services to answer on that. Um, I'm going to read D2 aloud so that people know exactly what I'm referring to with that. My computer's frozen. Okay. It says um >> which section are you on? >> Yeah. What what page are you on? >> I am on page >> page four. >> Four. Um and I'm looking at um schools will not use foods or beverages as rewards for academic performance or good behavior unless this practice is allowed by a student's individual education plan or behavior intervention plan. And the reason that I'm bringing this up is that in the past when items have been donated to teachers or teachers have been trying to figure out how to get those items provided to students, it's been like, well, if it's a if it's a candy, and again, I'm bringing up students that have very limited diets. They're using these things as incentives. Um, a lot of times it is candy or it is like snacky foods um that may not fit into like the food pyramid. They're they're more like treats, right? um teachers have not been able to use like their classroom funds to purchase those things because they don't fit into like our policy as far as like what's healthy. Um but then those kids have limited diets. So, my question is like from a student services standpoint, um can these items be fundraised for or provided through our PTO's or um can can we make sure that if we're using them for incentives for students that have IEPs or behavior plans that teachers can use classroom funds to purchase those? >> Are we not we can't have pizza parties? Is that what what that sentence says? >> That's part of it as well. >> Can we sucks >> Kristen? Would you mind either coming up or from there providing context on that particular I think I'd like your opinion on all of these. Right. But yeah, >> which one in particular? >> Okay, let's start with let's start with the one we just left off on. Um how how is this um played out in the schools around food and beverage being used as rewards for academic performance unless it's notated in an IEP. So from a sense it is surrounding equity and inclusivity with the students. Um we have a lot of students that have allergies. Um this doesn't allow students to part participate in um classroom activities like or celebrations like a pizza party or cupcakes. Um you know and you know coming from a dietitian's perspective as well you know food should not be used as a reward. Food is meant to nourish our bodies and we shouldn't be rewarding good behavior with foods. And so the intention of the wellness policy and why it was developed um and why the requirements are out there is to try and encourage behaviors that promote health and wellness as opposed to using food as be um behavioral incentives for students. And so, um, that is why that language is within there is to try and promote more positive behaviors and, um, rewards that are focused more on things that are not food related. >> So, like our teachers, for example, are collecting like trinkets or or things that they could raffle like little toys now rather than when we grew up maybe having crispy cream, right? Okay. Is that the idea? Yep. because every student can participate and enjoy, >> you know, a little trinket or something as opposed to a piece of candy or a cupcake or something. >> Yeah. Let's go to um director sponsor fair. >> And just so we're clear in the discussion, this is in our current policy. This is not an addition or a change. This is already in the policy. Right. >> Um yes. Yep. We did expand on it just a little bit, but for the most part, yes, it is already in our current policy, >> Director Thompson. So, we're going on a tangent here because they're like trinkets and stuff like that. Like, one could argue parents don't want kids getting stuff and brought home as well. And so, it's like and then you then you've got some teachers gift trinkets and other teachers that don't. And and so I I mean where where do we draw the line in these kind of things? But, okay. Well, that's a separate the we're just sharing thoughts right now and feedback from the from the policy review. Uh the and the other thing that I'll just share is the uh in in section 4 standards and nutrition guidelines uh and part one is that the school district will provide healthy and safe school meal uh programs that comply with all uh applicable federal, state, and local rules. Um I did notice that we crossed out that all foods and beverages made available through breakfast and lunch programs will be consistent with the current USDA dietary guidelines for Americans. I'm I'm trying I'm trying to understand why that line was crossed out maybe twofolds. One, the pyramid did get flipped upside down, so we might be having more stakes during lunch. Maybe. I don't know. Uh maybe we don't have the budget for that. But um but I but it might make sense to have uh I don't know why that was removed, but it makes sense if that's what we're doing. [clears throat] I mean, things are going to change, right? If the pyramid is going to change. So, my understanding, and feel free to chime in, Kristen, but the USDA dietary guidelines would be included in the federal, but that there's other state and local um laws to follow as well. So, it's >> basically redundant. >> Red. >> So, can we go back um Director Thompson to some of your other questions? So, um, um, the line about cultural foods, um, page one, line 43, um, how does that play out in the schools right now? And why, why did the committee want that included? >> So, it is actually, um, language that is highly recommended to be included within the local wellness policy. Um, it is within that trienal assessment is one of the questions that they ask and they grade you on that score. are you accommodating um those ethnic and um cultural diversity foods? Um you know as a child nutrition program under USDA programs um we are required to try and accommodate um religious um preferences. Um we are not required but it is required of us to try to try to try and accommodate. So, >> so this would be like kosher food potentially or if a student vegetarian a student would have a vegetarian option. Okay, >> any other questions with that? >> Um, childhood obesity. Um, Director Thompson had a question about why that phrase would be in this policy and if there's flexibility or not with that. I mean that is kind of the intention of why the local wellness policy was first developed in the first place was to try because of um the high rates of childhood obesity. And so they developed um local wellness policies so we could put measures into place within our school districts to promote um promote nutrition, promote nutrition, education, physical activity to help try and bring those obesity rates down. >> Okay. >> Yep. Director Anderson, >> Director Thompson, I I do see your point of like is this a school concern versus a family concern. However, I do think we have to consider that especially now that we're providing breakfast and lunch to many many children. That's how many, you know, that's twothirds of their meals during the week. Um, so I mean I think this the goal of this is to make sure we're providing nutritional uh value into their diet and also promoting good nutrition. >> Dr. Thompson. >> Yeah, I I I get that and and if we're following the USDA guidelines, then we're we're doing the job. I mean that like we're we're doing we're providing nutritional foods if that if that's what we're doing. And if the USDA guidelines say they have have uh uh a variety of different food options available as well, then we're following the rules where I guess where I want to be uh mindful of is like like are we going to measure kids if they're obese? Are we going to during gym class? Are we going to uh when we promote uh healthy nutrition, we're going to say, "Hey, don't be fat." I mean, like I don't know like we're calling it out specifically in a policy. And if that's the case, are we going to have measurable goals that say we moved the needle as now a healthcare company instead of a school district in this manner? And so I just want to be like a policy uh like like the policy is like our responsibility to decide what the content is and what we want the intent of the policy to do. And so I appreciate the initial draft. Uh, but it there's there are some things in here that I think you know you guys as well need to think about like what do you want this policy to be so that next week if if someone wants to make motions to make adjustments edits to the content like that's our job. We we approve this based on uh and and when we approve it we decide this is what we want our school district to do. So I don't know >> Dr. Anderson and then Swanson. >> Um yeah, I mean I I think we can't ignore that this has been a national problem for quite some time. And when we think about kind of how um obesity in childhood is critical for long-term health, it is like the school system is part of their daily life. And so I don't think any of it has to do with shaming or anything like that. It's more how do we build educational opportunities for kids around nutrition? How do we create good opportunities for kids with nutrition as well as physical activity to create healthy bodies? And everybody like bodies are different, right? But um this has been obviously in the in the medical world um something that the physicians are raising concerns about and I think as if we don't participate we're not helping them for their future and the focus is on health not you know >> yes go ahead or no he is next actually >> well yours is in response so go ahead director >> and director Anderson you're right I mean I twothirds of the meals are in our in our schools. I I guess it's less about um I understand the intent of what we're trying to do. Uh where I'm trying to get get us to to uh uh maybe to align or at least see that, you know, 533. Do we want to make it I don't want to say generic, but do we want to make it specific to we're going to promote healthy nutrition? We're going to promote physical activity and and that and that's the mission, not all this cultural stuff, childhood obesity stuff. Um, uh, uh, you know, maybe we can eat steak every day. I I don't know. But like that's that's what I'm trying to get help us. That that's the lens I'm seeing as I think about policies and and how they're created and and and if if and and what we choose to approve next week. So, >> Director Swanson and then Anderson. So Brian, what I'm getting from you is is you just think that it's excessive as far as what we're saying that we can say we're going to provide good nutritional options to kids at school. We don't have to go as far as saying we're going to try to prevent childhood obesity. Um which I think I mean all kind of falls under the same umbrella. I'm assuming director Rezak's going to do her job anyways and we've been moving in that direction to having better food options and if that includes more diverse food options too and some of that is you know we want to make sure the kids can eat that come here and some kids might have certain dietary restrictions or you know if they don't eat steak you know for some for some reason that I wouldn't understand but uh what's the so yeah to have those options so they you know they get a good breakfast, get a good lunch. Um, and I think that also goes towards the the issue of the communications with parents that's in the policy. Um, and maybe the teachers could speak to this. If their kids are coming to school with a a Coke for breakfast or something like that or Mountain Dew, you know, that's probably not going to bode well for them come the fifth or sixth hour of the day. So, >> Director Anderson. Yeah, Director Razak, I'm curious if I mean to your point about the term childhood obesity is this pol like MSB rel MSBA related policy that's or um in that policy that's really important or could we change it to something that was more about promoting physical health or do you feel like like I guess I'm wondering is there um is that language critical I think just with the intention of why the wellness policy was required in school districts bec because it's here to support obviously the the entire wellness of the child but the USDA nutrition programs portion of that the reason for [snorts] child nutrition programs is and the requirements that we have as of you know the last two decades um is because of childhood obesity that we were finding that rates were so high and so like nutrition requirements were changed to reflect that to require more fruits and vegetables to require more whole grains. Um that's why the dietary guidelines are changing you know and are looked at every five years because the the science of nutrition changes constantly and um you know the way people eat has changed a lot over the last several decades and so we do have that obesity epidemic and that's why um wellness policies were created. So, I think I I don't agree necessarily with uh removing that language because um that's the intention of it. >> I think um Director Swanson, before you had another comment, right? Or no, >> I'm good. >> Okay. I think um we'll unless there's more questions or um concerns tonight, we'll we'll bring this back for a second reading and if there are portions that you'd like to propose for revised um edits to make a motion, we can we can do that. So consider that between now and then. I do want to just say, and I know we have other policies that we're going to discuss tonight, that um I I think the board felt um at least the policy committee felt that we have a lot of policies we need to get through in order to get compliant and um bring up to best standards. And so the the intent I think of the policy committee originally was to bring forward um drafts that and this one happens to be reviewed by I think it's important to this policy is so out of date. I think it's important to this policy is so out of date um and I I think a goal of mine as chair and of this board is to try to get our policies up to a level that is the standards by which um other school boards are operating. And so to the extent that we can approve policies that work knowing that maybe there's tweaks to make it a Lakeville like at some point um I think that's what we need to weigh here. like do we do we go through this with every policy or do we try to get compliant and stand and aligned with our peers and then um and then do another round. So that's what I'll just put out there for consideration for our next meeting. Yep. Go ahead. Oh, or no, director, >> we discussed it. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah, Director Thompson, I >> I think what you shared is right. I mean, do we want to uh go through a bunch of these and just approve them? And if that's the case, then let's just approve all of them and then we're done with it. And then and then we come back and do each one individually. Um I will say that as as board members, like that that's our job. Like that's the only job that we have or let me rephrase that. That's the primary job is to review policies, update policies, and have them through your own lens. And that's why you're elected. I mean, the Minnesota statutes of this particular one says uh the federal government uh federal law requires districts to maintain a written wellness policy focused on school meal nutrition standards, basic nutrition, education, physical activity, and so like four pages worth. Does it can we get there in two? I I don't know. But, uh, I I do feel like if we're going through these individually, I would like the ability to be able to share my point of view and and and I prefer not to just rubber stamp things and and then cuz cuz candidly my name's on the record, too, saying I rubber stamped 200 of them and it's like, oh, like, yeah, Brian Thompson approved all these things. Like, well, I didn't. Well, but if that's what we're if that's what the board wants to do to at the next meeting, then we should have that conversation. Uh but if we want to go them individually uh and and review them and put and put commentary on it and make edits like that that would be my preference, but I also understand that's going to take a while. So >> yeah. No, I appreciate that perspective. Any other comments or questions for tonight? Okay. So we'll bring this back um at our next formal board meeting. All right. Um move Thank you. Um moving on to our next item. Um, Director Homegrren, current year budget update. [clears throat] >> Good evening, Madam Chair, uh, members of the school board, Superintendent Bowman. We're going to give you just a quick update, see where the budget's at in the current year now that we have our, um, all our finances finished through December 31st. It's waiting for Oh, too far. Okay. So, uh just to briefly look at our revenues coming in. You see the the blue the blue bar is our revenues coming in. So, you can see that it is uh responding in a way that we would expect it to. You see that revenues a tiny bit up from last year. Of course, we're getting a little more revenue. So, you see that there with our revenues. When we look at our expenditures, just a quick reminder of what this what the different bars represent. So the the dark bar and the red bar, these are the percentages of expenditures that we actually spent the last two years and the blue bar is what we spent um to date against the budget. So you can see our salaries and wages, our employee benefits, we're a little bit under budget, but that's be a little bit expected because we haven't we haven't finished our our contracts with our employees. So we're a little under there, but that's to be expected. our purchase services. You see a little a little bump up there. That is primarily um our transportation um contract. Um we're looking at that to to revise that and bring that um adjust those numbers as we bring our revised budget to you next month. When you look at the supplies and materials, you're seeing the blue bars up, right? And what primarily what that is is uh curriculum that was bought earlier in this year than we've done in the last in the last year. So, um, we're spending that more on a schedule like we we should. Uh, so that's nothing to be concerned about. Um, when it comes to the, uh, curriculum, uh, capital expenditures are primarily our LTFM program. You can see that the three years are about the same. So, we're right in line. Our other expenditures, um, are that's in primarily our insurance. It's up a little bit from the previous year, more than we expected. Um, here now is looking at the program level. Um, I just want to point out again, you see some of these bars are lower than others. You see, you look at the elementary and secondary and vocational special. You see these are only in the 30s, but remember, we don't start paying some of these expenditures until we get to September where some of the other ones are starting right away in July. So, that's that's why you're seeing and you'll see that it's behaving the same as the years before. So, um, again, the budget's doing what it's what it should be doing. Um, looking at community ad, you see there we have a a high bar. And what that is, it's a relatively small number. Uh, just so you're aware, it's about a $3,000 piece, but what that is is the summer unemployment that we have to pay for for our community employees. Um, so again, we've paid them all for this year already, so that's why you're seeing that at 100%. Um, but again, that's about a $3,000 uh piece more than the year before. And we get totally 100% reimbured at this time uh for those expenditures. Uh you look under pupil support uh there you're seeing that little bit of a higher bar. And again, that's the transportation that's pushing that up uh just a little bit. Uh so I know that's kind of a really short version looking at this, but do you have any any questions? >> Yeah, Bill. >> Yeah, thank you, Bill. Um when you were looking at the expenses on that two or three slides back, you don't have it's okay. You don't have to go back. Uh 2420 year 2425 uh supplies were like at 53% and then it jumped in 2526 to about 70 about a 20% jump and you're you said the majority of that is curriculum. What what what did we do with curriculum that increased that number 20%. I wish I wish I had Sandy here to tell you exactly what what they've done. But there's been a few years where they looked at buying curriculum. Um but all the decisions had have been made about what we were going to put in place. Now now they haven't made that decision and we bought that early. It's it's not only like you know textbooks but it's also um software for the students on their iPads. >> Y okay. And how long and maybe this is is a Tracy question not a bill question. So, with that 20% bump, how long do we get um how long does that last before [clears throat] we get another curriculum bump? And again, that might be an unfair question for you and maybe Tracy who's not here. >> Curriculum's on a on a cycle. Each subject matter is on a cycle. So, if if we were right in line with all our curriculum, every year we would buy a curriculum, the next [clears throat] the next subject matter. >> Um so, this was kind of a catch-up this year, but it was totally budgeted. It's just we bought it earlier in the year and that's why you're seeing that bump up. >> All right. >> When we get to the end of the year, you're going to see that hit 100% just like the others. >> Okay. >> Dr. Thompson, then Dr. Swanson. >> Okay. So, so I've asked not for you, maybe to you, but here. Wow. I appreciate these graphs. Thank you for that. It it it still doesn't tell me what I'm looking for as an elected official. and and I'll share you know and again I understand the education system is a little bit different but like at the beginning of the year we allocated a certain budget amount for each category salaries and wages employees and benefits and XYZ uh and each month we should have a forecast of here's what we anticipate spending every month and and for the supplies and materials category uh we can like anticipate hey we're going to spend $5 million in supplies and materials a big chunk of it is going to be our curriculum And so when we come back and do these kind of uh uh budget updates in December, I should be getting like let me rephrase it. I would like to see a reforcast of like how many dollars are remaining in the budget and what is our expected expenditures uh for the next 6 months within that budget cuz then I wouldn't see like a 71% uh you know comparing it to 24 to 23 cuz that's irrelevant to me. What I want to know is that if I have a $5 million budget for supplies and materials and we spent, you know, $4 million of it, but we anticipated that we were going to spend $4 million million of it. We got a million dollars left and then what's the uh expenditures for the remaining 6 months and like if we're good, we're good. Like then I guess that's what I'm not seeing because we do reforcasting five times a year for where I work at. And I'd love to be able I'd love for us as a board to get to a model where we can say here's the budget. Here's what we planned on spending this year. Here's what we spent this year. Here's what's remaining. And then if we know that the delta at the end of the six months is that we're going to be over, we're going to be under, we should be able to see that as a trend uh sooner versus waiting till the end of the six months and say, "Hey, we're over. We're over or below it." I I guess that's we I get that we are not a business, but there are business um graphs and metrics that we could use to help guide that we're on the right track and and provide a better message like are we over or are we under? So that's that's my point of view. We can do better than this. >> Dr. Homea. Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to point out that there's many many many budget managers in the school district, >> okay? There's not just one manager for the month the money that goes and every single year they don't necessarily spend it in the same month as they did the year before. So, I have no way to project how many dollars are going to be spent in a certain month. We can divide it out by 12, but we're never going to hit those dollars. Is it going to be over or is it going to be under? And that's going to create all kinds of questions of why are we under or why are we over when it'll just catch up later. That's why we look at it this way to see if it's being spent in close to the same manner as it has in past years. That gives us a measure of what we expect at the end. >> Yeah. >> Can I response to this, Dr. Swanson? >> Yeah, I I mean I can make a comment on that. I [clears throat] get what he's saying because the challenge is if we're just looking at these different expense categories from prior years, it doesn't really tell us did we go over budget, you know, in 2024 to 2025 or 2023 to 2024. So then I mean it would be helpful to see like where are we at compared to our whole budget for that category for the year in addition to how are we doing compared to last year you know because if we don't know I mean for instance say purchase services I mean if we were $2 million over last year you know we're ahead of that now you know I mean how how do we know are we shooting for and I understand expenses come in at different times of the year but it would still give us a benchmark like okay that's a tight category we might run into issues, you know, heading towards the end of the the fiscal year. So, I I can appreciate this graph. Um, but I definitely understand what Director Thompson's saying. Um, I did have another comment on something else, but if somebody else wants to chat about this first, >> go ahead, Director Carbon, and you >> Yeah, I and and I agree with this conversation too and what what Brian raised. Um, >> is your mic on? >> Is it Yeah. Can you >> Is the mic >> Is it picking up now? Okay. testing. Oh, one of the things that we did and and this is what Brian's referring to in business, not only did we have a budget, but each line of that budget had a budget. So for instance, if supplies and materials you budgeted $und00 million for the year and that rolled down to a bottom line budget, you would see that as of this point in time, you out of hund00 million you spent $75 million. You had 25 million left in that budget line or you spent 125 million and were 25 million over in that budget line. That's the kind of thing that would help um illustrate if we are you know plus minus or equal to on these budget on these lines which uh are on the budget. You can look at the bottom line, but that doesn't necess necessarily tell you if in fact you're over in a certain area or under in a certain area and what the reason for that is. I I think that's what what these guys are asking and and I've seen that too in in my business. >> Director Swanson, your second point and then director Baker. Um you had mentioned I think it was other expenditures included the insurance our costs related to insurance there's comment about the finance committee and looking at potential increase of 15% for the 26 27 15% increase on the premiums for 26 and fiscal year 26 to 27. Correct. Uh yeah, we're going to see in our insurance uh with our self-funded group, we're going to see an increase next year uh for because of the large usage that we've had in our in our insurance, we're going to have to make some adjustments to get caught up because we're self-insured and every cost that we have, every claim that we have, we've got to cover with premium in some way. And I need you to remember that this is the general fund. This is this doesn't include that fund. Okay? And if we are going to talk about insurance, go back to the employee benefits because that's where the health insurance sits, >> not not in other expenditures. >> Okay. I thought you said that was insurance related. >> It's our liability insurance for the district. >> Okay. >> And again, this is it's it's a smaller number. I mean, it's I think only like 100 one million in the whole budget. >> Can I ask um and just for clarity, I mean a 15% increase we're already factoring into our budget. I think last year's increase was 5% which we split with the with the employees. Correct. >> So 15% we'd each side would essentially be paying an additional 5%. Correct. Because we're already paying it we're already factoring it be more than that at 15 have a seven and a half. >> But aren't we we're already factoring in five for the budget >> in this year. Yeah. >> Yeah. So if we're going to go up 10% because it's going to be a 15% increase that's you know 5% more for each side than we're already kind of building in building to the budget, right? I mean, what does that equate to dollar side for the district? >> Oh, for the district as a whole, when we look at uh the change in our cost uh for next year, we're looking at about $1.4 million. >> Okay. >> That we didn't anticipate in our, you know, a couple years ago when we put our projections together. >> So, additional that we were going to have to account for somewhere. >> Absolutely. >> Dr. Baker. Um I just want to clarify that um when you see some of these expenses that come for the district, we're different from a business because we don't get to choose what we spend our money on sometimes. So for example, with the read act, um that's mandatory that we change our reading curriculum and that was something that we hadn't anticipated that we have to now change. Um and I want to say that um the interventions curriculum that they're well the recommendations from MDE just came out like last month. So again, that's something that we have to look at our interventions that we're using right now. Does our curriculum match and making sure that we're making those changes because we don't get reimbursed for that curriculum unless it matches what the state has recommended. Um so there were mandates that came down from the state with read training changing our curriculum and what we were doing. That is not only for phonics instruction but also comprehension. And then the board also um approved uh the district changing to a different math curriculum which had been um piloted for a couple years. We did some studies on different districts. So all of that we're we're aware of like that has all just been discussed. It's just now seen it up here. Those are things that come out in our budget. So again, just making sure that we understand there there are things that we would like to do in a timely manner, but the state says, "Guess what? You're going to do this now." Um and because we are um we have to pay for everything and then the state reimbures us. Uh we don't actually see all of the dollars for that for a while. So those things are just how the budget works for education. >> What I'm wondering, what I'm hearing, um, could I jump in first? Okay. Uh, Director Hson, um, would like what I'm hearing from board members and and I think it would be helpful, too, is in addition to seeing these charts of um, compared to previous years, which I think is helpful to figure out like are we way up and if we are in a particular year, why is that? Which like the curriculum, right, explains that one or the busing. I think that this is a good way to look at things. But in addition, um I think it would be helpful to see from what what we what we approved as the budget in December when this report was ran, what percent of >> [clears throat] >> um these large categories have we spent and potentially even um dollars and how many dollars are left in that in that line item because, you know, some of these are substantial um buckets. some are if we're up by $3,000 like you know we should look at it but that's not alarming to me if we're up 5 million that's another thing right and so um percent is helpful but but I think also seeing dollar would that would that be helpful to board members is that is that getting at what you're requesting >> director I I think so I mean it it's less about what gets spent because we already approved that in July and so we knew that curriculum expenditures were going to be a part of it but I think the question is is for me uh from a governance lens is all right. If we have $5 million in that bucket, we know that curriculum is going to get spent eventually. And if it gets spent in the first half of the year, great. If it gets spent in the second half of the year, I I don't really care as long as it gets spent. But the issue is is what's remaining and are we spending above and beyond the budget or not. And these graphs is not doesn't show that. So that's that that makes sense. >> And I think again why I appreciate these particular graphs is I think it can show you um where there's anomalies with previous spending habits. So when there when there are those anomalies, it's a it's an opportunity to say why, right? Is this does it make sense or is this there an issue here? So I think for me it's like a both and having both both perspectives would be helpful. >> There are financial reports that have like year-over-year columns that say like what did you do last year and how were you up above and beyond so that you can see those trends and it can all be in one graph. But I do have a whole separate topic and I do want to talk more about insurance but I'll pause here and let us >> Obama did you want to say something? Okay. Was there hand over here? >> Okay, go ahead, Director Thompson. >> Okay, can we go back to um is it the previous slide? I think it's the Nope, I don't know. I don't think it's this slide. Uh Director Swanson, you shared something about um our insurance fund. We're going to be expecting a 15% increase to the premiums next year. And so, just to make sure that we're on the same page, uh we are self-insured. We pay for our own we we collect premiums and we pay for our own insurance claims. So, that's how we how it operates. Last year, um, we collected about $30 million in insurance premiums from our employees of the district, uh, as well as district contributions. We we su we we brought in $30 million, but we spent $35 million. So, we spent $5 million more than what we anticipated. Uh and and that's and that's an outlier because when I looked at the health health insurance trend, we've historically have been kind of the $30 million $29 million in annual uh claims expense, but last year was just 35. Now, we don't know if this year is going to be 35 and think that is that is the big unknown. And so because we overspent, well, not not over spent, but because we had $5 million in additional claims, then uh than premiums that we received, it had to come out of somewhere, and it came out of our health insurance savings account, for the lack of a better term. And so, we had $7.5 million in our health insurance savings account. $5 million got drawn out of it last year because we didn't have enough revenue uh claims coming in. So, we're down to $1.5 million. And so, um, the general rule of thumb is that you want your health insurance savings account to be about 30% of what you want in health insurance claims. So, if we're going to spend uh $30 million in claims, you want to have roughly $9 million in your savings account. And right now, we have 1.5. And so, is that the reason why there's going to be an increase to the next year's health insurance premiums to replenish that savings account? >> Is that I guess that's the question. Well, it's it's it's twofold. Number one, yeah, we have to start building the fund balance back up, but at the same time, if our trend is going to go to 35 million, well, we've got to collect $35 million to cover our claims for the next year. And and so if we only have $1.5 million in our savings account and then we end up doing $35 million in claims again for this calendar school year, uh that will eat that uh the 1.5 will be exhausted and then the other $3.5 million would have to come out of our general savings account that we have at the district level. >> Correct. >> Okay, Director Anderson. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I don't think anybody likes to talk about increase in uh health care costs but they are hugely high and I would just say as in my own employment the rates I mean I think the fact that we kept it at 5% last year was marketkedly lower than other markets. Um and so I I feel bad about a 15% increase and also that I'm seeing more than that in my own employment. So I think we're just in a place of when we think about why the extra costs from last year. I think we do have to anticipate like big costs going just because potentially it's costing more >> not necessarily related to like I mean we would have to dig in on that but individual claims versus just cost of healthcare rising too. >> Great. Um director Thompson >> and can you go to the last slide? The bottom line is >> I was gonna ask Bill, he hasn't presented on that one yet. Can we >> I'm good. >> Director Homegrren, can you finish the slide and then and then we'll get to the questions about it. >> Okay. >> Okay. Um I I have here I've included the projection in the current budget that we have is to end the year at 7.3%. So that's what's indicated here. Um we will be bringing our revised budget to you next month. Um so this this number will get adjusted according to that. >> Okay. I don't expect it to be down, but uh next meeting we'll be going through this in detail. >> Okay. >> All right. Director Thompson, do you have a question? >> Just so you know, it's not going to be down. >> Director Anderson, >> the only the only thing I do want to point out is that we did have a policy at 10%. So that is something for the board to recognize that if we have that policy, we had certain things related to that in terms of um how we would want things to be met to go toward 10% but is the board comfortable staying at seven%. >> Well, can may I just jump into because the policy not only says 10%, it also requires administration to notify the board. And so I don't know how many times I've been notifying you, but I've been notifying you all along >> so that we don't have any like surprises that you're trying to avoid. Uh which I respect. Um it I I'll just take the opportunity too to talk about the um how we're presenting this data and information vice what has been talked about with monthly where that's going to be problem is in two spaces aggregation versus disagregation so that think of that as detail and the second piece is going to be categorical expenditures which director Baker spoke to so as long as you can tolerate that um ambiguity that I can't pull out um I think we'll we're we'll figure that out and uh try to get closer to what your expectations are with regard to that. So um we'll work on it. I I have two things two things just I mean for the board my concern on the insurance thing I mean we got a five plus million dollar hit that we didn't anticipate um we can't afford to have that happen again otherwise we are looking at I mean no one wants to be back at cuts you know and running a deficit every year but uh I mean if we had two more two more cycles of that we'd have no unassigned fund balance I mean it would eat everything would be gone and then we'd be finding places to cut in the district. So, uh, yeah. And I don't know if there's something that you're doing to take a look at. I know we've talked about we have a max, you know, a stop loss per claim. I mean, is there an aggregate stop loss? How much would that cost? Can we factor that in? Um, I mean, I know we're at 30 million or $35 million a claim a year, so I don't know if anyone's going to want to insure us or how much that's going to cost, but uh, yeah, I mean, this year will be interesting to see how how we end up. I mean, if it's $35 million again, then I think we're we're running into some dangerous territory on costs. So, >> um >> yeah, but it might have to be more the next year, too. So, >> um second comment just on the data stuff or on the uh financials, wondering if we could have those put on the data dashboard >> so we can see finance. That might be a good first step. I don't know if we've you guys have looked at how we can get that on Infinite Campus or not from your records >> this monthly. >> We we we do have a report similar to this that we can we can put on there. It's ready to go. >> Okay. >> Um I'll have to bring some examples of with some dollars on to see if that really helps you different than what these are. >> Great. Yeah. Director Carbone. >> Yeah. Bill, um the increase the five million and and and nobody can predict if it'll be another five million next year or the year after that. I I get that. Um, is it the same amount of claims but the inflationary aspect of of health care cost? Is it an increase in claims and not an as much inflation? Is it a combination of both? >> I mean, are we are we driving are we driving more claims that are creating that? And is there something >> that can be done with the aspect of additional claims? I mean, is there any way to modify anything? >> We've been working with our consultant trying to find ways to try to curb some of some of these costs. We're meeting with them again later this week to try to find some levers that we can pull to make make it better. But it's this last year was just was more claims. It was more than inflation. The inflation was built into the into the increase we put in this. >> So So it was a the volume the volume of claims went went up. Okay. >> Great. Director Thompson and and healthcare is one of those where like you can provide alternative pathways, but at the end of the day, healthcare is healthcare. Like if you when you need it, you need it. And so I I'm not saying that we're trying to prevent $39 million not to be spent. It's just that we need to recognize that if that's the number, how how is that going to impact the budget? And then what additional levers can we pull? the 7.3% in our general fund, which is great, which is uh probably roughly what, $14 million in our general savings account. Again, that's separate from our health insurance savings account, which has roughly $1.5 million in it right now. Um, we do want to strive for 10%. And Director Anderson, you're right, like like how how fast or how strict do we want to be to get to that 10% number? When we run a $200 million operation, we want $20 million in our savings account and we're sitting at 14 million. So, we're still $6 million short. And then 10 mill $20 million is only 3 months worth of our annual expenditures, like 3 months. I mean, most businesses might have 6 months worth or or most homes might have three to six. I I don't know. But the bottom line is that when things hit the fan, right, like we got three months, that's it. And or at the moment, we only have two. We have two months and that's it. And so, um, yeah, but good job from getting us from 7 to 7.3. [laughter] So, we'll have to figure this out together. >> It's moving up. All right. Any other last comments for Director Holmrren? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Thanks, Bill. >> All right. Moving on to board me reports. Any reports? >> Uh, Director Baker. Uh, so first of all, I have, sorry, I'm losing my voice. um an update from um the public engagement committee. We um do have an event that we asked to be added to the calendar. It's for Saturday, January 31st, which is this Saturday from 9:00 to 12:00 at the Heritage Center, and that's something the board has participated in before. It's the Lions um volunteer day um sponsored by Lakeville Lions. So, if board members are interested in that, it's a really fun event, and it gives you a way to give back to the community. Um the second thing I wanted to um discuss was just or just to put out there um I got to participate in half a day of when the inclusion awards were uh given out this uh past week. It was a great um it it was just so uplifting to see all the different things that are happening within our buildings. Um I was at um trying to think which building, Lake Marian Elementary and it was an entire second grade classroom and then um a pair professional. Uh the kids were just so excited. It was amazing. And I think the thing that I thought was amazing was how the kids were teaching us how to be responsive to students that were in the classroom because the student was sensitive to noise and they were all doing this for clapping instead and teaching us how to do it. So it was cool to see how excited the students were and then how the teacher has fostered that learning environment. Um I also participated in one at Lakeville North which was um the inclusion the inclusive choir I think it's the unified choir um that Austin Meyer had uh started and that was really amazing to see all the different students participating together and sharing that love of music. Um I think it's just nice to see uh the things that our staff and students are doing within the district. It's not always the things that we see. It's not always the things that are on the front page. It's not um always the emails that we get as a board. We don't always, you know, sometimes people contact us when um there are concerns, but it is really nice to be out in our buildings and see the positive things that are happening every day. So, thank you to all our staff and students um who are doing those things. >> Great. Other reports? Um Director Rekenberger. Um last Thursday I was able to take part in the finance advisory committee meeting um with Bob Ericson who was in the back room um conducted by Bill Homegrren and uh Mr. O um they went over again with the uh members of the community uh the facilities um uh the bond that will be coming up along with um going through the uh most recent audit um and the engagement from the community uh at the meeting was um pretty impressive. Um they were uh really positive, really interested. They asked some very very good questions and uh it was uh great to interact with um them on these uh very thoughtful financial spreadsheet questions. >> Great. Dr. Anderson. >> Yes. So I um was at the wellness committee this week and um you have seen some of the work of the wellness committee with the policy that was mainly done last year but um just wanted to raise awareness about some of the other things happening. So, uh, one of the things that the, uh, Lakeville Lions Club is supporting, so another, uh, Lions Club, um, engagement is what's called every meal. So, they're providing, um, extra meals to kids to be bringing home to families. Um, and so what I thought was also cool about this is it's varied cultural options, and these are um, delivered to three of our elementarymentaries right now every month. So, CHE, um, Eve and and, um, so Christine House and uh, East and Lake Marian and, um, the goal is for all elementaryaries to be participating, but they're delivering food on the last day of the week and delivering in backpacks typically. So, that um, it's just for kids who need those uh, additional meals sent home. And the wellness committee is also working on so sorry I just want to say thank you to the Lakeville Lions Club for that's an awesome thing they're doing for us. Um also the wellness committee has been working on a website. Um the aim of this is to basically increase awareness about things that are relevant to our our students. So we've talked about having information about sleep, time management, nutrition. uh two of our students, one at North and one at South, brought up the importance of eating. So, um they expressed concerns about that and so that was one thing as well as drinking water, which I'm a huge proponent of. So, I was excited to see that. So, um that is going to be um a work in progress for a while and then once we get that up and running, it's then how do we get information to students? So, what's going to be the route? So, good work happening. >> Great. Uh Dr. Thompson. >> Yes. I uh I ended up going to the airport hanger for the step into your future event. This was my second time. Uh it's pretty neat, man, to see these eighth graders try a variety of different stations around um marketing from uh to uh STEM activities. Uh what I thought was super interesting at this one. Uh so shout out to the Lakeville Chamber hosting this event. Thank you for them. Uh what the the one station that was new this year that I was super interesting. I saw a lot of activity was they had a broadcasting section where they had an iPad and then they had a a person was like a microphone and they were just interviewing people almost like a YouTube like future influencers or something like that. But lots of activity in in that particular space. But overall uh really neat to see some of these eighth graders engaged around what things they can do to help them prepare for classes that they could take in high school. So pretty neat. >> Awesome. Any other reports? I'll add that um last night I attended the Early Childhood Advisory Council and um I think similar to other councils is just like a rockstar group of parents and so um kudos to them for all that they're doing to support our district. I think um what I found at advisories is um they're advisory councils are really interested in having a schoolboard update and so having us present has been I think really helpful for the ones that I've attended to talk about upcoming things like the levies and and the boundary decisions that we made. Um and so um those things were discussed last night. But then um in addition um the council discussed a lot of um in addition um to the wellness uh committee food security issues for early childhood families. And so there's now a food pantry um in the vestibule uh to the school um and donations um from parents are coming in to um be a take what you need kind of model. And then the parents in that advisory are planning a lot of events. They've planned so many things. Um they're having an open gym in February. uh Books and Beyond um in March and then Baby Palooa in April. And so um there's kind of co-chairs for all of these events and um they're doing a ton of work. So appreciative to to that group of parents. >> All right, with that, I'll turn it over to the superintendent for your report. >> Uh thank you, Madam Chair. I want to just take the opportunity to um speak a little further about our temporary educational plan to mitigate some of the challenges that we're facing with uh student attendance. Um I think it's fair to say that uh whenever there's an action, there's a reaction. Uh and there's action in ICE operations in the metro area and the state of Minnesota. It's caused some uh challenges uh across school districts. um namely or mainly um making sure that our students continue to get access to educational materials. So we have uh brought a team together. We have issued a plan uh in order to try to um maintain educational access materials and resources for our students um that are dealing with some of the challenges. Um if you look at the uh legal obligations around it, the constitution uh has been spoken to through um the US Supreme Court in Plyer versus DO 1982. Uh if you want to look that up, I can give you more information on that. But essentially, it prohibits discrimination and requires uh public education to provide access. uh federal civil rights laws also reinforce that and state guidance reinforce that and I can provide more detail if anybody is interested in that. But with regard to our plan, what we want to do and our purpose is to maintain student engagement and continuity of learning uh during these what we consider to be temporary absences. We want to preserve our students connection to their school and teachers. I think there's a stabilizing factor that uh is the responsibility of all our community uh and schools are part of that. And then we want to support a timely return to in-person instruction and get our students back into the classrooms. Um this is a short-term intervention. It's not a replacement for inperson and that is not the intent uh that's articulated in our purpose or in this plan. schools remain open and in-person instruction remains the primary model for teaching and learning. The other thing I also want to share is what our guiding commitments are and that is that all students deserve continued access to education regardless of the circumstances and we uh do that in many ways already uh for our students. This is maybe a little uh bigger uh scale but uh that's our commitment. Schools have to be safe places and welcoming spaces for our students. That goes back to an education environment that we're required and should be promoting. Temporary flexibility is a realistic uh adaptation that I think uh any organization uh has to be focused on and be able to um operate in that kind of an environment. Um, and we don't in intend to expand this uh in its current scope. The goal of the plan is to keep our students engaged, keep them connected until they're able to return in person sooner than later. Uh, student services, including special education and multilingual learner services, remain governed by legal requirements and are not replaced in this plan. Staff workload protections are essential. We have collective bargaining agreements and so we want to operate with those commitments in mind and not violate those. Um legal policy and alignment uh we are focused on Minnesota statutes 124D.094 which speaks to online instructional opportunities for our students. We also have guidance from the Minnesota Attorney General's office, MDE guidance from our commissioner and district policies that we are trying to be faithful to as uh we develop this plan. Um we are committed to re-engaging and having more discussion about any refinements to this plan and be able to respond to whatever changes may come our way. Um, but our goal is, as I stated in here, we have to give access to our kids and do all we can to get them back in our classrooms. So, that's what this plan is trying to do. I think we did that collectively um and and uh collaborated to do this plan. I believe it's a good and strong plan. I've had it legally reviewed um to make sure that uh all the attendance matters are accounted for. So, I just want to share that with the board. Um and um that's my report. >> I am Amber. Amber. >> Um yeah, we if there's any clarifying questions, Director Thompson. >> Yeah. Um no, no, I don't think I have any clarifying questions, but just more of an appreciation of thank you for putting uh the a plan like this together. Um I had a chance to review it and and I think it's the right course of action in in providing that kind of opportunity for our students. uh there the way that I thought through it and I just want to make sure that that that I can share this as well is that you know we've got uh an event that occurred and if there's an opportunity to provide additional education and in in an alternative format or manner that allows us for them to continue as well as for us to give them uh you know the the continuing education that they deserve that much the better. Uh I did ask earlier around the financial implications uh the costs associated to an associate to this plan and it sounds like it's it's been absorbed within the the uh the administration. So there's no additional cost uh but we're giving uh this temporary uh education pathway available for students who who who need to accept it. So >> correct that that's uh accurate. Um so I I can tell you that we're operating within our budget uh which is near and dear to everybody here. Uh so yes now sustaining that based on what happens in the future you know would have to be I would be having gone through the co experience. I would be remiss to think that uh we could say uh this is not going to be something different unfortunately but um I will be fidious in making sure that every board member in our community knows uh exactly what the the situation is with regard to how we provide that education to our kids. Director Baker. Um, part of our duty as as board members as our board members is to advocate for our district and um to make sure that we get the supports needed for our district in in situations like this. Um, I'm happy to share with any board member or community member who would like to um email legislature or um I actually emailed the governor requesting districts to be held harmless for any enrollment that they lose during this time period or in the or in the near future as happened during COVID. Um what would happen in this is we would have to pay back um any student enrollment that we lost. So, if people are interested in advocating, like I said, I've already taken that position, have emailed um several representatives and am happy to share that format with others so that they can advocate as well. >> Any other questions or comments? >> Great. I'd just like to echo what um Director Thompson said. I appreciate the administration and teachers um and and district office staff um creating a plan that makes sense for our district. I know many districts have plans and um ours is a variation on on a plan and um I think uh in reading what was prepared it gives the flexibility um to the educators and and principles and building staff to um meet the educational needs of of our enrolled students. So um yeah appreciate appreciate the work that went into that. All right um moving to recommended actions. And so just a reminder now we have what's listed as a um the second reading but then we also added from the consent agenda G I and J. So we have four four things left everybody. Okay. So for let's let's go in that order if that's okay with everyone. So um as a reminder um at our last board uh meeting we reviewed policy 620 credit for learning. Um this is a policy brought forward by the policy committee and the district. um and and endorsed by our secondary administrators who are looking for a change to uh this policy. In addition to um minor edits around um removing notes and and some um minor wording of things, the the significant change um to remind the board and the community is around how we want to do weighted grades. So instead of having um AP classes being weighted extra with the GPA, the uh proposal in this new draft is that we would end weighted grades for any student entering 9th grade this coming fall. um that current or the students entering 10th, 11th or 12th graders would continue using weighted grades until they are metriculated through um and then the current um you know incoming nth grade class would start the trend going forward where weighted grades would be um eliminated from our um from our policy. The main um there's a couple reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that students are um uh partaking in many different types of um advanced learning opportunities. So whether it's AP, uh PSO, concurrent enrollment, um all of those things are available to students, but only at the moment AP is giving um extra credit. And so by eliminating that um it would uh standardize all the all the courses. So students would still be able to take AP, still be able to take advanced learning. there just wouldn't be an associated um uh extra uh credit [laughter] given to the GPA. Um, also I think we've I've heard we've received um one email I believe to the full board about this and um I think to address that question from the parent um I think our administration um and those of us I work in higher education um there's a question around how does a student who has a non-weighted GPA compete with a student with a weighted GPA and uh the trend in higher education is um in almost every circumstance is to unweight GPA when students students um uh uh apply to a college u knowing that some um school districts wait and some unweight and uh they really look at the transcript then to see what types of courses students are are taking. So um that is kind of the trend in higher education to to make things equal and fair when people are applying. Um and with that um I guess I'd open up to any further discussion or questions um with the goal of uh potentially approving this policy tonight. Director Thompson. >> Okay. So, I shared I think my point of view last time on this particular topic. Um, I do have two additional data points to share. Uh, and and more than like this is going to pass anyway. So, we're but so I appreciate that. [laughter] Um, the I so I get the intent of phasing out for incoming freshmen. I get that. Uh, but again, we are continuing on a a model that still continues to negatively impact uh for the next three years students who are not who are not taking it. And so I spoke with a child or a student. He has a 3.93 GPA and he's the 109th best student in his class in his senior year. And so that seems kind of odd. You mean like and when you've got a 4.0, you know, if you're a valid Victorian, maybe like a what? You got to be you got to get a 4.9 to to be one of those. I I don't know. And and then another example, like I shared last time, you've got a student who has a 3.32 GPA and he's in the 34th lowest percentile of his class rank. And so now now that person did take AP classes, but they're being penalized. So when they're doing scholarship applications, where they're doing XYZ, they may not even go to college, but that's their class rank. And so while we're not while we all agree it's a model that's not effect uh not something that we want to continue on or it's not that is unfair. We're still letting the unfairness continue for the next 3 years. So I am in favor that we just end it and call it a day. But that is my point of view. >> Is there anyone else that like to add anything? >> Nope. >> You don't have to decide that for people [laughter] I >> Okay, Director Thompson. Okay, now that's going to pass anyways, but I do but I want to talk about uh the downstream ramifications as part of passing this, right? And um and maybe it's not the ramifications, but this is the downstream impact because we've got students that may not be taking AP classes their 10th, 11th, and 12th grade year. You've got um I think roughly we've got roughly 2,100 classes, AP classes that have been that were taken this year both in in both high schools. And so, uh, if you do the 8020 rule, just making it up, 20% are taking it because they want the extra weighted class and they don't they don't take the AP exam at the end, uh, where are they going to go? Are they going to choose to take the, uh, the nonAP class or are they going to go take college classes? Are they going to take PSO classes? And so if they take PSO classes, uh, we're now we're losing these kids to Normandale or other institutions where we now reduce our ADM, which is our revenue of these students. Uh, if we get 200 of them that go full-time elsewhere, that's I'm going to do the math. I don't know, $2 million or so. I'm looking at Bill. I don't know. So 200 200 students worth of revenue would be diverted to a different pathway. And and so by doing this, are we forcing a path for forcing our students to say, "Okay, I'm not going to take the AP class. I'm not get the extra weighted. Um I still want the college credit, but I'm not going to do the AP path. I'm going to go the other way." And so um and we've talked a lot about concurrent classes and we only have three right now. And I believe is at Lakeville South or Lakeville North. One of those schools. >> Both. Both. >> Both. Okay. And we only have three of them. And so, uh, you like, is there an appetite within this group to like a motion to say, "Hey, do we want to have if we're going to pass this, do we want to like set the stage for our for our district to say, okay, maybe not this fall, cuz I don't know how long it takes to set one up, but like we need to have a roadmap to say, okay, if these kids are going to take PSO, how do we keep that how do we keep these students in our schools?" Because one of the biggest dangers of PSO is that there is no parental oversight because a parent can't log into a student's Normandale account or whatever to see what their grades are like. There is no teacher support if the student is failing and then it costs us more money if they do happen to fail because then there's recovery credits and classes that they have to take. And so it would be super proactive I think for us as do we say we need to have making the number up five concurrent classes in both high schools this fall or as part of >> [snorts] >> uh 10th grade because the incoming nth grade students can't take AP classes. I don't believe they can. Uh and and then we have something available for them for 10th grade. So th that those are just my thoughts because there are some downstream impacts that we may not be that may not be favorable for us. >> Director Baker, >> thanks for bringing up that point because I totally agree that um we need to have concurrent enrollment. I think we've talked about that before as a board. Um but there are things that you need to have in place to do that. And um I I would like to hear from teaching and learning on um what they are doing to bring those options to Lakeville. Um we have to have like a partnership with a college and then teachers have to u make sure they have the lensure to teach those classes. So I think just saying as a board we want to have five doesn't give the district the time frame to to get to make sure that those things are in place before we do that. Um, I do know, like I said, we've had that discussion before. I know that's that, um, Carrie Pop has shared, um, that teachers are interested in doing that. So, I do know that, um, our teachers within the district would like to do that. But, I do know that there are certain things that have to be in place to make sure that teachers have the license to actually provide instruction for those courses. And then we also have to have that college partnership to to make sure that we can provide those things. So, just laying that out there. >> Director Swanson. >> Yeah. I mean, I think I've mentioned this multiple times and asked director Brovald about this and where they were um the last time this policy came up, where they were on concurrent enrollment. Um I'd love to see a timetable like where we at, how long this is going to take. Um and we have other districts around us that have a full offering of concurrent enrollment. And and you're right, Director Thompson, I mean, we're losing we will lose kids, right? They'll go PSO. um kids that we would love to keep in our schools. Um and everyone would benefit from keeping them in the schools. We'd benefit from it financially. Even if there is some financial cost, my guess is we'll have savings related to that. Um if we can implement it faster. So I I mean I'd love to see a timet when this is going to happen, how many courses we can offer. Um I mean I know it's been I don't know six, seven, eight months since we first started talking about concurrent enrollment. It's been a while. So, >> Dr. Anderson, >> yeah, I support this as well. I think it's been something that's come before the board several times and there's generally strong support from our board for this. Um, one of the things I also just want to add to people's um, arguments for just getting a timet. And I know one thing I do want to acknowledge is the teaching and learning uh, committee has had or that that area um, has had a lot on their plate. And I also think this is very important for not just the financial health of uh the district considering if more people do choose PSO but um one thing I just want to also um identify as for I think the mental health of our students as well as their educational health. It's better for them in my opinion for them to stay in high school. So great that they're getting advanced opportunities, but if we can have it just in terms of their emotional development, um their social development, better for them to be in our schools. Um so and then we keep our leaders. So I think I'm in full support of that as well. So I think it would be helpful for us to have um something from that um department just in terms of what the expectations we can have. >> Yeah. So I believe that teaching and learning is working on a plan to be presented um this summer about um path not just on concurrent but in addition to other um initiatives to am I speaking out of turn is that correct okay I think also um with any policy change you should look at data and how it imp or how it impacts trends or or um patterns right so I think we're making the assumption that we make this change and everyone's going to start enrolling in Normaddale I I I don't necessarily think that that's what the trend is at the high schools who have unweighted grades. And so I think I would task the district to monitor this closely, right? And um we'll be able to see as this gets implemented with classes if if we're noticing that trend and if so um how to address it um while also increasing concurrent enrollment classes of course. So yeah, >> Director Anderson, >> one thing I do want to just point out too, um I don't know, I'm just thinking about how much pressure there is for those AP exams when you're thinking about like whether that counts toward college or not, whereas the concurrent enrollment counts. So for students who maybe have more test anxiety or just don't do as well on exams, like this is an opportunity for there to be that college credit for them. >> You get a C, you still get you still get college credit. You get a grade. Yeah. So I feel like we're Can I go ahead director Swanson? >> I just wanted to remind everyone I mean Nicole means had talked to us and said you know where districts had implemented more concurrent enrollment they did see a decrease in students going to PSO. So I mean there is a financial benefit to that. Um I understand there might be some additional training that is needed for teachers but again if we're getting additional financial benefit we can probably afford some of that. Um, and then my concern would be waiting until summer because we need to make sure that teachers are in place and then we're looking at uh the course of studies or study what is the >> the book that comes in next fall that we'd have to approve. So I mean everything has to be done quickly in order to move this along. Even if we're not shooting for 2627 but 2728 um you know we need to have this in place should probably be discussing it before the summertime. So >> Dr. Anderson, >> sorry registration is happening right now for next year. So it's not really something that we can address, but it is like it would help us to know like what is the if we were wanting more opportunities in place for the following year? What would the what needs to happen between now and then? Yeah, >> great. I think um we're hearing loud and clear from the board that there's interest in learning about planning for concurrent enrollment. We are also wanting to think about passing or you know whether or not we should pass this policy. So I'm wondering if there'd be a motion. Yeah, go ahead, Director Swanson. >> Motion to approve policy 620 as revised. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Um so first by Swanson, second by Anderson. All in favor? >> Is there discussion? >> Continue discussion. Go ahead, Director Thompson. Can I can does anyone entertain a motion to amend the motion to have a update on concurrent timeline in the next 90 days? So, we have a deadline and then it's just there. >> So, there's a motion to amend the policy to include a timeline for concurrent enrollment report. Is that what you're saying? >> Yes. >> Is there a second to that motion? >> Within 90 days. >> Okay. Within 90 days. Is there a second to that motion? Are you clarifying that it's going to be approval is contingent upon having a report? >> I'm just saying if we're going to if we're going to approve this, let's also improve approve having a deadline on when are we going to get an update on this timeline because it's going to feed into uh any operating levy that might need to be done this fall. It may feed into um you know whatever our class uh classroom of studies are going to be for next year. Like I just we talk about summer, we talk about things and next thing we know the next hot item over the summer is going to be something else and we're not going to get to it. So let's just throw a date 90 days. >> Can I So there's an amendment to the motion to the original motion to amend the policy to include a deadline of 90-day report for a concurrent enrollment update. That is the motion and we'll discuss it if there's a second. Correct. So is there a second to that motion? Okay. Hearing none, the motion fails. Um, Director Baker, we're back to discussion on the first the first motion by Director Swanson. >> Um, I I just want to make sure that we have a realistic timetable for teaching and learning to respond given that enrollment is already happening for next school year. So, anything that we try to do now is kind of null and void because we have to have teachers in place that have those that lensure to teach the class. We have to have um Can I just hang on? We have to have >> Are you discussing the motion? >> I I just want to add something to this because I I think I I don't disagree with what he's saying, >> but I think it's not necessarily needed as a motion, but my suggestion is given that all of these things that we need to have in place, can we just agree um that the board will receive an update before the summer? Can we can we try that? I tried to articulate that I think before the motion. That's loud and clear. I think >> I I I just wasn't sure cuz he added the motion. >> I've written it down. >> I got the task. It'll be done. Y. Okay. So, motion is to approve policy 520 or is that no, sorry, 620. Sorry, 620 as presented in the board docket. There's a first and a second. Any other further discussion? Okay. All in favor of approving say I. >> I. I. >> Any opposed? No. >> Okay. U motion passes 61. All right. Moving on to the next item um from that was pulled from the consent agenda. Uh so this is the JPA for school wellness, the statewide health improvement program grant. And Director Thompson, you asked this um to be moved, so I'll let you open this. >> Um yes. Uh so I had a chance to learn more about this uh talk to a few folks and and and just a few items in here that I have some um hesitations on and just want to have a broader conversation with the board. And so this is where we are getting a grant where we're going to bring a third party organization in and they're going to observe recess for elementary students following the great recess framework. And and I and I don't know what the great recess framework in details is, but that's go ahead. I have a principal here who can address that as well. >> Perfect. Perfect. Um, and so part of this uh grant allows us to uh the coach, they would coach recess supervisors on effective inclusive supervision techniques and play routines. Uh they would train these recess supervisors. And then the part here that I'm not 100% aligned on yet is we would implement a youth leadership program for recess, including training the youth leadership lead recruiting and training fourth and fifth grade students to provide feedback of how recess is going and talk to other as they talk to other students on what is recess appropriate behavior or not appropriate behavior and what's um uh uh team play inclusion versus not to at the end of the day to minimize behavioral incident trends which is how I understand the overall intent of this particular program. Um I know that 2 three years ago we minimized the amount of recess adult supervision because we had tutors who also played the recess role and it's hard to hire just recess people because they only work two hours a day uh and they've got other things going on. And so by hiring, uh, a tutor who can also be recess made it more appealing for that person to to apply for that role. And so, um, I think the concern that I have is twofolds. One, are we trying to solve a problem with a different solution, but we're not solving the root problem? Because the root problem is we don't have enough adult supervision during playground time. Uh but now we're going to ask fourth and fifth graders to monitor their peers, fourth and fifth graders, and say, "Hey, you're not playing cool. Play or you know, you're not playing the way the great recess framework is." Uh whereas is the intent of recess to like butt heads and not be friends and and they just they just go through recess. Uh so I'll pause here. Those were a few uh hesitations that I have and now that you're here, you can provide an update to the board and and why you're in favor of it. >> Yeah, Principal Do, thanks for coming. >> Thank you, Chair Cameron. Uh and Director Thompson, thanks thanks for the time, for the conversation um too because uh the so to tell you a little bit about why why I applied for the grant and and why I I found this to be useful as I discussed with you. One thing is, you know, depending on the size of your grade level, uh, at Lake Mary, and I'll use that as the example, we have 100 students in kindergarten, but we have 136 students in our fourth grade. Um, often supervised by two or three new and supervisors depending on the grade level. Um, that is a pretty thin, you know, amount of adults to student ratio, but it's just the way, it's just the system that we work within. Um, and so one of the things that we talk about within a PBIS framework for our schools is that we are teaching students how to be great citizens and how to interact within groups. And and so when you have recess, as you and I talked about, Director Thompson, is is yes, we want kids to go out and have free play, but there are some students that don't do really well with unstructured environments. Whether it's the bus, it's the playground, it's the bathrooms, it's the lunchroom, the places where we have less structure in that environment. Some kids thrive and can just find great ways to occupy their time. Others don't do as well with that. So, um, one of the pieces that we're hiring these great these great people who are doing the new and supervision jobs, but our training of them and our continuous training of them is very difficult to manage within the school year. Just an honest fact of where where we are with things. And so when it came to playworks, I I I was lucky enough to get to attend a seminar with some other principal colleagues from other districts who have implemented playworks. And what they have found is that by teaching some structured play activities for the kids who especially need them is that we are giving an alternative to the kids who can pick up a football and go start a pickup game, the kids who will go and play tag. But for some of our other students, they need some structured activities that they will go and do. And there we've got some rules around how we play. There is there's ways that everyone agrees to what those look like versus when we have the disagreements and with ends up with somebody pushing or shoving or the things that can sometimes unwind that take up hours of my afternoon after after we have to clean up the uh the situations. So that's where this was born out of. Now the piece where you talk about fourth and fifth grade um I'm going to use an example that we currently have in place. Um um we we use our third, fourth, and fifth grade students um to help us with assistance on the bus. It's another place that we struggle with. Um 60 students on a bus, one bus driver, and their job is to drive the bus and get everyone home safely. So, we empower students to be there to be role models, to reward kids when they're doing the right things, and to let us know when unsafe things are happening. They're not the police. They are not there to be busting their friends or or getting kids in trouble, but it's to help provide some guard rails for the things where adults can't always be. So then the next piece with Playworks is that when you get those ambassadors in fourth and fifth grade, they actually go down to the younger grades and teach the younger grades some of the structured activities because kids love to work with their older mentors. We do kindergarten buddies with our kindergarters and fifth graders. We do first grade buddies with our fourth grade and first graders. We're we're pairing kids because we believe kids they learn from adults but they love to learn from other students. So when we provide that framework that's that's really what we need is because um you know we have our adults who you know I I wish it was always consistent but we've had a lot of turnover um because when people can get a more hours in their job then all a sudden that new supervision job isn't very appealing and now I got another person I have to train in. And so having the frameworks around doing having playworks come in observe our practices. They're going to give us feedback on what are we doing well and what are some things that we can improve. um as as I discussed with you as well is that um I did partner with uh my colleague uh principal um Carlson and um she she and I were going to do some sharing of this because we just think some of these structured activities are going to reap benefits reap benefits for our entire district because as we have success with this which I am going to expect success I that's everything we do we want to be successful at is then we would work with our colleagues then to spread these practices to their students as well and and so you I'm not a baby in bathwater kind of thing. So when we when we are implementing this, there are going to be some things I go yeah okay but that's not all for us. Um but to cover the the piece about um you know confidentiality and obser observing students um I have third parties who come in and observe um students for special education that need to give us feedback. We have um behavior people who will come in. Um there there are other situations where we need an outside opinion that have a fresh set of eyes compared to what we have. And so entering this joint powers agreement the the piece to the writing that grant is hey it's money that we can use for our district. It is an idea that is born outside of the current system we have and it's a way for us to improve the system of playground supervision in elementary. So that's why that's why I wrote it. That's why I um presented it is is I believe that this will be a great thing not just for Lake Marian, but it'll be a practice that we might be able to continue to carry out without having to use that grant money after that. Um this is just kind of the seed money to get us started and to and to get the frameworks built in place and then we um then we would be able to grow it from there. >> Other questions about the grant, Director Thompson? >> Yeah. So So thank you for that. Um I this still goes back to I think the root cause where having two three adults manage 250 kids is crazy. Like that's just >> 150. We wouldn't we wouldn't go 250 for we that would be a lot of students out there. >> So you're looking at like one adult for every 45 50 kids or something like that. And it's not like they're sitting at their seats. They're they're running around wild and and doing crazy things at fourth and fifth grade, which is which totally makes sense where you need a few more adults because if they're playing football on one side and doing XYZ over there, you just don't have enough, you know, noon supervision. And so, but um [clears throat] I I am so for me, I'm in line with having them come and observe and providing feedback uh and providing our uh recess supervisors additional techniques and and skills. I think I think that would be good. Where I have hesitations is is like like like the fourth and fifth graders that we pick because generally I'm totally going to stereotype. They're going to be probably more of like you're studious and maybe the good kid, not the good kids, but they're more of like hey, you know, like follow the rules, blah blah blah, right? And so like are we and then are we setting those kids up to be that's the role that they play moving forward. Um and then the kids that are not selected or the kids that um that might be always asked to come play and participate and they don't want to for whatever reason are they now going to be viewed u as like oh I'm not the leader of or I'm not involved in the playground leadership xyz. Now again this is you know this is high level blah blah blah. It might be just crazy but you know candidly let's talk about this where are we setting up our kids now uh bus pro bus patrol is different because you got kids that want that added responsibility but now we're asking kids to watch other kids during regular recess and playground and and so I guess my question for you is that if you had five adults during recess do you still need this? Well, that's a it's a great way to frame it. If if I had five, Bryant, sorry, Director Thompson, that would be a pretty uh that that's a that's a luxury. Never in my career have we had a situation like that. Um, but I I want to reframe a little piece of what you were asking about about the the the good kids or who who are the who are the leaders that are out there. Um you know the the framework we use for our for our bus patrols is that we are actually talking to our bus drivers. We are talking to our students and we are talking to our teachers is we are looking at students who have that potential or who have made an improvement. Okay? Because not everyone's going to be your student leader but students who have shown that growth. So you might have started in a place where you weren't doing so hot on the bus and now you're at a place where you get that opportunity. It can often be a lever for a student and the same thing goes with the playground. We are not looking to recruit certain students that you are the fourth and fifth grade leaders but what we want to do is build that leadership capacity and then we want to keep growing it and changing it. Um and and again I don't even have that I have not done this yet. So this is my first walkthrough of it. So, keeping your feedback in mind, what I would look to do though is we are constantly cultivating student leadership opportunities to be role models. Um, because we have less and less of it in our community and we want more and more of it. And so, where can you give kids opportunities to tap into that? And the playground is one of the places, but it's not to be the police, but it is to be the people who when they see opportunities for kids to get together for something that they're not currently participating in, because if I watch my I watch my playground videos, I see kids just standing on the blacktop without a lot to do. Um there are a lot of kids who can figure out how to fill their time, but there are others who just they wait for that 20 minutes to get over and they don't want to go out to recess. And so having that um it's similar to like when we created a buddy bench um when the buddy benches came out for those of you who are familiar with that it's like we built it and we have some we have kids who are just like if someone sits in it I know kids who are going to go do you want to play with us do you want like they have just naturally taken to it and and we want to keep creating those natural opportunities for kids to step into leadership around it. I don't know if we will agree philosophically on what that what that looks like, but as an elementary principal leader, um you know, I am looking for every opportunity and my staff are looking for every opportunity to build our kids up and give them opportunities to to enhance that capacity for leading or for being a role model. >> Thanks, Principal Domrand. Are there any other um questions or concerns from any other board members about this? Okay. Um it was originally in the consent agenda because in order for um principal Domrand and like Marian to implement, we need to approve um the joint powers agreement. Correct. Um and so with that, is there um from the board an interest in making a motion to approve um the joint powers agreement? >> Some make a motion. >> Uh first by Anderson, second by Baker. Uh any discussion? Further discussion? >> Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Sure. >> Is that a yes? >> Okay. Motion passes 70. >> Okay. >> Thank you everyone. Have a great night. >> Great. Thanks. Okay. Moving on to um consent agenda I policy 502. Uh so this is the search of student lockers, desks, personal possessions, and students person policy. Uh this policy was um reviewed multiple times by the um policy committee which includes myself um director Swanson and Director Thompson. um this policy was looked at by our legal counsel as well and also um our secondary administrators weighed in on this. I think the biggest discussion that the policy committee had and feel free to weigh in um in addition uh director Thompson on any issues you have was around um page two line 36 around strip searches um because it does sound very dramatic um uh to have in here. According to our our legal counsel, they recommended that we keep it in here um in the event that this would be needed in a very unlikely situation. But we did hear from um our secondary administrators that there have been incidents both with um a weapon and incidents with concealed drugs where an overdose was occurring. and um having the principal um or the um student res or sorry, school resource officer be able to um utilize this policy which covered that um uh allowed for medical intervention to um to reverse the overdose with fentanyl for a student and also um uh to remove a a dangerous weapon from um an undergarment that a student [laughter] had. So, [clears throat] I think we talked about it a lot. Um, ultimately decided to bring it to bring it forward to the consent agenda if I'm recalling our meeting correctly. Um, and so aside from that discussion um from MSBA, the um edits are very minor. Uh, that's why it was put on consent. So basically our current policy is staying as is minus um removing the notes um a few small wording and then adding legal references and cross referencing our own policies around chemical use drugfree workplace weapons policy and student discipline. So um I just thought I would lay that out there. But Director Thompson, what are additional concerns here that you have? Yeah. So, uh um I don't have a whole lot of changes in regards to the content itself, but what I see is a few things that I think is missing. And so, these are the things that I'd like to just share with the broader uh broader board. Uh in section two, the general state uh the general statement of the policy, it does state that as soon as practical after the search of a student's personal possessions, school officials must notify the search of the of the students whose lockers were searched unless disposed blah blah blah. What I want to include is that there's very limited parental notification in this policy. And so what I'd like to add uh in section uh 2A where it says again as soon at the very last sentence as soon as practical after the search uh we also add uh and the student's parent or guardian. Uh I think there's a few folks that a few parents that I've spoke with that said hey like if my kids's locker is being searched yeah my my my child might be informed but I want to be informed too. like I want to know. I don't want to hear it after the fact when they come home or 2 weeks later like, "Oh, by the way, did you know they they ransacked my locker for whatever reason?" I I don't know. So, that was a piece that I like to add. Uh and I'm not sure in section 2A where it says lockers and personal possessions within a locker. >> Can you reference the line item just so we can all get there? >> Line 30. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Line 30 where it says search to search to students. I would like to add and the student's parents or guardian in in that one. Um and because this particular section is specific to lockers, uh letter C in line 40 talks about a person's possession and student's person. Uh we don't say anything in here that would also inform the parents that a person the the student got searched. So again, as a parent, I don't want to come home and then you know you know Charlie says, "Hey, you know, they they checked my body today." Like like what? Why? And so it's an alarm. And so I want to know if you're going to let the student know because obviously the student's being searched. I would like to know as a parent right away as soon as that that activity has has occurred. Now it does say that um that um and I want to be careful here that I don't want the notification to occur if if something was found. I want the notification to occur if you even do it just because you like the uh you found something uh and then that's the trigger to call a parent and if you didn't find anything oh then then I don't have to call the parent like I don't I don't like that and so that's the second thing uh and then the third thing that I like to share is in line 56 definitions contraband um contraband means an unauthorized item possession of which is prohibited by the school district so we've got like we've got library book you overdue library book in here. I would like to strip that out because we've got uh weapons, lookalike weapons, alcoholic beverages, control substances, and then overdue books. Like that's that's in this policy. And so I'll pause here because there's two more, but if there is feedback from the policy group on why overdue books is considered like a big deal. >> So at the meeting, we asked about that. Um and the principles felt like it should stay um because there are times where they will need to search a desk or a locker for an overdue book. >> So their argument was that >> we're going to call that a contraband. I mean it's like really >> well it's related to searching a student's locker desk. >> So I think that's why it's >> that is something that would be the thing that would be confiscated, right? >> We have a library policy. I don't know if we do or not. or something about because that probably fits more appropriately in that section versus >> this is this is going into a student's locker or something you know where they might have some sense of privacy even though they don't under law but you know authorizing us to go into the locker so >> and some of this involves textbooks that students check out too so it wouldn't be like a book that's like $2 all the time it would be like a textbook that's worth >> Yeah I think actually they mentioned textbooks correct >> do you have other recollection of that. >> I I mean I don't I know we raised a lot of these things and some other things and um took many of these issues. I would say we should just have a general statement not necessarily putting it at 2A >> but just a general anytime a student's person locker or desk is or backpack is searched um parents would be notified regardless of whether or not contraband is found. I >> I'd be fine with that. Those are just the two items that I saw. Um, and then besides the overdue books, if we can come back to that in just a moment, I I would like to add, and I don't know if it makes sense to add in the contraband section where um, do we want to put electronic cigarettes and vaping devices? Be very clear uh, of calling that out because it, you know, I don't know if that's considered a controlled substance or not. Uh, and then um, another one would be drug uh, paraphernalia. I mean, it's one of those where if you got a cartridge but you don't have the vape, is that considered a contraband? or if you've got the vape but there's no cartridge so is it really an electric e you know is it a vape or not so that that's where that that is what I would suggest in rule 56 electronic cigarettes and vaping device uh vaping devices drug uh paraphernelia uh and then I don't know I'm not overdue books I just I get it but it doesn't make sense >> so in regards to the controlled substance I don't know if we have the content an expert here today to weigh in on this. Um, I mean, I I get concerned about listing things that we might miss, right? And so, if ecigarettes and cartridges are are encompassed under a controlled substance, would that work or like if we had clarification? >> Is is the vaping considered a controlled substance? Not. >> Well, because it's >> is it >> I mean, it depends what it is. I mean, if I'm just doing a blueberry vape vape or whatever, >> depends what you're depends what you're vaping. I mean, a controlled substance is legally like a >> Yeah. I mean, that's a It depends. It's not a defined term. Controlled substances, isn't it? So, >> but again, this is a this isn't an exhaustive list. It says it includes but is not limited to. So, there are going to be items not on this list that are considered contraband. >> So, I think we'd probably take that back to legal counsel. >> It's up to you guys. >> Yep. I mean, or you just add >> you can prove it and add it later. >> Well, I think it's a problem. I think you're bringing it up because that's something that >> teachers and principles are having a problem with like >> Oh, well is vape vape is a vape device with no cartridge considered contraband in your eyes? >> Well, I think that we're naming specific items now. Both the secondary Well, all administrators should look at the list and see if anything else should be added and then legal should look at it to make sure it But we don't want to hold we don't want like hey these are all the things right that's why it says >> that's why it says it includes but it's not limited to >> right >> but to Brian's point if that is an issue that we've had a lot recently with the vape vaporizers then >> might be worth inclusion >> director >> so you want something you want vaping added like Um, you want that added specifically? >> I Well, I I feel like it's a concern uh in the high school and maybe I'm mistaken, but it, you know, does is is an is an electronic cigarette and vaping device fall into any of these categories as in like are they is that a weapon? Is it a controlled substance? Does it look like an overdue book? I mean, those are your three things on this list. >> I mean, cigarettes would be under controlled substance, too. >> So, I'll just read the controlled substance. Are drugs or chemicals regulated by the government due to their potential for abuse dependence and public health risk? So I would say like vaping is going to fall under that. I mean I think the risk of adding any sort of additional things is are we we're constantly going to be adjusting this to be consistent with the times whereas I think a lot of things will fall under controlled substances. >> That's a general term. >> You want to still get that clarification from legal I I don't have the answer for this one. Those were just a few things that I brought up. Um all I know is that if we have um discrepancies, how do we make sure our teachers don't have discrepancies around hey, you know, is a um is a grinder contraband if they if they catch one or is a pipe or rolling papers? I don't know. >> Director Alrech, do you have thoughts on this? >> Yeah, I have uh someone who texted who's listening in uh who's a subject matter expert. Um Substances would be anything that is illegal for a minor to possess. And the vape question is uh with no cartridge. It would be considered paraphernalia. >> Okay. >> So we So we'd want to add drug paraphernalia in this description because we don't have it. >> That's up to you, >> Director Baker. >> Um so it is in the student handbook. It's very well defined on what controlled substances are. It said the use or possession of control controlled substances, toxic substances, medical cannabis, and alcohol before, during, or after school hours, at school, or any other school location is prohibited as general policy. Paraphernalia associated with control substances is prohibited. Then it goes on to explain all of that. So again, like our policy is meant to be kind of a broader term and then we can use procedures within our district to identify and label what those specific things are um based on what other board members have said that these things will continue to change and evolve as um that happens over time. So >> So would there be consensus in adding and I appreciate that director Baker adding paraphernalia for to catch all of >> Yeah. if it's not the actual substance. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Right. >> Um and is there interest in adding language around notifying parent and and or guardian >> if a search is conducted? >> I think so. >> Director Baker, >> can can so usually these policies are um the updates are from MSBA and have went through legal. um what's the what what is there is like is there a district policy that they um or procedure that they contact parents? I I just want to know what the legal um ramification of that is considering that it wasn't put in there and I I don't know what the reason as to why it wasn't put in there. So that would be my clarifying question before we just add something in. So my recommendation for that and if there's other comments um it seems like this should be revised before um we would vote on this or right so um I think both with our legal counsel and with our um administrators they should review this um I just want to know what to revise right before having them review it. So any director >> sounds like the paraphernalia and then also asking about so not drug paraphernalia any paraphernalia that would be relevant to a substance and then the question about the I agree I think if it's not in policy why isn't it would be good to know >> or like I also am wondering um and superintendent Bowman maybe you know like is it generally the policy of the administrators to contact a are they doing up. >> Well, I think it's circumstantial. I have not been working in a high school. Uh I certainly can talk to him, but I do think that the legal review gave the umbrella coverage that's necessary. Um but we can take it back and look at it again. >> Yeah. Director Swanson. >> I mean, I don't think we're in any legal jeopardy by adding in, hey teachers, I'm just thinking as a parent, right? If my kid comes home and like, "Hey, you know, I got searched today. They patted me down for something." You know, I' I'd probably want to know about it before I hear about about it from my kid, you know. Um, so I'm just looking at it through that lens. Um, I mean, we the policy is what it is. It's it's been here for a while and there just some slight edits from MSBA, but it doesn't mean we can't adjust it. Um, and I I don't see any legal concerns with adding, hey, clarification. This is on the list of contraband as well. And, you know, we as a as a board would like parents to be contacted if we think their kids are doing something wrong that requires us to search their person or locker or desk. >> I think um my only I don't disagree with notifying parents. I think I would just want administrators to weigh in on what does that mean and look like um being married to an administrator at a high school. Um there's lots of searches all the time. Um and so if we don't update the parent that day before the student gets home, are we then liable against this policy? Because sometimes it's just not possible for at least my husband I know to >> how often are we like >> it happens a lot actually especially around vaping. Yes. commercial [laughter] like >> so I I'll just say that um my understanding is that if there's a search there is a notification to a parent that's happening now whether that's directed by policy it's not this policy student handbook internal control measure um but that is that is what's what's occurring so again I think the the way MSBA does this and the attorneys look at it is is umbrella. Um, and I think Director Swanson, you said it's not legal jeopardy. Um, so that's that's what I can share. >> So, Superintendent Bummer, are you saying tonight we could add in parent and guardian and it would be fine notifying a parent guardian? >> Well, I I don't I don't see an issue. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I mean, >> okay. >> Hey, like >> we can do this >> or we revise and bring it back for the next consent agenda. I mean technically because you're making a change, you should y >> go through that process. >> It went from consent, it went to recommended, now it's getting revised. Got to go back to first reading. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Right. I mean, how do you how do you answer a parent's question in regards to why did you do that to my kid and what did he do? I mean ultimately mo I'd say 99% of parents are going to ask that question if the kid comes home and says something. Now Amber I agree. Um you call the parents at work can't get a hold of them. Kid goes home tells the parent that's going to happen but at least the attempt was made so the school reached out. >> Um >> Dr. Anderson. >> Yeah. I'm just wondering is there a fast track for this if we get the legal um input because I do want to be careful like one of the goals of the board right now is to get policies through. So okay to make edits but then we have to go back to original first reading second reading. >> Well I mean >> or can something like that be put through the consent agenda? I might not be understanding this correctly, but that this this could this qualifies as a first reading and then these suggestions and edits are made. >> Um the community can also weigh in between now and the next meeting and the the amended um draft will be presented at the next board meeting for adopt for consideration for adoption >> under >> under recommended action. Y because it was under a recommended action tonight in terms of the consent agenda. I would just like to um ask to postpone this um vote on this policy um until we have a second reading. Um and in order to do that, I just need a majority of the board to approve that. So would there be a first to amend this policy per the comments and bring it um back for a second reading? Can you clarify what what we're adding? Because is it like are we contacting parents before we search, after we search? I just want to be clear on what we're actually discussing. >> I believe it would be after the student is searched. >> After the search, a parent or guardian would be notified. >> Okay. >> Um and we'd be adding uh par drug parap or paraphernalia to the list of contraband items. >> Okay. >> Any other edits or changes? >> Okay. [snorts] So, um, is there a motion to postpone, um, approval of this until a second reading? >> I'll make the motion. >> Uh, first by Baker, second. >> I'll second it. >> Second by Carbone. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> That's good. >> All right. Motion passes 70. >> Um, okay. That will come back to the next meeting. Um then our last item right on the agenda is um policy 526 hazing uh prohibition. Again um the policy committee reviewed this um and recommended it go to um the board meeting on the consent agenda. Um there's very little edits in here um removing the notes um from the policy. That's um just they're not really supposed to be in there. That's just more for context as we're drafting them. There are some small edits. Well, actually, no, it looks like I struck um on page four uh line 28 um is redundant there, but the same verbiage is is reported. So, there's no edits there. So, the only other edits to this policy is um adding the cross references on page five, which uh just relates this hazing policy to our um policy 403, discipline suspension and dismissal of school district employee, policy 413, harassment and violence, policy 506, student discipline, and policy 514, bullying prohibition policy. Uh so, with that, um Director Thompson, uh you asked for this to be pulled for discussion. >> Yeah. uh just a uh just a few observations that I saw as well and and then share with the broader board on on on kind of your take. Um under the definitions a in row uh 13 hazing means committing an act of blah blah blah. Um I would like to add a number six and after row 36 um we really don't have uh there's a lot of um uh physical related uh line items in from 1 through five from physical activity to deprivation to alcohol but there isn't anything about electronic means because I think hazing can be done also electronically uh whether it be I need you to text this person or I need you to send a picture of this or xyz um and and so it may be good to just add a a number six that says hazing may occur in person or through electronic or digital means. That gives us kind of a blanket kind of um a capture if if need be. Uh so that'd be the uh the first one. Uh the second one that I saw was number um in section uh reporting procedures letter uh letter section four. I think this is number row 13. >> Sorry, we say that one more time. uh section 14 reporting procedures where [snorts] any person who believes he or she has been the target of a victim or victim of hazing. Um I don't know if this is appropriate for us or not, but there isn't anything in here that says that the district will take reasonable steps to protect the rights and reputations of all students during the investigation. Cuz there may be instances where like like something someone submits a hazing incident, but then it's not factually true. And so then the person who's alleged or the allegations now they're like well who's going to take care of my reputation within the school and I don't know if it's even the school's responsibility to do that or if there's anything we can do. Uh but that was one thing that that I thought you know how do we make sure that we are taking reasonable steps to protect um all students involved in the investigation uh for uh in that in that particular scenario. >> Um >> can I ask you a question with that one before you move on? So, where are you reading that the school district would protect? >> No, that was that was me saying it out loud and that was my um notes. >> Okay. So, I think how I'm reading this, but um correct me if I'm if I'm misunderstanding, is that if someone believes there to be ha if if someone believes hazing has occurred that they should immediately report that and then it will be investigated. Yes. Now the report is not public. >> Agreed. >> So who are we protecting I guess? >> Well in row 11 it says it's an an anonymous report and so the person who >> it can be anonymous >> can be right. So the person who gets submitted >> they may they're like no it wasn't me and for whatever reason I I don't know if if if things circulate within the school or uh things are are are happen to happening to that student uh indirectly throughout the course of the day. while it is an anonymous I mean things swirl and so I don't know is there a statement that we want to share that will the district try to help preserve the reputation of that person um and maybe it's not maybe it's it's an area that we don't want to go into but that that's what I recognize is that uh we have a lot of uh um steps on how to submit things but there isn't a lot of making sure like uh that we're protecting the the individuals that are that are being submitted if that Do you feel like um on that same page line 45 subsection E reports of hazing are classified as private educational and or personal data and or confidential investigative data and will not be disclosed except as permitted by law? Like wouldn't that protect both the reporter and the and the potential person being reported? >> Yeah, [clears throat] I just I'm not pushing back. >> No, no, I I can see that. Yeah. I mean, because it's it's the information that's not supposed to be out there. Uh and while we say the information is not supposed to be out there, uh the people who are submitting it can say things internally within the organiz within the school. And so if the school knows that something bad was submitted or something was submitted and they know the individuals that it's being accused of and then they're observing things happening as an investigation is underway. Is there >> are we are we going to just be quiet and and just let things happen until the investigation is done? uh does that person have does that student have any kind of sort of like hey like a how do you know or b like I didn't do anything or or yeah I think that's where I was leaning towards as I was reading through this like who's protecting the accused if if there's if it's an anonymous report and nothing's official. Yeah. So >> and then I think also F talks about that privacy of the complaintants, the individuals against whom the complaint is filed and witnesses >> as much as possible consistent with legal investigative needs. Um you know that I'm not going to read it all verbatim, but that that I think covers some of what you're talking about. Director Carbone. >> Yeah. Shouldn't the um and Superintendent Bowman, I would ask you this question. Shouldn't the the principal of the school or or head administrators in the school be managing this? I mean >> to the extent that they can I think I think both ENF uh address the issue but it's data privacy once it turns into investigative activity and so that's what what gets followed um >> generalized behavior of students >> saying and doing things if they're um adversely impacting somebody I mean there's going to be intervention from administration to the extent that it's feasible >> right exactly >> if they don't know about it. >> Yeah. Right. Right. So, so Brian, the thing I'm not understanding is how how do we have any >> any leverage on this? I mean, I think it goes back to the, you know, the administrators in the building to the best of their ability managing the situation. >> Can I speak Dr. Baker? So when we have a situation with a student um it is not shared with so so say like a student came and said this person did something to me right and then everybody like was reported to the parents everybody knew but we don't tell that student and that parent what the consequence is for that other student like those are all handled privately and individually there's no cross sharing of information that happens with that. Okay. Any other comments? Director Anderson, >> I heard you brief. >> I [laughter] I would love to have this just I mean I think to your point earlier, Amber, some of these things are coming through the consent agenda with the goal of like very if if we I'm not hearing any kind of board consensus that we need to make adjustments that would have to go back for. So, I just I want to be thoughtful about like making some progress on some policies that are probably good as is with the adjustments. >> Dr. Swanson. >> Yeah, I mean I would agree just to Brian to two of your points that you made um or maybe just one uh in the definitions. So, we do have a bullying policy that addresses, you know, electronic comments made via cell phones or social media. So, I think that covers it, but I also think the definition of hazing would also cover this. I mean, hazing is specific to initiation into some sort of group. Um, and it says hazing means committing an act against a student. So, it's not limited to, and again, this is a a non-exhaustive list that they provide similar to what we were doing before. You know, the term hazing includes, but it's not limited to. So, I mean, if there is an active hazing that relates to initiation and it's done electronically or online, I think it would still be covered under the policy. So, >> Dr. Thompson, >> and that's fair. I mean, I I just didn't see the word online just because there's so much going on online and we don't even call it out at all in the policy. So, if you were a parent >> and and reading the policy, you're like, well, this doesn't count as hazing because it's not about drinking, it's not about physical abuse, it's not about sleep deprivation, but it's it's social media. And so, um, that's the concern that I have is like how would a parent know the other means digital, you know, and so the, uh, so that that's one where I' I'd love to be able to add on if we can. And then the last one that I have on the list, I think, is section section five, school district action. And then I think it's all the way down to letter E. The school district is not authorized to disclose to a victim private education, blah blah blah. um where I see that I wasn't sure if I interpreted correctly was that um I think the last sentence says um or the last the last two rows two rows it says we have been who have been involved in a reported and confirmed hazing incident and so I want to make sure I understand that it says uh that um I want to add in here in in in section E school officials will notify parents or guardians so this is Brian Thompson's language. School officials will notify the parents or guardians of students who are targets or victims of hazing and the parents or guardians of alleged perpetrators of hazing when when a hazing investigation is initiated and when a reported hazing incident is confirmed because I believe how I'm reading the next sentence is that they would only be informed after it's been reported and confirmed. And so if there's any again any investigation that's going on with my with any student at school, I think a parent ought to know that hey, they were involved, they were not involved, they should get notified. So that that's one section that I' like I'd like for us to add cuz I don't see here anywhere that parents are being notified that their child has been pulled in for a hazing incident. Are there >> and I'm reading this as they will that and I'm reading this as um uh the parents aren't even notified. It just says that the district is not authorized. Uh I I apologize. I may not have the original version. I have a >> Brian. Are you talking about the parents of the accused? >> Accused. Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. >> There's nothing in there. Well, if you go up to C, 5C, it says, you know, the alleged perpetrator >> shall be allowed the opportunity to present a defense. It doesn't say, you know, how that comes about, I guess, but you would assume that they'd be notified um in order to provide that defense as part of the investigation. >> And they could provide defense on their own, but guess what? Like, as a parent, they're still underage. I want to know if my child got pulled in into hazing. Like, why? >> And then I can have a conversation and it's like, what's up? So, >> so I think we can look at that. I think this policy as I as I mentioned um does not include hardly any edits right from our current policy. So, I haven't been made aware of any issues from administrators that are hazing or or families that our hazing policy is problematic. And so I I also don't want to like just go chase. I mean, I think it's good to be proactive, of course, but also like I don't want to nitpick this to the point where like we're making problems that don't exist, you know, and and I don't know how often like is hazing investigated often. I have no idea. And maybe most of them come back as a non-issue. So, you know, I don't know the extent of the problem that we're trying to solve with that with with what you're asking. >> The the problem is not to solve the hazing. The problem I think that I'm trying to solve is the parental notification. Like where are parents involved? If they're if I'm if my kids like you know um Mr. Little Little shared, hey, kids are at school eight hours a day. I'm trusting them to take care of what's going on. But but on top of that, I also need to be informed if you're pulling my kids outside of normal classroom activities and I don't want to find out, yeah, I got pulled into hazing or then find out two weeks later now I'm suspended and I have no idea why. Uh again there is no parental notification in this policy and and that is something and it may be in another procedure. It may be in something else but I I think it would be I uh beneficial for us to have uh parental notification in here when a hazing investigation is triggered and and when an hazing investigation has been confirmed or finalized. >> How does the rest of the board feel about that? It could just be andor, right? Basically, >> yeah, >> it with in line 26 you could change it to andor confirmed, >> but I don't think it says we're parent notification, does it? >> Yeah, it says the the top line says that the parents and guardians will be notified. Um, Director Baker >> will be notified when it's confirmed or when it's initiated because I >> if we would like I I just I feel like it's only applicable when it's actually confirmed that something actually did happen. >> I would just agree with that if I can. >> So that's what our current policy states. >> Reported and confirmed hazing incident. A parent would be confirmed if their child has committed an act of hazing. >> Correct. >> Confirmed. >> But so >> so if a student isn't confirmed of an act of hazing, but was pulled out of the classroom, pulled into a meeting, there was a massive, you know, ordeal, um, we're not going to let the parents know. And so we're going to let the kid tell their parents when they get home, "Oh yeah, by the way, I I got pulled into some hazing accusation." And uh yeah, that's what happened today. >> So I I mean I agree what cuz what you're saying I mean and there's a difference between confirmed or reported. Reported is um reported is not confirmed. I mean reported means it's there's no determination as to whether it's valid. Confirmed is like okay now we've determined that there was hazing, right? and now it's too late to provide a defense or to support your child in providing that defense. So, I mean, we do say, you know, under like I pointed out before that the student is allowed to provide a defense. I mean, hazing can be a pretty serious allegation. Um, again, I I looking at it through my parent lens. I mean, if my any of my kids are accused of of hazing, um, I mean, serious allegations should be taken seriously. And uh you know you'd want to notify the parents so they can chat with their kid. Otherwise is the kid sitting there. I mean take my second grader, fourth grader, whoever. Are they going to provide their own defense without talking to their parent? You know, and I I know that defense is it might be a little extreme to say defense, but that's because who knows what this will entail, but usually if we're talking about hazing, it it could be something serious. So, >> um, Superintendent Bowman, do you feel like we need the secondary administrators or I mean, maybe? >> Yeah, I I would say so. Um, I think there's a there's a timing issue involved here. Investigations have um different qualities to them and uh you you do that incorrectly. Uh, or you put into policy, they're required to, they miss one. Now, now what? um you're putting a um I I think our principles already do that notification, but they they're doing that based on judgment and in in concert with the policy here. Um but I I I surely would like them to weigh in uh on their experiences. And I don't know that hazing um is something we have a ton of investigations on just quite candidly. >> Director Baker. >> Well, and then I I just want to think about this logically from what would happen, right? So imagine that um you're notifying the parents before it's even confirmed that this has been alleged and that we're going to bring this student in and interview them. So then the parent says, "I'm just playing it out so you can think about how this may play out, right?" Well, I want to be there when you interview the student. >> Okay. >> 100%. >> I'm just saying. Right. So then, okay. So then the student is sitting in front of the parent and also in front of an administrator and now you've put is that student actually going to tell the truth about what happened? Like I don't know why. Maybe I don't want to admit it yet. Like I I think that's impacting the situation and what may or may not unfold. Well, I think there's data privacy issues related to the other student as well if a parent is present. >> So, I think there's a lot of >> I just think we're not ready for this one tonight, >> right? I just think that when you when you start making these types of like changes, you have to actually play out what could occur and then think about is is that really what we want to happen or what are the legal ramifications of that when we play out an actual scenario and think it through. >> So, how about this? Oh, director Carbon. I I think if a kid is has a propensity to lie, they'll lie to the administrator without the parent there as well as lying to the administrator with the parent there. I mean, I'm I'm not I'm not sure how how that changes the dynamics. >> I think I think there's a parent teacher parent child relationship. >> I think there's some questions around like data privacy. if parents were to be notified about on either side um how the the perpet per perpetrator quote unquote or the victim is >> again the intent is not for the parent to be aware of of >> but if they come in an interview the names of the other people will be present that is that is guaranteed >> well you know what that the child's going to tell the kid any the child's going to tell the parent but that's not the district facil that's not the district facilitating so I think I think we need legal to weigh on this. I think we need our administrators and then we can have further discussion about how to add this if it's possible. >> The the general the general cons or the approach is just making sure that let mom and dad let let the parents know that your your child is involved in something before they come home and say, "Guess what? I was in, you know, four hours today in the office. Why?" >> Yeah. But I think to director Swanson's point, like if we're going to start having parents come to the school for like the defense meeting or, you know, whatever it's called, that's when I think big questions around data privacy come in. And so I think that has to be thought through before we just write it in here. >> Yeah. Dr. Anderson, >> I just want us all to think about how often we're getting email complaints about parents not feeling like they were involved in a complaint about their child. I I a concern about their child. Like it's just not I feel like the administrators are doing the job of notifying parents and it may be within that school day or after school hours when they have time to do that because they have a million things going on. So it's it's I feel like we're not getting are we reacting to this policy in a way that would actually create further barriers for our administrators um when we don't have proof of a problem like are we creating a problem here? What problem are we trying to solve? >> So if if uh you threw a French fry in m in in lunchroom and then you get pulled into the you know the principal's office and then you get a call in the afternoon after the event. Yes, that's like it's a French fry, right? Which is a real life example that happened in 10th grade for me. But uh in but in like if but hazing is not throwing a French fry. So, you're accusing someone of something very serious and and if it wasn't hazing and if it was something other than this and it was more serious, what are we like like that's how I view it as is like >> All right, >> Director Swanson, >> just just one practical example where this could come up and be a concern. I mean, you think about hazing, you think about sports, uh, a kid buys brings a bunch of alcohol, right? And says, "You've got to drink, you know, these two liters of vodka in order to make it onto the team or whatever." be part of the team. He drinks it and dies. Now, that kid is criminally culpable for bringing that alcohol. Um, and he should have a parent there to defend him, right? He might not know it when the principal or whoever asks him about or the coach asks him about it because he's not, you know, smart enough to know that, hey, I could incriminate myself by answering this question. So, and again, that might be extreme, but you only need it to happen once or twice, you know, to really mess a kid up. And again, there will be consequences, but you know, there are also rights, you know, even if you're a minor. >> So, I think it seems like it'd be great to have majority consensus on policies like this. So, we can take this back um and get legal and administrative review of it. I will say that um you know MSBA legal team has you know authorized this version and so it is you know buttoned up in that respect. But um if we want to add parental um notification how that could be handled given the other laws and statutes that we have to comply with we can ask so and we can bring it back for a second reading once we have that done. >> Okay. Do we have general consensus on that? >> Unless there's a motion to approve. >> I make a motion to approve it as is. >> Okay. There's a motion on the table to approve policy 526 as presented in the board packet. Is that okay? Um is there a second? >> Okay. I don't Oh, >> I will second. >> Oh, okay. Second by director Anderson. Any further discussion? >> I just want to say like we have so many policies to get through. So my concern is we can come back to this at a later date, but we are so non-compliant at this point. So, I'm discouraged by I think what I'm probably frustrated by is these edits should have already come before into the consent agenda. If the policy committee like the policy committee is putting this forth to the board. So, if the edits, my opinion are going to come, they should come from the policy committee and it should be ready for us to approve or do the first and second reading if they're more substantive. Um, we need to get through lots and lots of policies. So, if we keep nitpicking and it has to go back to second reading and legal review and we like we have not made a lot of progress in the past since you and I have been on the board, Director Thompson. So, that's my concern [clears throat] and why I would I'm not trying to I'm not trying to not appreciate what people are saying, but I think we can come back around once we get these through. >> I'm disagree with that. The policy committee has two has three people. you, all seven of you, all all of you guys have the same equal amount of vote and responsibility to read this stuff. Like I should not have been the only one to say these are the these are problems in the policy. And so if you didn't read the policy and didn't think of these as problems, like that's your decision. But you can't rely on on a policy committee of three people to say, "All right, here it is. Let's blanket approve it and go." So that's not >> but director Thompson to push back on that a little bit. Um I I think it's unfair to say that people didn't read the policy. I think I I I think we need to come to this table assuming that people have done the work and the only people asking for edits to the policy are the people on the policy committee. So no one else on the table felt like you know so that's just I think I think our process is broken if that's our strategy. And so we will we can evaluate >> like it seems it seems redundant to have a policy committee meet talk about this for quite a while then bring it to the table and do the same thing. So it's it's double work and so I think we need to decide how we're going to do it differently so that it can it can just be more efficient but thorough, right? And so I appreciate the thoroughess. I'm not negating that but I think this double round of the same conversations I think is challenging at times. Um, so with that, any other comments? Okay. Um, all in favor of approving policy 526, hazing prohibition, um, say or say yay. >> Yay. >> Yay. >> Um, so the director Baker, Director Anderson, and Director Rekenberger. All opposed? >> No. >> Nay. >> No. Um, Director Swanson, Director Cameron, Director Thompson, and Director um, Carbone. Um, with that, I would like to make a motion to um, postpone this to a later time um, to get clarification on adding um, parental consent or sorry, parental um, notification um, into the policy. Um, is there a second for that? >> I'll second. >> Uh, second by Swanson. All in favor? I I >> Any opposed? >> No. >> Okay. Um um motion passes 52 52 with um Baker and Anderson opposed. Um so we will bring this back for a second reading. Um all right, we're at the end of our agenda. Um can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Uh first by Carbone. Is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Second by Swanson. All in favor? I >> I opposed. We are ajourned. Thanks everybody.